Bad Blood Read online

  “You were talking about witches,” I say, studying her.

  “Witch…what a dreadful word. No’ at all accurate. The women in our family have always healed with herbs, called upon nature to help us out a time or two. No’ exactly the evils of witchcraft, if you ask me.”

  Gram just means our ancestors were midwives and medicine women, often accused of being witches back when people were ignorant and quick to hate a woman who was even a little different. I place the cup back down on the table.

  “Oh, but that Blood Magic, that’s another story. Unnatural, that.”

  “Blood Magic?” I repeat. “What’s that?”

  “Some nastiness you need no’ concern yourself with. Just know that sometimes the women in our family go…wrong. It doesn’t happen often, though. Either type. I mean, look at Abbie. I love that girl, but there isn’t an ounce of magic in her.”

  Magic and witches again. I don’t remember Gram being superstitious…and she always went to services at the Church of Scotland on Sundays. This must be a result of her dementia. She’s just confused…except. If it weren’t for the part she mentioned about the blood, I’d write off this whole conversation.

  When I ask her to clarify, she closes her mouth tight and sort of sucks on her teeth, so I change tactics. “Gram, were any of the women in our family burned as witches, you know, back in the day?”

  She stares over my shoulder. “Aye, it’s a terrible business. None of those women could have been witches, though. No’ the kind that people ordinarily think of when they think of witches. You know, the bad kind.”

  I want to laugh and say, As opposed to the good kind…like Glinda? But my gram looks deadly serious. “And why not?” I ask.

  She looks at me, crumbs on her chin and an eerie calm in her eyes. “Because, Heather, a Blood Witch cannae burn. A Blood Witch cuts her flesh and uses her own blood in her spells. A Blood Witch loses herself a little each time.”

  I exhale slowly, and the teacup that I placed on the table falls to the floor, smashing into a thousand pieces, causing me to jump out of my skin. “Oh my God, Gram,” I say with a laugh. “I’m sorry. I must have put it too close to the edge.”

  “It was nowhere near the edge,” she mumbles. “It was them who did it.”

  I get a broom and dustpan from the staff and clean up the shards. After that, all talk of witches and magic stops. I don’t want to encourage her to talk about things that don’t make sense, so instead I try to focus her on things that are real. We spend the rest of the time watching TV and chatting about events that happened five years ago. It’s hard for me to remember all the things that were going on back then, but Gram acts as if it were yesterday. I guess in her mind it was.

  Before I go she grabs my arm. “Now, dinnae go telling your dad I told you about witches. He’s a man. He wouldnae understand.”

  “I won’t,” I promise. It would hurt him to know how far gone she is.

  “And…you know if anything strange starts to happen, you can always talk to Sheena MacIntosh.”

  “I’m sorry, Gram. I don’t know who that is.” I assume it’s another person from her past, or maybe someone she made up altogether.

  “Of course you do. Aubrey’s daughter. The one who married Calum Brodie.”

  “Mrs. Brodie? Robby’s mom?”

  “She’s a talented one. It was clear early on that she had the gift, and Aubrey taught her well. Abigail never showed any promise, but maybe I should have told her more. I never really learned much myself. I was just frightened of…Well, never mind now.”

  “So I should talk to Mrs. Brodie?” I ask.

  “Yes, dear, but no’ right now. Maybe wait a few years. You have time yet. And it isnae a good time anyway.” She lowers her voice and I lean in expectantly. “I hear she’s getting a divorce,” she whispers, as if it’s taboo to say at full volume. I hold my tongue instead of saying yeah, that happened like, five years ago. Robby’s dad had a midlife crisis and ran off to live in Germany with some woman he met while he was there on a business trip. Robby and his brother usually spend Christmas with him, and Robby sends me a postcard from Munich every year. Last year he sent one with a weird horned-devil-looking creature with a sack of children on the front, and he scrawled across the back, Would Wish You Were Here…Except That I Wish I Wasn’t.

  Gram turns back to the TV, and I kiss her on the head before leaving the room.

