Blood Like Magic

Auteur

Liselle Sambury is a Trinidadian Canadian author and Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist. She has a love for stories with dark themes, complicated families, and edges of hope. In her free time, she shares helpful tips for upcoming writers and details of her publishing journey through a YouTube channel dedicated to demystifying the sometimes complicated business of being an author.

Texte du rabat

A rich, dark urban fantasy debut following teen witch Voya, who is given a horrifying task: to save her family's magic, she must kill her first love. The problem is, Voya has never been in love—she'll have to find the perfect guy first.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter One CHAPTER ONE

There’s something about lounging in a bath of blood that makes me want to stay until my fingers shrivel enough to show the outlines of my bones.

My toes peek out of thick ruby ripples. Slick drops slide off my fingers and splash with an echo in the tub like spicy pone batter dripping off a mixing spoon.

“Sorry to stop you waxing poetic, but you need to get out of the tub.” My cousin Keis slouches against the doorframe of our bathroom. The toilet is so close to the bathtub that you have to prop your feet on the ledge when you pee.

She blows a breath out of her nose and crosses her arms. The powder-blue robe she’s wearing is embroidered with a K for Keisha. Our oldest cousin, Alex, made one for everyone in the family last Christmas. My canary-yellow robe with a V for Voya is hanging up in my room.

“Don’t call me Keisha, even in your head,” she says, casually reading the thought off the top of my mind.

Sorry. Even a year after Keis got her mind-reading gift, I still sometimes forget that she has it.

Granny used to say that Keishas were bad. To fry Granny’s battery, Auntie Maise gave the name to both her twin girls. Keis, as she insists on being called, is pronounced “KAY-ss,” like something you put glasses into instead of the more natural “KEY-shh,” which sounds like a delicious egg-and-spinach tart. I figure this is a way for my cousin to differentiate herself even more from her sister, who she’s clashed with since birth on account of their shared name.

My cousin clenches her jaw. “Keisha is annoying and obsessed with her feed and dating. That’s why we clash. Taking those pictures with her ass stuck out like she’s some sort of NuMoney tagalong. For what? So some stranger can give her a five-star rating?”

I like Keisha’s feed. She makes living outside the downtown core look glamorous, and I find her open sexuality kind of rebel feminist. It is a lot of boobs and butt, but at least she’s proud of it?

Keis pulls off her headscarf, and curly ringlets bounce out of its hold. The roots are a black 1B and the ends blond 14/88A. I bought the sew-in wig online for her birthday. “Yolanda,” it’s called. It looks real for fake.

Keis opens her mouth.

Not fake, sorry. It’s real hair, but it’s not yours.

Having someone inside your head constantly is an experience. By now, I’m used to it. Sometimes it makes things easier because I have a best friend who can comfort me about something I feel shitty about before I even tell her. And sometimes it makes things harder, like when I feel shitty because I know I’ll never be as smart or strong or talented as Keis, and I have to see her face shift as she pretends she hasn’t heard the thought.

I press the small button on the bath keypad. It’s embedded, crooked (thanks, Uncle Cathius), in the white tiles lining the tub. The steam icon lights up neon green, and the installed jets feed heat into the blood bath. I shiver as the warmth hits me.

Every minute I spend here is another I don’t have to pass downstairs. I should be enjoying this time, not spending it dreading what comes next.

Keis’s lip curls. “Don’t tell me you turned the heat on.”

Okay, I won’t. I hug my legs to my chest. “Why do I need to get out right now?”

My cousin sags against the door. “I checked on your food, as you bossily messaged me to, an hour ago. It’s been ready. We want to eat, but Granny won’t let us touch anything until you come down. It’s a special dinner to celebrate your Bleeding, after all.”

I don’t know if non-magic girls get excited about puberty, but it’s a big deal in the witch community. At fourteen and fifteen, I was disappointed when nothing happened, but not everyone can be an early bloomer. Or an early-late bloomer, given that witches tend to get their periods later. But I always felt like sixteen would be my time. Every day since my sixteenth birthday a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been in a constant state of anticipation, waiting for the moment that finally happened a few hours ago.

I was in the living room, packaging our beauty supplies with Mom and Granny. It started as a sort of uncomfortable wetness in my underwear. Which, let’s be honest, happens sometimes. I already had two weeks of getting my hopes up over false alarms, so I wasn’t going to be quick to jump to conclusions. Until that feeling expanded to the point where I thought I, a sixteen-year-old girl with a typically functioning bladder, had wet myself. Which, in hindsight, is so embarrassing a thought that I’m glad I didn’t say it aloud. And I’m doubly glad that Keis wasn’t around to hear it. But when I stood up to go to the bathroom and check things out, there was a single trickle of blood that dripped down my loose pajama shorts.

Sometimes, the things that change your life are physically small and mentally enormous. Like that little crimson droplet sliding down my bare leg.

I screamed with excitement.

Mom screamed with pride.

Granny screamed for me to get off the rug before I stained it.

I borrowed a pad from Mom so I could slow the bleeding while I rushed around the kitchen trying to get my own Calling dinner in the oven before finally getting into the bath more than an hour later to properly celebrate. I hadn’t moved for another couple of hours since.

My Bleeding isn’t just a witch’s typical massive overproduction of body fluids brought on by the perfect unexplainable mix of genetic predispositions, hormones, and magic, meant to represent the blood of our ancestors. It’s also the first step in my Coming-of-Age, of the challenge of becoming a witch.

Which was really hacking amazing until I remembered that I could fail and not inherit magic at all. Now my Bleeding is the only bright spot in this situation. An irony that I haven’t missed.

The more Keis pushes, the more I want to stay in the tub. Once I step out, the rest of my Coming-of-Age will start. There won’t be any turning back or slowing down.

“I’m naked,” I whine.

“Wow! I didn’t notice.”

Keis is kind of mean. No, not kind of. She is. The closer you are to her, the worse she gets. I’ve known her since birth and therefore get an equal amount of love and vitriol.

I’m sure it’s because Uncle Vacu did her birthing, and he’s got a strong negative energy. Not because of the Mod-H addiction. He’s just an asshole. Maybe because he’s the oldest. But technically, he did all our births. It’s a miracle someone like him could have a daughter as caring and loyal as our cousin Alex. If proper genetic sequencing had been around when Uncle was born, it would have shown a vulnerability to addiction and low impulse control. Employers wouldn’t have been able to stop him from being a doctor, and…