Blood Magic (26 page)

“How about this one: ‘Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires.’ ”

Automatically, I replied, “I’d like to see your deep—” but thank God I stopped before I said something unforgivable in front of her grandma.

And her brother.

Reese scowled. “Let’s go with something simple, okay?”

Gram Judy held up a finger. “I’ve got it. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!”

The phone shrieked, and I almost fell out of my chair.

I leapt up, hoping it was Wendy, and grabbed it off the cradle. “Hello?”

“Silla?”

My mouth fell open and I turned to face my family and boyfriend in abject horror. “Ms. Tripp.”

“I’m very glad that you sound all right, Silla. I wanted to
check up, and also to make very certain that you’re coming to school tomorrow. It is imperative that we move your appointment up from Friday to discuss this incident with Ms. Cole this afternoon.”

“Incident?” I clunked my head back against the wall. Reese was practically ignoring me, his nose still tucked into Nick’s box, but Nick and Gram Judy watched me supportively.

“Ms. Cole is very disoriented, and there is a witness claiming you and Nick Pardee attacked her. I’ve spoken with Nick’s father just now, and we’re all very concerned.”

“Is that—is that what Wendy said?” I whispered, eyes finding Nick’s.

“I’m afraid so. She’s quite upset, and at home now.”

I closed my eyes tightly, my throat closing. Oh, God, Wendy. I didn’t know what to say.

“Silla?”

“Yes,” I whispered again. My voice wouldn’t work properly. “You’ll be in tomorrow?”

“I …”

“I insist. I don’t want to get the police involved. It’s better if we can just sit down and talk about this. Is Judy Fosgate your legal guardian?”

“What? Legal guardian?” As I said it, Reese lifted his head. “I don’t have one, I mean, I don’t think. I’m almost eighteen and it didn’t … didn’t come up.”

Reese swung out of his chair and came toward me with his hand out while Ms. Tripp said, “Well, Silla, someone is responsible for you. I—”

I didn’t fight as Reese slipped the phone from my limp hand. “This is Reese Kennicot. What can I do for you?” I backed away, right into Nick. He put his hands on my shoulders.

“Yes,” Reese said, looking at me. “She’ll be there. But there wasn’t anything illegal happening—if you thought so, you’d have called the police.” He paused and shook his head, rolling his eyes. “We’re grateful for your concern, Dr. Tripp—oh, are you a doctor in your field? No? Well—fine. Yes. You are. But that doesn’t include interrupting my family’s evening. Have a good one.” He hung up, slamming the phone a little too hard.

“Thanks,” I said. “I have to call Wendy again.”

“And you should go, too, before it gets dark. The less you’re out at night, the better,” Reese said, and for a moment, I saw all of my dad in his face. It made me smile a little. And I reached up to squeeze one of Nick’s hands.

I ran upstairs to use the phone in the hall to call Wendy again. “Silla?”

“Oh, Wendy, thank God.” I slid down the wall to sit on the carpet in the dark, my knees pressed against my chest. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She hissed the word. “Sorry, I don’t want my parents to hear. They don’t know anything’s wrong.”

“Ms. Tripp is probably going to call them.”

“Ugh. Gross.” A door shut, and Wendy spoke quietly but in her regular voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

I needed to tell her. I wanted to explain everything. But
how could I tell her? Not over the phone, that was for sure. I’d have to lie, for now, at least. Maybe later … maybe later I could show her the magic. She deserved to know, since it had used her now. “I’m so sorry, Wen.”

“It’s okay, it was probably just low blood sugar.… I have to go, Silla.”

My heart clenched. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later, or in the morning.”

“Sure thing. I—I’m sure I just need some sleep.”

“Night, Wendy.”

“Night, Silla.”

As I hung up, a sickening feeling bubbled up from my stomach. I curled into a ball, forehead on my knees, and held it in. But I hadn’t imagined it. Wendy, my only remaining friend, had been afraid to talk to me.

December 1942

Philip has left me
.

I could not keep him here
.

He left to serve as a medic in this war that has nothing to do with us—we who have lived beyond the scope of human things. I am fifty-three years old and look not a day over seventeen, and Philip, who was born a century before me, who has raised himself above them—We are better than they! They do not need or deserve our help!

It has been a year since he sailed. I came to stay with the Deacon again, who is the only thing that can cheer me. Everywhere is depression and hardship, but Arthur reminds me that all things end. He who has lived for centuries, whose blood is so strong and pure he barely need think on something for magic to happen. He says, “Philip will come home to us. He always does.” When I rage and tear at my skin, he smears the blood away and turns it into nectarines. He has made a bower for me, like Titania’s flower bed, under Kansas willow trees. I am shaded from sun and sheltered from rain, falling into the earth where it is warm and peaceful. I feel the heavy distance between me and Philip, and I feel the world tremble with death. It lulls me to sleep
.

