The Killing Jar (18 page)

“Soon you'll be light as a feather,” Illia said, and held up against my face a length of mint green fabric almost the same color as my eyes. “This is perfect. I'm going to make you a dress you'll never want to take off. Until you meet the right guy, of course.” She winked and gave a bawdy laugh that made me blush.

“Oh, I don't wear a lot of green,” I said.

“Then you're making a mistake. With that hair and those eyes, you should be wearing greens and blues and lavenders. Maybe orange? But color, always color.”

“What about gray?”

She laughed and began cutting the fabric. “Gray isn't anyone's color, silly.”

*   *   *

The Kalyptra sang while they worked, songs I'd never heard because their music had been born at Eclipse and had never left. I listened carefully when I was with them, memorizing the lyrics and practicing the melodies on my mother's guitar when I was alone in my room. But every time they asked me to teach them one of the songs I had written, I balked, worried they wouldn't fall in love with my music the way I'd fallen in love with theirs. Afraid my lyrics would tell them too much about who I was outside of Eclipse and remind them that I was a stranger in a strange land, not one of them.

I played guitar, and sometimes took up one of the drums or tambourines, or just clapped and stomped my feet to create a rhythm, but I didn't dare to sing with the Kalyptra, whose voices were always harmonious. I didn't want to disrupt that harmony. I was content simply to be a part of the music, jam sessions that sometimes went on for hours without pause, fueled by the anima that turned every sound to syrup and heartthrob, melodies evolving as we played, veering from energetic to languid and back again.

After these sessions, we were usually too elated to sleep, so we retired to the yurt—what the Kalyptra referred to as the “dreaming tent”—to lounge and talk and take anima. We let the night lead us where it would. Although Rebekah often attended the nightly musical assemblies, she always excused herself to bed instead of accompanying us to the dreaming tent. I began to get the impression that she felt separate from the rest of the Kalyptra, like a parent to all of them, never able to be their friend for fear of losing their respect or giving up some of her authority. The Kalyptra, in turn, were eternal children with their enthusiasm and playfulness.

Joanna was the exception, always hanging back from the rest of the Kalyptra, always with a sour expression on her face and cool reserve in her dark eyes. As I had promised Rebekah, I steered clear of Joanna as much as possible, which wasn't difficult because Joanna hadn't approached me since the day she'd given me my mom's guitar. Still, I got the impression she was watching me, waiting for something, although I had no idea what that might be.

I basked in Rebekah's company when she was with us, but I didn't mind that she abstained from nights in the dreaming tent. Her presence might have altered the bacchanalian group dynamic, made it more formal. Everyone would be on their best behavior.

Sometimes after our jam sessions there was dancing, or late-night feasts of fresh breads and cheeses and fruit and honey. Some nights Sunday, the artist, painted temporary tattoos on our arms and shoulders and backs. She preferred to paint on me because I was a blank canvas, not a single tat to my name. She offered to give me permanent ink, and I almost said yes, but then I thought of what Blake would say. Blake loved art, but was not a fan of tattoos. Erin, too, had strong opinions against them. Still, I told her I would think about it.

There were nights when the Kalyptra began to partner off into couples, and I would slip away and return to my room, blushing furiously and missing Blake, wishing I could walk over to his house like I used to and knock on his window, lure him out for a walk in the woods. I replayed the memory of our kiss over and over like a favorite song, the kind that never gets old.

In her sewing studio one day, I asked Illia the question that had been nagging at me. “Why aren't there any kids at Eclipse? I mean, you guys have plenty of sex. Do you make your own condoms here or something?”

Illia, threading a needle, jerked and accidentally poked herself, drawing a bright bead of blood. She sucked at it and cocked her head to study me, seeming bewildered by my question.

“We can't have children,” she said. “Not with each other, anyway.”

“Why not?”

She hesitated, and I wondered if this was a subject she and the others had been instructed not to get into with me. There seemed to be a lot of those subjects, deemed off limits by Rebekah. No matter how many times I questioned the Kalyptra about the origin of our power, I never got a straight answer.

