Indelible

by Dawn Metcalf

Joy wrinkled her nose. “It’s a little funny.”

  “That’s a little funny like being a little grounded.”

  “Hey!” Joy said. “Seriously, Dad, no guy. I’ve got no guy, I have no beau, I have no boyfriend—there, I said it. Happy?”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I wanted you to know that if there was a guy, I’d want to meet him,” he added. “I’m your father and if some boy wants to date my daughter, I would have to meet him...if there was a guy.”

  Joy popped her cup down on the laminate. “What’s all this about guys?”

  “Nothing,” he said testily. “Just making conversation.”

  “Because you’re hardly one to talk seeing as we’re both dateless wonders....” Joy’s voice trailed off as she saw her father’s face: a mix of hope and guilt. “No,” she whispered, the truth finally dawning. “You have a date? Last Saturday—the late night—you had a date?”

  “I had a date,” he confessed.

  “I thought you were out playing poker with guys from work!”

  Dad scoffed. “When was the last time I played poker with the guys?”

  “Is she...?” Joy tried to make the word fit her mouth. “Your girlfriend?”

  He raised a hand to whoa. “Now, hang on—no one said anything about ‘girlfriend’—just friends. Friends who went out on a date to...find out if there was something more.”

  Joy watched her own fingers play with a balled-up napkin, recycled brown paper twisting over her knuckles.

  “So this was just a friends thing?” she asked. “Not a date-date?” Her father looked as rattled as she felt. She twisted the napkin tighter, a matching feeling in her chest. It had been an innocent question! They never talked about stuff like this. Why here? Why now? She didn’t want to be having this conversation. In this restaurant. At this table. They were in public, for Pete’s sake! Other people were watching, listening, like the old guy behind the Plexiglas sneeze guard wearing the white paper hat—he knew as much about her father’s love life as she did!

  “Is this the real reason for your late nights at work?” Joy asked.

  “No, no. No more office romances for me,” he said. The words hit her like a slap. Joy knew her mom and dad had met at the office. She stirred her straw around the hurt. “Just trying to get ahead at work. You know what they say, ‘If you can’t be a yes-man...’”

  “‘...be indispensable,’” Joy muttered. It was cruel to use one of her mother’s old sayings right then. “So what’s her name?” she asked hollowly.

  “Shelley.”

  “Shelley?” Joy repeated. “As in Michelle, or is her name really Shelley?”

  “I don’t know,” her dad admitted, chewing. “I didn’t ask.”

  “How could you not ask?” Joy said. Had they been talking on this date, or doing something else? She scrubbed that mental image. Ew.

  “Well, are you going to ask?” she said.

  “Is it important?”

  “Yes. No,” Joy snapped. “I mean, are you going to see her again?”

  “Well, not just to ask about her name...”

  “Dad!”

  “Yes,” he said, finally, with a strange look on his face. “Yes, Joy. I want to see her again. But I want you to meet her when I do.”

  Her stomach fell, a punched hole through her seat. A circle of her insides and recycled molded plastic should have been lying on the floor.

  “Is it serious?” Joy asked.

  “Not yet,” her dad said. “Maybe not ever.” He folded his napkin carefully into fourths. It crinkled softly, muffled under his hands. “But you’re my family and I wanted you to know.”

  Joy examined the lines of her paper cup even though she couldn’t really see them. Her eyes were open, but nothing registered. Ice sloshed around like kaleidoscope beads.

  “Does Stef know?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  That was something. Petty, but something. This time, whatever it was, she knew it first.

  The need to talk to Stef burned in her throat.

  Joy looked at her father, the worry creasing his hands and the corners of his mouth. This was too hard. She wanted to give him a break. But it hurt more than she’d thought it would.

  “So...” she said, “this wasn’t really about you meeting my theoretical guy as much as me meeting your actual girl?”

  “Something like that,” he admitted. “So what do you think?”

  What did she think? Her thoughts were a jumble.

  Mom. Dad. Doug. Shelley. Gordon. Monica. What did she think? What about me?

