“I need to do this alone, Oscar. You brought the message and that was enough – you don’t have to protect me. You don’t owe me anything.”
“Is that what you think? That I’m here out of some sense of … duty?” he says, obviously hurt. “I’m here because of Obel. Because it was the right thing to do. And because…” His jaw clenches and he is quiet for a moment. “Because the last time I saw you I said all the wrong things and I couldn’t bear for that to be it. I’m here because I needed to see you.” He looks down, flushing. His face, his bashed-up glasses, the mouth that moves so carefully when he speaks, as if each word must be moulded to the right shape.
Before I can stop myself, my hand is moving closer, my fingertips just brushing his lips. His eyes close and I feel his sigh, hot and hesitant. I let my finger trace the outline of his mouth, wondering what it would be like if he just lowered his chin a little closer. Oscar’s hand covers mine and draws me nearer. On my palm, I feel the gentlest of kisses.
A horse whinnies and Sana’s voice cuts through the calm. “Are you two ready?” I turn and see her watching us with an expression that is half amused and half something else I can’t read.
We’re not alone again after that. I have to trust that Oscar won’t take any risks. I clench my hand into a fist to stop me from thinking about how his lips felt and from wondering what could have been.
We decide that it will be safest for me to enter the town at night, so we time it so we are passing the outskirts of Morton in the late afternoon, making sure to stay unseen. I try to remember how long it is since I’ve been home.
As we cross a stream on the edge of Morton, I can just see a house in the distance, and I am suddenly struck by a memory so strong I can almost taste it.
I was off school – I must have been sick or on holiday – and Mum had to work. She took me with her to a reading at a house in the heart of Morton village. I recognize some of the scenery as we walk. It must be about five years since I’ve been this way, but not much has changed.
I idolized Dad in a way I didn’t Mum – I see that now. Mum was just Mum. I never even thought about her work as a reader. But when we got to the house where the appointment was, she changed in my eyes. She stood taller as she opened the metal gate and walked down the path with confidence and grace.
She didn’t need to tell me to follow; I knew from her manner that I should keep close and keep quiet. She shook her hair out and rapped on the door. It was opened by an elderly woman whose marks – that each showed a part of an intricate sewing sampler – looked almost dusty on her crinkly skin. She reached out and held Mum’s hand for a second longer than felt normal, and I looked into her eyes. A younger man with greased-back dark hair stood behind her, looking agitated. Her son. I remember he kept smoothing down his bushy moustache, and he didn’t hide his displeasure at my presence, but when Mum told him, “She’ll join us,” he didn’t argue.
The house belonged to the old woman, but the man made it abundantly clear that Mum was there at his request. He said more than once that he would be providing the payment for the reading; he was paying, so he was in charge. Mum said nothing, but if he had known her – if he were her kid – he would have known to watch his mouth. She wasn’t impressed.
“Will you show me the book, please?” Mum said crisply when we had all sat down at a small dining table. The woman placed a hand on the man’s shoulder when he moved to get it.
“He was my husband. I’ll get him,” her voice croaked.
I looked up at Mum and her face softened as she nodded to the woman. With shaking legs, she stood on a step and reached up to the bookshelf, selecting a new-looking book, holding it with tenderness. In a flickering moment I read the ink on her shin – a darning needle, which in a flash became a fish hook that winked in the light, and I saw her then as a creature swimming in a river – a creature who had been caught and tamed. One who never quite felt she belonged here. I averted my eyes when she stepped off the footstool and shuffled back to the table.
“How long since he died?” Mum asked gently.
“It’s only been a month,” the woman said.
“You must miss him very much,” Mum said. I looked at her nervously, worried she had upset the client, but it seemed like she knew the right thing to say. The woman talked about him with a smile at her lips and tears in her eyes. The man shifted impatiently as she talked, but my mum kept her attention fixed on the woman. I wondered – could a fish hooked out of water love her captor?
