Indelible

by Dawn Metcalf

  “He’s a prisoner?” Joy said, as though this wasn’t obvious. They were in a cell with bars on the windows—a prison, ergo: a prisoner. “Can we help him?”

  “Help him?” Ink asked.

  “Yes. Help him.” Joy imitated Ink’s grand, swooping gesture. “Help him escape?”

  Ink smiled a little at her imitation and inspected his progress. “I am helping him by placing the signatura on his skin, showing that he has survived,” he said. “This experience will give him a place of honor in all manner of auspices—prisoners of war, survivors, visionaries, true believers. He has earned this and I would not take it from him.” He tilted the stylus to point with its hilt. “Watch the patterns. You will see what I mean.”

  Joy crept closer, trying to skirt the brown gunk and the round shadows that scuttled out of her path. She crouched down—careful not to sit—and watched where he next pricked with his pen.

  A blur. A dart of motion. There was no blood, but confetti swirls scattered on impact. Black crescent moons and crossed cutlasses, claws and six-pointed stars, vines of what looked like razor wire and flowers made of eyes popped and disappeared, leaving behind the tiniest of bloodred pocks. The result was a constellation of burst capillaries close to the surface of the prisoner’s skin.

  “What do they mean?”

  “I have come to recognize a great number of them over the years.” Ink brushed the smooth end of the handle against the soiled skin. “In there was Scythe and Whisper, the Tale Maker and Flight-of-Crows. Your world has different names for them, but their auspices remain the same.” Ink inspected the skin as he spoke. “Scythe watches over warriors that have not yet fallen, and Flight-of-Crows watches over those imprisoned for loyalty to a greater cause. There are still more here that I do not know, but every one of the Folk has an auspice and all are proud to claim those worthy of their mark.” Ink shrugged. “Many have claimed him. He will be looked after the rest of his days.”

  She didn’t know how to feel about that. That this man should suffer but not have it be meaningless was something. Still, to have to suffer at all...

  “Will the marks heal?” Joy asked.

  “They are not wounds,” Ink said. “These are permanent. Scars. Signatura etched upon his skin.” Ink paused and glanced over the man curiously. “Whatever happened, it happened for a reason and it has changed him. I merely bring it to the surface. The signatura marks him among my people and yours as one of an exclusive few, a soldier among fawns, respected and untouchable. It is my work, my honor and my auspice, having marked him. It is difficult to explain.” Ink rested his hand on his knee as if struck with a thought. “Do you want to try?”

  “Me?” Joy asked. “Why?”

  Ink shrugged. “You do not have an auspice. I thought that maybe this could be a way for you to understand. I thought, perhaps, to find something that you could do...to contribute.” His voice dipped as he started jabbing again. “You said that you were willing to learn.”

  He sounded disappointed—worse, hurt. He busied himself as if what he’d offered Joy was no big deal, underlining the fact that it was a big deal. To him, anyway. She weighed Inq’s threat and Ink’s offer against the floppy, dirty arm in his lap.

  Be indispensable.

  “I’ll try,” she said, surprising them both.

  Ink handed over the instrument and shifted so that Joy could sit. She rolled the needle in her hand, feeling more and more that she should hand it back and tell him to forget it. She stared at the wicked tip. What if it didn’t work? What if she stabbed a stranger? What if he woke up? What if he screamed? What would happen next?

  What if it changed her and she could never change back?

  “Gently,” he advised, sounding unsure himself. Joy tried to hold the needle steady as Ink guided her. His hand on hers, his chest against her back, his face by her ear, he hovered as if debating how to put into words something he’d done for aeons without thought. She felt it quiver along her skin like an itch, his words by her earlobe. “A slight touch will suffice.”

  Joy nodded, trying to ignore the smell of rain on his skin.

  “How do I make the mark?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm. Curling her fingers around the needle’s handle, she gripped it like a pencil during a test.

  “Touch the point to the skin,” he said. “And press down. The mark has been ordered. The signatura should appear.” He didn’t sound certain, either, but there was something comforting in the fact that neither of them knew what might happen but were willing to try it together.

