Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton
She pulled out a portfolio, bound shut with a strip of leather, and a small Moleskine-like journal. Silla set them on the desk, on top of a scatter of sticky notes and old bills. She unwound the leather quickly, and pulled out sheets of paper thick with writing. “Spells.”
The first one I picked up contained a diagram of a triangle inside a circle, and a bunch of notes and arrows and scratched-out words. From the top of the page, I read, “Triangle first, then the circle, or the energies won’t be bound.”
“It’s my dad’s writing,” Silla whispered. She flipped through. “God, some written in Latin. Like a code. It’ll take a bit to translate everything. But they look like they’re all for a huge, complicated charm—more stuff like what’s in the spell book, but less finished.” Silla glanced at the little journal. Slowly, she set down the spell notes and caressed the journal’s cover. It was plain black, with a thin red ribbon marker sticking out the bottom like a tongue. With a large sigh, she lifted it and opened it. “Nineteen-oh-four,” she read.
I leaned in as she continued. “I am Josephine Darly, and I intend to live forever.” Silla dropped the journal.
Touching the journal, I said, “Let’s take all this to my house. Dad and Lilith are gone for the day, and we can spread out and have the place to ourselves.”
“Yeah.” Silla nodded.
SILLA
I left a note for Gram Judy, stuffed my backpack with my marked-up Latin dictionary and everything from Dad’s secret cubby. Nick took salt out of the pantry, and as we walked to his car, we filled a plastic sack with gravel for throwing at crows.
On the way, they winged silently overhead. Pacing us. I wanted to scream at Josephine that we had her diary—that we’d find whatever weaknesses were inside it and destroy her.
We got into the house unscathed, though. They didn’t even dive close or caw. They only landed gently on the lawn as we ran in through the garage.
It was amazing that I had enough energy to be thrilled by Nick’s bedroom. Playbills and posters made it look like he’d leached all the color and emotion out of the stark house and splashed it onto his walls.
We spread out across the floor, which was piled with horrible rugs. Oriental rugs and modern geometric rugs; even a shag rug. The chaos suited him.
Nick propped himself on his elbows, his legs stretching back toward the stereo, and began to read the diary out loud. His finger tapped with the low beat of some weird music he called Swedish electronica. His eyes and lips had relaxed into an expression of slight amazement, and I stared. And listened. I imagined brushing my lips across his eyelashes, skimming them along his wide cheekbone. He hadn’t bothered, apparently, to slick back his hair this morning, and it flopped around his ears and down his neck. It looked soft.
I closed my eyes, stretched out beside him, and listened as he read to me about Josephine, about how she’d learned the magic from a mysterious doctor named Philip, about their lessons and theories, the decades they spent together. Josephine was insane, clearly, but I think if I hadn’t known she would eventually start killing people, it would have been easy to relate to her. She was just so excited about the magic, and determined to use it to live a good life. And she was in love. I understood why she enjoyed possessing people, and Philip’s difficulty with it made me feel better about failing so abysmally at it myself.
She even wrote about sacrifice. Philip taught her that the magic required balance, that our blood is strong but can be used for good or evil. It must have been wonderful to have a real teacher. Josephine mentioned the Deacon, too, who seemed to be an ancient wizard. Though it was hard to believe they’d all really been alive for so long.
The entries were extremely spotty and scattered over time, and occasionally there were pages missing. Some torn out, some scrawled through so fiercely we couldn’t read them.
And then there was the resurrection powder—carmot—she talked about that. It was made of the bones of the dead, and was how they were able to live for so long.
As Nick finished that particular entry, he fell silent, just staring at the page.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” I asked quietly.
“It’s impossible not to.”
I took his hand, wove our fingers together. “Living forever.”
“There’s just so much you could do. See anything. Travel, learn, do … anything.”
“Have twenty different jobs.”
“Write a novel. Or ten.”
“Be a rock star.”
“President,” he laughed. “Though I guess that scrutiny would be a problem.”
Too bad it came at a price. I sighed, pushing the temptation away. It was a thing to worry about another day. “I’m surprised my dad isn’t mentioned. I mean, something had to have made her hate him so much.”
Nick leaned over and kissed me. “We’ll figure it out.”
We took a break to eat a frozen pizza, then kept reading.
Josephine became less and less stable after World War II, alone as she traveled across America, occasionally with the Deacon and then back with Philip. But she was clearly becoming unglued. After Nick read the entry about Josephine hiding the resurrection powder in Philip’s food, he flipped the page and stopped. “Oh, Jesus.”
“What?” I took the diary out of his loose hands.
There on the next page was my dad’s writing.
It is the worst thing I have ever done.
My real name is Philip Osborn, and I killed a seventeen-year-old boy because I was afraid to die.
My breath stuck in my throat in a huge, spiky ball. I didn’t want to read on, but I had to. “Oh, God,” I whispered. “My dad was Philip. He … oh my God.”
Nick’s voice was strangled. “My mom could tell. She knew he wasn’t himself. Knew that … what Philip did.”
