Wake the Bones by Elizabeth Kilcoyne

Author:Elizabeth Kilcoyne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Isaac remembered the last time he believed Laurel Early might be magic. They were nine or ten, and they’d snuck off behind a pine tree to hide and talk and do whatever the kids the class disliked did when they realized there was nothing to stop them from liking each other. Her hair was a rat’s nest, always falling out of the thin braids she’d put in herself, and there were black moons of dirt and paint underneath her fingernails. She’d pulled a pair of safety scissors from her back pocket and brandished them at him in her excitement. “We’re going to be blood brothers—siblings,” she said, correcting herself. “Since we don’t have any brothers or sisters of our own.”

It seemed sound enough reasoning that they should be siblings without having to involve the scissors. After all, most kids in their school had a mess of siblings staggered throughout the elementary–middle–high school complex that served the whole county. Having someone who had your back had always been a dream of Isaac’s. He had trouble saying no to Laurel, but could, upon occasion, work himself up to an uncertain-sounding “I guess…” that would at least put a momentary stop to her more outrageous plans, like a baby-bird-rehabilitation clinic under the pines behind the soccer field or a makeshift hair salon when his bangs started to fall in front of his eyes.

He was working up to just that, but Laurel already had the scissors poised over her index finger. She’d go first. Of course she would. “With this cut, we will mingle our blood together. My blood will run in your veins and yours in mine,” she intoned in a low, mystical voice that she’d pulled from a television show or one of the weird paperback novels she kept hidden under her desk during math class. She dragged the blade of the scissors across her finger. A white streak of pressure bloomed in its wake, but it did not break the skin, no matter how many times she tried.

“Hmm,” she muttered, testing the edge again. Too dull.

“I’m sure there’s some broken glass in the sandbox if we dig,” Isaac offered, though he hoped he was wrong. He did not particularly want to bleed. He wanted to be bound to someone who didn’t want to cut him.

Laurel shook her head, dismissing the glass idea. She took his hand instead, looking with such focus into his eyes that Isaac was paralyzed. “With this vow, I promise to be your sister for as long as we both shall live.”

“Yeah,” Isaac agreed in a whisper, relieved as she tucked the scissors back into her pocket.

He tried to pull his hand away, but Laurel shook her head, so hard that the remains of her braid whipped around her head. “You’ve got to say it back,” she whined. “It’s already iffy without the blood.”

Isaac was blushing so hard he could barely get his mouth to move. “With this vow,” he said, “I promise to be your brother.”

“For as long as we both shall live,” Laurel finished with him, nodding encouragingly.

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