  Joy took a tight breath. Her knuckles strained. The tip quivered. This was something she had to try. She had to prove that she was willing to be a part of this. To him. To Inq. To herself.

  She couldn’t do it.

  “He’ll wake up,” she whispered, buying more time.

  “He will not.”

  “Yes, he will,” she insisted. Her fingers cramped. “I’m not you. I’m real here.” She shook her head. “It won’t work. It can’t!”

  Ink stiffened. “Perhaps. Are you frightened?”

  She recoiled from the smell, the filth, the wet, slack skin.

  “Yes!” she hissed.

  “Then we will find something else.”

  ...no one will question why you are no longer with us...

  Joy stabbed. There was no shower of black squiggles. No claws or moons or eyes. Nothing. Ink brought his face close to the man’s arm.

  “Where did you mark him?”

  Joy confessed, “I didn’t look.”

  Ink swiveled the slack arm back and forth. “Can you try again?” he asked, curious, pointing to a spot higher on the biceps. “Here?”

  Joy held her breath and poked. Not a thing. Not even a drop of blood.

  Ink pointed lower. “Again. Here.”

  She tried again, thinking pincushion. Ink checked again.

  “Wait.” He ran his fingers over the skin as if searching for something tactile. He opened his hand and Joy handed him the needle. Ink stippled the skin with rapid-fire jabs, burying its surface in black hieroglyphs and capillary-red dots. Ink handed the needle back to Joy.

  “Try again,” he said. “Anywhere in here.” He pointed to the freshly speckled spot. Joy tapped a few times. Both she and Ink saw it happen—a tiny patch of clear skin grew in the red.

  “You’ve erased them,” Ink said, giving Joy a look. She felt strangely embarrassed. He laughed, an unexpectedly loud sound in the cell. “Give me that back before you undo all my hard work!” Joy blushed and hurriedly handed back the needle, secretly glad to be rid of it.

  “Well,” Ink said, returning to his task, relieved. “It was worth a try.”

  Joy bounced on her knees with leftover nerves. Digging her fingernails into her palms, she could hear a distant, turbinelike roaring and the rush of wind. Circulation returned to her legs and cramped feet in tingling waves.

  “Is that what normally happens when someone else uses your stuff?” she asked.

  Ink kept his eyes lowered as he filled the gaps with a sure hand. “I have never let anyone else touch them,” he said quietly. “Let alone use one before.”

  Joy stopped fidgeting. She didn’t say anything else, but watched him work with a growing and humbling awe, remembering the comfortable feel of the worn leather wallet, the knapped edge of the arrowhead, the peppermint spice of the wand. When he filed his tools away, she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Ink stilled, but didn’t look up.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He hesitated, speaking into shadows.

  “No one is watching,” he said. “You do not have to pretend.”

  Joy left her hand where it was and squeezed.

  Ink stood, turning smoothly, only a few inches between them. Her fingers slid off his shoulder but lingered
on his sleeve. She stared at him, caught in a moment she hadn’t intended or expected, but now that it was here, she wanted it. Ink searched her face and touched the edge of her ear. She watched his lips move.

  “One more stop,” he said quietly. Then stepped back and drew his blade.

  Joy sighed, both grateful and sorry as he tore an exit free.

  * * *

  Joy hadn’t dressed for the beach.

  The sun beat down warm and lazy, casting long four-o’clock shadows on the sand. The air smelled of baked salt and coconut oil, and Joy kicked up furrows stippled with seashells. She wasn’t sure if she was invisible to the tanning tourists strewn over beach chairs and towels, so she tried looking nonchalant in her long-sleeved coat and jeans. She squinted as they approached Inq lounging in a fabric chair, sporting a pair of expensive sunglasses, a skimpy swimsuit and a wide-brimmed hat. She dropped her magazine as they approached.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” Inq said. “Hi, Joy!”

  “Hi,” Joy said, feeling totally out of place.