  “Nice visit?” the receptionist asks as I walk by.

  “Yes. Strange,” I add.

  “Oh, love, you have to get used to it. They don’t always know what they’re saying.”

  For the briefest of moments I almost believed everything my grandmother said. I almost thought our family had some long lineage of witches. I laugh as I wait for the bus. How can I be so naïve?

  I’m feeling better about my strange conversation with Gram by the time I get home. Until I see my aunt.

  She’s on the couch, hugging a cleaning bucket. The treatment’s been hard on her, and she’s already puked up her lunch. I get her a wet washcloth to put on her head and tell her about my visit with Gram, about what she said about the witches.

  Aunt Abbie laughs weakly. “She’s always believed that otherworldy nonsense.”

  “Really? I had no idea.”

  “Well, you wouldnae. She talked to me more about it than your father. I remember once when I was about your age, actually. I sliced my palm while cutting potatoes, and you would have thought it was the end of the world. She accused me of doing something called Blood Magic and made me strip down so she could check my body for marks. After, she apologized and said it was all a joke. It was so strange. At the time I was angry with her….Then, later, I just thought she was a little loopy. But now…I wonder if it was the start of her dementia, if even way back then her mind was failing.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, my own marks burning. With the one on my arm ruined, last night I started a new carving on my right thigh, and I can even now feel the itchy healing of a new scab. It’s another spiral, carefully carved. For some reason, I felt compelled to draw it, to slice it into my skin. I want nothing more than to rip off that scab and make it bleed.

  I make a lame excuse to my aunt about being tired, flee to my room, and pull out my computer. When I search for Blood Witch, there are a lot of video game and role-playing game references, but no real information. Finally, on a dinky-looking Scottish history website, I find a few paragraphs.

  Though Natural Witches channel nature’s energies to perform their magiks, Blood Witches use their internal power. While Natural Magik puts considerable strain on a witch, recovery is usually achieved fairly quickly. Blood Magik, on the other hand, drains more than just a Blood Witch’s energy; it drains their very soul. Recovery happens more slowly, if at all.

  That is why a Blood Witch becomes increasingly more cruel and ruthless, for they no longer have the thing that makes them human, especially when casting Blood Magik in quick succession. Their soul’s energy does not have the time to replenish, creating a self-perpetuating cycle. A Blood Witch may not start off evil, but every time they perform the rituals using their blood, they sacrifice a bit of their humanity, allowing them to perform darker and darker magiks without qualms.

  So my gram had the lore right. Blood Witches were supposedly bad because they gave up a bit of themselves every time they performed magic. My doubts come flooding back to me. What if Gram does know something about what’s happening to me, something that I can’t or don’t want to understand?

  I take a deep breath. I need to talk to Robby’s mom. She’ll be able to clarify what Gram is trying to tell me—or maybe she’ll just tell me Gram’s crazy and I’m a fool for listening to her. Or maybe we’re both crazy. Maybe I have early-onset dementia. I rub my thigh.

  Maybe I’m the one who’s sick.

  ROBBY’S MOTHER’S SHOP isn’t far. It’s a tiny hole-in-the-wall place flanked by art galleries and restaurants. She sells “mystical Celtic objects” to
tourists. I’ve always thought of her as sort of dippy, but now I’m not so sure.

  I push open the door and am immediately assaulted by the scent of too much incense. I cough and Mrs. Brodie looks up from the cash register. She doesn’t recognize me at first, but a split second later she grins. “Heather! Robert told me you were back.”

  She comes out from behind the counter and gives me a hug. She reeks of patchouli. She wears what she always wears: a loose, flowing dress that matches her New Age image. Her black-brown hair is streaked with gray. Long and wild, it hangs past her butt.

  “What brings you by? Robert is working on the high street this summer, not here in the shop.”

  “I know, I just wanted to say hi.” I browse the merchandise, crystals and necklaces for power. What am I supposed to say to her…my gram thinks you’re a witch? She told me to come talk with you in case I’m one too? You know, the bad kind. It’s just all too ridiculous, and I’m about to bolt when a silver necklace catches my eye. The charm is three half circles intersecting to form a larger, three-pronged symbol.

