The Killing Jar (17 page)

The hunger for anima wasn't as all-consuming as it had been in the days after I culled Jason Dunn, or in the hours after I'd culled everything within a hundred foot radius of my house. This hunger was more of a low, background murmur in my head, in my blood, in my fingertips. But it was harder than ever to deny, because now I knew there was so much anima to be had in the world, and culling it did not require hurting anyone.

I could take and take and take a little at a time and there would always be more.

I wanted to start right away. I practically leaped out of bed, stopping only long enough to brush my teeth and change into a soft linen tunic and a pair of jeans covered in holes and patches. There was no mirror in my room, but I didn't really care about my appearance. I had more important things on my mind.

After breakfast, the Kalyptra went to work, while Cyrus and I decamped to the fields. By afternoon, I had culled a dozen different varieties of plant, and their combined anima mingled inside me, making me feel at once like I was rising toward the sun and rooted to the ground, immobile and connected to the earth beneath me like I'd grown roots. It was a strange sensation, and I wanted it to go on and on, but the high never lasted long, and each time it wore off I was left craving more. Not only more anima, but more potent forms of it.

I didn't admit that to Cyrus. I told myself I would get used to it. I'd just started taking anima regularly, so the novelty of it was sure to wear off at some point. I could stick to plants and maybe a few insects, despite the fact that there were thousands upon thousands more types of anima to try. Despite the way my mind kept returning to those jars locked away in Rebekah's cupboard. My natural tendency, which I had denied for so long, was to indulge with abandon, but I could maintain control. Eventually, it would get easier to abstain from anima. It had to.

In the wildflower field, Cyrus culled a variety of plants with me, and for the first time I experienced what it was like to be blissed-out on anima with another person who was feeling the same things I was feeling. With Cyrus also on anima, the connection I felt with everything around me extended to him. I detected his heartbeat through the ground. I could see every gradation of color in his eyes. I could smell the oatmeal-and-honey soap he'd used to wash his hair. His face was that of a glorious god against a backdrop of sky as radiantly colored as the blanket of flowers that surrounded us.

Cyrus culled a wild poppy and its sanguine petals turned black and crumbled to dust. He flopped back on the picnic blanket he'd brought to the field and covered his eyes to shield them from the sun.

I stayed sitting up so I could gaze at the wonder surrounding us, the colors so vibrant they almost burned my eyes. The air so soft, so scented, it seemed tangible, as though I could run my fingers through it like water. My skin throbbed with pleasure as it drank in the sun's heat.

I got up and walked toward the animal enclosure, where I could see Bully rampaging on the other side of the fence. I stuck my hand through the posts and called to him, and he charged toward me with such reckless abandon that I thought he would ram the fence. But he stopped inches from my hand and shoved his head against my palm.

“Hey, Bully the Kid,” I murmured to him, scratching at his coarse fur. “How's my little wild man? Are you getting into plenty of trouble?”

Bully made a contented, babyish cry in response and rubbed his head harder against my hand. With my senses enhanced, I would have thought his animal smell would be too much, but his scent, when magnified, was earthy and green, like lawn clippings and good soil. I inhaled him, digging my fingers through his fur. Lost in sensation, I didn't notice when that unraveling feeling began, but when I saw a glow ignite around my hand I yanked it back, startled and horrified. Bully, equally startled, darted away from me, bleating in disappointment that his petting session had cut off so abruptly.

“What is it?” Cyrus asked behind me.

Panting, heart racing, I turned to him. “I almost culled him.”

“Who?”

“Bully. My goat.”

Cyrus made a face. “Who said he was
your
goat?”

“I named him,” I said. “He's my responsibility now, and I almost…” I covered my mouth with a hand. “I thought if I had enough anima in me, if I wasn't feeling withdrawal, then I'd be under control.”

Cyrus shook his shaggy, glossy hair. “It'll take longer than a day to get a handle on what you can do.”

“How long?”

