Indelible

by Dawn Metcalf

  “Peekaboo!” Inq whispered in her slicing, clear chirp. Joy tried not to call attention to the fact that she had a visitor in class who no one else could see, casually ignoring Inq’s smirk as she knelt next to Joy’s chair.

  “I think he liked it,” Inq said, giggling as she marched her fingers across Joy’s desk. “His. First. Kiss.”

  Joy exaggerated putting her pen to paper and wrote in large letters.

  I think he did. I did, too.

  “Enough for seconds?” Inq teased.

  Joy blushed, making ticks in the margin. Two, five, ten, twenty...

  Inq clapped her hands and laughed.

  “Brava!” she said. “So how do we celebrate?”

  Joy paused and wrote.

  Celebrate?

  “Well, I can’t very well declare it Ink’s First Kiss Day—he’d be awfully embarrassed. Although I’ve never seen him blush... It’s tempting.”

  Joy tapped her next sentence with her pen cap.

  Please no!

  “Right, well, instead I had the idea to invite you out again—it’s a unique opportunity, only this time, the party’s over,” she said. “But both Ink and I have to go. You’d surprise him! Interested?” Inq backed away, gliding up the aisle as if she had radar in the back of her head. Joy’s classmates unknowingly shifted elbows and feet out of the way. She didn’t bump into anyone once.

  Inq fanned her fingers on either side of her mouth in a stage whisper and winked. “All your favorite people are going to be there!” she cooed.

  Joy bit the well-munched end of her pen and considered the screenful of dates she could easily look up on the internet. Inq teetered dramatically over Mr. Soares’s desk, practically dropping her breasts on top of his open book. She glanced sideways at Joy and kicked up her heels.

  “Say it,” she lilted.

  Joy raised her hand.

  “Yes, Joy?”

  “May I go to the bathroom?”

  Mr. Soares sighed and waved absently at the hall pass, a garish hot-pink thumbs-up on a key ring. Joy scooped up the pass and soon she and Inq were bouncing giddily down the hall. Inq raised her hand as if pushing curtains aside.

  “Keep your arms and legs in the fully upright position...”

  They dropped right through the visible world and stepped into a living room piled with bodies. Joy stopped abruptly.

  “...they apparently did,” Inq finished.

  Everyone was naked or in a state of half-dress. The hotel suite smelled of burnt candle wax and alcohol and sex.

  “Ugh.” Joy coughed on embarrassed laughter. “You brought me to an orgy?”

  Inq picked her way delicately between two people curled on the floor.

  “Don’t be silly,” Inq said. “The orgy’s over. Even Viagra gives out eventually!”

  “You are so gross,” Joy said, staying clear of the tangle of limbs, sheets, and tissues, tripping over a vodka bottle on her way to the wall. She tried not to look at the landscape. Most of the faces were foreign and most of the girls were young. Every surface was covered in bottles, glasses, syringes or sandwich bags. Joy crossed her arms and blushed.

  Ink zipped through a wall and stopped dead.

  “Joy?” he said, dumbfounded.

  She waved weakly. “Hi.”

  “Surprise!” Inq threw her arms over her head, exuberant. Ink glanced at his sister and something in his face flickered. A dimple appeared.

  “You are impossible,” he muttered good-naturedly. Inq shone with pride. He walked over to Joy. “I can take you back, if you want.”

  Inq clucked. “We just got here. Look, she has a pass!”

  Joy rattled her laminated thumbs-up by its key ring. Ink smiled in sympathy. She wanted to be good at this. For him. With him.

  “You do not need to be here,” he said. “Inq gets bored sometimes.”

  “Bored? With this?” Inq lifted a hairy arm and waggled the sluggish hand. “We already missed the fun.” Inq touched the tip of one finger, and shimmering calligraphy slid down the arm: pinwheels of eyes, herons, long-limbed tigers and spinning columns of characters popped like wax stamps.

  Inq dropped the limb and turned to Ink. “You agreed that Joy should be seen in the field. I thought she might like to watch us working together,” she said. “It doesn’t happen all that often. You’d like to stay, wouldn’t you, Joy?”

