Ink and Bone

by Lisa Unger

She gave him a little smirk. “I know that,” she said.

  She bowed her head, shoving her hands into her pockets. Then she just walked away, her heels clicking on the sidewalk, echoing off the buildings around them. She turned a corner and was gone. He felt nothing, except a vague regret for everything that had passed between them. It certainly hadn’t been worth it, for either of them. But that was another truth of life that Wolf had only recently learned. Very often, there was no redemptive narrative. The consequences for some mistakes would not be undone. He headed toward the garage.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The problem with going fast, was that you couldn’t go far, too. Her heart throbbed, and her ankle hurt so much that she cried while she ran, seeing white stars of pain every time her foot connected with the earth. Finally, she slowed to a limp, breathless, having lost her bearings completely. She stopped and looked around the dark woods. No light from the moon. Don’t panic, that’s what her daddy would have told her. Find shelter. That’s the first thing you have to do if you get lost in the woods.

  Exposure was the greatest threat to survival, her father had told her. She kind of didn’t get it. She thought it would be food or water that was the most important thing. Then, she’d never been too cold for too long. Her skin never ached from the frigid air. She was separated from snow and rain by boots and coats, mittens and scarves. It never touched her, not like this.

  The snow was falling in big thick flakes. And she remembered how it looked when it fell out her window. How it would seem to melt into the black river of the street and never accumulate. But here, a white blanket was forming. The snow was clinging to leaves, forming little piles on branches.

  “What do I do now?” she asked the voice.

  But there was no answer. The voice was probably mad at her because she had disobeyed. Now, she was on her own. She tried to rid herself of the image of Bobo hitting Momma over and over again with that flashlight, but she couldn’t. Had she made him do that? Was it her fault? She thought that she should be sorry, that somehow it was she who drove him to do it. But she wasn’t sorry. If she’d been strong enough, she’d have done it herself.

  Once, when she was in first grade, her gym teacher—a big goofy guy who thought nicknames were funny—called her something she didn’t like. He called her Lazy Daisy because she made a face one day when she didn’t want to do a hundred sit-ups—like, who did? He had other nicknames for kids too, like Big Red for Ben who had red hair, and The Rock for Brock who was kind of a big kid. He wasn’t mean exactly, but he was a teaser.

  He teases because he likes you, Daddy said.

  Grown men should know better than to give children nicknames, her mother said. If you don’t like it, sweetie, you’re entitled to politely say so.

  So one day, she said nicely, very nicely, “Mr. Turner, can you please stop calling me that?”

  “Aw, Lazy Daisy doesn’t like her nickname,” he said, not nicely.

  Then he just started saying it more. She got angrier and angrier until one day, on the field when he said it again, she picked up a rock and threw it at him. It was just a small rock, a pebble really. It didn’t hurt, but she could tell by the way his face flushed that he was mad. She got sent to the principal’s office and her parents were called. She remembered that stubborn not sorry feeling she had, even though she was forced to apologize. Mr. T stopped using nicknames after that.

  She kept walking, but it was getting harder and harder. Impossibly, she was starting to get sleepy, too. The snow on the ground looked like the fluffiest white blanket, as though she could lie down on it and rest. It tugged at her, even though she knew how the freeze of it would cut like knives on her skin. She felt the pull; it was hard to resist.

  No, no, said the voice. Don’t do that. Keep walking.

  She heard a snap and a crackle and turned around to see that white light bouncing in the distance behind her. Bobo. He was not her friend; she knew that. She kept moving, aware suddenly of a sound that was growing louder. He was crying, moaning. She’d seen that in him, that tangle of love and hatred he had for Momma. She didn’t understand it, but she’d used it to hurt him. And more than that. Somehow, she didn’t know how, she’d made him hit Momma with the flashlight. She wondered if he knew it. Would he do that to her, too, if he caught her? Would he use that flashlight on her?