  It’s the mark I sliced into my hip.

  “What is this?” I ask when I find my voice. My fingers itch to touch the charm, and I pick it up and hold it out for Mrs. Brodie to examine. “I mean, I know it’s a Celtic knot, but does it have a certain meaning?” There are a hundred different Celtic knot symbols. I’ve always been drawn to this one, though, so much so that I’ve carved it into my flesh.

  “Ahhhaye. That’s a very powerful Celtic symbol. It’s the Trinity knot,” she explains. She takes it from me, tracing the pattern with her finger. “See how three semicircles intersect to form three points? But if you look closely, you can see it’s all connected—it goes on infinitely.”

  “Oh…so Trinity like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?” I ask.

  She smiles, handing the charm back to me. “Not necessarily. There are many meanings, all open to interpretation, but I think this really represents the mind, the body, and the spirit, three aspects that make up a human being.”

  I can feel her eyes on me as I stare at the knot.

  “You know,” she says, “before Christianity came to Scotland, there were the Druids. The term holy trinity had a different meaning, and was said to be used by…well, for lack of a better word, witches.”

  There it was again. Witches. I laugh, but it comes out loud and unnatural. “Witches?” I ask, making my voice drip sarcasm.

  “It’s all folklore, of course,” Mrs. Brodie says. “Witches aren’t real. But the Celtic legends tell us that the Trinity knot represented the three ages of life for a witch; the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone—for witches were always women.”

  “Why? Why in the myths are witches women?”

  “Well, that’s just according to the lore. Traditionally, men have also been accused of witchcraft, but more often it was women. It was said because Eve was the beginning of all evil in this world. She conversed with the serpent, so only a woman was capable of such evil again, of contacting the devil and doing his bidding.”

  She laughs and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. She turns back to the counter and begins to tidy a tray of rings she must have pulled for another customer. “As if men aren’t capable of evil! If you ask me, the world would be a better place without them!” She winks at me. “Except for my Robert and Alistair, that is. Now, their father, on the other hand…” She trails off. She pauses in her fiddling on the counter. “The myth of the witch revolves around women because women are more attuned to their natural surroundings.”

  “But what about Blood Magic?” I ask, looking for her reaction.

  Her head jerks around. “Where did you hear about that? Not from Abbie…”

  “No, from my gram. She mentioned something to me the other day. She…she doesn’t really know what’s happening around her anymore,” I try to explain. “But she said that Blood Magic goes against nature.”

  Mrs. Brodie stares at me. “Aye, it does, or so the stories say. But Blood Magic is also the domain of women. Men…they often crave blood, but women bleed each month, whether they wish it or no’.”

  “Oh.” My face wrinkles. “Right.”

  “Wince if you like, but there’s power in blood. A witch who practices Blood Magic is a force to be reckoned with.”

  “Is it true that they would carve symbols into their skin?” I venture.

  Mrs. Brodie’s face twitches slightly. “And where did you hear that?”

  “The Internet,” I quickly say.

  “Aye, Blood Witches would carve symbols of power on their bodies. That’s where the devil’s mark theory came from, but even that was distorted, as if having a mole or a wayward nipple truly marked you as a witch. Blood Witches carved their flesh and sacrificed their blood for power.”

  A shudder runs through me. “Yeah, but that’s not real.”

  She smiles. “Depends on who you ask, I suppose.” She looks me up and down, studying me. Her eyes dart to the necklace in my hands.

  “Keep it.”

  “Really?” It’s expensive.

  “Only if you promise to wear it.”

  I slip it over my head and tuck the charm into my T-shirt, the metal cool on my skin.

  “I’ll tell Robby you came by. He’ll be pleased.”

  My face warms. “Thanks for the necklace, Mrs. Brodie.”

  “Please, dear, call me Sheena. And say hi to Abbie for me. Tell her I’ll be by soon with that special herb for her nausea,” she says. I raise my eyebrows, but she just shakes her head. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

  Before I leave, I turn back to her. “You never said….What did witches use the Trinity knot for?”