When the woman had finished, my mum drew the book towards her. “Now,” she said quietly. “I am here to guide you through your husband’s book. There are things I can see as a reader that you may not have known and that you may not see. But I want to remind you” – she reached forward and held the woman’s hand – “no one knows him like you did. I can read him, but you knew him. Your memories are true and can never be diminished.” The old woman nodded.
“My usual method is to read page by page, telling you what I see. But I suspect in this case” – she glanced briefly at the man – “you have some specific questions.”
His words fell over themselves in his eagerness to talk. He was sure there was more money than was mentioned in the will. He was sure it was hidden somewhere, and he wanted to know what had happened. The old woman looked stonily ahead, her grey eyes sad.
Mum nodded assent and took a sip of water. She opened the book and gave a commentary as she read. I read along too, allowing my eyes to relax and letting the marks swirl to life, ears ready to listen to any hidden secrets. Mum read clearly and accurately, but when she reached his family tree, she paused just for one second, and then ever so gently put her foot over mine, and I knew it was a message. I read the tree as she described what she saw, and there was one thing that for a moment made me pause. At the base of the tree it looked like a small hole had been dug. But when I blinked again, it had disappeared.
I waited for Mum to tell them this but she turned the page without mentioning it. She eased her foot from mine.
At the end of the reading, the man let out a brief sigh of disappointment and then rose to get our payment. As soon as he was gone, Mum drew the woman aside, speaking quickly and quietly. There was money hidden, but it had been hidden for her and her alone. Mum whispered urgently that he had intended them to use it together. And I have an image of this old woman being able to swim freely once again.
“It’s an important job, reading,” she told me on the way home. “You have to be able to read the living as well as the dead.”
I have gone for so long now without reading a soul that I have forgotten how easily it came to me. I have become used to people with nothing to say on their skin. I have become better, perhaps, at reading the other things. But I have a longing now to see Mum – or the woman I will always think of as Mum. To tell her that even though I know now about my birth mum, Miranda, nothing will replace the woman who raised me. To tell her that I understand so much more; that I see now that every time she frustrated me, shut me down, denied me answers, she just wanted me to be safe.
As we cross the bridge in the forest between Morton and Saintstone, I taste the fear again. I stand tall. I walk back a different person. A less certain, more curious person. Longsight doesn’t know this Leora.
Sana, who has edged ahead, reins in her horse and waits for me. “You’re best waiting a little longer,” she says, looking at the slices of sky that wink through the trees. “We’ll stop here and eat. Dusk isn’t far off.”
The season has almost changed – it must be full spring now, and in spite of the dulling light, I notice flowers cluster beneath trees, leaves and buds that have appeared, the yearly miracle that always amazed Mum, whose marks were flowers and plants. She would tell me the names of the flowers and trees and gather little specimens to take home and stick in a jam jar. And I would wonder which would be the next one to grace her skin.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“You won’t follow me?” It’s more
of a command than a question, and Sana smiles at my assertiveness.
“I promised, Leora. You can trust me.” She looks concerned, though. “I wish you would let me come, but I understand this is something you must do alone.”
As I hug Oscar goodbye, he whispers into my ear:
“I will be looking out for you. Every moment.”
I try to speak, to beg him to take no more risks, but Sana tells me to hurry.
Rolling up my sleeves to bare my forearms and wrapping my shawl around my head, I sink back into my marked self. I’ve spent so long hiding, being discreet, that revealing my marks feels like a call to be noticed. I hope that it’s late enough that no one will see me, but if they do, hopefully all they will see is a marked girl walking alone at night – nothing wrong with that.
I will go to the studio first, I think. Obel gave me the key for a reason; there is something there he wants me to find, I just know it. And then … well, it’s me Longsight wants, or the information I can give him, at least. He’ll let Obel go if he has me, I am sure of it.
