Of Blood and Bone Read online

  “Vant,” Simon corrected. “Irrelevant—and it’s not.”

  “I picked most of the corn. It should count.”

  “Instead of worrying about the dishes—which you will do—maybe you should eat the corn,” Lana suggested as she helped Ethan butter his ear.

  “In a free society, everybody has a vote.”

  “Too bad you don’t live in one.” Simon gave Colin a poke in the ribs that had Colin flashing a toothy grin.

  “The corn is good!” Ethan, though he’d lost a couple of baby teeth, bit his way enthusiastically down the ear. He had his mother’s blue eyes, her pretty blond hair, and the sunniest of dispositions.

  “Maybe I’ll run for president.” Colin, never one to be deterred, pushed forward. “I’ll be president of the Swift Family Farm and Cooperative. Then the village. I’ll name it Colinville and never wash dishes again.”

  “Nobody’d vote for you.” Travis, nearly close enough in looks to be Colin’s twin, snickered.

  “I’ll vote for you, Colin!”

  “What if I ran for president, too?” Travis asked Ethan.

  “I’d vote for both of you. And Fallon.”

  “Leave me out of it,” Fallon rebuked, poking at the food on her plate.

  “You can only vote for one person,” Travis pointed out.

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “‘Because’ is dumb.”

  “This whole conversation is dumb.” Fallon flicked a hand in the air. “You can’t be president because, even if there were any real structure of government, you’re not old enough or smart enough.”

  “I’m as smart as you,” Colin tossed back, “and I’ll get older. I can be president if I want. I can be anything I want.”

  “In your dreams,” Travis added with a smirk.

  It earned him a kick under the table, which he returned.

  “A president is a leader, and a leader leads.”

  When Fallon surged to her feet, Simon started to speak, to shut things down, but caught Lana’s eye.

  “You don’t know anything about being a leader.”

  “You don’t know anything about anything,” Colin shot back.

  “I know a leader doesn’t go around naming places after himself. I know a leader has to be responsible for people, make sure they have food and shelter, has to decide who goes to war, who lives and dies. I know a leader has to fight, maybe even kill.”

  As she raged, shimmers of light sparked around her in angry red.

  “A leader’s who everybody looks to for answers, even when there aren’t any. Who everyone blames when things go wrong. A leader’s the one who has to do the dirty work, even if it’s the damn dishes.”

  She stalked away, trailing that angry light into the house. Slamming the door behind her.

  “Why does she get to act like a brat?” Colin demanded. “Why does she get to be mean?”

  Ethan, tears swirling in his eyes, turned to his mother. “Is Fallon mad at us?”

  “No, baby, she’s just mad. We’re going to give her a little time alone, okay?” She looked over at Simon. “She just needs some space. She’ll apologize, Colin.”

  He only shrugged. “I can be president if I want. She’s not the boss of the world.”

  Lana’s heart tore a little. “Did I mention I made peach pie for dessert?” Pie, she knew, was a no-fail way to turn her boys’ moods around. “That is, for anyone who clears his plate.”

  “I know a good way to work off that pie.” In tune with Lana, Simon went back to his meal. “A little basketball.”

  Since he’d created a half court on the side of the barn, basketball had become one of his boys’ favorite pastimes.

  “I wanna be on your team, Daddy!”

  Simon grinned at Ethan, gave him a wink. “We’ll wipe the court with them, champ.”

  “No way.” Colin dived back into the meal. “Travis and I will crush.”

  Travis looked at his mother, held her gaze a long moment.

  He knows, Lana thought. And so did Colin, even if anger and insult blocked it away.

  Their sister wasn’t the boss of the world, but she carried the weight of it on her shoulders.

  * * *

  Fallon’s temper burned out in a spate of self-pity tears. She flung herself on her bed to shed them—the bed her father had built to replicate one she’d seen in an old magazine. Eventually the tears died away into headachy sulks.

