Indelible

by Dawn Metcalf

  The first touch surprised her and she turned her head quickly, eyes closed.

  His voice was soft, like music. “I was only...”

  “No, it’s okay.” Joy unhooked her earring and placed it on the table. She readied herself for the touch of his fingers.

  And waited.

  A gentle hush of expectation filled the room—she could hear him, sense everything about him, he was so close. A touch at the tip of her ear drew a long, smooth line along the outer ridge, down to the soft edge of her lobe. Achingly slow, curious, his fingertip slipped unexpectedly off the skin, bumping the soft flesh of her neck, and quickly withdrew.

  They paused.

  She felt his question, and hers, a moment of consent approved before the pad of his finger lifted her earlobe, his thumb brushing the soft down of her skin. Joy could hear the whispered touch in her ear. A trickle of goose bumps slid down her back.

  That’s not what this meant.

  Joy tried to ignore it. She tried to hold still.

  But it felt real.

  He was just looking. Learning. She’d said it was okay.

  She felt his fingertips cup her ear, pillowing the silence in the room. Not silence, exactly. Tension. Joy told herself it couldn’t possibly be all hers. His fingers traced, captivated, intimate and intricate. He was studying her so completely, she could feel it in his hands. Mesmerized. She knew he could see her swallow, the skin fluttering as a vein jumped in her throat. Joy didn’t want to open her eyes, turn her head and see him—watch him watching her. He was too close. She couldn’t seem to speak. Maybe if she’d said something earlier, kept talking, it could have been different, but now with the silence stretching longer with each second, it became more impossible to say anything to laugh it off, keep things casual. She couldn’t think of what she could say.

  This was anything but casual.

  Ink touched the curious bump protecting the cave of her ear, following the seashell whorl as if memorizing its design. Joy felt it. Heard it. Could almost see his rapt staring behind her eyes. His fingers left for only a moment before settling gently at the top of her cheek, the juncture between her ear and her cheekbone. It took everything for her not to turn her face to meet that touch.

  They were both fascinated: Ink touching her, Joy feeling him, his fingers exploring the slope of her face, guided by the slight dip at her temple. His fingertips tickled the edge of her hair, brushing the last tiny darts of her eyebrow, sliding against them as if smoothing each one into place. She tipped her chin back.

  He was reading her like Braille.

  Joy turned her face following the touch of his hand. His fingers caught a few strands of hair and lifted them, letting them fall, one by one. She felt a brush outside her eye and along the side of her nose. She opened her mouth slightly. She couldn’t quite catch her breath. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t look. Joy was frozen in the moment, eyes closed.

  The lightest touch on her quivering eyelid felt like butterfly wings, hardly anything at all. Her lashes fluttered against his thumb. She could feel the closeness of his palm, her head full of his scent. He feathered the tips of her eyelashes and followed their edge to the bridge of her nose—tracing a long line down and resting a hush on her lips.

  Like a kiss.

  Her eyes opened. She stared straight into Ink.

  He dropped his hand.

  Both stared at one another, speechless.

  “Thank you.”

  They were both surprised when he said it.

  Ink stood up, backing away cautiously—Joy kept her eyes on him as he moved, step by step. It looked as if he might do something, as if he wanted to maybe say something more, but he waved a hand and stepped forward into the breach, disappearing as he’d come.

  Joy stared at the space where he’d been, doing everything in her power not to touch the side of her face.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “WHAT HAPPENED TO you?” Monica accused over a tray of leafy greens.

  “What?” Joy said. “Nothing.”

  “Well, that nothing has you eating your salad with a spoon.”

  Embarrassed, Joy switched utensils, tucking her hair behind her ear and letting her fingers linger there. She grinned again.

  “I’m just thinking,” she said, poking the lettuce, “about stuff.”

  “Thinking stuff.” Monica nodded and chewed. “Sounds dangerous.”

  “Not yet,” Joy chirped.

  Monica slapped both hands on her tray, “Okay, that’s it—spill.”

  “What?”