Philip’s few letters have been filled with melancholy and veiled
anger. I do not know how he can have lived for so long and continue to believe that men are good. “I can never make up for all of this death and pain, Josie,” he writes. “Not with a million charms.”

I write back, “Stop trying, Philip. Let go of it. Do what you can, but you are not God.”

“If there is a God, Josie, he has failed us all.”

I want to say to him
, Philip, you can do more than turn water into wine. Why should you worry about God?

“Tell me your life story,” I said over a basket of chicken fingers and fries. Fluorescent lights glared off every surface in the food court, making me wince.

We’d driven out in relative silence, both of us slowly shaking off the strangeness of the afternoon as best we could. I, for one, was looking forward to the inane normalcy of a shopping mall. The food court wouldn’t have been my choice for our first date, but after the day we’d had I couldn’t complain.

Silla smiled. “I was born in Yaleylah, grew up there, and will graduate from high school there. That’s about it.”

“Uh-uh. What’s made you who you are?”

“I have no idea. Who am I?” Her smile turned teasing, but we both knew it was a valid question.

“Gorgeous, delicate, determined. A little bloody.”

“Those are things I am, not
who
I am.”

“Okay. A girl who risks everything for her family. A girl who trusts stalker boys because they have pretty smiles?” I tossed her my pretty smile.

“An open face,” she said.

“Huh?”

“I thought you had an open face.”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

She popped a French fry into her mouth. “What’s your life story?”

“Born in Chicago, grew up there, will graduate from high school in Yaleylah.”

Silla laughed and rolled her eyes.

“Let’s try a different question. Tell me your favorite memory.” I regretted the question almost immediately, when she glanced away from me and lowered the chicken strip onto her napkin.

But she answered. “Opening night of
Oklahoma!
I was Ado Annie, even though I was just a freshman, so it was amazing, but also kind of horrible sometimes because of jealousies and petty stuff. After the show, after the curtain call and bowing and applause, I went into the hallway still in costume, and I remember sweat running down my temples and ruining my makeup. The hall echoed with laughter and cheering and just this huge, hot energy of success. Mom was there, crying because she was smiling too hard. Dad gave me a hug and said ‘Do I need to get myself a rifle?’ ” Silla’s dreamy half smile dropped away. “Ado Annie’s dad threatens several suitors with a rifle during the show. It made me laugh. And then I turned around and Reese shoved this huge bouquet of roses in my face. They smelled so, so good. Red, pink, yellow, white, and even this rich, dark purple color that was my favorite. He was standing there with his nose kind of wrinkled like he was trying to say something mean and big-brother-like. But instead he just shook his
head and said, ‘That was awesome, bumblebee.’ And then Eric was there. He was one of the cowboys. And Wendy, who hadn’t tried out, but did for everything after that—I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alive than I did at that moment, in the big, boring hallway at school.” Her eyes drifted closed. “My wig itched and the little boots I wore pinched my pinkie toes, and I just didn’t care. Everybody loved me and I knew exactly why. It was like perfect communion.”

Her hands were folded together, and the rings on her fingers managed to shine dully even in the crappy mall light. “I guess that’s kind of an arrogant memory to be my favorite.”

I pushed the basket of grease out of my way and covered her hands with mine. “I get it.” It was normal. Her parents were alive. She was happy. And now her eyes shone just a little bit, with what was probably just the barest reflection of what it had been like then. “I wish I’d been there.”

“Me too.”

“We should get going, even though I don’t really want to go back to all that. Ever.”

“Yeah. But the sooner we find charms, the sooner we’ll be safe for more—more of this.”

I held his hand while we walked through the plastic mall. I pretended we were just two people on a date. A normal date. I didn’t want to think about blood or murder or magic. I couldn’t think about Wendy, about her not wanting to talk to me, about what she must have been thinking.

As we searched the shops, Nick got me talking about video
games and designer jeans, favorite movies, colors, and toys. He’d been a Pokémon collector, and I confessed my preteen obsession with Power Rangers. And that Reese and I used to put on sunglasses and pretend they were visors so that we could battle demons from outer space. I’d been the Yellow Ranger, and he’d been the Green. Mr. Meroon’s cornfield had been an ideal battleground.

At one of the jewelry kiosks, Nick bought a handful of questionably silver chains. I promised to pay him back, and he said, “Seriously, Sil. Any money I spend is less Lilith can steal from my inheritance when she screws Dad into an early grave.”

I stared at him, lips parted. He’d said it with such casual disregard. “Do you really think that?”

Nick shrugged. “Usually.”

“Why do you call her Lilith?”

“Oh.” He grinned, mouth curved like devil horns. “Lilith was the name of the mother of all demons. In the Bible.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “She doesn’t know, I take it.”

“Nooo. Come on, let’s go to a real jewelry store and get some nicer silver for the amulets.”

“Nick, nicer equals more expensive.”

“Well, think of it as me buying you jewelry, just instead of wearing it, you’re putting it to more, erm, practical use.” He tugged my hand.