  It wasn’t fair, nothing was fair. And Colin started it. He always started something with his big, stupid ideas. Probably because he didn’t have any magicks. Probably because he was jealous.

  He could have her magicks, then he could go off with some stranger to learn how to be the savior of the whole stupid world.

  She just wanted to be normal. Like the girls in the village, at the other farms. Like anyone.

  She heard the shouts, the laughter through her open window, tried to ignore it. But she rose, looked out.

  The sky held blue on that long, late summer day, but like her mother, she felt a storm coming.

  She saw her father, with Ethan perched on his shoulders, walking toward the barn. The older boys already raced around the curve of blacktop in the basketball shoes their father had scavenged.

  She didn’t want to smile when her dad nipped the ball from Colin, held it up for Ethan, then walked Ethan to the basket so he could drop the ball through the hoop.

  She didn’t want to smile.

  The older boys looked like Dad, Ethan looked like Mom.

  And she looked like the man on the back of a book.

  That alone often cut more than she thought she could stand.

  She heard the soft knock on her door, then her mother came in. “I thought you might be hungry. You barely touched your dinner.”

  Shame began to push through the sulks. Fallon only shook her head.

  “Later then.” Lana set the plate on the dresser Simon had built. “You know how to warm it up when you’re ready.”

  Fallon shook her head again, but this time tears spilled. Lana simply walked to her, drew her in.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.”

  “I spoiled everything.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I wanted to.”

  Lana kissed Fallon’s cheek. “I know, but you didn’t. You’ll apologize to your brothers, but right now, you can hear they’re happy. Nothing’s spoiled.”

  “I don’t look like them, or you, or Dad.”

  Lana ran a hand down Fallon’s long black ponytail, then eased back to look into those familiar gray eyes.

  “I’ve told you about the night you were born. It’s always been one of your favorite stories.” As she spoke, she guided Fallon to the bed, sat on the side of it with her. “I’ve never told you about the night you were conceived.”

  “I…” Heat rose to her cheeks. She knew what conceived meant, and how it happened. “That’s— It’s weird.”

  “You’re almost thirteen, and even if we hadn’t already talked about all of this, you live on a farm. You know where babies come from and how they get there.”

  “But it’s weird when it’s your mom.”

  “A little weird,” Lana allowed, “so I’ll ease you into it. We lived in Chelsea. That’s a neighborhood in New York. I loved it. There was a sweet little bakery across the street, a good deli on the corner. Pretty shops close by, lovely old buildings. We had a loft—I moved into Max’s loft. I loved that, too. There were big windows facing the street. You could see the world rush by. Shelves full of books. The kitchen wasn’t nearly as big as the one here at home, but it was completely up-to-date. We often had dinner parties with friends.

  “I worked at a good restaurant, and had some vague plans about opening my own one day.”

  “You’re the best cook.”

  “Not a lot of competition for that now.” Lana tucked an arm around Fallon’s waist. “I came home from work, and we had some wine, some really goo
d wine, and made love. And after, only minutes after, something just burst inside me. Such light, such glory, such … I can’t explain the feeling, even now. It took my breath, in the most beautiful way. Max felt it, too. We joked about it a little. He got a candle. My gift had been so small that even lighting a candle was hit-and-miss, and only hit after a lot of effort.”

  “Really? But you—”

  “Changed, Fallon. Opened, that night. I lit the candle with barely a thought. It rose in me, the new power. As it did in Max, in all of us who had magicks inside. But for me, what I had inside was you. That moment, that burst, that glory, that light was you. I wouldn’t know for weeks, but it was you. You sparked inside me that night. I came to know, and some you showed me while still inside me, that you aren’t just special to me, to Max, to Simon, but to all.”

  “I don’t want to go away.” Fallon buried her face in Lana’s shoulder. “I don’t want to be The One.”

  “Then say no. It’s your choice, Fallon. You can’t be forced, and I’d never allow anyone to force you. Your father would never allow it.”