  The pulse of fear woke her up a little, caused her to pick up her pace. Drawing on a well of energy she didn’t even know was there, she was about to run again. Then she saw something up ahead that stopped her dead: the eyes of the big house, glowing orange. All this time she thought she was heading away, instead she was just heading back in the direction from which she’d come.

  She would have cried out in anger and frustration, but she stayed quiet, choking on it, swallowed the big sobs that came up, and moved behind a big oak tree. Wrapping her arms around herself, she tried to calm down, take deep breaths. The sound of Bobo’s moaning was getting louder, growing closer. What would he do to her?

  Then a thought came: those boots in Real Penny’s closet. There was a warm jacket, too. In the kitchen she could get some food and water. She’d have supplies and a better chance of surviving in the cold. She had her bearings now, knew the way to town because of what Poppa had told the clean man. Maybe it was a blessing in the skies, like her mom always said, even though Penny had no idea what that meant. When something was good that seemed bad? But what did that have to do with the sky?

  Poppa hadn’t been home all day and sometimes he didn’t come back from town until the next day. Where he went or what he did, she had no idea and didn’t want to know. The house might be empty. She waited for the voice to tell her what to do, but the voice was quiet again. It was kind of like when her mommy was helping with homework. Is this the right answer? she would ask. What do you think? her mom would answer. But she could always tell whether the answer was right or not, just by the expression on her mommy’s face—a tiny, slightly worried frown or a hidden smile in her eyes. But the voice was just coldly silent. She hated the voice.

  Bobo’s wailing cut through the night like an alarm, startling her into action. If Poppa was home, he’d surely come out in answer to Bobo’s call—probably with his gun.

  She moved through the trees fast and quiet—her pain and fatigue forgotten for the moment. She paused at the clearing for the house and saw that Poppa’s truck wasn’t there. She waited, scanning the area, looking in the windows of the house, checking the shadows by the barn. It was quiet, just the lamp over the barn shining, casting a weak white circle of light, and the glowing orange eyes of the house.

  She took a deep breath and then she sprinted to the house, limped up the creaky porch steps, turned the rattling old metal knob, and pushed inside. She shut the door hard and leaned against the wall, panting.

  “Poppa!” she called. “Momma needs your help! Hurry!”

  If he was there, he would race out to help Momma, wouldn’t he? Then Penny would have the time she needed to get supplies and go. She listened. Was he there and not answering? If he caught her in Real Penny’s room, what would he do to her?

  But there was only silence; she waited, listening to her own breath, then started slowly up the stairs. The warm air in the house was a blessed relief but it made her skin tingle, and that heavy, tired feeling had come back. The snow tapped against the glass as she inched up one creaking step at a time.

  On the landing, the hall loomed long. She wanted to be quiet, but instead she ran the distance to Penny’s room and burst inside, carelessly letting the door hit the wall. She moved immediately to the closet and removed the shining black boots, as well as the jacket. She didn’t know where Poppa was or when he’d be back. She didn’t know how long it would take Bobo to reach the house or what he might do when he got here. He was crazy; she’d seen it in his eyes, a kind of wild, horselike fear and a terrible rage.

  She found a pair of socks in the drawer and slid them on. They were so warm, but it hurt, too. It hurt to
go from cold to warm, a kind of throbbing pain. Then she pulled on the boots. Even though they were too big, her ankle screaming in protest at the pressure. Abbey wobbled with the pain, struggling to keep going.

  A flash of light against the wall, a thud from outside brought her to the window, hiding behind the curtain.

  She saw Poppa climbing from the truck, the snow falling heavily around him. He wasn’t alone. They were there, too, the other girls—though she knew Poppa couldn’t see them anymore. The girl who taught her how to milk the cow was standing by the barn. The other girl, the one who’d come after her and had only been here a short while, stood by the trees. And someone else lay on the ground, wearing a white dress, arms and legs spread wide, as if she were making an angel in the snow. She wanted to help them all, but she knew it was too late.