  She gazed out the window, seeing the spark zip by each time she blinked. Shots of color winked orange and purple, silver and white, echoes of shadows and carousels and all-black eyes. Her mind whirled.

  What did she think?

  “I think I have to go to the doctor.”

  Dad frowned. “You feel sick?”

  “No, just that bit of light whenever I blink,” she said. “It’s annoying.”

  There was a long pause. The only sound was the rumble of ice cubes inside her paper cup.

  “I’ll make an appointment,” he said softly and stuffed their trash into the bag. Standing up, Joy instantly wished that she could take it back, rewind and record over, but then, she wished that about a lot of things.

  They got in the car and, just like that, everything went back to being unsaid.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JOY DRIFTED THROUGH the school day. She barely listened as Monica chattered endlessly about Gordon Weitzenhoffer, age seventeen and a half. No word from Stef. No email, no text, no IM, nothing. He had a new answering message recorded during a loud party. It sounded like he was having fun. Her brother hadn’t been half this popular when he’d lived at home. Instead of feeling happy for him, Joy wanted to smack him with her phone.

  She’d been stabbed with a knife, weirdos were stalking her and Dad was dating some unknown person named Shelley. Joy knew Stefan would somehow understand, but if he was busy with some new girlfriend, it might be weeks before he remembered to call. And if Dad hooked up with this Shelley person, then he’d be busy, and Monica would marry Mr. Gordon-ocious, and Joy would end up living alone in an attic apartment with too many cats.

  Returning home, Joy punched in her code and found a plate of cookies on the kitchen counter, proof that last night’s father–daughter bonding over Subway sandwiches had met with Dad’s approval. She snagged two, stuffing one in her mouth as she vaulted the couch. She welcomed the slightly sick, stuffed feeling of eating unhealthily on purpose, and promised herself she’d have something low-calorie for dinner. Sugar never tasted as good as gymnastics felt. She ate the second cookie just to smother the guilt.

  Joy cracked open her homework. It started to rain. Around six-thirty, she made a frozen Lean Cuisine and ate while reading about the French Revolution. She wiped a spot of marinara off the textbook page and tried to ignore the sound of frightened squirrels on the roof.

  There was a skittering of tiny nails, a nervous tickle across the ceiling. She followed the sound with her eyes. Being on the second floor meant that she was used to the local wildlife using the roof as a communal playground and convenient highway between trees. The pok-pok of acorns and drumming rain against the shingles often forced her to wear earphones to bed.

  The noises made her twitchy. She couldn’t concentrate. Pushing back from the table, Joy washed her knife and fork in the sink. Wind and rain pelted the new window, copious steam obscuring the glass. Scrubbing, Joy wondered what was on TV, but as soon as she shut off the water, she heard the squirrel sound again.

  But it wasn’t on the roof. It was inside the building.

  Something scrabbled past the front door and faded down the hall. Every hair on her a
rms rose and all her senses cringed. She didn’t believe for a moment that it was a squirrel. But instead of fear, she felt a hot flare of rage.

  Joy slammed down her dish. She’d had it! If this was another one of those creepy things with a message for Ink, she was going to tell it to leave her alone! If it was small, maybe she could scare it. Maybe it would just go away.

  She grabbed the broom just in case.

  The hallway was nearly dark, lit only by a failing fluorescent light. She stepped out onto the old, flat carpet beaten down by years of feet. The moldy smell normally hidden under air fresheners was newly kicked up by the storm. There was no noise now save the applauding gush of rain. Joy cautiously leaned farther into the hall and glanced both ways.

  The small window at the end of the hall was propped open. The baseboard dripped rainwater and there was a puddle on the floor.

  “You.”

  Joy ducked, already knowing that it was too late. She was only half surprised to be pushed into the wall by something vaguely resembling a human-size bat. Nostril slits puckered between its enormous yellow-green eyes and a wide mouth split its football-shaped head as it spoke.

  “You are the Scribe’s.” Its voice was gravelly, menacing. “Lehman to Ink.”

