Blood Magic (32 page)

Pulling the old photo of Mom and Robbie Kennicot out of my jeans, I held it just close enough to the heat for the paper to bend. Mom’s smile twisted. Part of me wanted to toss it into the fire, watch it turn brown and curl up. Instead I tucked it back into my jeans.

The grass crunched under my boots as I paced to the bushes and then back to the fire. I wished Silla’d hurry up, and the others. I wanted this over with. From the front of the house, I heard birds singing. The noise made my skin crawl.
And even though the sun wouldn’t set for a while, the low clouds made everything darker. Between the house and the fence of thorny bushes, I was trapped.

Just as I started for the magic box, to pull out the blood-letter and at least arm myself with a bit of blood, the back door swung open, slapping against the side of the house.

Silla hopped down the concrete stairs to the patio. “Hey.”

Relieved, I moved straight for her. All her hair was hidden under a bright red bandanna. I kissed her. She must have been expecting something else, because she squeaked and caught herself with her hands on my hips. “You okay?” she asked, her mouth an inch from mine.

“Just ready to do this.” I kissed her again.

She pressed her lips firmly against mine, and then stepped back. With a sharp nod, she said, “Let’s do it, then. Where’s Reese?”

I nodded my head toward the bushes. “Cemetery. He said he’d be right back.”

“Let’s go get him.” Silla took my hand and led me to the solid wall of bushes. Just like the night after the party, she knew exactly where to step to avoid the sharpest branches. I closed my eyes and let her hand guide me through. On the other side, I stepped up beside her and helped her up onto the wall. Stopping at the top, Silla took a long breath and gazed out over the slope of the cemetery. I climbed beside her. I’d never really looked at the whole thing laid out like this. Between us and the far side where the wall pushed up against the woods, the mismatched headstones seemed like toys some giant kid had
thrown across a field. A few loner trees bent over clusters of big stone crosses and more regular headstones. Their branches all leaned toward the south, molded that way by the wind, probably.

From this perspective, it all just looked pretty sad.

“I see him,” Silla said, hopping down from the wall. I didn’t move. I could just make him out, too, standing near the middle, where their parents were buried. After a few steps, Silla turned back to me. “Nick?”

I frowned at her. “Maybe I should wait here. I don’t want to—uh—interrupt.” Especially if he was talking to his parents.

Her face fell, and for a moment, she looked as sad as the graveyard. Beside a tuft of really tall yellow grass, with a marble headstone on the other side, her bandanna was a glaring red spot. “You’re right,” she murmured. “I’ll be right back.”

As she left, I called, “Silla?”

With a little laugh, she turned back around again. “Nick?”

“Be careful.” I lifted my head to scan the sky. She got the message, and picked up her pace.

The graveyard was awash in cool pink and gray from the reflection of the setting sun on the overcast clouds. My favorite time there, just like it had been when I’d first opened the spell book, first brought that leaf back to life.

This shadowy in-between time seemed the best time for magic.

I approached Reese slowly, not wanting to disturb him. But
I was curious. He hadn’t come out here on his own before, that I knew of. So I sank my feet carefully, picking through leaves and dead grass.

He crouched at the foot of their graves, head down. His elbows were propped on his knees, and his hands just dangled down between them. The tight line of his shoulders and his closed eyes made my stomach clench up, too. I’d never seen him look so vulnerable. Stooped and still, like the statue of a sorrowful angel. I just stood, staring at my brother, heart aching.

Wind tickled my face and shook the trees. Evening frogs and cicadas picked up their songs, wailing their high-pitched competition. Wet anticipation clung in the air, promising overnight rain. Reese still didn’t move. Not even when the breeze ruffled his dark hair.

“Reese?” I called softly, resting my hand on the huge stone cross beside me.

He rose up to stand in a single, smooth motion. “Hey. Time?”

I nodded and walked forward to take his hand. I squeezed it between both of mine. “You need a shave.”

His mouth twitched up on one side. “Thanks, Sil.”

“Mom wouldn’t have tolerated that scruffy look.” I lowered my gaze to his chest, not strong enough to keep looking at his sad eyes.

“She’d have hated your haircut, too.” Reese pulled me into his arms rather roughly. “When this is all over, maybe we should leave.”

“Leave Yaleylah?” I linked my hands around his back.

“Yeah. I should go to college, and you can come with me.”

“I don’t want to live in Manhattan, Kansas. The Little Apple,” I teased, closing my eyes and pretending we were talking in the kitchen, with Mom and Dad listening. Mom would tug my hair gently for teasing my brother, and Dad would smile as he marked up Latin homework.

But Reese didn’t respond like it was a joke. He sighed. The expansion of his ribs stretched my arms. “I don’t have to go to K-State. I can go anywhere. Somewhere you’d be happy, too. Somewhere you can have a good senior year, far away from all this. Start new.”

I thought about Nick. I didn’t want to go somewhere I couldn’t kiss him. But he’d be graduating in May and leaving to find his mom. I had no idea where our relationship was going. Where I wanted it to go. I pushed my face into Reese’s shoulder. “Maybe Chicago,” I muttered. “Judy has an apartment there still.”

“Sure. Someplace. Anyplace that isn’t here, really.”

The gruff tone in his voice made me push back enough to see his face. He scowled at the ground, and my heart popped to see the shine of tears in his eyes. He looked at me, then away. “Everything here is dead, Silla.”