  Joy didn’t know what to say. She’d thought she was going with Inq to another cabana party. Ink’s eyes held questions. Joy leaned against the wall.

  “Sure,” she said, matching Ink’s gaze. “I’ll stay.”

  He cocked his head, trying to piece together her clues. She saw him matching her words to their meanings, noting the subtle cues of her flesh. He’d been watching. He was learning. Which would he choose to believe?

  “If you like,” Ink said and stepped into the fleshy thicket. Pulling out his wallet, he picked up his silver quill and opened a girl’s knees. Joy quickly looked at the clock.

  “It’s not always pretty,” Inq said crisply. “Although many of these humans are.” She lifted a young woman’s face from a sofa cushion. “Look at those cheekbones!” Inq turned the unconscious face back and forth. “Do you think I’d look better with cheekbones like hers?”

  “You look fine,” Ink said dispassionately. Joy couldn’t help but smile.

  “How would you know?” Inq countered as she winked at Joy. “You like high-browed brunettes.” Inq laid the sleeping girl back onto her pillow and traced her cheek gently as writhing filigree dropped a lace mask over the girl’s eyes.

  “So who ordered these marks?” Joy asked, trying to keep cool.

  “Who knows?” Inq said. “After all this time, it’s really more a matter of getting the job done. When large groups of humans come together—pardon the pun—it’s usually an opportunity for several of the Folk to stake a claim.” Inq smiled. “Everybody loves a good party!”

  Joy crossed her arms. “I don’t follow.”

  “Disease, conflagration, prophecy, pregnancy...” Ink rattled off words as he discarded another limb. “There used to be rituals attached to gatherings like these, but now only a memory of those rites remain. Still, there is a power to it and there are those who can claim it under their auspice.” He looked up at Joy. “All part of being human, I suppose.”

  Joy snorted. “Not this human.”

  Inq laughed.

  Joy watched as Ink took up his fat needle and drew a complex bead in the hollow above a man’s buttocks. The black block calligraphy flowed like music—the man’s back became a human cello under Ink’s knee. She watched the intricate patterns dance and disappear.

  “Can different symbols belong to the same person?” Joy asked.

  “No. Each person’s signatura is unique,” Ink said simply. “But there are several claimants here. True Names mean only one thing, but the symbols comprising them have many interpretations.”

  “He means that the same embedded images can have multiple meanings, but the signatura itself is unique,” Inq explained. “A hare, for instance, might mean longevity, luck, fertility, cowardice or death, depending on whose it is and how it is drawn.” She hooked her two fingers and made bunny ears hop across the couch and vampire-bite a sleeping girl’s neck.

  Ink smiled as he looked at Joy. “The symbols flow automatically when we make our marks,” he said. “I barely notice them anymore. You remind me there is beauty in this, too.”

  Inq winked. “Flatterer.”

  “So it’s not unusual to have the same symbols show up again and again?” Joy asked, still confused.

  Ink sat on the coffee table. “Some symbols have many meanings, but the same signatura occurs rarely,” he said. “Inq and I have learned to recognize hundreds of them, but we have been d
oing this a very long time.”

  Joy frowned. “But I’ve seen the same symbol loads of times.”

  Inq looked down at the man’s shoulder she was caressing into picturesque display. “What? These? It’s classical Chinese.” She sounded impressed. “Do they teach Chinese at your school?”

  “No, not that,” Joy said, pointing. “The spotted flower-thing. The pinwheel of eyes.”

  Ink turned and looked at the fading tattoo design.

  “Pinwheel of eyes?” he asked.

  Inq shrugged and looked at Joy. “You saw it before?”

  “Sure,” Joy said. “Lots of times.”

  Ink corkscrewed to look back at her. “You mean here in this room?”

  “No, I mean everywhere,” Joy said. “I’ve seen that same symbol nearly every time you’ve marked someone. I thought it was your mark or something.”

  “That is not my signatura,” Ink said, regarding his sister. He addressed Joy again. “Are you certain?”