  “What ‘what?’ Don’t give me ‘what’ and expect me not to ask ‘what?’” Monica pointed her fork at Joy’s nose. “You’ve been a total nut job ever since that night at the Carousel, and what with breaking windows and random notes and skipping off after school, you think I don’t know there’s a ‘what?’” Monica sounded angry, which was her protective-sisterhood thing. Joy tried not to laugh.

  “Is it drugs?” Monica hissed over her salad. “Because if it’s drugs, so help me, I will beat your sorry pale pink butt from here to next Thursday. I will call your dad, I will call the cops and I will even call Gordon and cancel our date!”

  “Whoa.” Joy waved a napkin in surrender. “It’s not drugs. No drugs. I swear. Remember? No Stupid,” Joy said, but had to add, “But there is a someone.”

  “A someone?”

  “A someone.”

  “A guy?”

  Joy rolled her eyes. “Yes, a guy. There’s a guy. I like guys.”

  Monica pursed her lips. “There’s a guy and you like guys and you met a guy, this Someone-A-Guy?”

  Joy prodded her lunch, picking at the crust of her sandwich. “There’s a guy and I don’t know what I think about him. I’m just...thinking about him. A lot.”

  “Mmm,” Monica said noncommittally. “So does this guy have a name?”

  Joy considered the question. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” Monica prompted with a wave of speared iceberg lettuce. “And?”

  “And there’s not much to talk about.” Joy shrugged and took a wide bite of sandwich, filling her mouth. She couldn’t decide whether Indelible was his first name or Ink, but neither sounded particularly normal. As opposed to Gordon Wiener-Schnitzel. Still, it was a subject best avoided.

  “Uh-huh.” Monica joined Joy in a long bout of chewing. They exchanged glances and evasions like fencing partners until Monica swallowed. “Okay,” she said. “So, this mysterious Someone-A-Guy that you can’t stop thinking about—would I, as your best friend, theoretically speaking, give him a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down?”

  Two thumbs down, definitely, for mystery-guy-who-stabbed-me-in-the-eye. Joy swallowed. “He’s not your type,” she said diplomatically.

  “But he’s your type?” Monica said. “And, what is your type, exactly?”

  “He’s...” Joy stumbled, trying to find the words. “Exciting. Intellectual. A little sad, which can be sweet.” The flash in her eye inspired her. “He’s an artist.”

  “An artist?” Monica sneered around cukes. “Please do not tell me that you’re going to go all emo on me. That’s worse than drugs.”

  Joy grinned, thinking of her first impression of Ink and Inq. “Observe—no black.” She gestured to her pink zip-up hoodie, cupcake T-shirt and mismatched pastel socks. “No silver, no heavy makeup, nothing dreary on the playlist. You can consider me clean.”

  “Artists!” Monica grumbled. “At least tell me he’s cool enough to make graffiti or tats.”

  Joy brightened. “He does, in fact.”

  “Really? Well, then you go, girl,” Monica said, finishing her meal. “We’ll try to ignore the mushroom cloud over your house when Daddy finds out.”

  * * *

  Joy lingered at her lock
er—waiting, hoping—slightly disappointed that Ink hadn’t shown up yet. She bounced in her shoes and rearranged her books, buying time for a theoretical something to happen. She picked at bits of foil wrapper and old, crumpled scraps and dug an odd dried leaf out of the metal corners along with random bits of fluff.

  Ink never said he’d meet her after school, or even every day, or every other day, or ever again. She could call his name, but that would be cheating. Or, at least be sad and desperate. She drummed her foot against the locker. It was stupid to keep waiting around. The fact that he might appear any moment didn’t make her feel any less pathetic.

  Joy crumpled the handful of trash in her palm. She was being an idiot. And she was going to miss the bus.

  She slammed her locker, shouldered her backpack and sprinted down the hall, checking the clock on her phone and swearing. Maybe she could still catch the bus if she cut through the cafeteria? Pelting down the stairs and jumping the corners, Joy burst out of the school into the cold, the wind whipping her hair with gusts of dry chill, threatening snow.

