Blood Magic (29 page)

Dad came up to the attic to wake me for school. “We need to talk,” he began ominously.

I scrubbed at my eyes, aching all over. “Jesus, Dad, can’t I at least piss before we do this?” My neck was stiff and I just wanted to fall back into my pillows.

“I don’t want you fleeing the scene before I get a word in.” He frowned. As usual, he looked like he’d walked out of a catalog. Perfect hair already styled, perfect shave, tie knotted perfectly evenly at God knows what time in the morning. I swear he didn’t even eat breakfast before brushing his teeth. Three times.

“Fine, fine. What do you want to talk about?” I plastered on a smile. Dad would recognize it as quickly as I recognized his patronizing one.

But he shook his head. “Your girlfriend. I think you should seriously consider not seeing her.”

“What the hell?”

His lips pinched downward at my language.

“Seriously, Dad, what do you think you know?” My eyes
narrowed. “It was Lilith, wasn’t it? What did that bitch say now?”

“Nicholas Pardee, you will not, I repeat, not refer to Mary by that awful name.”

“Which one?”

He didn’t respond. Dad tried not to give credence to things he found lacking with something even so small as a blink. The picture tucked into my jeans pocket flashed in my memory. Mom, giggling and carefree. There was no way she’d ever been that way with Dad. No wonder she hadn’t turned to him when she’d needed him.

After a moment of us glaring at each other, I threw my covers back. “I’m going to get ready for school.”

“Nick.”

Dad’s voice was quieter now, but just as firm.

The cool morning air chilled all my exposed skin. I kept my eyes glued to my knees.

“I spoke at length yesterday with the guidance counselor at your school. She told me some things about Drusilla Kennicot. Some very concerning things.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Her parents died in an appalling manner,” he said, like they’d spilled red wine on Lilith’s white carpet and hadn’t apologized. “And young Drusilla is having a difficult time.”

“So?”

“So, she might be needing better help than you can give, son. Think of her as being on the rebound.”

“Dad, I’m not trying to help her. I just like her, okay?”

“I understand being drawn to that sort of broken individual, but it—”

“You mean Mom, don’t you?” I looked at him, feeling ridiculously breathless.

Dad leaned forward in my computer chair, which he’d drawn close to the bed. “Yes. I don’t regret anything, Nick, of course, but I don’t want you to have to go through anything like what I did. What you did. Your mother was unstable, and I couldn’t tell when we were young.”

“You loved her too much?” I sounded derisive on purpose.

He hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

Shock made me confess. “I, uh, I found a box in the cellar that’s filled with pictures she took when she was in high school. I didn’t even know she liked to take pictures.”

“She used to hang a camera around her neck when she was”—Dad paused—“sober.”

“I can get them for you. From the cellar.”

He hesitated, his lips forming a thin line. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

“Sure.”

“About Drusilla.”

“Just Silla, Dad.”

“All right. I just want you to think about her, about things. She’s involving you in things you have no need to be involved with.”

I almost laughed. “She isn’t. Look, here’s what happened. Her friend just had a bad afternoon—I don’t know if Wendy was drunk or just, I don’t know, upset. But Silla was trying to help her. All I did was grab her to calm her down. I don’t know
who’s spreading lies, but that’s the truth.” I could feel the blood rushing into my cheeks and ears. I needed to call Silla so that we could get our stories straight. How could we not have talked about it last night?

After a moment watching my face, Dad nodded. “Very well, Nick. I believe you. I only want you to be careful. I am not blind—I see those cuts on your neck and the backs of your hands that you came home with last night. I don’t know if you’re fighting, or what is going on. But if you trust this girl, I’ll trust your instincts.”

I started to ask why he didn’t trust my instincts about his own damn wife. But I swallowed it. Dad was deliberately choosing to believe me about a girl he didn’t like. It was his clearest way of saying
Maybe you should trust my instincts, too
. I sat there in my boxers, feeling about ten years old. Dad got out of my chair and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You call me if you need me at school. If they try to punish you for something that you didn’t do. I’ll be around today, working here. I can get there in ten minutes.”

Guilt made it hard to talk. “Thanks, Dad,” I managed.

He nodded, then turned to go. “See you downstairs, son.”

“Dad.”

He glanced back.

“You, uh, you love Mary like you loved Mom?”

He didn’t even hesitate this time. “No. It’s very different, but not any less.”

I couldn’t quite promise not to hate her, or not to think she was a soul-sucking psycho blood-witch wannabe. But I suddenly didn’t want her to be.

May 1959

Can I allow an entire decade to pass without note? If I had been born to this time, or did not know what life in other eras and places could be like, I might have drowned myself
.

I moved to New Orleans for a time, losing myself in new magic. But every dance with Li Grand Zombi, every blessing doll, made me wish I could turn to Philip and ask if he’d ever thought to try honey to make a healing stick or dancing and singing to call blood to blood
.

Here was this magic, akin to ours but holier. Philip would have loved Louisiana Voodoo. I had to leave it behind, because his absence pressed too hard against my discoveries. But the rest of the country was empty. A black-and-white television pretending to offer life
.

