The Killing Jar (14 page)

Illia hooked an arm around my waist and whispered in my ear, “Don't be fooled by those two. They may flirt with you, but, well … let's just say you don't possess the equipment to play their game.”

“You mean they're gay.”

She blinked at me, taken off guard, and then gave me a distrustful look. “Is that a problem for you?”

“No. Why would it be?”

Illia put a hand to her forehead as though she'd experienced a wave of dizziness. “Things must have changed quite a bit since my day.”

I wanted to ask her when that day might have been, but that seemed rude, like asking a woman's age. Illia looked twenty, but in her eyes she appeared much older than that.

She shook her head and waved at the air with one hand. “Regardless, there are plenty of other men here for you to choose from.”

“Oh, no, I have a boyfriend back home. Sort of.”

“Well, we live by a different set of rules when it comes to fidelity, and while you're here, you're one of us.” She glanced at Cyrus. “Truthfully, if you're going to have a dalliance with anyone at Eclipse, it should be Cyrus.” She reached up, took a lock of my hair, a lock of hers, and began to braid them loosely together. “He's a very good kisser.”

I darted a look at Cyrus, who caught my eye and smiled questioningly, as though to ask,
Are you okay?

Without losing a beat, Illia went on with the introductions, but I was so rattled I didn't remember a single name after that.

The Kalyptra must have been instructed by Rebekah to welcome me with open arms. Whereas when I'd first arrived I'd been treated with outright suspicion, now—with the exception of Joanna—they behaved as though I were their long lost sister. They hugged and kissed and fawned over me, but as the effects of the wildflower anima in me dwindled, their affection began to make me uncomfortable. I missed the intensity of my enhanced senses. I started to tense as I felt the pull of anima swirling inside each person who touched me, the craving to sip at it like a mosquito sucking blood. I wanted to go outside to cull another flower, but I wasn't sure how to ask to be excused without offending anyone, and I didn't want to seem like some kind of anima junkie, so I tamped down my craving and forced a smile.

Rebekah was the last to enter the dining hall. By that time everyone was seated and waiting for her, and a feast lay steaming on the table. Eggs flavored with recently picked herbs, topped with blistered tomatoes and mushrooms sautéed in butter. Fresh goat cheese and jugs of velvety milk. Baskets of apple and berry muffins. Crunchy bread full of seeds and nuts, with butter so rich and sweet it was almost like whipped cream. Berries drizzled with honey and sprinkled with mint. And several pots of tea that tasted like vanilla and lemon and almonds.

Rebekah made her appearance just as I was about to crack and start digging into the food with my bare hands. I hadn't eaten since the stale hospital Danish I'd picked at during my interview with Detective Speakman. I'd been so distracted by hunger for anima over the past twenty-four hours that I'd forgotten all about food.

My grandmother wore a long, white dress just transparent enough to show her lithe, long-limbed figure. Her hair was spooled on top of her head in a messy bun. She flicked a hand at us. “Eat, please. What are you waiting for?”

She poured herself a cup of tea while the rest of us filled our plates. Rebekah ate sparingly, her knees up under her, revealing bare feet and ringed toes. She sipped her tea, gazing at me as though she were casually observing a new animal that had been introduced to an established family in a cage at the zoo, wondering how I'd get along with the natives. But she didn't speak to me, or anyone for that matter. She merely watched us. I got the impression there were things she wanted to say to me, but not in front of the rest of the Kalyptra.

“Kenna, will you join our circle at the fire tonight?” Illia asked, spreading herbed butter on a thick slice of seed bread.

“Your circle?”

“Most nights we play music around the fire,” Stig explained. “Did your mother teach you to—” His words cut off, and he glanced at Rebekah with an expression that reminded me of a dog afraid it had incurred the wrath of a strict master.

I looked from Stig to Rebekah. “I don't know,” I said, ignoring the aborted question so as not to get Stig into trouble. “I don't have my guitar.”