  Joy squinted at the grubby orange school buses, passengers huddling against ghosted windows for warmth. Taillights glowed red as bus number four inched in Reverse, warning siren beeping. She wasn’t going to make it. She stopped running. She felt stupid that she’d waited. Stupid and cold.

  Digging her hands into her pockets, she tucked her chin into her scarf and debated calling Dad. She could kill an hour easy in the library, if she had to. As long as they didn’t start vacuuming. The ancient machine the janitor used smelled of burning motor oil and sounded like a robotic catfight.

  She shivered in the breeze of indecision, then noticed someone lounging naked by the Glendale Oak.

  A long-limbed, dark-skinned woman sat propped against the trunk, her arms crossed over her knees and her head held imperiously high above her shoulders. Her skin and eyes were matching shades of nutty-brown, riddled with thin, dark veins like rings of age, and her face shone like glossy, polished wood. The shape of her eyes was faintly Eurasian, tilted up at the tips. She wore a lazy smile and nothing else.

  “So you’re the lehman?” she said. “The first to bear his mark?” Joy didn’t answer. There were too many people milling about and about a hundred cars full of witnesses. The woman’s eyes roamed frankly over Joy. “I don’t believe it.”

  The withering look she gave Joy was intense and unnerving—things Joy was beginning to associate with members of the Twixt. The chill of the outdoors seeped into her stomach. What could she say? She couldn’t deny it and blow their cover story. Inq’s semi-threat still rang in her ears, and Ink was counting on her. For the first time, Joy got that her life—and his—depended on keeping up the lie. She shrugged her book bag higher on her shoulder and blinked hard, flashing the signatura in her eye.

  The dryad was not impressed. “Look at you. You’re hardly a stripling,” the dark woman said dismissively. “But then, you do have the Sight. You can see me, can’t you?” She pivoted her head slowly as if it took effort. “Such pretty eyes,” she simpered. “I could pluck them out and feed them to the birds.”

  Joy squeezed her shoulder strap. Was this really a threat? It felt more like a test. After the aether sprite, this tree nymph seemed almost civil. Still, there was something predatory about her that crawled along Joy’s skin. Perhaps it was the fact that her eyes were missing pupils, the striped orbs spinning in their sockets as they followed Joy.

  Fishing her phone out of her pocket, Joy pretended to check the screen.

  “Any messages?” she said aloud. The ploy seemed to amuse the woman, whose smile was the only thing that moved.

  “I suspect something is amiss, little miss.”

  Joy held the phone to her ear. “Sorry, I think you have the wrong number,” she said, looking straight at her. “Who may I ask is calling?”

  The dryad smiled again, wide and serene. “I’ll be watching you, little stripling. Both of you,” she said. “And then we shall see.”

  Shaken, Joy turned her back on the stick figure and walked toward the school. She could still feel those eyes following her. Joy refused to turn around and broke into a jog. Only one thing was on her mind....

  “Ink,” she whispered as she headed for the stairs. Turning blindly around the corner, she nearly ran into his chest.

  “Yes?” He smiled, unperturbed by the wind.

  Joy spun around. The Glendale Oak across the lawn was empty; no one was there, naked or otherwise.

  “There was someone—” she pointed vaguely over her shoulder “—over by the Oak who just volunteered to be our personal stalker.” Ink glanced over her shoulder. “She’s not there now,” Joy said. “But she didn’t sound too thrilled with the idea that I was your lehman.” Joy tried what she hoped was a joking smile. “Any jealous exes I should know about?” Ink frowned in confusion. Joy waved it off. “Yeah. Never mind.”

  “Inq mentioned that we could expect something like this.” Joy marveled at the expanding definition of something like this. “Ours is an enigmatic circumstance, and the Folk are nothing if not curious.” He looked at her ear and she blushed. He smiled shyly, caught. “Do not let it worry you,” he said. “I am here now.”