“Kalyptra can only have children with normal people because our power is passed down to the child. Our power is what makes us Kalyptra. None of us is willing to give that up, even for a child.” She lowered her eyes, as though she didn't want to witness my reaction. “Except for your mother. Her power passed to you.”

My mouth dropped open, and for several seconds my mind went completely blank as I absorbed what she was telling me.

“My mom lost the ability to cull because of me?” I said after a moment of silence.

Illia raised her eyes tentatively and nodded. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been the one to tell you.”

“No,” I said, my voice cold and my shoulders trembling with quiet rage. “My mom should have been the one. She should have been the one to do a lot of things.”

 

M
IDNIGHT
G
LORY

There was a game the Kalyptra liked to play. A game they'd invented that was similar to Truth or Dare.

The game was called Dominus, and it worked like this: we rolled a set of homemade dice to decide who was the Dominus. The Dominus was basically the master of the game, and got to decide the punishment for those who chickened out of their dares. He or she also got to wear a crown and a velvet cloak that Illia had made, and had to sit with a chicken in his lap.

The first time I played, Yuri challenged me to stand on my head for an entire minute. I could barely do a cartwheel, but I had no choice but to try. I made it about three seconds before toppling over onto a pile of pillows to the triumphant laughter of the others.

“Punish her!” the Kalyptra crowed in unison. “Punish her! Punish her!”

Diego, that night's Dominus, held his chicken up for silence, and spoke to me in a grave tone, although I saw a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Kenna, you failed to complete your challenge, and must therefore be punished.” Diego whispered something to Stig, who looked appalled.

“Oh, she won't like that,” Stig said, stroking his pointy beard. “Choose something else.”

“She's not supposed to like it,” Diego reminded Stig. “That's the whole point.”

“What?” I said, getting nervous. I thought they'd go easy on me since it was my first time playing the game.

“You'll see,” Diego said, and to Stig, “Go on.” Diego jerked his head toward the door to the yurt, signaling for Stig to go and retrieve something. Stig was gone for less than a minute before he returned with a wriggling, muddy earthworm dangling from his fingers.

“No,” I said, appalled. “I am not eating a worm.”

“You don't have to eat it,” Diego said, and couldn't suppress his grin any longer. “You have to cull it.”

“Oh. That's all?” I held out my hand for the worm. “Not a problem. I thought you said this was going to be a punishment.”

Although I'd stuck to plant anima since I had arrived at Eclipse, I didn't see much harm in culling the anima of a worm. As Stig laid the squirming invertebrate in my open palm, I found I was actually looking forward to taking from a slightly more potent source of anima than plant.

But I should have known better. The worm, after all, was supposed to be my punishment.

The instant the earthworm's anima hit my brain, my thoughts became sluggish and senseless. I tried to speak, but when I heard the garbled nonsense coming out of my mouth I didn't even have the capacity to be horrified. Then things got worse. I flopped onto the floor and began to writhe and squirm, desperate for soil and moisture. I didn't want to do it, but the impulse was undeniable. Instinct took over.

I was vaguely aware of laughter from the Kalyptra. Distantly, as though I were underground, I heard Cyrus telling the others, “It's not funny.”

The game continued around me, and by my next turn the worm anima had worn off enough so that I could yell at Diego.

I punched him on the arm, riling his chicken, which flapped its wings and tried to escape. “You're a mean Dominus.”

“Careful,” Diego said, a wicked grin on his face. “It's your turn again.”

I remembered what Rebekah and Cyrus had told me about the anima of certain creatures being tainted by their vessel. Now I understood what they meant, and I filed earthworm anima away in my head as off the menu, along with moth and human. I made a mental note to ask Cyrus if there were any other types of anima I should avoid, but I got caught up in the game again and forgot all about it until three nights later, when things went very wrong.

*   *   *

We were in a post-jam afterglow in the dreaming tent, lounging and chatting and eating strawberries and goat cheese on rye bread, when Rory burst in, holding a ceramic bowl of filled with black-petaled flowers.