His expression was blank, confused, as if I'd asked him something so obvious he was having a hard time coming up with an answer. “Forever,” he said, and lowered his eyes, as though he didn't want to look at me when he said what came next. “What you did to save your family, the amount of anima you culled, that's more than any of us has ever attempted to take at one time. Even Rebekah. Have you ever eaten a meal so big it made you sick, but then an hour later you're hungry again?”

“Yeah, every Thanksgiving. But won't I eventually go back to normal? I mean, I'm not eating huge meals anymore, or meals period. I'm, like, sampling. I'm tasting.”

Cyrus held his hands up in a helpless gesture. “It might get easier, Kenna, but you're always going to be hungry. You're always going to want more.”

I returned to the blanket and flopped down on my stomach. Cyrus followed and sat beside me, close but not too close.

“You okay?” he asked after a long, empty silence.

I shrugged, not looking at him. “How am I ever supposed to go back to my real life?” I asked.

“Are you sure you want to go back?”

Now I did look at him, blinking in surprise. “Of course I want to go back.”

“Why?” He sounded truly baffled as to why I would ever want to leave Eclipse.

“My whole life is there,” I said, growing agitated. “My family. My twin. Do you know what it's like to be separated from your twin?”

“No,” he said. “I had two brothers and I couldn't wait to get away from them. Rebekah had a twin though,” he added as an afterthought, as though he'd just remembered.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Long time ago.”

“Where is she now?”

Cyrus's eyes darkened, and he glanced back toward Eclipse House. “She died. Not sure Rebekah would want me to tell you about that, though. Might be best if you didn't mention I said anything.” The side of his mouth curled up and he changed the subject. “You didn't mention your boyfriend.”

“What?”

“The guy you said was waiting for you back on the other side of the mountain.”

“Oh. Yeah.” I bit my lip, feeling vaguely guilty beneath the cloak of anima. I wasn't sure why I hadn't mentioned Blake, or why I didn't want to talk about him with Cyrus now. He just felt so far away. Barely two days had passed since I'd said goodbye to Blake, and already it seemed as though I hadn't seen him in a month. I recalled the dream I'd had my first night at Eclipse, about the rising river dividing Blake and me. His side of the river had been so bleak, and mine so lush and alive.

“Do you miss him?” Cyrus asked. “Is he a reason not to stay here?”

I picked a blade of grass, then watched a thin filament of energy extend from me and attach to it. In my hand, the blade of grass went limp, and the air around me took on a shimmering quality, like it was filled with tiny, crystalline insects. The flowers in the field went electric with color, and the sky began to undulate like a vast ocean. The clouds appeared to breathe, expanding and morphing into nebulous shapes.

“You didn't answer my question,” Cyrus said, raising an eyebrow.

“I know.”

If I went home—
when
I went home—I would still need to take anima, the same as I did here, but it would not be the same as it was here. I would be surrounded by dead, gray forest, not living green and gold and every other color of the rainbow. In my house, I would be haunted by memories of blood and pain and sickness and sadness. And I would be alone. There would be no other Kalyptra to guide me, or cull with me, or understand me.

But the anima of that blade of grass wound through me, and made it hard to care about the future when everywhere I looked the veil of mundane that concealed the real world had dropped, revealing the divine world hidden beneath. Like earth was actually heaven, but no one could see it unless they drank the magic elixir.

I lay on my back and stared up at the morphing, rippling ocean of sky.

“Two brothers, huh?” I said to Cyrus, changing the subject.

“Yep.”

“Do you ever see them?”

“Nope.”

“Do you want to?”

“Nope.”

I rolled onto my side and propped myself up on my elbow. Cyrus mimicked my posture, so we were face-to-face. Looking at him made it hard to breathe. He was as mesmerizing as the evolving sky. I could have sat there for hours, interpreting his features like a work of art, a priceless sculpture.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.

“A long time.”

“How many years?”

“Lost count.”

“How old are you?”

“Can't remember.”

“Who were you before you came to Eclipse?”