  Was she? “I think so,” Joy said.

  He sounded curious, intrigued. “What did it look like?” he asked. “Can you draw it?” Ink pointed to a hotel notepad and a pen. Joy put down the hall pass and sketched eight petals in a circle, like a flower, with a dot in the center of each one. Ink inspected it and held the paper out to Inq.

  “Recognize it?” he asked. Inq shrugged.

  “Many symbols look the same,” she said.

  “Not to Joy. She has the Sight and she sees these things with fresh eyes.” Ink held up the piece of paper. “We should ask Graus Claude.”

  “Why?” Inq asked, sounding exasperated. “We have work to do. No offense to your lehman, but she’s new at this. Who cares whose it is? We can’t keep running to the Bailiwick at the drop of a hat.” She glanced meaningfully at Joy. “He already suspects something.”

  “I do not recall this being one of the ordered marks,” Ink said gravely.

  Inq sighed, annoyed. “Are you certain?”

  “It is not familiar to me. And there is an easy way to find out,” Ink said, standing next to Joy, cool and implacable. Inq frowned. Joy felt tension rising between them like an unscratchable itch.

  “Maybe I was wrong,” Joy said.

  “See? She admits she’s mistaken,” Inq said. “Now can we get back to work?”

  “By all means.” Ink gestured with his blade.

  Smooth and defiant, Inq yanked up a foot at random, drawing a line with her fingertip from big toe to heel. Light watermarks sluiced down the calf. Between soaring, skeletal cranes and a line of Chinese blocks, three eight-pointed stars tumbled like snowflakes, fading as they approached the knee and dissolved.

  Inq dropped the foot like a brick. She splayed her fingers and gazed between them as if she were scouring the room with a magnifying glass.

  “It’s everywhere. On every one of them,” she muttered quietly and lifted her eyes to Joy. “Even you.”

  Joy pressed back against the wall. Ink’s hand was on her cheek, his thumb touching gently the corner of her eye. Flash! Flash! She looked at Ink with a strange panic blooming in her chest.

  “Ink?”

  “We go to Graus Claude,” Ink said, taking Joy’s hand. “Now.”

  “Of course,” Inq said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  There was a fraction of a second between Ink escorting Joy by the elbow and their appearance at the base of the majestic stone steps. They vaulted the stairs quickly, footsteps light on the snow. Inq was the first to rap her knuckles on the door.

  Kurt silently bade them enter, giving the tiniest bow to Joy. She smiled and mouthed the words Thank you. Kurt didn’t smile, but his eyes did.

  Ink placed his calling card on the silver tray, but Inq snatched it up before Kurt could carry it off.

  “Got a pen?” she asked.

  Kurt withdrew a fine, silver pen with gold clasp. It looked like it cost a small fortune. He held it out to Inq, who stared at it, then at him. There was meaning behind the exchange, but Joy couldn’t grasp what. Inq took the pen and drew the eight-petaled flower carefully on the back of the cardstock, doodling a dot in the center of each eye. She flipped the card so the picture was faceup.

  “There,” Inq said, handing the pen back with a flourish. “That ought to get us some answers.” But Kurt hadn’t moved to accept the pen. He stared at the symbol, his face hard. Joy could feel a rage vibrating off him, something primal, pheromonal, urging her to run.

  Kurt took the pen and the tray in one gloved hand and walked down the hall with tight, measured steps.

  Joy stared after him. “What was that?”

  Ink sat down. “What?”

  “The way he acted...”

  Inq shrugged. “Monkey recognized the mark.”

  Joy looked up. “Monkey?”

  “No offense.”

  Joy flushed. Was that how Inq saw Kurt, or servants, or all human beings? As animals? Monkeys? Was that any different—or better—from lehman? Lovers? Slaves?

  “His name is Kurt,” Joy said, bristling. “And he saved my life.”

  Inq turned her drowning eyes to Joy with a look that was either scathing or curious.

  “Really?” she drawled. “And therefore you think you share a special bond?”

  Joy stood. “What is your problem?”