  “It’s supposed to help you obtain clarity,” she tells me, her dark eyes shining. “A witch could use it to look into her past or her future, or to understand her present.”

  I leave the shop more confused than I entered. I’m also majorly creeped out. I feel like all eyes are on me. My paranoia still hasn’t passed, even though it’s been days since I’ve taken my medicine. Or maybe it’s not just paranoia; maybe I am feeling something…more. Part of me wants to believe there is magic in this world, but Gram isn’t exactly a reliable source, and to be honest, neither is Robby’s hippie-dippy mother.

  My phone buzzes with a text from Robby.

  Mum just told me you stopped by…since ur out want to grab lunch w me? On my break soon.

  I smile, pushing down my crazy thoughts. Robby is solid and real. I can just picture Sheena on the phone five seconds after I left, telling Robby I’d been there.

  Sure, meet up at the Scott Monument? Grab food in New Town?

  See you in fifteen.

  Despite everything that’s going on, just the thought of seeing Robby makes me happy.

  Because, heaven help me, I have a crush on Robert Brodie.

  That night I dream of murder.

  THERE’S SOMEONE IN the cottage with Mam, one of the women from the village. I hope she’ll leave soon. I hope Da returns and catches Mam at her evil ways.

  I sit under the window, their voices carrying on the open air.

  “I wish you would let me come and apply it,” Mam tells the woman. “It will work better.”

  “Aye, but then my husband will ken I got it from you. I dinnae want to cause you and yours any trouble.”

  I hear him then. Da. He’s back early. I knew he would be; I knew he would listen to me. He enters the cottage and there is a terrible ruckus. The village woman flees through the door, crying.

  It sounds as if the devil himself is loose inside. Crockery smashes against the wall, and pieces fly through the window. They both scream, Da’s words full of venom. Mam’s cries are more guttural, and I cannae understand what she’s saying. Da calls her evil, a witch, an unclean handmaiden of the devil. Da shouts long after Mam has gone silent.

  After a while he leaves the cottage, finds me crouched under the window. He kneels next to me.

 
“You were right to tell me, Prudence.” He holds out his arm and pulls me to him, holding me in a rare hug. “Where’s your sister?”

  “By the brook,” I say quietly. I want to peek in the window, to look in on Mam, but I lack the courage.

  “Go to the carriage. Now.” His tone holds all his authority, and I obey him without question.

  I walk slowly to the carriage, not daring to look back, and sit inside. After a long while, Primrose is thrust through the door. Her eyes and nose are red. She sniffles and eyes me hatefully. Da does not sit with us. He goes up front to drive the horses. We pull away from our home.

  “You told him,” Primrose spits out.

  “I had to. It was the right thing to do.”

  “I hate you,” she tells me. She’s said those words to me before, but this is the first time I believe them. “I hate you and I will never forgive you for this.” She wipes her nose. “Da says we’re going to Edinburgh. That we are never coming back. That we’re never going to see Mam again.”

  I nod, try not to cry. What have I done?

  “What will she do without us?”

  I think of the silent cottage and I do cry then. It hurts, and I wish I could take back what I did, but I cannae. All I can do is try to be good for Da. All I can do is hope that Primrose one day forgives me.

  I WAKE IN a cold sweat, my aunt at my side.

  “Oh, love. Can I get you anything…water?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I tell her.

  “Your father was so hopeful. He thought the night terror was an isolated incident. They thought the visit has been good for you.”

  “It has. That one wasn’t so bad,” I lie.

  After I convince my aunt to go back to sleep, I change my pajamas and strip the bed of the soaked sheets. I pull my blanket around me and lie shivering on the bare mattress.

  The Trinity knot was one of the first symbols I carved into my flesh. Mrs. Brodie said that witches used the symbol to see into the past. Is that what I could be doing? Dreaming visions of the past? If so, why? I can’t do anything about the past. I can’t save that woman. She’s been dead for hundreds of years.