Blood Magic (31 page)

“Hey, babe. You need a ride home?”

“What time is it?”

“Almost five.”

“Were you at rehearsal? I didn’t see you there.” She leaned
forward and turned in the bucket seat to face me. Her hair stuck out oddly in the back where it had been pressed against the leather.

“I had detention.” I grimaced for her.

“What for?” She was biting the inside of her lip again.

“Nah, nothing much.” Between fifth and sixth period, Scott Jobson had asked if she’d gotten those bruises for sucking my dick wrong. I shoved his face into the lockers and spent the rest of the day in detention. “Just had an incredibly bad day.”

“Me too.”

“Hey.” I leaned forward so that I could dig the picture out of my jeans pocket. “Look.”

She unfolded it slowly, and I watched her face. When she recognized her dad, her lips parted. She gripped the photo in both hands. “Oh, Nick.”

“I found it last night. I found a bunch of my mom’s stuff.”

“They look so happy.”

I picked at her hair, brushing it into some semblance of order. And I avoided her eyes as I asked, “Do you think we met for a reason?”

“Other than coincidence?”

“Yeah.”

Tilting her head into my hand, she closed her eyes and said, “I don’t think I care.”

“Why not?”

“I’m glad we met. So if it was for a specific reason, fine. If it wasn’t, fine. It happened. And I wouldn’t change it.”

What if I only moved here because Lilith killed your parents?
The
words didn’t make it out of my mouth. “Are you ready for tonight?” I asked instead.

“Yes. God, yes. We set the potion out last night.” She reached up and caught my hand, pulling it down into her lap. The photo quivered on her knee as she stroked my palm, then held out her hand for my left one. She examined them. “I like your hands.”

“I like yours, too. Even though you cut yourself right through your life line.”

“My what?”

“Life line. It’s palmistry.”

“You know the funniest things, Nick.”

“I wrote a poem for you. Yesterday afternoon, out on the football field.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I hear it?”

“If I ever remember the first line.”

“Nick!” Her laughter turned into a grin. “That’s mean.”

I laughed, too. “I wanted to see you smile.”

A crow cawed from nearby, and Silla jumped. The smile fell off her face. “Let’s go,” she said, glancing at the sky.

October 10, 1967

How the world can change in a few short years! Because men are short-lived and passionate, their children rebel and turn a country from a depressed shadow into a wilderness of neon Love!

I spent all of 1963 in a van, driving and driving across the country. It is amazing how everything transforms around us. So many new worlds, so many humans ready to give me attention and money. I hardly have to transmute metal into gold anymore. I’ve saved so much, and always, always have more to funnel in. Why? Because no one is afraid of witches anymore. They seek us out. They want me to show them the lands of death, to say, “You do not need pills, and you do not need a hospital. You need this amulet that I shall make with blood, spit, and yarrow. We will bless it under the full moon while we dance and make love brighter than the stars!” They want my magic to be real. They want me to be their goddess. And I am
.

Philip is reproachful, but I am irresistible to him now. I found him in California, working with his hands in the dirt on a farm. He saw me, and I woke in him that same sleeping need he woke in me when I was dying in St. James almost sixty-five years ago
.

He hungers for me more the stronger I am, the more he sees others
want me. He needs me as I needed him. When I kiss him, I taste eternity on his tongue!

I said to him when we returned to Boston, “Philip, do you remember you thought of yourself as my Devil? Tempting me to throw off my innocence and embrace all this dark magic?” He replied, “I did my job too well.” And he is morose enough to believe it. I love him all the more for his seriousness. He is my husband and father, my only real partner. I laugh at him, and tease him into happiness
.

Oh, my diary. I have missed you these long years as I’ve traveled. I rather enjoy leaving you here, and opening your cover only when I think of it. Flipping through the first entries fills me with both sadness and joy, for I was such a child then, but I knew what I wanted, and I have it all. I am true to my path
.

For once, the crunch of gravel remained in the background. Clouds had rolled in while I slept, so even though there was plenty of time before sunset, the air had a dim, foreboding feel to it. Or maybe I was projecting. But if I’d had to set a stage for this kind of blood ritual, I’d have used yellow-gray backdrops with industrial platforms and metallic trees. We witches would emerge down center, through stark flashes of red spots, and light candles until the entire stage was alive with fire.

Reese appeared on the porch as Nick and I climbed out of the convertible. He was wearing jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Very solemn. “Hey,” he said. “I hope the rest of your afternoon was better than lunch.”

“She was totally shit on,” Nick said, “after what happened yesterday.”

I almost smacked him.