  “Kurt was once her lover, Joy,” Ink interrupted smoothly. “I think that may have more to do with it than any intended slight.”

  Joy frowned at Inq. “Kurt was your lehman?”

  “No.” Inq shot her brother a glare. “He’s his own man. I was just having fun,” she said, but something in her face betrayed an old hurt. A bit of Joy’s anger melted, but only a little. The idea of Inq and Kurt together didn’t fit in her head.

  Inq glanced down the hall the way he’d gone. “Still, I wonder...” But she didn’t get to finish her sentence before Kurt opened the great double doors, stepping aside so that they might follow. Ink stood, Joy joined him and Inq trailed behind, moving swiftly past her ex-lover without a backward glance.

  Congregating in the office library, they gathered respectfully around the Bailiwick’s desk. His two hands were typing as a third held the mouse and a fourth followed something on the monitor. Graus Claude peered through a rimless set of spectacles perched impossibly above his flaring nostrils. He clicked something closed and the mouse hand removed the glasses gently.

  “Master Ink, Mistress Inq, Miss Malone—you are all looking well,” he said. “I trust that you have enjoyed a speedy recovery?”

  Joy didn’t need a prompt. “Yes, thank you,” she said, turning to include Kurt. “Thank you both very much.”

  Graus Claude nodded his low-slung head and rumbled, “Good.” Three arms pivoted his massive bulk as he arranged himself before the black-eyed twins.

  “You bring me more riddles,” he said while flicking the card between his claws. “What is this about, eh?”

  “We hoped that you might tell us,” Ink said. “Do you know this signatura?”

  Graus Claude gave an affirmative grunt. “Indeed, I do. But first tell me why I should tell it to you.”

  “It was in our order today amidst the claimant’s mark,” Ink said. “I did not recognize it. Nor did Inq.”

  “The lehman said she’d seen it before,” Inq added.

  “Joy,” Ink corrected her.

  “Joy,” Inq said. “Of course.”

  Joy couldn’t imagine why Inq had grown so frosty. Graus Claude turned his ice-blue eyes to her. “Is this true?”

  She nodded. “I’ve seen that symbol a number of times, almost every time I’ve accompanied Ink.” Joy didn’t mention that Inq had seen it on her, too.

  The great toad’s eyes flicked to Kurt, who stood coiled like a
rope twisting tighter. His gaze returned to Ink. “How many times has she accompanied you?”

  “A handful,” Ink said.

  “And this—” a claw tapped on the cardstock “—was present at a number of assignments?” Graus Claude stared at Ink. “Did you notice it before?”

  “I admit, I had not noticed,” he said.

  “And you, Miss Invisible?”

  Inq bowed slightly, her hair stiff as a rooster’s comb. “Once Joy pointed it out, I thought perhaps I’d seen it before....” She trailed off, avoiding the storm cloud of Kurt behind her. “But I usually don’t take note of the symbols embedded in specific signaturae, only that they are complete.”

  “And are they?” Graus Claude asked. “Complete?”

  Inq’s face flushed, cream-colored hieroglyphs flying over her features.

  “Yes,” she said. “Always.”

  The Bailiwick nodded. “Well, then.” Graus Claude raised his sloping neck slightly to catch Kurt’s eye. “Thank you, Kurt. You may go.”

  Joy felt more than heard the butler leaving, a click of the doors behind her and his crisp footfalls disappearing down the hall.

  “I apologize,” Graus Claude explained. “I am afraid my associate does not have the professional distance necessary for the remainder of this conversation.” One of the four hands gestured. “Please sit.”

  They each chose a seat. Graus Claude towered over them. Joy thought he’d make an impressive school principal or Supreme Court judge. Heck, he was pretty impressive as a four-armed toad in a three-piece suit.

  “This mark belongs to Aniseed,” he said. “She is an alchemist and a powerful segulah.” The Bailiwick’s head swung to address Joy on the far right. “This means that she is a magician who works with natural elements. She is a member of the Council and one of the last of her kind.” He brought his attention back to the twins. “She is a formidable opponent.”

  “Opponent?” Ink asked.