The Blood Keeper (The Blood Journals) (16 page)

Spring came with tiny green buds and thick air. I dug into my garden, planting peas and carrots, tomatoes, and sunflowers, then smaller boxes I filled with herbs for cooking and magic
.

The prairie woke slowly from the winter, and I felt, too, as though I were waking up. I walked the land on my own, while you shut yourself up into your barn with whatever projects a two-hundred-year-old man favored and Gabriel got himself involved in the electoral race in Lawrence. He brought home flyers and asked me to make tiny knit flowers to give away at campaign rallies. I obliged until I realized he was spelling them with tiny flecks of blood to be more than just pretty prizes. It was the first time we truly fought, he and I. It was ugly, and I’d never had my heart race so violently. And it drove him off the land for a month, do you remember? He was so furious he rented rooms in a boarding house along the Kaw
.

One morning I was breaking ice off the well by dropping the bucket again and again, in order to water my young garden, worrying that this sudden frost would kill it all before it had a chance to sprout, and there you were suddenly. You took the bucket and said, “The flowers will like running water better than this.” Together we walked along the Child Greek, and you filled the bucket with fresh, tumbling cold water. You carried it for me up the hill to the garden, and we parceled it out, going back to the creek three times. When we finished, you settled back onto your heels. “This smells like life,” you said
.

I pointed out the different plots, the herb boxes, and told you which were for eating, which for magic. For the first time, you asked me a question: “I don’t see you touch the magic often. Why not?”

For someone who breathes magic, it must have seemed strange how I avoided it. “It’s a tool, isn’t it?” I said, hoping not to offend you. “When I need warmth but have no stove, I make fire. When I need to find something and my eyes don’t see it, I search with blood and a mirror. When I need protection from things stronger than me, I make an amulet. If I don’t need the magic, I don’t use it.”

You studied my face, and said, “That is wise, Miss Sonnenschein, but I believe it makes you miss much of the beauty in it. You do not need a sunset, you do not need music, and yet both things make life more than just eating and sleeping. We can survive without dancing, we can survive without love.” Your eyebrows lifted and my breath caught in my chest. “Yet who would want to?”

My fingers shook, and I dug them into the earth, into the row of baby peas. I slowly nodded, and said without looking at you, “You’re right.”

“The magic is in your blood. It’s a part of you, and there is nothing wrong with exploring its beauties, beyond practical necessity.”

There was something new in the edges of your voice, and I glanced up. It was laughter, playing at the corners of your mouth
.

I wanted more than anything to kiss it, to catch your amusement with my lips. But afraid to startle you, or lose the moment, instead I smiled and asked, “Will you show me your favorite beautiful thing?”

Your eyes widened, as if I had finally surprised you. And you promised that when you could, you would
.

Almost exactly a week after I tackled the mud monster, I stood in the driveway with Ben. Hot sun pressed down on the shoulders of my dress shirt. I wanted to loosen my tie before it choked me. Ben leaned his elbow on my shoulder. His eyes kept going to the basketball hoop hanging five feet over the roof of the truck. But we’d dismissed the idea of shooting after a brief discussion of the possible repercussions of getting sweaty before church.

Better to suffer boredom until Mom popped out of the house.

Plus, I wasn’t sure I could move that fast.

I rolled my head to stretch my neck muscles. Overnight I’d had dreams about roses clogging my throat until I couldn’t breathe. Since waking, I’d been vaguely light-headed. Probably just from sleep deprivation.

“You good?” Ben asked, lifting his elbow off me.

“Sure.” I shrugged. Closed my eyes against the hard sunlight.

Ben hovered. I peered out through one eye to find him studying my face with a bit of a glare.

I closed my eye again. His finger pushed into my shoulder, shoving me over.

Dizziness turned my stomach.

“Your face is all red,” he said. He gripped my arm. “I think we should go back inside.”

The sun pounded down.

“Will.”

It sounded like Ben had moved away—like half a football field.

“Will.”

I shook my head. Blood roared in my ears.

He touched me, sliding a hand around my back. Said, “You’re on fire,” and pulled me toward the house.

Looked like it was gonna be my fault we missed church again.

Roses held me down. My mom brushed hair away from my head. Murmured about a fever, and then the roses pulled tight. Thorny vines circled my neck. I struggled. They piled blankets on me. I told them I was hot. Too hot.

Sometimes I knew I was dreaming. Other times I couldn’t tell if Aaron was sitting on my bed, or if it was Ben. A second woman danced around my bedroom, arms out to waltz. She bent over me and smiled, tried to coerce me up to dance with her. “This is my favorite song,” she whispered.

The walls of my bedroom crawled with roses. They clung to the ceiling, digging their thorns in deep. The red flowers nodded at me, all at the same pace. The beat of my heart. Vines swarmed over my body. My mouth was full of petals. I coughed
and they floated up. I leaned over the side of the bed and Mom was there, clutching my shoulders, saying my name.