Everything from Josephine’s journal suddenly spun like a roulette wheel, and when it stopped, all the colors and numbers fell into place more surely. My dad … Philip. The experimenting doctor, the teacher, the one who thought we were witches and devils but who tried to save lives. He’d tried so hard, and believed the magic could be good.
But he’d created Josephine. And loved her, even?
Nausea, light and dancing, whirled in my stomach. Nick pushed over the pages in the diary, skimming down with his finger. He stopped when he saw his mom’s name again.
Nick put his head down. I picked the book out of his limp hands and read. The whole thing was a letter to me and Reese. Written in the final hours of my dad’s life. A letter to us, explaining what he never could before. My eyes watered and I wiped furiously at them.
At least I had answers now. I touched Nick’s arm. “Read this with me. It’s—it’s about you, too.”
You deserve to know, my children, why I did not teach you these things.
Silla was seven and Reese nine, and it was time to begin, if ever I was going to.
I stepped out of the car, arriving home from school, and a boy, maybe eight years old, was sitting in our front yard. He staggered up and then sat back down as though he were injured. I went to him and crouched, held out my hand. “My name is Robert,” I said. “Who are you?” But even then I knew he was familiar. His face, his eyes, I knew them. He held out a scraped and bloody hand. “I fell,” he whispered. Just as I took his hand to investigate, he clamped onto my wrist and stood fully, strongly up. “I banish thee!” he yelled, and pressed his other hand, also bloody, to my forehead.
My head bubbled out and I ached, but I did not lose my grip on my body. For it is mine, after so many, many years. No child’s spell could undo it. Nor the spell of a woman who loved its former owner. I stared into the boy’s flat eyes, at the matte-black pupils with no reflection. “You are not who you claim to be.” The boy scowled and said, “Give Robbie back to me!”
After so many years, it was Donna Harleigh. I whispered a sleeping charm, and the little boy collapsed. I carried him into my car and drove down to the Harleigh farm. Inside, Mr
And so I knew what became of Donna, that she has a son and was so filled with hate for me that she used his body, his very strong blood, to try to save the real, long-departed Robert Kennicot.
Looking down at her, and at her used son, I knew I could not teach that magic to my children. I had to save you from it, protect you from it. I taught it to J, and look where that brought me. For darkness clings long in the blood, and history never forgets what we do to our children.
Nick put his hand over the words, pressing the diary to the carpet. “I woke up with a fever, and heard Grandpa yelling at Mom about being evil. About having done a terrible thing. Now I know.”
Our shoulders pressed together, and I leaned my head against his. “We’ll be better than them.”
“Yeah.” Nick rolled his shoulders and set his jaw. “We have to keep reading. Find out what happened. My mom is old news.”
We bent our heads back over the journal.
And I did not regret my decision until today. Because Josephine is here in Yaleylah.
She came to the school, and I saw her in a flash, just from the corner of my eye. I told myself it was not her. It couldn’t be. The heat was getting to me, the loneliness of the school building in summer. After nearly thirty years, she could not have found me.
But she waited for me outside in the parking lot. Exactly as she always looked. Beautiful face, lioness eyes. Her lips were painted scarlet. “Philip,” she whispered. “I cannot see my reflection in your eyes.”
Her voice. Oh, God, it cut to me. I could not move. If she knew where I worked, she knew, too, where I lived. She knew my wife’s name, my children’s names. The sun was so hot. “Josephine,” I said.
Her fingers curled up into fists. “I thought you were dead.”
I didn’t answer.
“I loved you!” she screamed. “For a hundred years, I’ve loved you!”
“Leave me alone, Josephine.”
“As you left me, Philip? Or Robert? Should I call you Robbie, darling?” She stepped closer, in that stalking, slow walk of hers.
I was quiet again, my eyes darting around, hoping for someone to come near, hoping as much for no witnesses.
“How could you stand it, Philip? My stalwart, righteous doctor? Even I always return to my body.” She touched her lips, her chest.
I was afraid, am still afraid. Her eyes were wild and dark-as if it were not a human soul behind them but a crow or wolf or eagle.
We stared at one another in silence as the sun beat down. The asphalt shimmered with heat, and her skin shone with sweat. She spun away from me, and drove off in a little silver car.
I came straight home. I told Emily to go get you, Reese and Silla, and to take you away to Kansas to find an apartment for Reese. An easy excuse.
Magic is sunk deep into the earth around the house-I will wait here for Josephine, with my binding box, and one or another of us will walk away.
I pray I will hold you again, that you will never find this. Never need to know your father’s past, his sins. For my sins are great ones.
That was all. I was breathless, and I read the last entry straight through again. “God, Nick,” I whispered. “God, this was the last thing he did. Oh, God.” I took a deep breath and let it out shakily.
“It’s a lot to take in.” He put his hands around mine and rubbed. The friction warmed me up immediately.
“I need—I want some air.”
We clung to each other as we headed downstairs, fingers entwined. My bones ached. It was hard to think about what we’d read. Hard to imagine Dad not being my dad. Or Nick’s mom possessing him, her own son. Josephine, showing up at the school … maybe even interviewing that very day for her counselor’s position. Insinuating herself into our lives. But after reading her journal, I knew how conniving she was, how certain of herself and selfish.
