Insidious

by Dawn Metcalf

  But the Scribes could.

  Yes! She needed Ink. She wanted Ink. Here. Now!

  Joy dumped out her toiletry bag and sifted through its contents. She was clawing through her things as Stef keyed the locks, climbed in and shut the door.

  “You dropped this,” Stef said and handed her the scalpel. She snatched it, stuck it in her bag and continued her panicked searching. She wiped tears and snot from her face. She had Filly’s pouch and Kurt’s number. Her fingers stumbled to choose. She had to tell them! She had to get a message out!

  “You’re welcome,” Stef said.

  “Just drive,” Joy snapped.

  “O-kay,” Stef said, rotating the wheel for a three-point turn. “Don’t have a heart attack.”

  A heart attack? Ha! She could tell him about what had just happened, but the words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t stop to think about it. She had to concentrate on making her fingers work. She tried scribbling a note on a scrap of vellum pressed against the window. The pencil needed to be sharpened. The vellum tore. “Damn!” She bit the end with her teeth, tasting graphite. “I need to tell someone who can remember!”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Joy dropped her pencil. “Yes,” she said.

  And she did.

  She summed up everything she could from the King and Queen to the traitor and the spell and the lost, secret door and what Aniseed’s betrayal meant to the Council, as well as to the Folk. She talked until she ran out of words, Stef’s face hardening with each passing moment. Her voice grew scratchy, her eyes puffy and sore. It was good to say it aloud—good to get it out there, good to have it be Stef.

  “Right,” Stef said and flicked the headlights as a warning as he rounded the curve. He checked his mirrors and shifted gears. “Hang on.”

  He floored it. The car’s wheels spun on the road as he peeled out at a speed not recommended by the legal limit. Joy hung on to the door handle as they raced around the bend. She had a crazy thought of jumping out of the car while it was still moving, but held her place and her breath as she clung on, arms locked. She had to send a text. She had to tell the others. If she could tell the Council about Aniseed’s clone, they might listen. If Aniseed was alive, Joy was as good as dead.

  This changes everything.

  Grimacing, Stef spun the wheel and slammed the car into Park, killing the engine and popping the locks in one quick sweep. He barked orders as he moved. “You get in your tent. I’ll get Dad. Stay in your tent until we pack up and leave.”

  “What?” Joy said, halfway out the door. “Why?”

  “Because I warded it,” he shouted over his shoulder as he ran down the road.

  She was already sprinting for her pack, barefoot, as Stef waved to their father taking pictures of the dying sun. Joy saw the thick ring of salt ringing her tent as she dived inside. She flipped over, quick-dialing Kurt. She nabbed her flashlight and a pen as it rang. Testing the Sharpie on the back of her hand, she started scribbling a note to Filly. Aniseed made the golems & a graftling of herself. Find out where Graus Claude is STAT! She messed up the return sigil and had to draw it a second time. Her fingers shook as she lit the match, one of them flaring too close to her fingers. She yelped, dropped it and burned a hole in the floor. Nylon melted and blackened. She stamped it dead with her shoe.

  Kurt’s message machine was a simple beep, no introduction. Of course, he’d been mute for years.

  “Kurt, it’s me, Joy. I just saw—” She swallowed bile. Aniseed. Briarhook. A graftling clone. “Tell Ink and Inq—it’s Aniseed. Aniseed’s the courier. And Aniseed’s alive.” She stopped writing because her words were growing more jumbled, her thoughts a flurry of panic. The tent felt suddenly smaller. Dense. “Not alive, okay? But not dead. She grafted her leg and somehow made a new mini-me and the satyrs said they’re sworn to protect it and it’s outside jurisdiction, but it knew about the door. It told me—”

  There was a snap outside the camp, and Joy’s words froze in her throat. What am I doing?! She couldn’t leave a message! Anyone could find it. Anyone could overhear. Her fingers quivered. Her voice wrung to a tight, whispery squeak.

  “Call me,” she said and hung up.