I begin to walk. I’ve dreamed about this: about being back home; walking through these familiar streets. But, in my dreams, I didn’t hide in alleyways or keep to the backstreets. The night is cool, and sporadic spots of rain fall like reluctant tears. My feet are heavy and the distance seems longer than I remembered; every sound feels like a threat, but it’s just a cat or someone putting out their rubbish. I imagine just for a moment that this has all been a bad dream. That I could go home, clamber into my own bed and see Mum in the morning.
Close to town someone walks down the street and passes close enough for me to smell their cologne. But he doesn’t look twice – I am dull enough to go unnoticed – my ink is just camouflage that lets others know I belong.
I walk down an alleyway and arrive at the door that leads right into the back room. The lights are off, of course, and I wonder how long it’s been since anyone came this way. The key fits, just like always, and I think of the story of Nate with the key to the world of the blanks, intruding so easily. I lock the door behind me, letting the key fall back around my neck.
Everything is spotless, as always. I put the kettle on the single burner; it’s automatic, like muscle memory or the knowledge that if he were here, it’s what Obel would do. If I know Obel, he would have seen his arrest coming – he would leave some message, somehow. But there’s nothing. I take down the old Encyclopaedia of Tales, unwrapping it from its protective cloth. This book is so precious, so ancient. It is like a paper version of Mel – a record of our tales and stories. And until Obel showed me this copy, I didn’t know it still existed. I open the cover, searching for a note or a clue or anything that Obel might have left. The parchment feels heavy with beautiful illustrations and handwritten text. I turn page after page until I reach the one he made me draw all those months ago – the page with the White Witch, the beautiful Belia – the one that looked just like me. I go to flick this page over too, but it slides out at the touch of my fingers. It has been cut, this perfect book purposefully defaced. I hold it up to the light to see if there is a message, but I see nothing but the naked woman.
What does this mean? I whisper. Am I meant to know what this is about?
I lift the book, intending to shake it to see if there are any other loose pages, but something makes me stop – a feeling that I am not alone, a feeling of being watched. I roll the paper and put it in my bag and creep away from the store cupboard and into the front of the shop.
The studio space is lit by the street lights outside, and the room is pale and shadowed. The antiseptic smell feels like the embrace of an old friend, instantly bringing back all the memories: my first mark, that day when Karl inked without permission, Obel’s silent work as he marked my skin, the cold horror of being forced to ink Jack Minnow. The noise of the kettle rolls like distant thunder. I take another step.
Only when he speaks do I realize I’m not hallucinating.
“I thought I might have to wait a little longer than this, Flint.”
Jack Minnow is reclining on the inking chair, hands behind his head, feet crossed, looking relaxed as a well-fed lion.
I stumble backwards, but his languorous voice stops me in my tracks.
“Don’t make me chase you, Leora.” I turn to face him. He swings his feet to the side and sits, watching me, head cocked. “There really is no point.” His smile is humourless and his eyes dead-looking in the gloom.
“Why did you take him?” I ask, trying to make my voice steady. “On what grounds?”
“Obel?” Minnow stands slowly, running strong hands over his waistcoat to smooth away non-existent creases. “Oh, we found a reason. You always can, if you look hard enough.” And his smirk is a snarl. “We knew you’d be back for him. We could have arrested the girl, Verity – but how much do you care about her these days?” I swallow down the hurt. “And I couldn’t be sure you would come back for your mother – not now you have a new family. So … Obel it was. And you came even more quickly than I imagined.”
He takes a watch from his pocket. The kettle starts its angry whistle. “We had better be going. We don’t want to keep the Mayor waiting, do we? Not at this late hour.” I’m frozen to the spot, and it’s pathetically easy for him to grasp my wrist and lead me into the back room. Minnow reaches out and switches off the burner, giving a small chuckle. The steam has left the steel backsplash clouded and two words have emerged. The page from the book was not Obel’s only message.
LEORA. RUN.
I try to pull away from Minnow while he uses his right hand to lock the door, but his grip is too strong – he only raises an eyebrow. “Stay put, Flint. We wouldn’t want that wrist to break. Inkers need their hands, don’t they?”