  She knew this, too. They’d told her, always, it would be her decision. But … “You wouldn’t be disappointed in me? Ashamed of me?”

  “No.” Lana pulled Fallon close, held her tight. “No, no, never.” How many nights had she raged and grieved over what would be asked of this child? This child. Her child. “You’re my heart,” Lana comforted. “I’m proud of you every day. I’m proud of you, your mind, your heart, your light. Oh God, it burns so bright. And I’d take that light from you without hesitation to spare you from making the choice. From having to make it.”

  “He died to save me. My birth father.”

  “Not just because of what you might be. Because he loved you. Fallon, you and I? We’re the luckiest women. We’ve been loved by two amazing men, two courageous men. Whatever you decide, they and I will love you.”

  Fallon held on, comforted, eased. Then felt … She drew carefully back. “There’s more. I can feel it. I can feel there’s more, things you haven’t told me.”

  “I told you about New Hope, and—”

  “Who’s Eric?”

  Lana jerked back. “Don’t do that. You know the rule about pushing into another mind.”

  “I didn’t. I swear. I just saw it. Felt it. There’s more,” Fallon said, and now her voice trembled. “More you’re not telling me because you’re worried. You’re afraid for me, I can feel it. But if you don’t tell me everything, how will I know what to do?”

  Lana rose, walked to the window. She looked out at her boys, at her man, at the two old dogs, Harper and Lee, sleeping in the sun. At the two young dogs running around the boys. At the farm, the home she treasured. At the life she’d built. Dark always pushed against the light, she thought with some bitterness.

  Magick always demanded a price.

  She’d kept things from her child, from the brightest of lights because she feared. Because she wanted her family together, at home. Safe.

  “I kept things from you because, under it all, I wanted you to say no. I told you about the attack when we lived in the house in the mountains.”

  “Two who were with you turned. They were Dark Uncanny, but you didn’t know until they tried to kill you. To kill me. You and Max and the others fought, and thought you’d destroyed them.”

  “Yes, but we hadn’t.”

  “They attacked again in New Hope. They came for me, and to save you, to save me, Max sacrificed himself. You ran like he told you to do. You ran because they’d come back again, and you had to protect me. You were alone a long time, and they hunted you. And you found the farm, you found Dad.”

  Fallon took a breath. “Was this Eric one of them? One of the dark?”

  “Yes. He and the woman he was with, the woman I think helped turn him away from the light. They wanted to kill me, to kill you. They killed Max. Eric is Max’s brother.”

  “His brother?” Shock ran straight through her. Brothers, she thought, horrified, however irritating, were brothers. They were family. “My uncle. My blood.”

  “Eric chose to betray that blood, chose to kill his own brother. Chose the dark.”

  “He chose,” Fallon murmured. After another breath, she squared her shoulders. “You need to tell me all of it. You can’t leave anything out. Will you tell me?”

  “Yes.” Lana pressed her fingers to her eyes. She already knew, looking into those familiar gray eyes, what choice her child would make. “Yes, I’ll tell you everything.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Fallon apologized. Colin shrugged it off, but since she knew from experience he held a grudge, she prepared for retaliation. With her birthday—and the choice—only weeks away, she preferred thinking about her brother’s revenge.

  That was normal, that was family.

  And she preferred the calculation in his eyes to the worry she often saw in her mother’s, her father’s.

  She helped cut hay and wheat, harvest fruit and vegetables. Daily chores helped keep her steady. She didn’t complain about the kitchen work—or only muttered about it in her head. The end of summer and the coming of fall meant hours of making jams and jellies, canning that fruit and those vegetables for the winter to come.

  A winter she dreaded.

  When she could, she escaped, using her free time to ride the fields and the woods on her beloved horse, Grace. Named for the pirate queen Fallon had long admired.

  She might ride to the stream just to sit and think—her baited hook in the water was an afterthought. If she brought home fish to eat or to barter, so much the better. But the hour or two of solitude fed her young, anxious soul.

