Free The Blood Keeper (The Blood Journals) by Tessa Gratton Page A

anyone at all?”
    Nick edged closer to me. “I asked him, and he said his father lived in a cabin next to the river but that we should please just leave. I didn’t like it, but when I tried to go for his dad, the kid lifted up his shirt and …” He wiped his hands on his jeans and then got off the porch. He walked through the gatheredcrows, causing them to flap and bark at him, to hunker down in the pebbled driveway. “Here, Mab.”
    I joined him, enjoying the massage of the tiny smooth stones on my bare feet. Nick used his finger to draw a complicated symbol into the pebbles. “This was carved into the small of his back.”
    “A black candle rune.”
    “Whatever you call it. I know what it’s for.”
    I could tell Nick wished he didn’t know. Two years ago, Faith’s husband, Eli, had known a woman being stalked in Kansas City, and so Arthur and I had spun together a powerful charm to turn the man away, to bend his desires off of Eli’s friend. We’d used a black candle rune on an old walnut tree, tying the charm to its life instead of our own, and within nine days the leaves had fallen dark and twisted and dead.
    Tracing my finger over Nick’s rune, I said softly, “His father did it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I’ve never heard of a witch using another person for a familiar like that.”
    “Glad to hear it, because I was a little afraid you’d say it was no big deal.”
    I glanced sharply at him, the words pinching. “You were?”
    Nick winced. “Just a little. Sorry.”
    “It’s good you brought him,” I said, standing up and walking farther out into the yard, where the morning sun was high enough over the caps of the trees that it hit me full and warm in the face.
    “It’s what you do.” He joined me, tipping his hat to shade his eyes.
    “What
we
do,” I corrected. “And we won’t stop even if we’re in Oregon, will we?”
    Nick laughed, sharp and loud. “No, I guess not.”
    “Good.” I faced him and put a hand flat on his T-shirt, just over his heart. “Our family spreads all across the continent, Nick. Donna might think distance changes that, but I know better.”
    He squinted down at me, brow furrowed under the brim of the porkpie. Once, he had told me,
You’re nothing like your mother
, and even though I knew he was completely wrong, his saying it made me love him. “Okay, Mab.” He took my hand off his chest but held it as he pulled me back inside to avoid further sensitive talk. “Maybe we should go make some bacon fit for human consumption before they wake up.”
    As we went, I glanced up at the window over the kitchen, where Pan slept, and sent up a silent prayer that the magic of the black candle rune was already broken.

TEN
    The first days I lived with you, I helped prepare for winter. You and Gabriel repaired the fence around the horse pasture, though you had no horses, and took turns summoning winds to blow through the barn in order to find and plug all the leaks. There was plenty of cleaning in the house, and I mended several blankets as well as marking out the boundaries of what would be my garden in the spring. I chipped away at the cold earth to plant a few winter bulbs, and helped you clean the chimney
.
    When you took me into town to purchase stockpiles of feed for the chickens, I became Gabriel’s niece, because he looked almost old enough for it. I suggested buying up all the late autumn fruit we could find, because I knew how to can it so that we’d have sweets for Christmas. “You’ll be indispensable,” Gabriel said, fingers pressing into my shoulder as he hugged me against his side at the grocer’s
.
    I used the last of my money to buy a wool dress and sweaters, as well as a strong pair of boots. Things more suited to a farm than my pleated skirts and ankle shoes. Gabriel insisted on a pair of seed pearls for my ears, and when I demurred, he said loudly enough for others to hear, “Let me spoil my poor niece in her time of tragedy.” I was trapped and gave