Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton Read Free Book Online Page B

and body parts! There is a shelf of Shakespeare, which he told me I was not sophisticated enough for, so I grabbed up a play named
The Tempest,
and I read a speech by a creature named Ariel again and again, until it was trapped in my mind. After dinner I stood and recited it for Philip. He slowly clapped his hands and called me his little air sprite. His face became sad, and he asked if I understood what Ariel said. “He has made a storm and destroyed men, for love of Prospero!” I said
.
    “For love of Prospero,” he said, and he laughed quietly. “Little sprite, tomorrow will you come with me, to assist with my Work?”
    Of course I did agree
.
    I began to help him gather the Blood the very next day
.
    It comes from his patients. He bleeds them as physicians did Long Ago, but not to drain the Illness away. That is old superstition with no Truth in it. Philip says this with disgust. But his patients do not know better than to let him do it, and if they did, no one would listen to such people as he helps. I do not know WHY he helps them, people who will not or cannot go to hospital, who are poor and dark and dirty
.
    I did not want to go back into those places, but I am clean and fine now, and they would never Know me. The smells did not disgust me before, but now everything is horrible. Philip does not care! He kneels at their beds and does not notice when a woman is black with dirt or a child has vomit crusted in the corners of his mouth! I stare and stand beside him holding the ceramic cup as the blood flows in, trying to pretend I was never on a bed like that, all Lumpy and Infested, that I was never ugly and that my hands have always been so soft from Philip’s oils. I close my eyes and pretend that I do not recall the repetition of the shuttle and the heat when I had to touch the thread to untangle it before Mrs. Wheelock noticed. I do not think about the smell of boiled onions coming from the patients’ fire and that once such things were all I had to eat
.
    I hate this! I hate him for making me remember what I was. What I swear on my immortal soul I shall never, ever be again
.
    I close myself off to the memories, and we are suddenly players on a dark stage, my Prospero and I, gathering the Blood for our midnight secrets. Although it is only a small amount that we take from each patient, I imagine the cup growing heavy in my hands until my arms
tremble with the effort. I measure it into flasks from his leather bag and label them with different-colored inks and different letters. The colors for stages of health and the letters for which ailment affects them. When I arrive home, I take the flasks into the laboratory and lay them out in groups and rows where they belong
.
    One afternoon, I stood in the shadowy corner of the laboratory, holding a flask up to stare at the way the Blood separated. It was so strange, and I remember I was curious why it did not do that inside my skin
.
    Philip came in with sweat on his forehead, and did not notice me there. He yawned until his jaw cracked, and collapsed behind his desk. The windows were drawn tightly shut, and only two gas lamps were lit, because I prefer the dimness. He leaned back into his chair and whispered, “I will never find it.”
    I was unable to resist walking behind him. I rubbed his shoulders as Mrs. Wheelock rubbed Mr. Wheelock’s when he came to the mill on Fridays
.
    “Josephine,” Philip said, reaching up to touch my hands. “I did not see you, child.”
    I bent and kissed his fingers. I am not a child. I am his airy sprite
.
    With my hand in his, he drew me around and turned his chair so we faced one another. “It truly does not bother you to be here, with the lights so low and surrounded by blood?”
    I laughed
.
    “No, not you.” He shook his head. “Come here.” He stood with my hand in his. His fingers were cold. I followed him to one of the long tables, the one bare of phials and flasks. A circle was etched into it, and dark stains