  She might practice little magicks there—calling the butterflies, making the fish jump, spinning little funnels of air with her fingers.

  On a hot day of bold sun and stingy breezes that seemed to claim summer would never end, she sat in her favorite spot. Because she wanted to read, her fishing pole hung magickally suspended over the stream.

  She could make the fish bite the bait, but such powers—she’d been taught—were only to be used to feed real hunger.

  Birds called now and again. She heard an occasional rustle in the understory. If she hadn’t been deep in her book, she would have tested herself to identify the sounds. Deer, rabbit, squirrel, fox, bear. And more rarely, man.

  But she enjoyed letting herself slide into a story—a really scary one—about a young boy with a gift, with a shining (a light), trapped in an old hotel with evil.

  She didn’t pay attention to the plop of the water, even when it repeated. Not when the bushes shaped like animals outside the evil hotel moved, not when they threatened the boy.

  But the gurgling voice got her attention.

  Her heart, already racing from the story, gave one hard thud as she heard her name whispered in that watery voice. And the water in the stream rippled.

  Cautiously, she set the book aside and rose, one hand on the knife in her belt.

  “What magick is this?” she murmured.

  Was it a sign? Was it something dark come to call?

  Her name came again, and the water seemed to shudder, to writhe. Butterflies that had danced along the water’s edge swarmed away in a buttercup-colored cloud.

  And the air went silent as a grave.

  Well, she wasn’t a little boy in a book, she reminded herself, stepping closer to the edge of the stream.

  “I’m Fallon Swift,” she called out over the beat of blood in her ears. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “I have no name. I am all names.”

  “What do you want?”

  A single finger of water rose up from the rippling stream. It only took her a second to recognize which finger, and the meaning. But it was a second too late.

  They hit her from behind, three against one. She face-planted in the water, then surfaced to the sounds of her brothers’ hilarity.

  After she swiped her dripping hair out of her eyes, she found the bottom w
ith her feet, stood.

  “It took three of you, and an ambush.”

  “‘Who are you?’” Colin repeated in a quaking voice. “‘What do you want?’ You should’ve seen your face!”

  “Nice to see how you accept apologies.”

  “You deserved it. Now we’re even.”

  Maybe she had deserved it, and she had to give him credit for biding his time, enlisting his brothers. Even more, she had to admire the complexity and creativity of the trick.

  But.

  She considered her options, the humiliation if she failed, and decided to take the risk.

  She’d been practicing.

  While her brothers laughed and did their victory dance, she spoke to her horse, mind to mind. Moving forward, Grace head-butted Colin into the water.

  “Hey!” Shorter than Fallon, he tread water, managed to find his footing. “No fair.”

  “Neither is three against one.”

  Mad with laughter, Ethan jumped in. “I wanna swim, too.”

  “What the heck.” Travis toed off his shoes, cannonballed in.

  While the boys splashed and dunked each other, Fallon rolled over to float. This time she spoke mind to mind with Travis.

  This was your work.

  Yeah.

  I apologized.

  Yeah, but he needed this. And it was fun.

  He turned his head, smiled at her.

  Plus, it’s a hot day.

  The middle finger was rude.

  But funny.

  She couldn’t hold back her own smirk. But funny. I need a few minutes alone with Colin.

  Jeez, it’s just water.

  Not about that. Even steven. I just need a few minutes.

  His gaze sharpened on hers. He saw, he knew, as he usually did. He started to speak out loud, then turned away. Only nodded.

  She waded out of the stream, climbed out. After whisking her hands down her body to dry off, she stowed her book, her rod.

  “We have to get back,” she called out.

  She ignored the whining—mostly Ethan’s—gave a come-ahead gesture. “We’ve got to help with dinner, start the evening chores.”

  Travis climbed out; Fallon dried him off.

  “Thanks.”

  She had to crouch down to help Ethan out.

  “It’s funny to swim in your clothes.”