  “How was your last assignment?” Inq asked.

  Joy looked at Ink. His eyes lingered as he said, “It was unexpectedly enlightening.”

  “Welcome to the world.” Inq got up from her folding chair and brushed off imaginary sand. “So you came to see me in action?”

  “Joy mentioned to me that she would like that,” Ink said. Inq beamed.

  “Perfect! That’s my girl, over there.” Inq pointed to a knot of college students talking/laughing/tanning in the late-day sun. Their skins shone with oil. It made Joy sweat in envy. It had to be ninety degrees.

  “Which one?” asked Ink.

  “Blue bikini,” Inq said. “I’ve been waiting forever for her to flip over.”

  Ink and Inq made their way easily through the throng of vacationers, eroded sand castles and tittering gulls. Joy noticed that she left footprints behind, kicking up little sprays of sand that flung onto blankets and newspapers. There was no way people weren’t going to notice that she was dressed for February weather. She expected to be called out at any moment.

  Inq knelt down next to the young woman stretched out on a blue beach towel, sunglasses reflecting the bright, sunny sky. She was oblivious to everything, asleep on the beach, her friends gabbing happily not three feet away.

  “Isn’t she pretty?” Inq said. Ink stood back, indulgent.

  One of the girls glanced up at Joy. She froze, a deer in headlights.

  Inq coached her smoothly, “Ask her for the time.”

  “Excuse me,” Joy stammered. “Do you have the time?”

  “Sure.” The girl glanced at her watch. “It’s 4:18.”

  Inq settled herself on the beach towel. “Now look around and say, ‘Where are they?’” Inq pouted dramatically, miming hands on hips.

  “Thanks,” Joy said and scanned the beach. “Where are they...?”

  The girl lost interest. Inq looked smug.

  “Piece of cake,” she said and spread her unlined hands wide. “Now watch this.”

  Joy swallowed a gasp as Inq laid her tiny palms against the bikini girl’s belly, Inq’s skin a startling cream against the caramel-colored tan. Pale lines, the inverse of Ink’s dark script, burst over the young woman’s body. Inq’s fingers dove deeper, disappearing into flesh, slipping inside and just underneath the girl’s skin. It was an intimacy even more shocking than the touch itself. Joy could hear her own heartbeat thick in her ears.

  The design was beautiful, an intricate snowflake unfolding over the girl’s abdomen—a glimpse at something wonderful and impossible etched in near-white. Ribbons wove feathered wings, wreaths of long-lashed eyes, and drooping, flowered vines that stretched and wound over themselves, making a reverse reflection lower down. The image sharpened and collapsed, fading as Inq withdrew, her fingertips sucking the last vestiges of signatura from the sun-warmed skin.

  Joy didn’t say anything. She’d forgotten to breathe.

  “Very nice,” Ink approved.

  “Thanks,” Inq said and stage-whispered to Joy, “She lost her virginity!”

  Joy gasped, horrified. “You...mark that? All the time?”

  “Sorry?” one of the tanning girls said.

  “Nothing. Sorry,” Joy apologized, embarrassed, and walked away quickly, her boots slogging through sand. Ink fell into step beside her and Inq skipped on her left. Joy didn’t speak again until they were past the lifeguard post.

  “Isn’t that...private?” she hissed. When Joy lost her virginity, she didn’t want Inq to know it.

  “Well, perhaps,” Inq admitted. “But this is a special case. Miss Emily Elizabeth Dawson-Brown comes from a long line of particularly gifted women as long as they remain pure. It’s an important guardianship, honoring a sacred pact that dates back to the Early Age.” She said it with reverence before adding, “Of course, now her natural power can mature free of constraints and should become much more interesting from here on in!” She laughed and pumped her fist in the air. “Let’s hear it for modern women!”

  Joy crossed her arms and rubbed her shoulders as if suddenly cold in the sweltering heat. “You enjoy your work a little too much. You know that, don’t you?”

  Inq smirked. “Indeed I do.”

