Blood To Blood (3 page)

I’d just run through the snow
barefoot. But the forgotten boots didn’t trouble me as much as the fact that my
feet were warm and dry.

I decided to fix it with a
glamour—a spell designed to make things appear anyway you want them to.
Dad, who’s like a guru of illusion, taught me how, but I could never be as good
as he is. Dad can make himself, or any of us, look like any race or even gender
we want. It’s his ability to conjure up radical illusions that make him and Mom
look, to mortal eyes, as if they’re aging (a pretty handy skill to have, since
our family’s lived in the same Beacon Hill brownstone since
the early
1800s)
. I quickly performed a
simple glamour for “shoe” that would have made Dad proud. “Shoes,” I whispered
to seal the spell into place.

By the time the cab arrived
at the rehearsal studio, I could barely breathe with all the anticipation. It
had been five weeks since my last session, and during that time I hadn’t known
how much I missed the place until I pushed through the squeaky metal door.

Mr. C. was sitting at his
polished grand piano, finishing up with another client. I sat down in the
corner to wait. Soon, he gave me the kind of firm hug a grandfather would.
“Congratulations on the contract, my dear. The first of many I’m sure.” His
hawk-like eyes took in my appearance from head to toe. “You’ve been sleeping
less,” he said, before his gaze stopped at my feet. “Interesting,” he mused.

Mr. C. sometimes didn’t act
like a normal mortal. I was positive my glamour for “shoe” worked perfectly,
because no one looked at me sideways since I got out of the cab. But Caulkins’
gaze, zoned in on my feet, was accompanied by his signature “enigma
stare”—a peculiar set of his face that never gave away anything of what
he observed.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been away
too long,” I replied.

“You’ve been performing so
much, you may not even need me for practice anymore.” He winked at me before
lowering himself onto the bench to pound out a scale in the key of C.

The stupid, the scary, and
the confusing immediately evaporated as I reveled in the cleansing act of
breathing in, letting my breath slowly flow back out through my diaphragm and
lungs, and expressing my jumbled emotions with
just the right
sound;
using breath, throat, gut, and tongue to form aural bubbles through lips and
teeth. It was these times, during the execution of song, when I felt complete.
Normal. My voice caressed high C as I watched the sound waves flow from my
mouth…

Mr. C. once said he thought
my octave range was well above fifteen. We both knew this was allegedly humanly
impossible…and he never mentioned it again. He always made me feel like he had
my back, like he completely accepted me, even though he didn’t completely
understand
me.

We climbed higher along the
scale ladder until he reached the end. “How about a song,” he suggested with
that twinkle in his eye.

“O Mio Babbino Caro!” I
squealed before his knotted hands delicately introduced the first chord.
Bubblegum pop lyrics were what I belted out on stage, but my first love was
opera. Only my family and Mr. C. knew that. To me, its soaring arias were the
closest thing to aural perfection known to mortal or immortal. For the longest
time, I thought everyone also saw musical notes the same way I did; as rays of
light before my eyes—some darker than others and some as bright as a
quasar—that danced together in rhythm with the melody.  Beyond the
light show, Mr. C. arched over the grand, his nicotine-stained fingers hung in
mid-air before dropping forcefully on the keys. Pushing out the highest note in
the song, and climbing from there, I emitted the
note-for-which-there-was-no-name and watched the light rays bend…

And then, Mr. C’s eyes bulged
like they’d pop out of his skull, right before he crumpled to a dead slump all
over the piano keys.

I
yelled his name, but there was no
response. He had a pulse, his chest rose up and down, but for once Mr. C.
looked every one of his seventy-seven mortal years. His eyes fluttered opened
as he slowly raised himself into a sitting position.

I reached for his water
glass. He glanced around the room as if he didn’t know where he was and, with
shaky hands, gripped the glass, emptied it, and handed it back to me.

“What happened?”