Nick led me out through the kitchen and stark living room, through glass doors and onto a patio. I rolled my shoulders. We stood there, hand in hand. The sun was behind the house, and I wished I could feel it warm my skin. Instead, as wind ruffled the short back lawn, I realized there were strange black lumps on the ground at the edge of the woods. “Nick.” I let go of his hand.
“Yeah?”
“Do you see that?”
“See what?”
The lumps looked like old black trash bags left out to rot. “At the woods.” I walked straight onto the grass.
“Hey.” Nick grabbed my arm. “Careful.”
“They’re animals,” I whispered. “Birds and squirrels and …” I shrugged him off and lengthened my pace until I was jogging toward the trees.
“Silla!” He came after, footsteps soft. “It could be dangerous—they might be diseased. Or worse.” But I couldn’t look away from the dead animals.
A crow called from behind us. A flock of them was flapping its way down from the roof. Several landed on the patio, then hopped closer. Like they were driving us at the forest.
I stopped and squatted near one of the bodies. “It’s dead. A fox.” I shook my head, then raised it to look up into the trees. Wind brushed through the red-tinged leaves. Beyond, the sky was a drab and unterrifying gray.
“I forgot—last night, I found a dead raccoon, totally drained of blood,” Nick said, warily keeping his eyes on the crows behind us. They kept hopping closer. Their beady black eyes were angry and hostile. “The glasses.”
We ran back up to the attic, and I dug the glasses out of the backpack. Nick swung open his window, and I pulled them over my ears.
Instantly my vision flooded red. I stumbled back.
“What? What?” Nick caught me, his neck craning to see what I was seeing.
“It’s all red, Nick. All of it.” My voice shook, higher than usual.
“Seriously?”
“It’s like the forest sucked the magic out of the ground and just runs with it—like the trees are all alive with blood instead of water and sunlight.”
“And—and the animals?”
“Patchy red.”
“And those crows?”
Slowly, I turned, nausea gripping my middle, and looked out at the sky. Thin lines of dark red connected the crows like a bloody spiderweb. “They’re all connected to each other—the whole flock. With red. Like the trees. The entire forest is possessed.”
NICHOLAS
The doorbell rang. Silla, positioned at the window, jumped.
“I’ll get rid of them,” I said, skimming my hand down Silla’s back. I cursed the fact that since my windows all faced the rear of the house, I couldn’t see the car that had pulled up. She nodded and said, “I’ll start going through Dad’s portfolio.” After kissing her neck, I jogged down the stairs.
The art deco clock hanging on the second floor landing told me it was just past four. Way too early for Dad and Lilith. I considered pretending we weren’t home, but my convertible was parked right out front.
The doorbell rang again, rewarding my headache with the dulcet tones of “Frère Jacques.”
When I swung the door open, I frowned. “What are you doing here?”
It was Eric, standing there in his favored rehearsal garb of sweats and a long-sleeved shirt. His hair stuck up in twelve different directions, and he lowered a cigarette from his mouth to scowl and say, “Nice, Nick. I’m here to find out if you’re coming to school tomorrow. Especially rehearsal. I was thinking you’d make a great stand-in for some of the fight choreography. Patrick blows when it comes to taking a hit.”
“I’m considering school tomorrow,” I said slowly as Eric offered me a drag and leaned his butt back against the doorjamb.
“Naw, I have my own vices.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Ashtray?”
“Just toss it outside when you go.”
“Well, I’m busy, okay?”
“Silla upstairs?”
I pressed my lips together. “Don’t go there.”
Eric held up his hands. “Hey, far be it from me to interfere with a little post-funeral grieving.”
If only that’s what was going on. If. Only. “Look, hopefully I’ll be at school tomorrow, okay? To help you play with your pointy sticks.”
He paused, staring at me with his eyes narrowed as if he couldn’t decide whether or not to make a joke out of that last line. I was mildly impressed he even considered taking the higher road.
Finally he saluted me with his cigarette. “Enjoy, man.”
I closed the door, not letting my smile fall away until there was no way he could see me. I stood there, head leaned back against the front door, eyes closed, and wished that getting into Silla’s pants was the biggest of my concerns.
SILLA
Nick tromped out of the attic, and I focused on Dad’s notes, dragging out the huge Latin-English dictionary. The first spell was called loricatus. Armor.
That sounded promising.
I skimmed a little, frustrated that it was taking so long, and wishing Wendy was here. She’d always been better at Latin than me, much to Dad’s chagrin.
I kept flipping through the pages, wishing like I had when I was taking the class that I could just take a nap with the pages under my pillow and while I slept the translations would trickle in through my ear.
“To bind.”
This one was all in English.
Silla, I created this spell to use against her. I do not believe in using the magic offensively, but there may be no choice. If I fail, I pray you never have to use this.
Hands shaking, I read through the spell. The ingredients were wax, red ribbon, a physical piece of the subject to be bound, and a box. You pressed the hair or fingernails, or anything like that, into the wax, shut it into the box, and tied the ribbon around it. A drop of blood to lock the knot, and then the whole thing was buried. With a rune over the top of it. To bind a spirit into a place or person, you had to make a circle around it with the rune at all the corners.