Blood to Poison

by Mary Watson

Genres: YA Contemporary; YA Fantasy

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Savannah is cursed. It's a sinister family heirloom; passed down through the bloodline for hundreds of years, with one woman in every generation destined to die young. The family call them Hella's girls, named for their ancestor Hella; the enslaved woman with whom it all began. Hella's girls are always angry, especially in the months before they die.

The anger is bursting from Savannah – at the men who cat-call her in the street, at her mother's disingenuous fiancé, even at her own loving family. Each fit of rage is bringing her closer to the edge and now Savannah has to act to save herself. Or die trying. Because the key to survival lies in the underbelly of Cape Town, where the sinister veilwitches are waiting for just such a girl.

Blood to Poison is a furious and mesmerising story about discovering magic, historical rage and love in all its guises.

 

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Release date: April 14, 2022

Publisher: Bloomsbury YA

Print pages: 396

Sample

                           

1

BABY

 

I am troubled by a memory that never happened.
 We’re running, Freda and I. She’s ahead, her long hair streaming. The night is unnatur ally bright, but not because of the stars. Freda turns to me, holding out a hand:
Faster, Savannah.
 My bare feet beat the hard earth. Fear tightens my chest. I glance behind me and see the world burning. The orange blaze, the hidden depths within the curling flames.
 And from those depths, something comes for us.
 I reach for Freda, grasp in at her billowing night gown. She looks back again and her face contorts with terror.
 That is where the memory ends.
 It feels real. But we’ve never escaped a fire.
 Freda, my aunt, my second mother, was killed in a car accident nearly ten years ago. It is an impossible memory. 

‘Savannah, you gonna hang in the doorway there all day?’ Solly
says from behind the shop counter.
 I ignore him. I have the devils in me today. Restless. That’s what Minnie always says when I get like this: Savannah, you have the duiwels in you. Come here. Sit still. Kryjourus, meisie kind. Get your rest, girl.
 From the doorway of the corner shop, I look out on to the empty road. The sun is high in the afternoon sky and, in the distance, cloud covers Devil’s Peak. I’m here for the sugar, to fuel me as I study for another exam. Just three more papers,
then three glorious months of summer break.
 I take a step forward, then hesitate. The memory felt more real today.
 I’m holding the jelly babies I bought, but I can’t eat with devils dancing inside me. I turn back to where Solly leans on his elbows, watching me. He’s beginning to grey at the temples.
 ‘All that sugar you eat.’ He shakes his head at me, like he
isn’t the dealer who feeds my addiction. ‘It’s gonna kill you
one day.’
 ‘Can I return them?’ I hold up the jelly babies. ‘For a refund?’
 ‘You opened the bag.’
 ‘Small details, Solly.’
 ‘You ate some.’
 ‘Is that a no then?’
 ‘Go home, Savannah.’ He raises his newspaper, blocking my view of his face. On the front page is a picture of a smiling woman. Stabbed seven times, the headline screams.
 I leave the shop. A car is parked beside the empty play ground, with two guys inside, smoking with the windows
rolled down. Their eyes light up as they see me.
 ‘Hullo, girl.’ The words slide out, slick with oil.
 I keep walking. Look straight ahead. I know how
this goes.
 ‘Sexy lady,’ the man in the parked car sings. I make the
mistake of glan cing over.
 He runs his eyes over my body, down my black cami, the
short shock of grey tulle, my bare legs, red Converse. Makes a
kissing noise. ‘Mm-mmmm.’ Like I’m some thing deli cious.
 I’m not angry. Not yet. But the duiwels want to play.
 I step towards the car. He’s young, this guy, twenty
perhaps. Something about him makes me think of an insect. A
cartoon bug.
 A metal pipe lies on the tarmac, near the tyre.
 ‘I like what I see, baby,’ Bug-Face informs me.
 ‘I don’t give a fuck what you like.’
 ‘You hear that?’ Bug-Face jerks a thumb at me and he looks
at his friend.
 ‘Sies, girl.’ The other man, full lips and a goatee, runs his
eyes over my body.
 ‘Can’t you take a compli ment?’ Bug-Face tuts. ‘Still, I like
them a little dirty. You know, you really pretty when you’re not so cross.’
 He shifts in his seat, the hem of his T-shirt riding up. The shape of a gun is unmistakeable, even before I see the black
handle at his waist band.
 ‘You should be more careful around here. A neighbourhood like this.’ He shakes his head. ‘You just never know.’
 What happens next, happens fast. The metal pipe is in my hand. The jelly babies are scattered in the road. I bring the pipe down on the hood of the car. The damage is disappointing,
barely a dent. I swing back and hit harder.
 Shards of glass spray every where. I hit again. Bug-Face
shields his face with his arm, eyes wide. And again.
 The other man scrambles out of the passen ger side, but he doesn’t come any closer. He’s too scared. I want to laugh.
People are emerging from their houses.
Kykdie Tinkerbell. She’s gonna moer him .
 Arms grip me from behind, stilling me. The pipe is prised from my fingers.
 ‘Let it go, Savannah.’ The voice is gentle. Solly.
 I’m trembling now. And embarrassed. Aunties have come outside. Small pieces of broken glass are trapped in my skirt.
The skin on my inside wrist is red and mottled, even though I don’t remember hurting it.
 ‘The police are coming,’ a woman says.
 Bug-Face revs the car hard when he hears that; no one is
stick ing around for the police. His buddy jumps in.
 ‘You’ll pay damages,’ Bug-Face shouts, jabbing a finger.
‘Burns Road – you’d better bring the money.’
 ‘I’ll come,’ Solly says to Bug-Face. ‘Tomorrow.’
 Their tyres screech as they drive away, burning rubber.
 Walking home, Solly talks to me the whole time – about the
shop, my exam the next day, if I’ll resume dancing in the new year. ‘Has Kim set her wedding date yet?’ he asks, and I am so
deflated that even this distant disaster, my mother marry ing
Quinton, doesn’t make my stomach knot with anxiety.
 The duiwels are quiet. They’ve had their feed, and now
they rest.
 The fear hits me later that night. After I’ve endured my mother’s
worried outburst, then her frightened silence. After I watched
her seek comfort in Quinton’s arms, barely able to look at me.
He stroked Kim’s slim shoulders, eyes on me, offer ing to take
the money next door to Solly.
 Lying in bed, in the quietest hours, I wonder if Kim ever
allows herself to think: My daugh ter is a monster . My daugh ter
is cursed.
 There’s a story that’s been handed down the gener a tions
in my family. The story of a curse. The story of a woman
so wronged that she burned with anger until it destroyed
everything. The story of Hella, my ancestor, whose anger was
passed down from mother to daugh ter.
 I turn on to my side, rest my cheek on a cool spot of the
pillow. In the glow of the outside light, the mottling on my
wrist appears an orange red.
 Hella had been enslaved, forced to work for a cruel family.
Her anger grew until one day, it exploded out of her.
 Hella cursed them.
You will die before you have fully lived.
 She cursed them for every lash of the whip, every slap, every
cruel word. My anger will follow you.
 She cursed the enslaver for his assault on her body, and his
wife for looking the other way.
My anger will destroy you.
 She cursed their ancest ors, their chil dren, the chil dren of
their line yet to be born.
You, your chil dren, and your chil dren’s chil dren. Until my
rage burns out.
 In the struggle, a fire had started. During the chaos, Hella
fled, and around her the world burned.
 She did not know she had his child growing inside her.
 I think of Hella, running across hard earth, the dark night lit by the fire behind her. Running until she felt her heart would burst. This story lives in my bones.