  She ran noisily in the too-big boots, down the hallway. She had to get downstairs and toward the back of the house before Poppa came in. But she only made it to the landing in time to see the door open, then close. She was trapped upstairs, no way out. He moved into the house.

  “Momma,” he called. He stood in the foyer a minute, listening. Then he moved toward the stairs.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Finley and Eloise lounged on soft chairs, the sound of the ocean loud around them. The water was jewel green, white capped, lapping against sand as white as sugar. Finley wore a black bikini; ­Eloise was conservative as ever in a chambray skirt and cream sweater set.

  “You asked me what it is,” Eloise said.

  “You didn’t answer,” said Finley.

  Finley’s legs were covered with tattoos—a girl dancing, a gun, a glade of towering trees morphing into The Three Sisters—none of which she remembered getting. She ran her hands along her skin, which was greasy and smelled of coconuts. She only remembered lounging on a beach in a bikini a couple of times—once in Florida, once in Hawaii, both trips that were characterized by her parents bickering and arguing from dawn till dusk. But today there was only silence, except for the white gulls and the sound of the surf.

  “There is no answer,” said Eloise. She sipped from a straw punched into a hollowed-out pineapple. Finley had one, too. The drink inside was like nectar, sweet and refreshing, the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted. It made her relaxed and lightheaded.

  “It’s something different to everyone,” Eloise went on. “Like life. You take from it what you bring to it.”

  “But it’s not like other places,” said Finley.

  “No,” said Eloise. She, too, looked peaceful.

  “It wants something,” said Finley.

  “We all want something,” said Eloise.

  Finley was annoyed. Why must Eloise always be so vague? Maybe she didn’t have the answers, after all. When she looked over again, it was Abigail. The girl, with her wild auburn hair, wore that eternal blue dress, tattered and worn. She tilted her face toward the sun with a smile.

  “Too many bad things have happened here,” said Abigail. The voice that came from her mouth was Eloise’s. “It might have started with just one thing, one tragedy or injustice.”

  Finley closed her eyes. When she opened them, there was a little girl in an owl tee-shirt, the knees of her jeans ripped and bloodied. The voice was still Eloise’s.

  “That anger was a seed that grew. The energy expanded and spread itself, like violence runs in families. Now a blockage has been created, and nothing can pass through as it must. It’s like a clogged drain. And the muck gathers, collects, rots, and festers.”

  Finley listened, though Eloise’s voice was barely audible now over the sound of a strange whispering. And more so, Finley didn’t want to hear what the old woman had to say. She was tired of all the darkness. Why couldn’t she just stay here on the beach, with the sun on her skin? She looked down and it was all gone, all the ink on her arms, on her legs. Her skin was clean, clear of any marking. She felt such a tremendous sense of release, but loss, too.

  “Someone at peace has to show them the way out,” said the little girl with the very old voice. “Once the negativity has been released, it won’t attract more.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Finley.

  She turned back to Eloise, but the woman was gone, her seat empty, her drink tipped, leaving a dark stain on the sand.

  *

  Finley had blood on her hands, and a long dark streak marred each leg of her jeans as if she’d tried to wipe it off there. Far from being warm, basking on some unnamed beach, her body felt rigid with cold, shivering from her core. Where was she? Awareness came in pieces. She was alone in Rainer’s car, engine running, sitting in the driver’s seat. The car didn’t have heat, and her breath plumed out in great clouds. She gripped the steering wheel hard, as if she were bracing herself for a crash.

  She was parked on a tree-lined street—Jones Cooper’s street. A light came on in an upstairs window. Shit. Her heart thumped; there was a big blank space where her memory should be. Panic beat its wings in her chest. What was the last thing she remembered? Think. THINK. A text from Alfie. Abigail in the mirror. Rainer’s hands on her body. The old maps of the iron mines.

  Rainer. Where was he?

