The Weight of Blood (30)

Mr. Marshall patted Jules’s leg. “Steve, she’s just a kid. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

“She knew exactly what she was doing, which is why she did it,” Mrs. Morgan snapped. “How do you expect her to make it in the real world if she doesn’t know there are consequences to her actions?”

Jules’s phone pinged three more times. Annoyed, she ripped it from her bag. Hundreds of notifications and text messages clouded her home screen. Her heart sank to the floor as she slowly began to process it all.

“Daddy,” she gasped, eyes flooding with tears. “The picture . . . it’s everywhere. And . . . oh God. Texas A&M just posted on Twitter . . . they’re revoking my acceptance.”

Mr. Marshall whipped around, face contorted in fury. “Steve, this is excessive! Don’t you think suspension is enough? You want to jeopardize her future too?”

A stunned Mr. O’Donnell held his hands up. “We made no calls to her university.”

“Then who did?” Mr. Marshall demanded, turning to stab a finger toward Mrs. Morgan. “Was it you?”

She shrugged. “No. But they probably caught wind of it from—oh, I don’t know—the dozen outlets that have reported the story. Have you seen those cameras outside? That’s your daughter’s doing.”

Jules collapsed in her chair, sobbing. “Daddy, please. Do something!”

Mr. Marshall continued berating the principal. “I want the name of every person involved in this, including the girl she allegedly bullied, and I want them now!”

“Daddy, I’m not going to college? I won’t be on the cheer squad?”

Mr. Marshall turned to his daughter. “We’ll set up a call with Texas A&M tomorrow,” he said firmly. “Get this all straightened out. We’re not going to let some dramatic little girl ruin everything you worked hard for.”

Mrs. Morgan shot out of her seat. “Did it ever occur to you how much you hurt Maddy? You’re lucky Mr. Washington refuses to press charges or push for resolution. You’re pretty much walking out of here scot-free. Because if I were Maddy’s mother, I’d be setting fire to rain for treating my little girl like that!”





Seven


May 19, 2014

Your bloodline was marinated in rage.

There will be pain in carrying this dark secret. A pain you must endure for others and for yourself.

This sickly power you hold without hands will eventually burn until you no longer can hide it. You must learn to control it. Or it will control you. But be not a doormat. You can ease the pain by leaving all that you know. Become so drunk on life and love that it blinds you to the hate threatening to drown you. Chew on grief for breakfast, devour aches for lunch, inhale life’s acid, let it burn the costume he has forced upon you.

MADDY SAT ENRAPTURED by her mother’s words, reading them over and over, cutting her fingertips on page edges, leaving breadcrumbs of blood throughout the book. How had she known Maddy would find the journal? Did Papa know she’d written it? Maddy hadn’t had much time to sit and decipher her mother’s cryptic riddles. She often talked in circles about blood.

Oh God . . . could Mama be a witch?

That would make the most sense, explain Maddy’s own capabilities. But Papa said witches were evil. He wouldn’t have been with an evil woman. Unless he didn’t know. Unless she fooled him. And if her mother’s blood flowed through her, did that make Maddy a witch too? She turned in her seat, spotting a free computer in the back of the library.

Despite Papa’s decree about modern technology, Maddy knew how to use a computer, a requirement for school assignments and access to the class portal. She pulled up Google and began her search. For what, she still wasn’t sure yet. But she knew she couldn’t be the only one able to move things with their mind. There had to be others.

She stuffed her mother’s journal back in her bag. It wasn’t safe to keep it at home, and it was the only piece of her mother she owned. If Papa found it and read the words inside, he’d set it on fire. And there would be a heavy price to pay. She touched the crusted scalp burn along her edges, swallowed hard, and typed in the first search term.

“Black witches”

Maddy’s heart raced as she combed through the terms African spiritualist, voodoo, Santería. . . . But from what she gathered, they used candles, incense, feathers, even dolls to obtain their desired results. As she closed another article, she stumbled across a picture, a group of Black women dressed in all white gathering by the water. None of them were alone. They had each other. She touched the screen with her index finger.

Mama?

Maddy shook the wish away. Her mama was dead. Died giving Maddy life. There was no bringing her back. But . . . could Maddy have extended family? Were they like her? Moving things with their minds? She closed the window and pulled up a fresh Google page.

“Witches who move things with their minds”

And at the very top, the first term that popped up was telekinesis.

She wrote the word down in her notebook and began from there.

MADDY DID IT

EPISODE 5

“Mind over Matter”

Kurt Von Keating: I’ll explain it in three easy words: Mind. Over. Matter.

Michael [narration]: This is Kurt Von Keating, author and founder of EmbraceYourPlace.com. I invited him to the studio to give us a baseline and lay the groundwork for understanding Maddy’s abilities. According to school records, Maddy checked out four books on telekinesis, eventually returning three but keeping one, Keating’s debut handbook on harnessing telekinetic powers. After about a dozen calls to his agent and a few volleys with an appearance agreement, I had to take a personality test before he would agree to meet with me. I’m assuming I passed.