  Joy held her breath, tucked the flashlight behind her knee and opened the zipper of her toiletry bag, tooth by tooth. Had she been followed from the Grove? Was the ward active, or did it still need a drop of blood? Did it have to be Stef’s or could she do it? Had he preset the spell, or was it up and running? She’d never tried wizard magic but knew that human wizards guarded their spells ruthlessly, which was why Stef hadn’t told her how to do it. Joy wasn’t crazy about crossing Mr. Vinh, but if it was a choice between a wizard’s wrath or Aniseed’s, she was willing to take the risk.

  Shadows slid across the nylon wall oozing unfamiliar shapes. She tried to find her scalpel without taking her eyes off the tent. Every rattle of her toothbrush roared in her ears, blotting out the smaller sounds outside. Was a shadow coming nearer? Or was her paranoia on overdrive? The tent flap shuddered in the wind. A branch fell.

  “Joy!”

  There was a sparkle of light, and she hiccuped in surprise. She snapped on the flashlight and tore open the flap.

  Ink stood across the way, a lithe silver-black shape on the edge of the campsite. His face was half in shadow. His wallet chain caught the moonlight.

  “Ink!” Her voice amplified in the dark. She held her breath as he crossed the campsite and knelt before the ward, crackling static and sparks.

  “I am here,” he said quickly. “I am sorry, and I am here.”

  Joy scraped her heel through the salt circle, breaking it, and grabbed his arms, pulling him into the tent, wrapping around him and squeezing hard. “Are you okay?” she asked, hardly daring to believe it. He was here. Now. With her. Now. “Are you all right?”

  “I am,” he said into her hair, his voice softening with relief, his arms curled where they belonged. “And I am much better now.”

  She spoke past his ear, unwilling to let go. “Graus Claude—!”

  “I know.”

  “Aniseed—!”

  “I know,” he said again, breathing deep, his chest rising and falling against hers. The rhythm of his breathing calmed her, even if his words had to keep up.

  “You know?”

  “Yes,” he said. His crisp, clean voice cut like the flashlight through the dark. “I came as soon as Avery told me where you were.”

  “Avery?” Joy shook her head. “I told him to tell Inq. I didn’t know if you were—” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Ink didn’t seem to mind.

  “Likely he did not hear the difference. You pronounce our names much the same. But he was most insistent,” he said. “He left with Kurt, Inq and Filly to vouch for Graus Claude.”

  “Really?” Joy pulled away enough to look him in the face. “Ink, I saw her—Aniseed—in the satyr’s Grove. She knew about the door inside the Bailiwick!”

  “And now we know that she has twained herself,” Ink said, pushing some hair out of her face, clearing Joy’s eyes. “She is very clever. Very resourceful.”

  “It was horrible,” she said.

  “Her secret or her offspring?”

  “Both.” Joy shuddered. “It was horrible squared.”

  Ink crawled nearer. He cast no shadow next to hers. “Did she hurt you?” he whispered.

  Joy shook her head. “No. It’s...barely grown. But it had a golem guardian, like the ones that attacked me, and it laughed at me, Ink—it remembers,” she said. “The satyrs said it has some of Aniseed’s memories, maybe even those before the Amanya spell—if reincarnating acts like it did with the Red Knight, then being reborn outside the confines of the original spell makes you immune. She remembered where the door is hidden and that it’s locked, so
she must know how to open it!”

  Joy saw understanding register on his face. “Graus Claude.” She touched the soft space by his left shoulder, thinking about what he had done to Ink, shutting him off like a switch, making Ink seem less than a person, less than alive. It was dehumanizing, although the word didn’t fit. Ink stared at his hands. “I thought he had betrayed us,” Ink said. “I thought he would hurt you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s my fault,” she said. “I found the origin of the spell, but not the traitor, just the treason. Aniseed tricked everyone and used Graus Claude and the satyrs to do it. I accused Graus Claude, I tripped the trap—I made a terrible mistake, and now we’re stuck.”