  Ink smiled with full-on dimples, patting Inq’s back much like a real brother teasing his sis. They had no mother, so Joy knew that they weren’t technically siblings—they weren’t even human—so what did that make them, really? The thought made her more uncomfortable than she wanted to admit.

  The three headed to the parking lot while Ink fished for his blade. Joy pointed back behind them as she shook off her boots.

  “Aren’t you forgetting your magazine on your chair?” she asked.

  Inq glanced back, surprised. “Oh. That wasn’t my magazine,” she said with a laugh. “This isn’t even my hat!” And she flung it off into the wind with a whoop. Ink shook his head and Joy followed the tumbling brim with her eyes. Would anyone wonder about it? Or the magazine? Or the chair?

  “So? What did you think?” Inq asked Joy, breathless.

  “It’s...amazing,” Joy admitted, finding the easiest word to use. “Really beautiful.”

  Inq turned to her brother. “See? I told you she would work out. Everything’s going to be fine!” She grabbed Joy’s face in those iron-and-steel hands whose strength, like Ink’s, could be felt in their core. “You’re beautiful, too!” she said and squealed. “Eskimo kisses!” Inq rubbed her nose against Joy’s. Joy stumbled back. Her mother had called them that: Eskimo kisses. She touched the memory tentatively, like sunburn or a bruise.

  “Okay then,” Joy stammered, rubbing the tip of her nose, “thanks for the field trip.”

  Inq winked. “You’re welcome anytime!” She glanced at Ink and her manner shifted. “That goes for you, too.”

  “I know,” he said and rested his forehead against Inq’s, sharing a quiet moment, eyes closed.

  Joy stared at a tree for no reason at all.

  “Come,” Ink said to Joy. “Time to go home.”

  Joy took a last look at the beach vacation burning brightly off rainbow umbrellas and dark bodies and blue water.

  “Okay,” she said. “If I have to.”

  “It’d be awfully hard to explain tan lines when you got home.” Inq laughed.

  Joy shrugged. “I’m tempted to find an excuse.”

  Ink drew his long, sloping line and peeled the universe free.

  “Maybe next time,” he said and gestured through the door. Joy checked to see that no one was looking in their direction and leapt through, leaving Inq waving cheerily behind.

  * * *

  Joy shook out her boots, peppering the shower floor with fine sand. Ink had left her at her front gate and disappeared with hard
ly more than a shy glance. Ask me, it had said. But Joy had let him go.

  She welcomed the gush of hot water, imagining herself back on the tropical shore. Where had they been? Florida? Fiji? The Bahamas? Her mind reeled. She wondered—if it really took no time at all, could she convince Ink to take her on a holiday now and again? She’d even let him examine her other ear.

  Changing into comfy pj’s, she launched herself at the computer, buying time away from mundane things like homework or the fact that Dad was still not home. She was about to ping Monica, but saw Stefan online. She pounced.

  joy2thewurld: hey stranger!

  Stefan_malone: hi yrself

  joy2thewurld: what gives? havent heard from u in ages!!

  Stefan_malone: college = busy

  havent u heard?

  joy2thewurld: nobdy works that much

  Stefan_malone: didnt say I was wrking

  joy2thewurld: HA! so who is it?

  Stefan_malone: lol

  nobdy u know

  Joy actually laughed out loud and clapped her hands in glee, forgetting for the moment that she was mad at him and all the stuff she’d planned to say.

  joy2thewurld: IT’S A GIRL!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxo

  whats her name?

  Seconds ticked. Joy wondered why it took boys so long to type.

  Stefan_malone: james

  Joy stared at the monitor, her infectious smile fading. She read the last line again. Then the ones before. She read through the entire, brief conversation thinking, I’ve watched this happen a million times on TV. But here, now, on her own computer, wearing flannel pajamas and a damp towel on her head, the whole thing seemed somehow unbelievable. Even more unbelievable than invisible tattoos on a tropical shore. Was this real? Is this how it worked? Was he kidding? Was he coming out? Maybe it was a nickname? A misspelling? Maybe?