The Blood Keeper (The Blood Journals) (2 page)

I took the heart and the liver, tucking them gently into an old glass gallon jar. I twisted closed the lid and painted a star rune on top with the deer’s blood. Then I closed his eyes and ran my finger along his short black lashes.

“May you find grace,” I whispered.

And I left him for the vultures and coyotes.

Since then, blood had drained out of the organs to pool in a sticky mass at the base of the jar. The crow tapping it was probably hungry. I
tsk
ed at him, and promised frozen berries after the work was finished.

As the crow backed off, flapping nearer his brothers, I pierced my wrist with the tip of my knife and let three drops hit the ground. “I feed you, Earth, that my magic may come full circle,” I told it, and jammed the knife into the dirt. Then I crouched beside the doll I’d made.

It was shaped like a man, with branches for bones, mud and decaying leaves for bulk, and wax to shape the smaller features like hands and mouth and eyes. I’d plucked rose petals to form a pink mouth, to give the flowers voice. If my doll could stand, it would be taller than me, with wide shoulders and room inside the cave of wooden ribs for courage and passion and laughter.

But for now it was only shadows and earth, tucked beside the thicket of roses. A doll without a string to pull.

I swallowed the pounding of my heart and knelt beside it. The scent of wet feathers and muck filled the air. An earthworm struggled to the surface of the doll’s chest, where a tiny puddle had formed during last night’s drizzle. I pinched the worm in my fingers and tossed it over my shoulder.

One of the crows snatched it with a snap of his beak. He ruffled his neck feathers and hunkered back down.

Water soaked into my skirt at my knees. I pushed sticky hair off my face, and I dug my hands into the doll’s chest.

I parted the ribs and scooped out mud as delicately as possible. It plopped into a pile beside me. Unscrewing the lid of the gallon jar, I reached in and withdrew the heavy deer’s heart. Tacky, cool blood smeared between my fingers. Gently, I placed the heart in the center of my doll’s chest. It smelled sweet and raw. “For passion,” I said.

Next came the liver, which I put beneath the heart. “For courage,” I said.

I buried the organs with chunks of black earth and closed the ribs. My hands hovered over the doll as I paused. This was my last chance to stop, to simply follow Arthur’s final instruction and destroy the roses. If only I’d questioned him then, pushed for details, but I’d been so overwhelmed by the thought of losing him, his order had barely filtered through. My loyalty warred with curiosity, and guilt with the knowledge that if I was to be Deacon in truth instead of only name, I had to understand this problem Arthur had handed me, and not just obey blindly. He’d raised me to question, to think for myself and do what I felt was right. I couldn’t make that decision without exploring the magic twisting through the roses.

The crows flapped their wings, and water rained down on me and the doll.

They were in accord.

There was a metal bucket under the downspout running off the Pink House roof, filled with collected rainwater. I scooped some out and rinsed my hands. Three more crows flew up to land on the gutter, and shifted from foot to foot, their claws scratching and feathers ruffled.

With my clean hands, I grabbed a box of sea salt and shook it out in a thin circle all around myself, the doll, and the sprawling rosebushes. The grains of salt spilled through the sparse grass, glittering violet in the spare dawn light.

Kneeling next to the doll’s head, I pulled an old antler out of my magic bag, smooth and polished from years of use, and sharpened to a needle-fine point. I put the tip to my wrist, where moments before I’d cut with the knife. The tattoo was a spiral and seven-point star, a rune of creation. I pressed the antler point into the hollow center with practiced ease, into the already raw wound. The quick strike of pain vanished into a tingle of magic as a thick drop of blood welled on my wrist. Holding it over the line of salt, I whispered three times, “By my blood, bless this circle,” until the single drop fell into the salt crystals and the energy circle snapped into place like a vacuum seal.

My ears popped.

The crows cried out in a chorus. I hoped we wouldn’t wake Donna as I pulled out of my magic bag the remaining ingredients I needed.