Stig waved his hand at that. “If there is one thing we have plenty of at Eclipse, it's guitars,” Stig said. “I should know. I made most of them.”

He pushed his chest out proudly when he saw my eyes pop with wonder. It was like he'd just told me he was responsible for erecting Stonehenge.

“You make guitars? Will you show me how?”

Stig grinned. “Of course.”

“Do you write music, Kenna?” Rebekah asked.

I looked over to find my grandmother staring at me intently.

I nodded. “I don't know if I'm any good,” I said, which wasn't exactly true. I knew I was good. I just didn't know what these people considered good.

“Your mother used to write songs,” Rebekah said, sounding far away, lost in memory. She sipped at her tea. “We don't sing them anymore, but they were lovely. Sad, but lovely.”

This news was nearly as much of a shock to me as it had been to discover I had a grandmother I never knew about. My mom had never told me she wrote music. She had never even alluded to the fact. There was so much she could have taught me, about music, about myself, but instead she had hoarded secrets, and asked me to do the same. But I remembered when I was very young, there was a song she used to sing to Erin and me to get us to go to sleep, a sort of lullaby.

Sweet girl, don't cry.

Sweet girl, I hear you sigh.

I'll never let you go,

But you still must dream alone.

Sweet girl, don't cry.

Sweet girl, I hear you sigh.

I'll be here when you wake,

So you won't be afraid

to dream alone.

To dream alone.

I'd thought it was a tune all parents knew and sang to their children, but now I wasn't so sure. Maybe that lullaby had been one of hers. It was certainly sad and lovely, as Rebekah said my mom's songs were. I wished she had told me who she was, or who she had been. I'd always known my mom was aloof, but I was coming to understand that it was more than that. She was a complete stranger.

I feel like I don't even know you
. That was what I had said to her in the car, but I had immediately regretted my words. Now I was glad I had said them, gratified that she knew how I felt before she abandoned me.
I'll never let you go
, my ass.

“Maybe you could teach us some of your songs,” Rebekah suggested.

I bit my lower lip, not sure I was ready to share my music again so soon. My performance at Folk Yeah! Fest seemed like it had happened to someone else.

“Then it's settled.” Illia clapped her hands excitedly. “You'll come to the fire tonight and we'll learn some of your songs.”

When breakfast was finished, most of the Kalyptra departed to work in the fields and orchards and gardens, while a few stayed to clean up after the meal. I started to help clear the dishes, though I was desperate to get outside again and sample more anima. But Rebekah had other ideas.

“Kenna, come to my study,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I need to speak with you.”

*   *   *

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked when we were alone in Rebekah's room. Maybe it was my perpetually guilty conscience doing my thinking for me, but it seemed like I had displeased Rebekah.

Instead of answering my question, she said, “Have a seat,” indicating an arrangement of large pillows arcing in front of the fireplace.

I lowered myself awkwardly onto one of the pillows and folded my legs, biting my lip to keep myself from rushing to apologize when I still didn't know how I had offended, or even if I had.

Rebekah took the pillow across from mine, lounging comfortably. After a pregnant silence that would have driven Blake crazy, Rebekah finally spoke.

“How do you feel today?”

“Fine,” I said.

She smiled the kind of knowing smile that told me she could see right through me to the back of my brain, into the dark cellar where I stored my most appalling secrets. “Be honest.”

I took a breath and sighed. Lying to Rebekah wasn't going to get me anywhere. She was too perceptive.

“When I woke up this morning the withdrawal symptoms or whatever you call them were back,” I told Rebekah.

“Catharsis,” she corrected, and nodded for me to continue.

“They weren't as bad as they were yesterday, but I knew they would get worse,” I said. “Cyrus had me take anima out in the field, and after that I felt great again, but—”

“But once it wore off, the hunger returned.”

I nodded, averting my eyes in shame. “I don't know how to control it.”

“You can't.”

I blinked at her, wondering if I'd heard her wrong. “But isn't that why I'm here? To learn how to control it?”