  Joy almost said that she hadn’t thought he was going to show up and then didn’t want to sound as if she’d been waiting to see if he would. She glanced once more at the Glendale Oak, shaking off the last snowflakes of fear before checking to see if anyone else had noticed the guy with all-black eyes wearing a silk shirt in February. No one was paying attention to anything but the cold.

  “She said I was your first,” Joy said and then felt herself blush a beacon of heat against the chill. “I mean, she said that I was the first to bear your mark.”

  “Thousands of humans bear my mark,” he said. “I delivered their patrons’ signaturae. I am the one who marked them. Therefore they retain a copy of my mark, as well.” Joy felt oddly disappointed, which was stupid. She twisted her fingers in the lining of her pockets. She looked away as he reached out and touched a tendril of her hair. “But I have never given my signatura to anyone before,” he admitted softly. “You are the first.”

  Joy felt a warmth spread over her body as he stared at her. She ducked shyly into her scarf and sidled past him, her brain chanting giddy nonsense to the rhythm of her heart, whose beat had changed from angry/scared into something else. She was sure that Ink could hear it thumping through three layers of clothing. Joy pushed her way into the foyer. Ink followed.

  Students were hanging out by the doors, staring forlornly through the frosted windows, waiting for their rides. Joy marched into the empty stairwell and flicked on her phone.

  “I missed my bus,” she said, pretending to talk into the receiver.

  “On purpose?” Ink teased. “I am not your taxi, Joy Malone.”

  He was smiling, easy, familiar—acknowledging that something had happened back at her kitchen table, but that neither of them had to say, yet, what it was. She liked it. Like a secret surprise.

  “So?” she whispered. “Why are you here then?”

  Ink pushed off the wall and circled her playfully.

  “Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a young girl...”

  “Not so young,” Joy shot back.

  “Once upon a time, there was a not-so-young girl,” he amended, “who was invited to go on a magical trip.”

  “With a prince?”

  Ink grimaced. “Hardly.”

  “A magician?” she guessed.

  He shook his head. “A myth.”

  Joy poked him purposefully with one finger. “You feel real to me.”

  Ink glanced at her finger and where it had touched his chest.

  “Come with me.”

  “Are you asking?”

  “I am asking,” Ink said, offering his ha
nd.

  It was the best thing she’d heard all day.

  “Okay.” She shut off her cell. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  They entered a dark place that looked like a dungeon and stank like a sewer. It was hardly what she’d envisioned as their next magical date. Ink walked easily into the blackness, unfolding his wallet as he went. Joy picked her way over the straw-strewn cement as her eyes and nose adjusted. The walls wept oily water that clung to her boots.

  Ink settled himself into a corner, thin light from a high window playing zebra shadows over his face. The windows were barred, as was the door. This had to be a prison far away somewhere. Joy couldn’t imagine this being anywhere in the United States.

  Ink rolled something over that made a wet sound in the muck. An arm flopped into the light. Its skin was smeared and scabby in places. Joy clamped her lips together to keep from making a sound.

  Ink selected the fat spiked needle and, after rewrapping his instruments, settled himself down in the dank. Propping the limp arm up on his lap, he ignored the rest of the body hidden in shadows, a mass of matted hair and rags. The size of the hand made Joy think it was a man, but there was no other hint of who or what else he might be.

  Wiping a little spot clean of dirt, Ink took a few experimental stabs. Joy clenched her teeth, wincing in sympathy. The body didn’t even twitch.

  Ink jabbed the man’s arm as if it was a voodoo doll. Each pinprick exploded in tiny fireworks of black calligraphy, compressing quickly into a bloodred dot. Ink poked dozens of them in seemingly haphazard patterns.

  “This will take some time,” Ink said. “Sit. Talk to me.”

  Joy debated sitting and decided against it. She breathed through her mouth and wrapped her fists in her pockets.

  “I’ll stand for now,” she said. “Won’t he wake up?”

  “Eventually, but not soon,” Ink said as he continued to stab needlepoint scars. “He is a prisoner and not accustomed to sleep or food and he has recently had both. Plus, the food was drugged. He will be questioned within the hour.”