First I uncorked the vial of bone dust and spilled it into
the palm of my left hand and spat into it. Mixing with my forefinger, I leaned over the doll’s face and drew a line of gray down the wax forehead. “By bone, I summon you,” I said.

I took up a thin strand of my own yellow hair, blessed in sunlight and sage smoke over the past three days. I pressed it crosswise over the gray line of bone mud. “Hair of the living witch, I summon you.”

With a deep breath, I used my antler-needle again, to prick all ten of my fingers.

My hands on fire with energy, I held them up toward the crow perched on the gutter. Blood trailed along my fingers in thin lines, collected briefly in my palms, and scattered in rivulets down my forearms. The crow cocked his head and peered down with one dark eye.

“Come to me now, my friend,” I said. The crows had worked magic with me for nearly five years now, helping to channel and shape my power with their own.

He snapped his wings out to their full width, so that his long primary feathers caught the edge of the morning sun and shone violet and blue.

“Reese,” I said. “Thank you for the sacrifice.”

He spilled off the roof and I caught him. His wings beat softly as his instinct to right himself, to fly away from me, kicked in. The feathers brushed my face like kisses.

I grasped him in my hands. I could feel his heart rushing in his small chest, could feel the burning magic pass through my bleeding fingers and into his feathers. Slowly, he stilled himself. I held him against my chest and stared into his nearest eye.
Tiny feathers spiraled around it, tinged brown. They looked so soft I wanted to run my finger along their edges.

His beak parted and he sighed. It wasn’t a crow sound at all.

“By my blood and this sacrifice, I summon you,” I said loudly. In a swift motion, I pushed him against the doll’s chest, swiped up my antler-needle, and drove it through his small crow body. Pinned him into the mud of the doll.

Wind shot up in a column of air. The roses whipped around, and Reese’s eleven remaining crows screamed in a single voice.

Scrambling, I dipped my finger into the fresh blood streaming from the crow. I painted it over my lips in two swipes, and I leaned over the doll’s head. “Be alive,” I said against its rose-petal lips. “Be alive.” I cupped my hands around its head. “Be alive!”

I kissed it, and breathed my air into its mouth.

The earth below me shook. The doll’s mouth moved against mine, tearing at my breath in an endless stream.

I jerked away, pushed up to stand over it. The living crows flew a tight circle around my head, weaving so close their wings tangled my hair.

At my feet, the crow pinned to the doll spread his wings up to the doll’s shoulders. I held out my hands; rose roots and leaves snaked up from the ground, twisting over the doll into a thick, dark skin. Its fingers twitched. Its waxy face moved into an expression of pain.

It opened heavy eyelids to reveal the chunks of turquoise I’d embedded for eyes.

“Hello,” I said. “I am Mab Prowd. Take this gift from me and tell me your name.”

The doll sat up, crow still pinned to its chest with the white antler. His wings drooped. Blood slunk downward into the doll’s lap.

It reached for me with a waxy hand. I allowed it to touch the hem of my skirt, still slightly breathless at the tingle of magic still coursing through my veins and pressing at the tips of my fingers. Laughter tickled in my stomach because of what I’d done.

My doll bent its knees and climbed to its feet. Every moment its skin hardened further, becoming smooth and light. It blinked at me with turquoise eyes. It flexed its hands. Muscles shifted under that skin, and its mouth was red with lips and tongue. Hair sprouted like black grass, and ears blossomed out. Nostrils formed themselves. Nipples. Everything growing and real, exactly as it should.

Here was a real, living man, with my friend’s crow body staked to its heart.

“Tell me your name,” I commanded.

The doll parted its lips; a harsh rattle sounded.

The crows screamed again and dove at it angrily, raking claws against its head. The doll swung with its thick, still-forming arms, knocking away one of the crows. The whole flock cried out, whipping around in a storm of feathers.

I faltered back out of their way.