  Ink sat back, the light playing off his boyish face. “I recall someone once saying that there are no mistakes,” he said. “Without you, we might never have known the extent of Aniseed’s treachery. And now we are closer to reuniting the Folk than anyone has managed in over a thousand years.” His fingers softly traced the side of her face, the curve of her ear. “If this is your mistake, then it is a mistake worth making.”

  Joy rested her cheek against the palm of his hand, tired and grateful. “We have to get to Graus Claude,” she said. “The only way we can save your mother and access the door is to get inside the Bailiwick.”

  “That will be difficult,” Ink said. “Graus Claude has thrown himself on the mercy of the Council for the crime of High Treason—quite the sentence given that they have no recollection of having a King and Queen. They have secured him in a holding cell until a formal trial, which will take place after the gala.” He cast her a sidelong glance. “I believe they plan for the affair to overshadow any social unpleasantness that would normally arise when convicting the High Water Seat.”

  “Lovely,” Joy muttered. Now Sol Leander’s circus was a convenient cover-up for the Bailiwick’s condemnation to be quietly swept under the rug. She rubbed her fists into her eyes, the empty roaring in her ears heralding an oncoming headache. “Ink, we can’t just let them—”

  There was a crashing and crunching of gravel and leaves as Stef’s voice drifted toward them. “...mood swings,” Stef said. “But, whatever. I live in a coed dorm. If I wasn’t used to it before, I’m used to it now. It’s called ‘mandatory sensitivity training.’”

  “Well, whatever it is, we’re not going home early,” Dad said. “I planned this camping weekend, and therefore we’re going to be camping for the weekend. Got it?”

  Stef sighed. “Got it.”

  “Good,” Mr. Malone said and added after a pause, “Shelley thinks I should be more assertive. How was that?”

  “Very impressive.”

  Joy slipped into her sleeping bag with a zip of denim-on-nylon, unfolding it width-wise like a blanket.

  Get down! she mouthed. Ink crouched on his belly and slid toward the tent flap, liquid smooth. Joy shook her head, her lips an o of No! She didn’t want him to leave and knew her brother would see him leaving her tent even if her father couldn’t, which would be both dangerous and embarrassing. Ink glanced over his shoulder and smiled just a little—mischievous and clever. He drew the homicidal fairy wand out of his back-pocket sheath. His body flowed gracefully under the light. His face shone briefly in the flashlight glare, boyish and smooth. He reached a hand under the edge of the tent flap and eased the zipper wider with his fingers and thumb. He drew the wand through the salt, connecting the edges with a looping glyph. The ward sprang back to life, this time sparkling gold rather than blue. He withdrew his hand and slowly slid backward, lying next to Joy, slipping inside her body’s shadow. She threw the sleeping bag over them both as she pretended to roll over.

  “Joy? You still up?” Dad asked.

  She pulled the sleeping bag higher to muffle her mouth. “Mmm?”

  “Are you coming out?”

  Joy glanced at Ink. His eyes crinkled in question. They were trapped inside her tent, under a sleeping bag, with her father and brother just outside. She turned away from him and called out over the zipper.

  “No,” she said.

  “I think she’s done for the night,” Stef said. “And that’s not a bad idea. We’re getting up early with the fishes, right? I need my beauty sleep.” He exaggerated a stretch and a yawn that she could see like shadow puppets against the screen of her tent. “I’m not used to getting up before noon.”

  “Remind me why I’m paying for college?” her father chided and called over his shoulder. “You’re sure you don’t want to come fishing, honey? The sunrise over Lake James is a sight.”

  “Mmph,” Joy muttered, not trusting her voice. She’d had enough of the Sight for one day and as much as it irked her to play the menstrual card, she didn’t trust herself to speak. She was in a pretty tenuous position with Ink pressed against her, and all of her attention focused on that fact. She shrugged herself lower, feeling his breath by her ear, his belly pressed into her back, his legs bent, fitting perfectly into the crooks of hers.

  “All right, we’ll skip the campfire tonight,” her father said with fake gaiety. “We’ll try not to wake you in the morning, honey, but I hope you can haul yourself out of bed for breakfast.”

