The Blood Keeper (The Blood Journals) Read Online Free PDF Page B

this deluge of magic; the bruises blossomed into yellow and faded away. My steps sped up and I opened my eyes, picking my way strongly and carefully through the forest.
    I was unable to stop the smile from curling across my face. My forest, my magic—it poured through my blood, and thepure, heady bliss washed away my disappointment. Instead my spirit flew.
    As I broke through the trees and into the clearing where the garden and house waited, the crows sprang up and flew for the porch. Half landed on the eaves, and the other half dropped down toward the garden around the west side. Donna lifted her head from beside the sweet-pea stakes—on the opposite side of the garden from the roses. Her wide-brimmed hat flopped back, and she smiled at first, but it faded quickly as I trudged nearer.
    “Are you all right?” she asked, pushing off her knees and coming at me, concern stretching to the corners of her face. She couldn’t tell that under all the mud and streaks of blood, I’d already healed myself.
    “I’m all right. Just tired.”
    Donna’s garden-green eyes scanned the runes I’d painted up and down my arms. “I’d assumed you were only out for your seven-day binding and got sidetracked by something shiny.”
    “I was—was experimenting. With ways to get rid of the roses.” I pulled my shoulders back and tried to affect the same airy confidence Arthur was so good at. I’m sure it sat on me like feathers on a cat. “It didn’t go as planned, but I’m fine.”
    She brushed a thumb under my eye and studied me with a calm nonexpression. She had her hair in braided pigtails that hung straight along her neck, making the thin wrinkles pulling at her eyes look like smiling lines instead of age. When she’d arrived here seven years ago, I’d only been ten, and her hair had been shaved away. I remembered sitting beside her on thegarden bench and running my fingers over the soft fuzz. “Why is it gone?” I’d whispered. She said, “I have to use the razor for something.” She always wore long sleeves, even in the sticking August weeks, so I’d only seen the rows of jagged scars striping up her forearms one morning when she’d washed her hands in the well.
    I was twelve when her hair was long enough that she could pin bits of it back from her face. Then she, Arthur, Granny Lyn, and I had done a small ritual at the blood ground, burying and binding the razor forever. It had been her very last spell. Donna still wore long sleeves and rarely smiled, but her flowers and vegetables grew full and sweet.
    “You’ll figure it out, little queen—they’re already looking pretty devastated,” she said, glancing toward the center of the garden, at the mess of mud and petals where I’d knelt that morning. “Why don’t you go take a bath? I’ll make breakfast, since I assume you skipped, and tea.”
    “Thank you.” I hefted my bag higher on my shoulder and headed for the house. I wished I could tell her everything, about the doll and Will. But I would never confess to Donna that I’d trapped and killed a deer, that I’d used bone dust and my own hair to create a living doll. She wouldn’t understand, because although Donna was a blood witch, just like me, she refused to use her power. Arthur had taught me it was a gift, that it was who I was. Donna believed it was more of a curse we had to control.
    We walked up the porch together, and a couple of the crows darted in through the open kitchen window. Donna ignored them but to brush one off the counter, and reached forthe kettle. I watched her a moment. Her motions were always so certain and gentle, as if the world around her was a delicate thing.
    “Mab?”
    I blinked. “Sorry. Just thinking.”
    She watched me from the stove. “You looked like Arthur for a moment.”
    Hearing her say it helped me free myself from the sudden stupor. Mother used to tell me that Arthur could rule the world if he wanted to. I believed her because of the way he whispered to trees