Nobody noticed as Valerica slipped out of the mill, hurrying around back to plunge her bloody hands into the stream. It wasn’t enough. She waded into the water, fighting the urge to strip off her bloody clothes and fling them away. Blood trailed downstream like smoke in the water.
“Control,” she said through clenched teeth. Her hands twisted the denim of her overalls. The yearning hadn’t been this strong since she left Romania, nearly ten years before.
She could almost hear her father’s voice whispering, “The blood burns with power, ready to be claimed.”
Valerica dropped to her knees and plunged her face into the water. The shock of cold finally purged the scent of magic from her nostrils. She remained there until her lungs threatened to burst, then sat back, gasping for air.
This was an accident, nothing more. The Red Eagle Silver Mine was a dangerous place. A sinkhole had claimed three men earlier this year. A cave-in had buried another group only last week.
Heavy footsteps crunched the rocks behind her. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Henry Cooper had worked this mine since eighteen fifty-four, taking over as foreman a few years later. He was a God-fearing man with a temper hot as a smelting fire. A black bush of a mustache covered his mouth, and his bald head was damp with sweat.
“Is Jim-”
“Cussed fool will probably be dead by dinner.” Henry crossed himself, then said, “I let you work this mine because you’re strong enough to swing a hammer, and you don’t complain. But this is dangerous work. Man’s work. If you’re going to run off and swoon every time-”
“I’m the one who pulled him away from the stamps,” Valerica said.
“That so?” Henry folded his arms. “Old Clyde says it looked like you were the one who pushed him in the first place.”
Valerica didn’t answer. Against the word of a man, hers was worthless as pyrite.
Eventually, Henry shrugged. “ ’Course, Clyde ’s half-blind, too.” He turned and spat. “So if you’re through with this little display, why don’t you get back in there and start cleaning the pans.”
As she returned to the mill, Valerica saw the other workers carrying Jim Daley downhill, toward the makeshift city of tents and cabins that surrounded the mine. Others ran out to help, and to learn who had been hurt.
Valerica ducked into the mill and did her best to lose herself in the work. She yanked the pans from beneath the stamps, then began to rinse away the pulp and mud. It was a mindless task, one that slowly allowed her to regain her control.
By the time she began to draw the quicksilver from the bottom of the pan, shaping it into crude, fist-sized balls, she felt human again. The splotches of blood no longer called to her, or if they did, she refused to listen.
Valerica’s cabin was a quarter mile south of the main camp, away from the others. She reached for the heavy canvas that served as a door, then yanked her fingers back. She might have imagined the smell this morning, but here the scent of fire and blood made her eyes water.
“Bill,” she whispered. “Alina!” Valerica ripped the door aside. Stepping into her cabin was like walking through cobwebs. Foulness permeated her home, a shadow that clung to her skin and seeped into her lungs. “Where are you?”
She found her adopted nephew in the corner. Bill was half-naked and trembling, his eleven-year-old body curled into a ball. Thin lines of blood crusted his forehead, the Cyrillic characters barely legible. Others marked his chest, over the heart.
Valerica grabbed him by the arms. Without thinking, she smeared her fingers through the blood on his chest, severing the enchantment.
“Aunt V?” Bill coughed and looked around. “What are you doing here?”
“Where is Alina?” She held him still as she checked his body for injuries. The cuts were shallow, and should heal quickly. She licked her thumb and scrubbed his forehead.
Bill looked down at himself, and his face went white. “How…who did this to me?” He tried to squirm away, but Valerica held him fast.
“Let me go.”
“Where is Alina?” Valerica shouted.
“In her crib!”
Valerica released him.
Bill’s shirt was balled up in the corner. He slipped it on and began doing up the buttons. “She’s been bawling all morning. I thought about mixing a bit of whiskey into the goat’s milk, but she finally settled down.” He pulled his suspenders up over his arms, then stopped, staring through the open door at the sunset. “Aunt V, what the hell is going on?”
Valerica was already moving into the other room. A set of bunkbeds stood against the wall beside the small crib Valerica had built almost a year ago. She knew it was empty the second she stepped into the room, but she tore through the blankets anyway. She ripped apart the lower bunk, then dropped to the dirt floor to check beneath the bed. There was no sign of her daughter.
Bill stared at the empty crib. “I didn’t doze off. My word on it. I tucked her in, safe as-”
“Get out.”
His eyes shone, but he blinked back the tears. “Don’t be like that, Aunt V. I can help you search. Little Alina can’t have gone far. The pup can barely crawl.”
Valerica grabbed him. One hand twisted his collar, the other seized the seat of his pants. She dragged him from the cabin and set him down hard, facing the town below.
“You can help by going to church and praying for Alina.”
Bill scowled, his face red. “You don’t have to-”
“Now.” Perhaps a bit of power slipped into her words. Or maybe fear alone compelled him. Bill fled without another word.
“Forgive me,” she whispered. Slowly, her anger turned inward, where it belonged.
Father Fanshaw had refused to allow Valerica into his church, ever since he learned of her relationship with Elizabeth. But he wouldn’t refuse a frightened boy, and the church was the one place Bill should be safe.
Valerica closed her eyes. She should have known. With all of the commotion after Jim’s accident, who would have noticed a lone figure making his way through the camp?
She had known. She had simply refused to see.
“Watch over her, Elizabeth,” she whispered. “I swear to you I’ll save her. Keep our daughter safe until I can find her.”
It was a year and a half since Valerica had taken Bill’s mother into the desert. Elizabeth hadn’t understand at first, thinking it nothing more than a fancy picnic. There were so few chances to be alone, away from the gossip. But this morning Bill was in church, and the mine was shut down for Sunday worship.
The two women were a sight. Valerica was still caked with dust and sweat from yesterday’s work. Her loose miner’s overalls hid a muscular body, and her black hair was tucked into a blue cap. By contrast, Elizabeth Bemis was a proper lady. She wore a black silk hairnet with beads and blue ribbons dangling down her neck. Despite the heat, she refused to remove her bonnet, nor would she soak it down with water from the canteen, as Valerica had done with her cap.
“Where are we going?” Elizabeth asked, taking Valerica’s hand in hers and swinging them like a child.
“There.” Valerica pointed. The blood spell she had traced on the cracked boulder was gone, washed away by the elements, but the power remained. Trapped by the magic, a coyote whimpered at the base of the boulder. The animal favored her back left paw as she paced, and her ribs were clearly visible against the dirty gray fur. Even without Valerica’s spell, she would have died within a few days.
Valerica pulled out a razor she had borrowed from Elizabeth ’s cabin. She opened the blade and nicked her palm, then extended her hand so the blood dripped onto the coyote.
The coyote’s legs collapsed. Her tongue lolled from the side of her mouth as she struggled to raise her head.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.
“Did you mean it?” Valerica tightened her fist, squeezing more blood into the dirt. “What we talked about last week, after Bill’s birthday?”