There is nothing more to remember. This old book is useless to me now
.

Tuesday morning was cool enough that I needed a jacket. Reese dropped me off at school about fifteen minutes early so that I could get my things from Stokes’s classroom, and the lot was mostly empty. Feeling naked without backpack or purse, I walked quickly toward the main building, hugging my corduroy jacket closed. The cold pricked at the little cuts on my hands from the bird attack. When all this was over, Reese and I would have to make one of the spell ointments for healing.

I ducked through a side door and skirted the auditorium to grab my backpack. Fortunately, Stokes didn’t have a homeroom class, so his room was empty.

Standing alone in the room reminded me of the moment I’d realized Wendy wasn’t herself. Of the clinging panic. I slipped my hands into my jacket pockets. My left hand found the crystals of salt we’d crushed with more heather flower. In the right-side pocket was my pocketknife. I’d be expelled for sure if they found it, but there was no way any of us were going to leave the house this morning unprotected. Reese and I had
used permanent markers to draw protection runes over our hearts and smear them with blood. If we could have gotten away with putting them on our foreheads and hands, too, we would have. I’d told Nick to do the same thing when he called before school to go over our story.

Just in case Josephine was here, I’d be ready.
I banish thee from this body
is what Nick had said. Blood and salt would do the rest.

Blowing out a deep breath, I prayed Wendy would be safe.

I dug out my cell phone. The moment I turned it on, it vibrated.

There were three texts from Wendy. One from Melissa. One from Eric. Wendy’s messages were from right before and after I’d tried to call her from Nick’s cell. They just said, “Call me.” Melissa’s read: “WTF, S?” And Eric chewed me out for freaking on Wendy. That one actually made me smile a little. I was glad he cared.

I waited in Stokes’s classroom for a few minutes, until I’d have just enough time to get to my locker and then my first class. When it was 7:56, I took a deep breath, put on my sea-green mask, and stepped out.

The hallways crawled, as usual, with scurrying kids, yelling and laughing and slamming lockers. I was the object of countless corner-of-the-eye glances and raised brows, of twisted frowns and tiny sneers. I was totally unprepared for that. I’d known there would be questions and maybe a little tension with people involved: Wendy, obviously, and maybe the
Macbeth
cast. But everyone in the school? What were they saying? I ducked my head and made a beeline for my locker. I had to act like everything was cool. Like I wasn’t waiting for the
bogeyman to leap out from every corner. In any shape. Act.
Act
. I could do that. I was an actress. I needed a brighter mask.

A smiling, glittery pink one, with pearls and flowers trailing down the side.

Mask firmly in place, it took me a second to remember what classes I had first, and then Wendy was there, grabbing my hand and pulling me around.

“Silla.” Her mouth was pursed in a worried shape.

My body clenched in terror. I had to keep my other hand against my thigh or I’d have reached for the salt.

“Come on.” She dragged me through the crowd and into the janitor’s closet.

Pressed up against a stack of brooms, I waited. I couldn’t make the opening gambit. All I could think of was Josephine staring out at me, of being trapped inside here while that monster rode my friend’s body. How to tell without giving myself away?

Wendy peered at me through the dim yellow light. Then she opened her purse and pulled out a tube of shiny purple gloss and slathered it over her lips. I laughed, so incredibly relieved, and Wendy lifted her eyebrows and offered me some. I shook my head.

As she tucked the lip gloss away, she said, “Look, we don’t have much time before the bell. I couldn’t talk last night, and I shouldn’t really text you or anything like that. At first they thought it was drugs—Mom and Dad, I mean—after Ms. Tripp talked to them. That had to be why I was acting erratically, or whatever. But I’m leaving at lunch to go to the doctor to make sure I don’t have epilepsy or something. And my dad decided that it’s your fault anyway. That’s why no talkies or texting.”
She grimaced. “Paul said he saw me run out of the building, you following, and that I punched Nick. Is he okay?”

I nodded.

“Oh, good. I thought about calling him, but I wasn’t sure if I should or if he’d want me calling or if his parents knew or should know or what and now I’m babbling and you have to tell me what happened. Spill.”

My mouth opened and nothing came out. Nick and I had decided on a general lie, but I didn’t want to offer it to her. She deserved better. But did I have a choice? Quickly, I said, “You just suddenly freaked out—I think all the pressure of the audition and SATs coming up and everything, you know? You were babbling and then suddenly just ran off. I ran after you, and you got outside and—and went for Nick. He told me he said something obnoxious to you, and I guess you were so upset you didn’t think and just swung. He grabbed you, held you off, and … that’s it. You were bleeding and I—I had to go.” I lifted a hand toward the wound under her jaw. A shudder clenched up my backbone as I remembered Josephine pressing the letter opener to Wendy’s neck.

Wendy grasped my hand. “I’m scared, Silla. I hate not remembering.”

“Wendy,” I whispered, throwing my arms around her. I squeezed her hard, and she put her arms around my ribs and squeezed back. “I’m so sorry,” I told her, overwhelmed by the cherry-vanilla reek of her hair. I didn’t deserve her.