I gagged on flowers, and puked into a bowl Mom lifted off the floor.

She rubbed my back and helped me lie down again. I fell asleep.

It was dark when I shot up out of yet another nightmare. I’d been drowning again. This time in thin, cold mud.

A tight band of pain hugged my ribs. They wouldn’t expand enough for me to get a solid breath, and I stared up at the popcorn ceiling. It was bare. No roses anywhere. Just my room. The alarm clock said it was 1:43 a.m.

I ordered myself to relax. Took stock of my physical situation.

The fever was gone. No sweat. No burning up inside. My head vaguely ached, and I was thirsty. My muscles were sore, but not too bad. Overall, I felt pretty good. But I was wide awake. And smelled sour.

My vertigo was gone, too, so I made it to the dark bathroom without any noise. In the shower, I just let the not-too-hot water drip off my nose. When I was out and had turned on the light to brush my teeth, I studied myself in the mirror.

Shadows under my eyes and a pretty tired stoop in my shoulders.

And holy crap, the bruise from last week, from the antler jamming into my chest, was darker.

I shut my eyes, flicked the lights off and on, and looked again.

It wasn’t just shadows or me being wrecked. I touched the dark blotch, and it didn’t hurt from pressure. But I felt it, inside. Like it was a weight pushing in on me. And the edges of the bruise, which had been yellowing before, reached out purple again. Like a fresh bruise. Could I have hit it again? Was it an infection?

Leaning in, I carefully examined my chest. Ran my fingers over it, looking for a cut. It wasn’t like I could get a staph infection from a bruise.

That I knew of.

Maybe it was time for more Internet research. Either that or telling Mom, which seemed like a crap idea. She’d get all upset. Take me to the hospital.

What I wanted to do was call Mab.

Which seemed kind of dumb. What was she going to do? Kiss it and make it better?

Before I could stop it, that’s exactly what I imagined.

Mab, standing in front of me, leaning down and kissing my bare, messed-up chest.

I shut my eyes again. And got out of the bathroom.

In my dream, it had rained for three days, but there was finally a break in the storm, and so the crows and I raced outside to enjoy it. Water splashed up my calves as I dashed around the front yard, arms out, laughing with them. The sun shone on a million droplets of water, clinging to blades of grass and leaves, to the flower petals, to the roof—even to the air itself. The drops glittered and winked. I caught them up on my fingers
and set them on my tongue, tasting the magic. Crows batted through the trees, splattering their wings, drawing out more glistening drops that sparkled like black diamonds.

But only ten crows darted overhead. Considering the one I’d sacrificed for the doll, there should still have remained eleven. I turned in a circle, hunting for the missing bird. “Where have you flown to?” I called.

As if in response, the entire flock took off down the road, flying swiftly toward the front gates. I ran after them.

The land rose up around me, reaching fingers of magic to caress my face and out-flung hands. I closed my eyes and let the trees guide me, relaxing into their embrace and trusting completely that they would never let me fall.

Mab
. The whisper came from all around me.

I was soaked to the skin, my dress plastered against me, mud and grass splattered up my legs. Trees bent around me, my feet never touched the ground, and I flew as genuinely as the crows. Wings made of flowers and leaves spread away from my shoulders.

Mab
.

It was the forest, calling my name in the voice of the roses.

I was wild and wonderful, and when the doll strode out from between two elm trees I opened my arms. It embraced me and kissed me. I clung to it, mouth wide and welcoming. Vines and roses wrapped around me, weaving us together, as the doll lowered me down to the wet, warm earth. I laughed and kissed it. I wrapped my arms and legs around its strong body.

As it kissed my neck, I whispered magical words, cleansing
words, and the vines and earth fell away until all that was left was Will. Whole, fresh, and naked as if he’d been reborn.

And I woke up, alone in my bed, pain in my shoulder from a crow perched there, cutting deep into my skin with his claw.

I panted, hands flat against the mattress, body reeling. The other crows stared at me from a circle, perched on my shelves, on the windowsill, on the foot of my bed. My tongue tasted like the forest, and my heart had wings. Moonlight played across the dry black feathers of the crows. I swiftly counted: only ten. That part of my dream was true.

Tossing off the thin sheet, I darted out of my room and nearly tripped over the shattered body of the eleventh crow. Its beak was open wide and its feet mangled. I cried out, floating down to my knees as if still dreaming. Through tears I saw feathers spreading out in a trail behind it on the hardwood floor.

And Lukas, sprawled half in Arthur’s bedroom, half out, his face squeezed in pain and blood seeping through the back of his white T-shirt.

I threw myself to my feet and scrambled to him, hitting the ground again hard. “Lukas,” I said sharply, touching his face with my hand. His cheek was alive with heat, and the smell of burning skin suddenly overwhelmed me.

Lukas’s hands were smoldering.

I yelled for Donna.