  “Okay,” Joy said, her voice smothered under goose down. “Sorry, Dad.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said as she heard the unzipping of tents, the shuffling of bags and the zip of shoes against fabric. “Just feel better.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Joy said, feeling a lot of things, but better wasn’t the word that popped to mind. Ink’s hand rested on the side of her waist, and his fingers followed the curve of her rib. She pressed her hand over Ink’s to keep it still. He threaded his fingers through hers.

  “’Night, Joy,” her brother called.

  “’Night, Stef.”

  The unsaid said, He knows.

  Of course he knows! He can see the color of the ward. He knows Ink is in here.

  And he’s covering for me.

  “Thanks,” Joy added, gratefully contrite.

  There was a long pause before her brother said, “You’re welcome.”

  She tried not to think that he spoke to them, plural.

  Joy held perfectly still as the Malone men continued shuffling, zipping, adding the crumple of papers and clothes, the soft thump of boots, the sharp click of buttons and lights switching off and on as she lay tense in illicit closeness, her boyfriend’s body cupping hers.

  Her brain was on overload; adrenaline made her quiver in place. She tried to still the tremors so that Ink wouldn’t notice, but how could he not? She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t say anything aloud, and with her head turned away, she couldn’t see his face—couldn’t read his eyes. She had no idea what he was thinking. She was lying blind, dressed in her pajamas and hyperaware of the taste of her breath. She wanted to brush her teeth. She wanted to be in her own bed. She wanted to let go of his hand and see what happened next, but this was not the time, and this was not the place; her father and brother were nearby, and a gritty coating of dirt now peppered her tent, making the floor itchy and uncomfortable. This was hardly romantic.

  Rubbing her arches together, Joy tried to scrape off some of the embedded bits of stone from her feet, but ended up moving against his hips. Bad idea! Joy froze. Ink moved an inch or two to make room, and she eased herself sideways, pressing one leg against the inside of his knee, and, misreading her, Ink followed in kind, slipping his leg between hers. They were now tangled together, a knot of consensual limbs. She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth and bunched her pillow under her head. They’d have to wait until Stef and Dad were asleep. Then they could slip out of the ward and go. There was so much happening and so little time—even with time standing still—and Joy was desperate to act on her new information. She knew the others were out there, waiting for them. She had to stop Aniseed! She had to find Graus Claude! She had to
convince someone—the Council or the princess—to find the door and unlock it and bring about the Imminent Return! She and Ink shouldn’t be lying under a sleeping bag when they had to—

  “Turn off your light, Joy,” her father said. “You’re wasting batteries.”

  Joy let go of Ink’s hand long enough to stretch forward and grab the flashlight—aware that his hand now lay flat against her stomach, two of his fingers touching the skin where her shirt rose up as she reached across the tent and switched off the light. She returned to her prone position with not enough room to turn over; Ink’s left elbow pillowed her head, his right forearm resting in the dip at her waist. She could feel the seams of his jeans on the back of her legs; the arches of their feet nested together like spoons. Joy pressed her ear against his arm and rested her hand against his elbow and waited quietly in the dark, her every muscle taut. She was so aware of him, she could picture where every part of his body touched hers in the dark. She smelled his scent like rain on her skin.

  She was too nervous to enjoy it. Much.

  Time crept by on tortoise legs. Joy had no idea how much or how little. Her ears strained for the sound of deep breathing, light snoring, carried off by the winds that had picked up during the night. Her eyes grew itchy, exhaustion nipped at her edges, but sleep was impossible. Ink was here. Ink was everywhere.

  He lay very still, but she could feel him—he was reading her as intently as the first time he’d inspected her ear. She could almost feel the slow tracing of his fingers as he explored the whorls and shapes of cartilage and skin, how his touch had wandered over her face, her eyebrows, the tips of her lashes and lips, discovering her in awe, reading her like Braille. She sighed at the memory—she couldn’t help it—and felt her breath bounce back, touching her cheek. His hand twitched and she squeezed his palm. His thumb stroked hers. She felt it in her stomach and down her back, resting along the line of his chest, curving in the ladle of his hips.