“Not us.” I found his hands and squeezed them, feeling tears prick my own eyes.

August 1972

He has not given it up. He said, “I’m done. I want to know what it is like to stare in the mirror and see in my hair and on my face all the years I feel in my soul.” Philip is melodramatic. He kissed me. “Josephine, we have been together, living wild, for seventy years. An entire human lifetime. And what do we have to show for it? Nothing. No one knows what we do, who we are. Who will remember us?”

“I am happy. I don’t care about who will remember us in the future—because I’ll be there.”

“Stop taking the resurrection potion with me. Let our bodies revert to their own natural rhythms. I will marry you. We could have children, Josie. Can’t you imagine how wonderful that could be? It is its own kind of magic. Better magic.”

“I don’t want to die, Phil. I don’t want gray hair or aches in my joints.”

“But children, I think”—he paused, and I don’t know if what he said next was true—“I think we would make good kids.”

I sighed. He will change his mind when he moves out of this funk. It is always ups and downs with Philip
.

The Deacon and I will make fresh carmot together again, if Philip will not. And when we do, I will hide it in stir-fry. The soy complements the ginger nicely
.

We will both live forever, together. I don’t care about anything else
.

I sat on the wall, with my elbows on my knees. The rough stone cut into my ass. It was freezing. I shifted, trying to get comfortable.

Everything was so gray. In the distance, the forest around my house was a dark gray blob against a lighter gray sky. Kind of like a forest of thorns surrounding the castle in some goddamn fairy tale. Only this castle didn’t have a fairy princess inside, or whatever. It was the home of an evil stepmother. Literally.

Confronting Lilith was gonna be a bitch. How was I going to do it, after we got these protection amulets made? All I knew was that it would murder my dad when he found out he’d slept with more than one crazy witch. For once, I wasn’t at all thrilled at the idea.

I was so caught up in staring at the dark trees, thinking about Lilith’s sharp fingernails and whether or not I could get her to just back off and leave, I didn’t hear her come up behind me.

The shuffle of grass warned me, and I started to turn, expecting Gram Judy. But a cold knife pushed against my neck,
and her hand clutched my throat. “Hi, there, Nicky,” she said, her breath warm on my ear. “Isn’t this convenient?” It wasn’t Lilith’s voice.

“Josephine,” I said, freezing up. The blade cut into my skin, and I tightened my jaw. My hands flexed into fists. I wanted so badly to jump away.

“Very good!”

Golden curls spilled into my sight as she tilted her head around, pushing the dagger into my neck and using my shoulder to climb over the cemetery wall.

It was Ms. Tripp. Looking younger than before in a leather jacket and tight jeans. She grinned. “Surprise!”

I swallowed, and the motion dug the knife in deeper. Pain shot down into my chest, and I felt the first long drip of blood hit the collar of my shirt. “What do you want?”

“Not you, alas.” She rolled her eyes. “But it will be much easier to get what I
do
want if you’re not being bothersome.” Her free hand slid into her jacket pocket.

It was now or never. I knocked aside her arm.

The knife left a searing hot pain in its wake. Josephine stepped back in surprise, but just as I moved to tackle her, she withdrew her pocketed hand and blew something into my face.

Bits of powder pelted my cheeks and eyes. The dust went up my nose and I sneezed. Once and then twice, violently.

It stung my eyes, and I was blinking away tears. My vision narrowed and blipped out like the TV of my life had snapped off.

Small hands pushed at my chest and I stumbled back, flailing my arms to stop my fall. I landed on my ass, my head cracking back. The ground spun under me.

The moment the sun sank past the horizon, I knew it. The silver edge to the gray light deepened into purple. Magic time.

Reese had walked forward and put one hand on their gravestone. “Wish you were here,” he said quietly but off-handedly, like he was signing a postcard. “Okay, Silla, let’s go.” He turned to me and froze, staring over my shoulder toward the house. I whirled around.

Ms. Tripp.

She walked confidently, her leisurely steps bringing her through the maze of headstones. Instead of her usual sweater and neat bun, she wore a leather jacket and her curls bounced all around her face like a lion’s mane. Her smile made the hair stand up on my arms. “You kids are making this too easy for me, really.” She shook her head.

“Who the hell are you?” I felt the anger vibrating from Reese through my back.

“It’s Ms. Tripp,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and even as I slipped my hand into my jeans pocket and curled my fingers around my pocketknife.

She shrugged. Casually, like we were meeting in a brightly lit restaurant and not a darkening cemetery. “Call me Josephine, if you prefer. It’s what your dad preferred.”

“Is that your real body?” I asked, refusing to rise to her bait.

Josephine actually spun for us. A little pirouette on one foot with her arms out.

It’s what made me notice the blade in her hand. A big silver wedge of a butcher’s knife.

We couldn’t give her the chance to use it. As she planted
herself back onto the ground, I walked forward. “Leave us alone, Josephine. Get out of here. I won’t help you get the bones, and we don’t need you. We’ll fight you.”

Her face fell into a pout, and she raised her knife, tapping it gently against the side of her face. It left a smear of blood. “That was Nick’s attitude, too, and look what happened to him.”

My stomach dropped like I was on the upside-down loop of a roller coaster. “You’re lying.” I said it like a command, as if that would make it true. I flicked out my pocketknife.

“Oh, Silla!” Josephine grinned and pressed her hands to her chest. The knife was pale and hard against the black leather jacket. “You’re delightful!”