  Impossibly long fingers wrapped clear around her throat, cutting off her voice. The horrible face glared at her with its wet, bulbous eyes.

  The broom clattered against the floor.

  She choked out, “I...don’t...”

  “Tell him—tell your master that Briarhook is waiting. Mustn’t be kept waiting,” the thing emphasized with a brain-rattling shake. “Hear?”

  Joy nodded, fingers scratching against his knuckles, pulling for air.

  “Yes,” she croaked with tears in her eyes. “Yes!”

  The creature released her with a shove, banging her head against the wall. Colors sparked and wobbled. Her tears were more fear than fight. She stared after it as her vision cleared.

  Skeletal arms hung from its bony, gray shoulders, with pink scar tissue blooming over its back and ribs. The wide head sneered as he turned. “Don’t dally like you did for the guilderdamen. Won’t stand for it,” he warned. And with a sniff, he clambered up on the windowsill and leapt silently over the edge.

  Joy propped herself against the wall as if it were the only solid thing in the world. Her legs were boneless beneath her, her breathing quick and shallow. A tingling swept over her limbs, all pins and needles, and there was a sudden taste of nausea in her mouth. Joy swallowed, took a deep breath and lunged through the door, slamming it closed, flipping locks and punching the alarm’s safety code with shaking, spastic fingers.

  Joy slid to the floor. She started crying and, as soon as she realized it, stopped. Her face felt hot. Her eyes hurt. Her neck stung with what felt like a million tiny paper cuts. She rubbed her throat and coughed.

  This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real....

  She’d been thinking that a lot lately.

  Stumbling to the bathroom, Joy switched on the lights and craned her chin back to look at her neck. Tiny cuts wound across her throat, nips in her flesh like thin tire tracks. She scrubbed at them, first with her fingers, then with a washcloth. They looked angry and red.

  She threw the washcloth into the sink. Balling her fists, she screamed. Shaking, wet, horrified, she screamed again. She yanked out her hair tie, tears pouring out of her eyes as she trembled and kicked the cabinet in helpless rage.

  Joy ran to the kitchen. The new sheet of glass reflected the pelting darkness. She threw out her arms.

  “STOP IT!” she screamed. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” Joy shrieked her throat raw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I don’t know who you’re talking about! I don’t know anyone named Ink and I have no idea what the HELL is going on!”

  “That was an aether sprite,” said a voice behind her. Joy spun around to stare into a pair of all-black eyes. The boy gave a bored shrug from just inside the front door. “And he was looking for me.”

  “You!” she shouted. It was the psycho from the dance floor. In her house. Joy blinked in half-remembered pain. “You’re Ink?”

  “I am Indelible Ink,” he said. “My sister is Invisible Inq.” He pronounced her name with a clipped “q” as he pushed off the doorframe. “Personally, I call her Impossible Inq.” He gave a humorless smile. Joy didn’t know what to do. Panic lodged in her throat.

  Ink stepped forward.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  He stopped.

  “What would you do?” he asked. “Kill me?” Joy stared at him—at his whiteless eyes—without saying a word. She weighed her options and snatched the phone from its stand.

  “Get out,” she said. “Get out or I’ll call the police!”

  Flash! Flash!

  Ink was gone in the blink of light.

  “Yes, well, what good would that do?” he asked from behind her, frighteningly close. Joy choked and stumbled sideways as she turned around. Tilting his head, Ink calmly took a seat at the kitchen table. Joy watched him move, sinuous and serious. His boyish face looked harsh in the overhead light. “No one can see me,” he said. “No one but you.”

  Impossible. It was all impossible.

  “I came to talk,” he said.

  “About what?” she asked cautiously. Joy held the phone in her hand but didn’t want to make any sudden, telling moves.

  “About that night at the Carousel.”

  She glared at him. “You mean the night when you stabbed me in the eye?”

  “About what has been happening since that night,” he amended.

  “The messages?” She swallowed, wetting her voice. “Those were for you?”