Was that accusation in his
voice? No, of course not, I thought. I was nowhere near him when he passed out.
So why
did
I feel guilty? I placed the empty glass back on the piano.
“You passed out, Mr. C. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, girl, fine,” he
replied brusquely while stubbornly straightening his back and ancient tie.

“Mr. C—” I cut myself
off because I didn’t know what to say. Would I say sorry? Sorry for what? Could
I confide in him? Say I was scared of getting massacred by my Shimshana Mom
before I had the chance to morph into an immortal?

He stared at me but his gaze
seemed off-center. “You seem different,” he said, “in a way I was unable to
name earlier, but can now. Innocence is disappearing from your face.” I hated
when he said weirdo fortune-teller type stuff like this. His eyes were now
refocused and bore into me. “Keep telling yourself why you want to sing, Angel.
Keep telling them who you really are.”

#
# #

I contemplated his words
later, before getting out of the taxi and forcing my feet to walk down the
narrow, brick streets toward home. Despite the fainting incident, Mr. C. had
refused to stop our session. As a result, I felt strong enough, calm enough, to
go home and face Mom’s killing wrath. The straps of my overloaded knapsack dug
into my shoulder as I took in my surroundings with the heightened awareness of
a death-row prisoner making that final trek to the electric chair. Ironic. I
felt like a dead girl walking, but was probably now, or soon to be, immortal.

I let my mind roam while
breathing in the crisp winter air. The feeling of my toes catching in the
crevices between the uneven bricks made me appreciate, again, the history of my
neighborhood. The gas lighting, colonial architecture, and sense of danger in
the dark, centuries-old alleyways always fascinated me. Again, I imagined what
it was like when Mom and Dad first moved here masquerading as British white
people.

Adopting the common name of
Brown, Dad posed as a wealthy tea merchant with abolitionist tendencies. He
built his Beacon Hill brownstone mansion, where he settled with his genteel
wife (Mom – ha!) and several people that everyone thought were freed
slaves who worked for him as servants, but were actually my older sisters and
brothers who came and went through the years. After a couple decades, Mom and
Dad were safer in their own skin, literally, since a number of affluent
African-Americans had established residences, schools, and churches on the
Hill. They emerged as a young couple with a baby girl (my sister Cecilia, or
Cici for short) whose parents had allegedly worked at the estate and bought it
once the Brit merchant and his childless wife “died.”

For the next one hundred and
seventy years, my family masqueraded as their own descendants so we could live
a normal life among the cobblestones. Through the 1900s, Mom and Dad went back
to school. Again. This time, she studied “modern” U.S. law while he studied
Western medicine, both adding to that massive pile of diplomas, writs, and
papyrus. Dad says his “new” knowledge of mortal anatomy, and his practice at
Beth Israel, helps him conjure up solid, long-term age glamours.

And, as Dad predicted almost
two centuries ago, this neighborhood was the perfect choice for them. The
Massachusetts Historical Preservation Society protects the surrounding
buildings, and as a result, the neighborhood’s suspended in a time bubble, with
virtually no new construction. Despite the modern indoor conveniences of
electric light, Wi-Fi, and dish TV, non-resident parking was almost
non-existent and there wasn’t a vacant lot to be seen. Modern-day Beacon Hill
was not only charming, it was perfect for a family of immortals. And it was
perfect for me.

My feet came to a stop. I was
home. I rocked back on my heels to peer up at the blood-red door at the top of
the flight of steep, wide steps.

In the midst of climbing up,
I stopped and listened. Mom was in the kitchen, humming an old Beatles song,
probably cooking dinner for me and Dad, since we were the only ones in the
house who ate mortal food. I took a deep breath and wondered what tonight’s
announcement would do to my relationship with my parents. It was a betrayal,
but it was necessary. Sighing, I turned the key in the lock and reached for the
doorknob. I stopped. Dang it, I grumbled, I nearly forgot about shielding my
thoughts from Dad and Cici before going inside.