It reached for me again, walking with a stilted shuffle. Step. Step. Closer to me, its chest and shoulders lifting with breath,
in rhythm with my own. It opened its mouth and sighed, causing the soft wings of the dead crow to shake.

Then it said, “Mab.”

I smiled and touched its wrist, curling my fingers around it in welcome. But it leapt forward with shocking speed. Its arm slammed my chest and I fell back, stunned, sliding through the salt circle and breaking its binding power.

The ground twirled under me. I saw the blue morning sky high overhead, shimmering through my dazed eyes.

The doll’s footsteps thundered through the earth as it raced to the north.

Five weeks ago I saved Holly Georges’s life when a freak earthquake knocked her out of a tree and into a lake.

This lake.

With the truck door wide open and the radio blaring, there was just enough noise that I didn’t feel stifled by the hugely open sky overhead. It was about two hours past dawn. Clouds the color of orange sherbet scattered up there. Already the air was muggy. And way too quiet.

My German shepherds, Havoc and Valkyrie, bounded through the tall grass at the edge of the muddy beach, yipping and frolicking like the year-old pups they were. The heat didn’t bother them, though it was already making me sweat. I tugged off my T-shirt and wiped it across my face before tossing it to the ground. Next went my running shoes and my socks, until it was just me in my track pants, and the lake.

Wind hit hard and sudden, rippling the surface of the water and grabbing my short hair. Havoc froze, nose up, and Val spun in crazy circles, her tongue hanging out of her teeth. I laughed at her and clapped my hand onto my thigh. “Here, girls,” I said, and they ran at me. Val knocked her shoulder into
my leg, nearly bowling me over, and Havoc put her head in the palm of my hand. I scratched behind her ears.

The wind ran away west, ripping at the tall grass. Closing my eyes, I imagined looking down at the rolling hills from a bird’s eye. Pinpointed my location, then focused out until I could see the interstate just south of me. There were the sprawling suburbs creeping away from town. The Kansas River winding loose and undirected. The green summer trees all hot and bright under the sun.

It was a trick I used to orient myself so I never got lost.

Val charged into the lake, interrupting me with cool water splashed everywhere. I smelled the mud and silt, the sunbaked grass, and for a moment I was back there, just after the earthquake. Diving again and again into the murky water, running my fingers blindly against the slimy bottom, lungs burning, desperate to find her.

I dreamed about it at night. Of the sick moment I realized she hadn’t come back to the surface. The shock of relief when I finally,
finally
grasped her ankle. Those long, horrible moments shaking onshore, hands covered in mud and water and blood from the gash on her head, while Shanti did CPR and all our friends crowded around whispering and touching hands and shoulders, leaning in. The sound of their breath pressed into my bare skin, pushing me down.

I’d wake up choking.

With Havoc at my side, I waded into the lake where all my bad dreams came from, hoping to bury the fear back under the mud.

It was ridiculous, I knew, but I couldn’t tell Mom and Dad. Mom would blame herself. Dad would think it was some deficiency. And it sure wasn’t the kind of thing I felt like telling Matt or Dylan about in the locker room before practice. Instead I’d looked up on the Internet different theories about conquering nightmares, and most had agreed that if you confronted the root of the dream head-on, you had a chance of letting go.

So here I was. The water soaked my pants, dragging them down. I tightened the drawstring and walked out farther. My feet slipped in the silt, slime squishing up through my toes. The sun beat down on my shoulders and I rolled them, trying to relax. Then I pushed out into deeper waters. Havoc held back, staying where she could touch the bottom. When I was near the middle of the small lake, I stretched out onto my back and shut my eyes.

Tiny ripples lapped at the sides of my face, and the sun glared red through my eyelids. I floated, fingers splayed, knees bobbing up. I kept my chin tilted and imagined miles of dark water under me instead of a mere thirty feet. There were blue-gills stocked in the lake. Maybe some other kinds of small fish. A few weeks from now, I’d be swarmed with mosquitoes.