“You feeling up to this, Sil?” Reese clomped down the porch stairs.

“Do I have a choice?”

Both Reese and Nick just looked at me. “Oh my God”—I
threw up my hands—“I could suffocate. Yes. Yes! I’m fine. Why don’t you two cowboys stay out here and preach at each other about how you need to take care of your little women and everything. I’ll go change into something more …” I faltered, glancing down at my yellow sweater. “More, um …”

“Bloody?” Nick offered.

“Yes.” I swung around and made a valiant attempt not to stomp up into the house.

Dumping my backpack next to my bed, I switched out the sweater for a dark red button-up shirt. It wouldn’t show stains as much and wasn’t one of my favorites anyway. In the mirror, my face looked awful: white, thin, and delicate, with large purple-gray holes where my eyes should be. I needed a death mask like King Tut’s, golden and brimming with life to hide the corpse beneath.

Scrubbing my hands through my hair made it stick up like an insane person’s. I needed a cut. I’d had it all chopped off in July but hadn’t touched it since. There were old highlights grown out a couple of inches so that you couldn’t really tell the roots were roots anymore. If I was generous. I grabbed a handkerchief from my bureau and tied it over my hair like Cinderella. It hardly improved anything.

“Silla?”

Gram Judy stood in the doorway. Her own hair hung in two long braids on either side of her face. The smear of blood across her forehead looked both ridiculous and somehow natural. It had dried a little into the wrinkles between her eyes. “Hi, Gram.”

“Judy,” she said with a genuine smile.

I walked over to her and slid my arms around her waist. I pressed my cheek to hers and I hugged. Her arms came around my shoulders and she said, “Oh, Silla.”

“It was a rough day.”

She rubbed my back. “There, pet. We’ll get this protection up, and find out who Josephine is pretending to be, and exorcise her permanently. Then you’ll be able to relax and have a good time with your charming boy.”

“Which has been your plan all along.” I felt warmer, thinking about how Gram had been matchmaking for me from the very beginning. At least something was consistent. Gram hadn’t changed a jot, even if I’d only known her for a few months.

“That’s right.” Squeezing my shoulders, she pushed back a little to catch my eyes with hers. “You know what this all means? All this blood stuff?”

I shook my head.

“It means you’re strong. Strength is in your blood.”

“I hope so.”

She grinned. “I know so. Your dad was strong, and your granddad. I ever tell you how we met?”

“No.”

“It was in 1978. He was in D.C. for a meeting, and I was marching for the Equal Rights Amendment. I sat down on the curb for a minute because I had a pebble in my shoe. It was a big man’s boot I was wearing, being there for gender equality and all, and all of a sudden there was this shadow over me and a voice said, ‘Isn’t that ironic.’ I glanced up, and had to shade myself from the sun with my hand. Your granddad thought I
was asking for help to stand and he grabbed my hand and just hoisted me up easy as pie.” Judy’s face melted into a soft, girlish smile. “He was so pretty, Silla. But I told him off right there, that how dare he assume I needed help to stand, la-dee-da, and you know what? He apologized. Then took me out for coffee. I shouldn’t have gone. Ditched my whole march!” She chuckled.

“That’s the wrong kind of strong,” I teased.

“Ha! Well, you know what I mean.”

“You’ve done so many things. Traveled around the world by yourself. That year you were a hippie.”

Judy laughed a single, uproarious laugh. “That was a tough one. Way worse than body snatchers.”

With her braids, she looked like a not-quite-retired Viking princess. “I wish I was as brave as you, Judy.”

“Baby, you sure are. You’ve withstood so much, you and that brother of yours. More than you should’ve had to.”

Putting my hands on hers, I said, “I don’t know if we ever said it, Judy, but Reese and I are glad you came.”

“It’s what anyone would have done.”

It wasn’t true, of course, that anybody would’ve. But you don’t point out the lies everyone knows.

April 1972

Philip took my hand last Friday and said, “Josephine, grow old with me.”

I laughed, but saw he was serious. The Deacon gave him the carmot we mixed together from the bones of a blood witch like us. But those thirty years are nearly up. I have some time yet to make more, and to convince Philip to drink it with me
.

I stuck a long stick into the tripod of fire Reese had gotten lit before jogging off into the cemetery. Flames crackled up as one of the logs shifted, shooting sparks up. Standing over it, I let the smoke blow across my face. The bitter smell choked me, but it felt sort of like penance for something. It was different out here, not all contained in a marble fireplace with an iron grate keeping the heat and danger back. Here, if it wasn’t watched, the fire could pick a direction and just tear through the grass. Reach the house or the giant bushes. Send everything up.