He smiled, but his eyes darkened and shifted sideways. “Someone who doesn't exist anymore.”

*   *   *

Days passed in a blur. Time meant something different at Eclipse. No one checked a calendar. No one bothered naming the days of the week. A Monday might as well be a Saturday might as well be a Wednesday. It made no difference. All that really mattered was the season, and we were in the best one: the pinnacle of summer. Every day started crisp and ended golden warm. The nights were clear, and I spent them around the fire with the Kalyptra, playing music late into the night, filled with anima so my fingers never tired.

I stopped thinking about the past or the future, only dwelled in the present moment. Impulse and sensation were all that mattered. Ego didn't exist, because
I
didn't exist, not as a single being with a single consciousness. I was part of something far larger than myself, connected to a vast network of energy that existed all around me.

Most days, after culling anima with Cyrus, I joined the Kalyptra and worked alongside them, learning skills I never would have thought to acquire at home, and probably never would have used because everything I'd ever needed was available in a store, or was just a phone call or a car ride away. Yuri introduced me to carpentry, and I found a strange kind of satisfaction in working with tools and wood. Hitomi taught me how to recognize and treat sick plants, how to judge the perfect time to pick a tomato or a cucumber from the vine, how to taste grapes and decide when their sweetness and acidity levels were prime for winemaking. Diego educated me in the care and feeding of livestock, and Rory gave me lessons in making wine and beer, in pickling vegetables and preserving fruit and meat, and in making cheese. I disappeared into Stig's workshop for an entire day, and when I came out I had a brand-new guitar, one handcrafted by Stig, although he let me help him when I could. When I was alone in my room, I played my mom's guitar, even though it still didn't sound quite right. But I brought my new guitar to the circle that gathered around the fire at night.

Flame-haired Illia tried to teach me to sew, but it turned out I had no appetite for needlework. So instead I hung out with her while she worked, the two of us chatting easily about everything and nothing.

It was Illia who designed and made all the beautiful dresses and caftans and intricate tunics the Kalyptra donned in the evening, after the day's work was through. The walls of Illia's studio on the second floor of Eclipse House were lined with colorful fabric swatches, bolts of lace, cabinets filled with buttons and thread and ribbons.

“Where do you get all this?” I asked her while I clumsily helped with mending. “You can't make it here.”

“No, no. Once a year, Rebekah allows me to make a run into town with Cyrus so I can buy what I need.”

“Do you hate it out there as much as Rebekah and Cyrus do?” I asked, expecting a tirade against the world like the one Cyrus had laid on me my second day at Eclipse.

She frowned, her eyebrows knitting together in concentration. “I don't think I ever hated the world, but I didn't like who I was when I was in it. I didn't like what I had to do to survive. I was…” Her cheeks went pink and she lowered her eyes. “Let's just say I did some things I'm not proud of. I made terrible mistakes, the kind that make it hard to look at yourself in the mirror every day. But I've put all of that behind me now. That was another life. Another me.”

I felt a rush of warmth for Illia, so strong it brought tears to my eyes. I understood her, and I felt like she understood me. Aside from Erin, I'd never had any close girlfriends, and I wasn't sure being friends with your twin counted. This was one more element, one more key to happiness that I'd been missing.

Illia cupped my chin and raised my face. I didn't resist her touch. At Eclipse, I was a different person. A person who didn't have to keep other people at a distance because I was afraid of what I might do to them.

“You like it here, don't you?” she asked.

“I more than like it.”

She smiled her broad, mischievous smile. “And what about you? Do you like yourself when you're here?”

I opened my mouth to answer, and then closed it again, afraid to hear myself say the words that were in my head:
I hated myself at home, but I don't hate myself here
.

“There's a saying,” I told her. “‘Wherever you go, there you are.' I guess that means you can't escape yourself, you just drag all your baggage around to every new place.”

Illia's smile began to fade.

“But the thing is,” I said, shaking my head in consternation, “every day I'm here, I feel lighter, like I'm getting rid of the baggage one piece at a time.”