  She felt around for her cell phone, finally fishing it out of her jacket pocket. It was a block of ice, and her hands were so chilled that she couldn’t get the touch screen to work. She blew on her fingers, rubbed them together, and then tried to call. It rang and rang. Then he finally picked up.

  “Rainer?” she said. “Where are you?”

  But there was only static over the distant sound of his voice.

  “Down here—” That was all that she could make out, or something like it.

  “I can’t hear you,” she said.

  Then the line—infuriatingly—went dead. She tried again, then again. But the call wouldn’t go through. Why were they not together? Why did she have his car? Had she taken it? Was he back at the tattoo shop and cell phone reception was just bad because of the weather?

  The snow fell in big fat flakes, powdering lawns and the trees. The world was a hush, a breath held, her own coming out deep and ragged.

  How could she have driven to the Coopers’ and not remembered it? It was troubling. She rubbed her eyes hard, willing the last few hours back. Ironically, they’d just been discussing this in abnormal psychology class, about cognition in fugue states. Though the subject is functioning—even as in Finley’s case, driving—information that is assimilated during that period is generally not accessible once the state has passed. Finley couldn’t think of what she’d experienced now, or the first time with Jones, as anything but a fugue. A separate part of herself was conscious. Last time, she’d remembered. Why not this time? She might never get the last few hours back. Why was there so much blood? A sweet, gamey smell sat thick on the air, sickening and yet oddly familiar.

  The porch light came on, and the front door to the house opened. Jones stepped out onto the porch wearing jeans and a Georgetown sweatshirt under a barn jacket. He looked up at the falling snow, nonchalant, as if everyone popped out onto his stoop at three in the morning to check the weather, then he dropped a steely gaze across at the car.

  Finley remembered the dark-tinted windows, the general condition of the vehicle. She opened the door and stepped out, waving her hand.

  “It’s me,” she called. Her voice bounced down the street, sounding high and weak to her ears like the voice of a child. “Finley.”

  He closed his eyes and bowed his head, then looked up with a deep frown. He moved down the path and up the drive.

  When he reached her, “What the hell are you doing out here, kid? Whose car is that?”

  “I—” she started. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. It’s Rainer’s car.”

  “You almost got yourself shot.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, still disoriented and confused. “Why would you come to the door with a gun?” she asked. She looked for it, and saw the hard edge of it pressed against his s
weatshirt.

  His assessing gaze made her feel stupid—really stupid.

  “Strange, beat-up old car, dark-tinted windows pulls in front of your house in the middle of the night? Cops never stop being cops, I guess,” he said. He peered inside the car, then back at her.

  “What’s all over you? Is that blood?”

  She tried to keep herself from shivering, but she couldn’t.

  “He killed someone,” she said. It came back in a rush then—the raised arm, the heavy flashlight, the revolting sound of metal on flesh and bone. But why was the blood on her? Had she been there, too?

  “Who did?” he asked, alarmed. His hand on her shoulder now was warm and steadying, a bolster. In that moment, something about him reminded her of Eloise. He was someone who fixed, who helped.

  “The boy who was in the woods, the one I saw,” she said. “He killed someone tonight.”

  “You witnessed this?” A simple question without a simple answer.

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. Then, “I don’t know.”

  “Whose blood is that?” Jones said. “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t know.” She could hear the screaming. Momma! Momma! “No, I’m not hurt.”

  “That’s a lot of blood,” he said, lifting her hands and looking at her palms. “Where were you just now?”

  There was a flash. She fought for it. Where? Where?

  “On the trail,” she said quickly. Yes, yes, that was it. “The trail you and I visited.”

  “And on the trail you witnessed a murder?”

  “No, not exactly,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  He watched her a moment, shaking his head as if she were an equation he couldn’t solve.

  “What were you doing up there, alone in the middle of the night?”

  “After I left you, I researched the iron mines,” she said. She patted at her jacket and found the folded pages there. Fugue or not, at least she’d had the presence of mind to bring the maps. She handed them to him. “I found these.”