Steadying myself, I
visualized a haze fixing itself around my mind, shielding my thoughts from the
pull of their telepathic abilities.

Alrighty then, it was now or
never. My heartbeat kicked up a few notches. The thought of them hearing me out
here, agonizing over the revelation of my upcoming bombshell, filled me with
panic. Drat, I was supposed to stay calm.

I nervously grasped the
doorknob. But my hand kept going, through the knob and through the door itself
as if neither were there. “Whoa…” I’d never done that before. Was I immortal
now? This
was
something I’d seen Mom do millions of times…

Wow, I was immortal! Wait a
minute… Oh no! I was turning into Mom! I drew my hand back and flexed the
fingers. Was I supposed to understand anything that was happening to me
anymore? I stuck my hand back through the door. “Cool...” At least I didn’t
have to worry about Mom killing me anymore...did I? I steeled myself.

Well, I’ll never be the
same
.
So, I’ll make a
new kind of entrance
, I thought.

With determination, I took
another deep breath and proceeded to step, literally, through the door.

A
s I pushed my left arm, shoulder, and
foot through the door, a strong hand grabbed me from the other side and yanked.
Before I could blink, I was standing inside the foyer facing Mom.

“Angelica Isis Clarissa
Brown, what on earth do you think you are doing?”

Mom, wearing a red holiday
apron decorated with a huge smiling turkey, looked the equivalent of
twenty-eight mortal years. We shared the same medium brown coloring and height,
but unlike mine, her hair was flat-ironed and shaped into a nifty bob, kind of
like the hairstyles seen on the figures of men and women painted on ancient
Egyptian structures. Made sense, since she was born in Alexandria, Egypt
somewhere around 12 B.C.

 “I just had to sort
your molecules so you would not get stuck halfway in the door,” she lectured.
“What would the neighbors think if they saw that? And where are your shoes?”
She kissed my forehead and hugged me close. Tonight her cat-like eyes were the
color of toffee and, as always, had the intensity of laser beams.

 “Mom, I have something
important I need to say. To the whole family.”  No need beating around the
bush. And I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up the shield before passing out
from exhaustion.

Mom’s eyes narrowed and swept
me from head to toe. She was scanning me. Great. “The Change,” she said. “It is
commencing. And you are shielding. What do you want to hide?”

At that moment, Cecilia
swooshed in. “Howdy Angel. Oh, you’re shielding. Hmmm...family conference?”

Mute nod.

“I’ll get Dad,” she said
before flying, literally, up the stairs. After a cryptic glance at me, Mom
disappeared, not literally, into the kitchen.

I hung my coat up in the coat
closet, right beside the small hook placed there by Mom for Dad. He was
notorious for losing his keys, and I smiled, remembering his multitude of mad
stomps through the house searching for them while stubbornly refusing to use
magic to find them.

I ran my hand along the
two-foot tall iron sculpture of a goddess—a family heirloom created by
granddaddy around 1000 B.C.—as I made my way to our official “conference
room,” the dining room. The clattering of plates and other cooking sounds from
the kitchen suddenly made me feel so hungry I could eat my hand. But when I
inhaled the aroma, I almost puked my intestines (the only thing in my stomach).
Did this mean the blood-drinking part of The Change had kicked in?

I turned into the dining room
and tossed my bag onto an altar Dad had carved back in 17
^th
century
China. Falling into one of the sturdy chairs surrounding the mahogany table, I
stretched my legs out in front of me and reveled in the warm smells of orange
oil furniture polish, incense, and fresh flowers.

It was wicked good to be
home.

Mom entered with the food.
“Did you eat anything today, honey?” I shook my head, but hesitated over the
oven-baked potatoes, grilled chicken breast, and string beans. She gestured to
two pitchers. “Drink?”

“Milk.” I watched her pour it
into one of the glasses she’d brought. Picking up the second pitcher, she
filled half of a glass with blood for herself. I sniffed and wrinkled my nose.