Read Online The Blood Keeper (The Blood Journals) by Tessa Gratton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tessa Gratton
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assurance, “It was well done, and no lie. In the eyes of God, certainly, our blood is connected.”
I was able to meet your glance, glad to hear you voice the connection I felt already. “I did allow,” I admitted, shakily, “that if they do not have news of me within the month, to send the authorities here to you, to say you had no doubt done horrible things to me.”
Gabriel laughed again and got to his feet. “I like you, Evie. You have the courage of a blue jay—yelling and beating away birds five times your size to protect what’s yours.”
“And you do not need protection from us,” you added. “You’re safe, Miss Sonnenschein, here.”
I allowed myself a smile. “That is what I need, and all I want in addition is to be busy. To build a garden, perhaps, and cook and sew and learn the land. For now.”
All during the train ride from Chicago, I’d held dear the hope that you would offer me a home, knowing it was temporary. While I grew and learned, while I found my happiness again. After a few years I would take the train to Kansas City for college, would find a calling beyond the garden, then find a good man and raise my own family
.
But already those imaginings were breaking into little pieces. Every time you looked at me, a shard of my old dreams fell away
.
You would not let me clean the kitchen because it was my first night, instead dragging Gabriel in to help you. As the two of you banged around, as Gabriel lifted his voice in an old French song I could not understand, I walked outside into the darkness with the handkerchief of ground paprika
.
Cold wind brushed the trees together, making me shiver in the thin blue dress I’d worn under my coat all the way from Chicago. It was darker thanany night I’d ever seen, and the stars sprinkled across the sky like spilled salt. I rolled off my stockings and shuffled through the high, wild grass to the southwest corner of the house, which I thought would be best for my garden. Here there would be both shade and sun, where the hill cut down steeply enough that the trees didn’t grow too near the house
.
Kneeling, I dug into the cool earth with my fingers, sifting through the loamy soil. There I set down my grandmother’s mother’s handkerchief, with its little bits of paprika dust. I spilt three drops of blood over it and buried it all with a short prayer that it would settle my spirit and make roots for my heart
.
NINE
WILL
I dreamed about crazy-sharp rose thorns and struggles in the dark. When I woke up, sweat stuck the sheets to me. My mouth was a wasteland, and my chest ached. I stumbled to the bathroom. I rinsed and brushed and swished Listerine—twice. I was rewarded with a few minutes free of it, but by the time I finished my shower it was creeping back with a hint of blood. So was the quick memory of a rose petal falling out of my mouth onto the messed-up face of a mud monster.
I tried not to think about that. Couldn’t have been real. It was only dreams. A new twist to my Holly nightmares. But I barely bothered drying off before pulling my lips back to check my tongue and gums for cuts. Maybe I’d actually been bleeding just slightly since yesterday morning? But there was nothing cut that I could see, and no tender spots as I poked around.
Maybe it was a head injury.
What if I had a tumor or something and it was making me taste blood and imagine crazy girls fighting off mud monsters? I turned away from the mirror and took deep breaths.
Back in my bedroom, I powered up the computer while I pulled on clothes. The Internet wouldn’t be the most accurate place to find medical info, but it could give me an idea.
I started on one of those symptom tracker sites and put in “metallic taste” and “furry tongue,” which felt true. The site told me I might be constipated. I laughed, because that definitely wasn’t the case. Other options: medical reaction (no kidding), antibiotic use (not that I knew of), or poisoning.
I scrubbed at
I was able to meet your glance, glad to hear you voice the connection I felt already. “I did allow,” I admitted, shakily, “that if they do not have news of me within the month, to send the authorities here to you, to say you had no doubt done horrible things to me.”
Gabriel laughed again and got to his feet. “I like you, Evie. You have the courage of a blue jay—yelling and beating away birds five times your size to protect what’s yours.”
“And you do not need protection from us,” you added. “You’re safe, Miss Sonnenschein, here.”
I allowed myself a smile. “That is what I need, and all I want in addition is to be busy. To build a garden, perhaps, and cook and sew and learn the land. For now.”
All during the train ride from Chicago, I’d held dear the hope that you would offer me a home, knowing it was temporary. While I grew and learned, while I found my happiness again. After a few years I would take the train to Kansas City for college, would find a calling beyond the garden, then find a good man and raise my own family
.
But already those imaginings were breaking into little pieces. Every time you looked at me, a shard of my old dreams fell away
.
You would not let me clean the kitchen because it was my first night, instead dragging Gabriel in to help you. As the two of you banged around, as Gabriel lifted his voice in an old French song I could not understand, I walked outside into the darkness with the handkerchief of ground paprika
.
Cold wind brushed the trees together, making me shiver in the thin blue dress I’d worn under my coat all the way from Chicago. It was darker thanany night I’d ever seen, and the stars sprinkled across the sky like spilled salt. I rolled off my stockings and shuffled through the high, wild grass to the southwest corner of the house, which I thought would be best for my garden. Here there would be both shade and sun, where the hill cut down steeply enough that the trees didn’t grow too near the house
.
Kneeling, I dug into the cool earth with my fingers, sifting through the loamy soil. There I set down my grandmother’s mother’s handkerchief, with its little bits of paprika dust. I spilt three drops of blood over it and buried it all with a short prayer that it would settle my spirit and make roots for my heart
.
NINE
WILL
I dreamed about crazy-sharp rose thorns and struggles in the dark. When I woke up, sweat stuck the sheets to me. My mouth was a wasteland, and my chest ached. I stumbled to the bathroom. I rinsed and brushed and swished Listerine—twice. I was rewarded with a few minutes free of it, but by the time I finished my shower it was creeping back with a hint of blood. So was the quick memory of a rose petal falling out of my mouth onto the messed-up face of a mud monster.
I tried not to think about that. Couldn’t have been real. It was only dreams. A new twist to my Holly nightmares. But I barely bothered drying off before pulling my lips back to check my tongue and gums for cuts. Maybe I’d actually been bleeding just slightly since yesterday morning? But there was nothing cut that I could see, and no tender spots as I poked around.
Maybe it was a head injury.
What if I had a tumor or something and it was making me taste blood and imagine crazy girls fighting off mud monsters? I turned away from the mirror and took deep breaths.
Back in my bedroom, I powered up the computer while I pulled on clothes. The Internet wouldn’t be the most accurate place to find medical info, but it could give me an idea.
I started on one of those symptom tracker sites and put in “metallic taste” and “furry tongue,” which felt true. The site told me I might be constipated. I laughed, because that definitely wasn’t the case. Other options: medical reaction (no kidding), antibiotic use (not that I knew of), or poisoning.
I scrubbed at
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