  His voice was as expressionless as his eyes. “Yes, but they should never have come to you. That was a mistake. My mistake,” he said bitterly. “One of many mistakes.”

  Joy gave a little laugh and gestured with the phone.

  “Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry?”

  Ink leaned into the back of the chair. “My only regret is that I did not take your eyes. Blind of the Sight, you might have been spared all this.”

  Joy gaped, mind blank. This stranger had just admitted that he’d tried to blind her with a knife! And he’d said it so casually. As if he could do it anytime.

  “You’re being perfectly awful, you know that?” a new voice said from the bedroom hall. His Goth sister walked quietly into the kitchen. She hadn’t come through the door. Her eyes and long lashes were as black as Ink’s, but her smile held a kindness. “Look,” she said. “You’re scaring her.”

  Light moved strangely around Inq. Slithering calligraphy swarmed over her skin. Strange designs moved like living watermarks, like pale worms, writhing. It made Joy queasy to watch.

  Inq smiled wider, crinkling her wide, fathomless eyes. “Sorry. This is his own fault—and he knows it—so it’s making him surly.”

  “Stop,” Ink warned her.

  “You see?” Inq said. “Surly.”

  Inq stared at Joy, running her fingers over the edge of the counter as if caressing Joy’s arm. “Still, now that we’re stuck with each other, I suggest we make the most of it.”

  Joy slammed the phone onto the counter and quit considering the steak knives as potential weapons. It sounded like the sister could be reasoned with. And, besides, now the odds were two to one.

  “Will one of you tell me what the hell is going on?” Joy asked as she ticked off her fingers. “Who are you? What are you doing here? And what do you want with me?”

  “It isn’t really about you,” Inq started to say.

  “Oh, but it is!” her brother interrupted. He turned his accusation to Joy. “You saw us at the Carousel.”

  “I didn’t see anything—”

 
“He means you saw us,” Inq explained.

  Joy frowned. “What? I’m not allowed to look at you?”

  “Wrong question.” Inq scooped Joy’s phone off the kitchen counter and flipped it playfully. Before Joy could protest, Inq held it up and gave Joy an impish grin.

  “If it makes you feel any better...” Inq flashed a huge smile and snapped a picture of herself. Glancing at the phone, she handed it back to Joy. “Here. See for yourself.” Joy did. There was nothing on the screen but the auto-flash bouncing off the wall, catching the corner of a picture frame directly behind where Inq stood.

  “Is this some sort of trick?” Joy asked. “And that somehow gives you permission to cut out my eye?”

  “Technically, yes and no,” Inq admitted, leaning against the breakfast bar. She had the same spiky hair and liquid eyes as her twin, but she wore a corset of gunmetal gray and layers and layers of black, lacy clothes. She looked like an upscale street kid or somebody terribly, tragically hip. “There’s no trick. Simply put, very few people like you can see people like us, and there’s an old rule that says if someone like us ever comes across someone like you, we should remove your Sight, one way or another.” Inq shrugged. “True Sight is rare, but often runs in families, sometimes skipping a generation or two. Sound familiar?” Joy’s stomach lurched. Great-Grandma Caroline might have actually seen things that were all too real. And she’d been locked away for life. “My brother might have gone to extremes, but he’s right—you might have thanked him in the long run.”

  “Thanked him?” Joy shouted. “Screw him! And screw you!” Terror had a taste in the back of her throat. “Get out of my house!”

  “You cannot banish us,” Ink said softly. “The fact that you are even able to see us puts all of us, including you, at risk. Removing the Sight might have let you live a normal life.”

  “Minus eyes!” Joy spat.

  Ink tilted his head. “A more normal life,” he amended. “More normal than the one you will have now.”

  “That’s all in the past,” Inq said. “No mas. Capice? Ink didn’t blind you—he missed. Instead of taking your eyes, he accidentally marked you.” She lifted her small hand up to one midnight eye. Her hands were perfect and perfectly smooth. No knuckles. No fingernails. Like a doll’s. She gazed at Joy through the space between her fingers. “You wear it on your face.”