“That's what your mother would like,” Rebekah said. “But the real reason you're here is because you can't cull another Kalyptra. You're here because your mom doesn't want you to hurt her or your sister or anyone else. She understands how thorny your situation has become. It is one thing to experience catharsis after culling too much anima in too many forms, as you did. It is another to undergo catharsis after culling the most potent form of anima, which you also did.”

I raised my eyebrows in question.

“Human anima,” she clarified.

I swallowed hard. So my mom had told her what happened in the basement. Had she also told her about Jason Dunn?

Rebekah leveled her green eyes on me, her gaze intent and penetrating. I felt like she was peeling back layers of me using only her stare.

“Have
you
taken human anima?” I asked, looking down, unable to maintain eye contact any longer.

“Yes,” Rebekah said without hesitation, and I was surprised to hear no trace of guilt in her voice, and equally surprised that I was relieved at her lack of obvious culpability. She didn't explain the circumstances that led to her taking human anima, and although I was desperate to know what had happened I didn't ask. I had never spoken of what I did to Jason Dunn, and I guessed Rebekah would prefer not to talk about her experience either.

“Unfortunately, the very nature of anima is addictive,” Rebekah said, “and the more potent the sources of it that you take, the more your cravings will escalate. The amount of anima in a nonsentient living thing like a plant is minimal and wears off quickly. The amount in an insect or spider is slightly more potent, and in a creature like a reptile or bird or mammal, more efficacious still, because those sorts of anima bring with them a trace of the vessel.”

I shook my head, not sure I understood. “The vessel?”

“The container. In some cases, a body. But there are other things that can hold anima, if one knows how to capture it.”

I glanced toward the cupboard from which Cyrus had taken the sheep's head jar. Rebekah saw where my eyes went and nodded.

“We call them culling jars,” she said. “We use them to store anima.”

I pictured the rows and rows of jars I'd glimpsed inside that cupboard, and I couldn't suppress a shudder of desire. I unconsciously licked my lips like a dog salivating at the sight of meat.

“What kind of anima?” I asked, hoping Rebekah couldn't detect the grasping neediness in my voice.

Rebekah cocked her head to study me a moment before answering. “Mostly animal,” she said.

I swallowed hard, thinking of Jason Dunn killing Erin's cat, Clint Eastwood, and its entire litter. Then I thought of the animals that had perished in the circle of death surrounding my house, the chaotic furor of sensations and impulses that had poured into me and flowed through me into the bodies of my mom and Erin. That had saved their lives. Lastly, I thought of Bully, the rambunctious little goat I'd named earlier that morning.

“You kill the animals to take their anima?” I asked, horrified, and beneath that horror, desirous in a way I could not ignore or suppress.

“Cull,” Rebekah corrected. “We don't kill. We
cull
. We harvest. There is a difference.”

“But if the animal dies—”

“Kenna.” She spoke my name sharply, a reprimand, and I shut my mouth. The way my grandmother shifted from serene to commanding was going to take some getting used to.

“Do you eat meat?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“So do we,” Rebekah said. “The animals at Eclipse live good, happy lives, and when we need their meat we slaughter them humanely, and we preserve their anima in one of the culling jars so we can ration it over time and share it among the entire commune. The meat feeds our bodies, and the anima … well, it feeds everything else. Do you know what the word
Kalyptra
means?”

I shook my head.

“A Kalyptra is a veil. We call ourselves this because we know of the existence of a veil that obscures the divine world all around us, and we know how to lift that veil and see beyond it. Anima is
how
, Kenna. Anima heals our bodies and keeps us young, but more importantly it connects us to nature and expands our minds and our experience of the world in a way no one who is not Kalyptra can ever understand.”

“Like a drug,” I said.

“It is simply energy, but, yes, the experience can provide a dreamlike experience and enhance your senses, similar to certain drugs. And, as I said, the ability to cull anima comes with the potential to become addicted if you take too much, or if you take anima that is too powerful for your mind and body to manage.”