From a distance, we look like lovers, walking hand in hand across the moonlit square.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The government building is sickeningly bright. Jack Minnow leads me down corridors, still gripping on to me tightly. I think I recognize the route, in which case I know where we’re heading.
We reach the door to Longsight’s office and Minnow gestures me in. Karl is there, my old fellow apprentice, standing tall with his blond hair swept back. He wears black, like all of Longsight’s hirelings. He’s had more marks since I last saw him; his muscular bare arms make dramatic claims about his achievements. His wrist mark has been added to, I know it – it used to be like mine, showing he was an inker, but now it proclaims him as one of the Mayor’s bodyguards. I should have known he would have wormed his way into Longsight’s good books. People don’t change. Karl stands straight when he sees Minnow, hands clasped behind his back. But when he sees me, his eyes gleam. I glare at him when he steps aside for Minnow and me to go through the door into Mayor Longsight’s study.
“Well, isn’t this nice?” Longsight is sitting at his desk; he actually looks tired. Usually he radiates good health. “You got my message, then?” His voice is silky and he gestures for me to sit. Minnow releases his hold on me and stands just behind the chair.
“There was no message,” I say stupidly.
Longsight laughs because, of course; Obel’s arrest was the message. And I came scurrying home. “My watchmen tell me you even brought friends with you, Leora. How sweet. I wonder if they’re still waiting for you in the forest?” He picks up a piece of thick paper from his desk and starts to fold it neatly.
I stay silent, although my heart is starting to pound. I should be afraid, for the others but also for myself.
Longsight continues.
“In case you were wondering, Obel is fine. Behaving himself, or so my jailers tell me. Perhaps he just needed a little … reinforcement.” I think of his broken hand and shiver. Longsight keeps adding creases and folds to the paper in his hands. How long will it take for Obel’s painted-on marks to fade and for his secret to be exposed?
“So… You missed the second meeting. Your friend Verity was quite reluctant to come and tell me. I think she was wo
rried about you.” He laughs. “I told her that I was sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for your failure to show up. I told her that there was no reason to think you had been won over by our enemy. That we just needed to bring you here to straighten it all out.” He leans back, paper still in his hand, and with an eyebrow raised he waits and watches me. “So, Leora. What information do you have for me?”
I am silent, thinking fast. He raises his hand and I flinch, but all he does is place the folded paper between us – with surprising deftness, he has folded the paper into a bird. A crow.
I clear my throat. “You told me that if I became your spy in Featherstone, you would keep my friends and family safe; but you forgot that my family includes blanks too.” Longsight’s jaw tightens. “You always told us that the blanks were our biggest threat; that they wanted war at any cost. You’ve always told us they would destroy us unless we beat them down. I went expecting an army of savages. What I found” – I swallow – “what I found is a broken little town, its people in tatters. They haven’t enough food to feed themselves, let alone fight. And you know this! You keep them this way.”
He looks at me then, head tilted to one side and blinking fast.
“You lied to us,” I continue quietly. “You built the blanks up to be monsters and yet the only threat is from you.”
He laughs at that. “Is that what you believe? Oh, Leora – our one-woman soldier for justice. You are a treat, you know? It’s so refreshing to see a young person with passion – it’s hard to come by these days.” He sighs. “I think it’s your earnestness I like the most; that naïve certainty that you’re on the side of the righteous and that if you just shout loud enough, something will change. It’s endearing, it is.” Behind me Jack Minnow shifts his feet, and I can imagine his creeping smile. “The problem is, it’s old – it’s been done before, and so we can map your journey ten steps ahead of you. Of course you would go to the blanks to save your family. Of course you would take pity on the blanks and decide to take their side, despite everything I warned you about them. And of course, of course, you would come home immediately if you thought you could save your hero, Obel.” He traces the outline of the leather on his desk and looks at me from the corner of his eye. “You make it so easy.”
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