“Look what I found!” she called out, holding the bowl above her head and shaking her hips like a belly dancer in her harem pants and a cropped shirt that showed her flat, firm stomach. The bells tied to the ends of her dreadlocks jangled. “I went hiking in the woods today and discovered a patch of these beauties.”

“Oh my.” Hitomi rubbed her hands together, her tone awed. “My favorite.”

“What are they?” I asked, peering into the bowl. I'd never seen flowers with black petals, not real ones anyway. With their trumpet-shaped petal arrangement, these looked almost identical to the moonflowers that grew on the side of Eclipse House, except for the color.

“Midnight glory,” Hitomi said. “Sister to the morning glory, but quite rare. Its anima is uncommonly potent for a flower. Shamans and diviners chew the seeds to give themselves prophetic dreams. For us, the effect of its anima is like a lucid dream. You close your eyes and whatever you imagine becomes real.”

Hitomi placed her hand over the bowl. A thread of vena extended from the tip of her finger and connected to the rim of an ink-black petal. A subtle glow filled her eyes as she drank the flower's anima, and then her pupils expanded, dark and bottomless. The flower shriveled and crumbled to powdery dust.

Rory offered the bowl to me.

“Kenna, I don't know if that's such a good idea,” Cyrus said, shaking his head at me.

I hesitated, my hand halfway to the bowl. “Why not?”

“Oh, Cyrus, don't scare her,” Illia said, and then to me, “It's something every Kalyptra should try at least once.”

Hitomi smiled at me, eyes hazy and distant, as though she were looking at me, but not seeing me anymore. Or seeing some other fascinating version of me. Then her eyes drifted closed and she sighed and melted onto a pile of pillows in a state of obvious ecstasy.

Diego moved to my side and draped an arm around my shoulder. “You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. The anima of these flowers can have an…” He looked at the ceiling, searching for the word. “An
unpredictable
effect.”

“Like moth anima?” I asked.

The Kalyptra all looked at one another in alarm.

“No,” Cyrus said. “Not like moth. It's just … kinda bizarre.”

“Ah, she can handle it,” Yuri called out. “Do it, Kenna. It'll expand your consciousness and take you to places you've never been before and whatnot.”

“Leave her alone,” Cyrus growled at Yuri.

“I can make up my own mind,” I told Cyrus. I wasn't sure if I found his protectiveness irritating or endearing.

“Do what you like,” Rory said. “I'm partaking.” She fished a flower out of the bowl, and a moment later her pupils had expanded to the size of pennies. One by one, the others, including Cyrus, culled midnight glory until their eyes were as black as its petals and they were in another realm of rapturous consciousness, while I was on the outside, alone and separate.

I looked down at the flowers with no small amount of trepidation. From what Hitomi described, midnight glory could provide a kind of hallucinatory experience for normal people, not just Kalyptra, which made it a drug, something akin to mushrooms or mescaline or ayahuasca. I'd never done a real drug, not even marijuana, but I supposed when it came down to it anima was a drug. It was a mind-altering substance that I couldn't get enough of. I needed it every day to sustain me. Did the fact that I craved it constantly make me an addict, or was anima more like food and oxygen and water, things my body couldn't thrive without? Was a person an addict for breathing or wanting lunch or getting thirsty?

I took a determined breath and let it out, peer pressuring myself.
Everyone else did it, so I might as well, too
. I reached for a flower. But I released my control too soon and whip-thin tongues of energy unwound from four of my fingertips and attached to several of the flowers, instead of just one.

Their anima hit me like a slow-motion wave, rolling through my body until it crashed into my brain. I closed my eyes and sank backward on the sofa. When I opened them and stared up at the roof of the dreaming tent, which was hung with a patchwork canopy of drapes and tapestries, the colors seemed to melt toward me like dripping paint. They pulsed and kaleidoscoped and pinwheeled and seeped. Color swallowed me and spit me out. Swallowed me and spit me out. Then sucked me down into an oozing vortex, where I spun inside a wormhole, traveling deeper and deeper.