by Patrick Ness
She gestures me over, making me sit on the other side from the tattoo so I won’t be able to see it until it’s done. Then she goes back to telling me how mad she is.
“You’re too mean to him,” she says, as Martin preps her, cleaning and lubricating the patch of skin. Henna’s so focused on me, it’s like she gets tattoos every day.
“Your parents will go mental,” I say, also not for the first time.
“My parents won’t know. I’m not doing this for them.”
“You really think they’re not going to see it in Africa? You’re never going to go swimming or sunbathing or–?”
Henna snorts. “You obviously know nothing about missionaries.”
Martin the tattoo guy holds up his needle, ready to start. “You’re going to Africa?”
“Central African Republic,” Henna says.
“Isn’t there a war happening there?”
“Yes,” I say. “Her crazy parents are taking her anyway.”
“I went through Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia two years ago,” Martin says. “Most amazing thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Were they shooting at you?” I say.
“Not really.” Martin turns on the power to his needle. “Now, no one here is going to pretend this doesn’t actually hurt, but it’s a pain you’ll find bearable, I promise.”
“Thanks,” Henna says. Then she looks up to me, eyes still annoyed, and holds out her non-cast hand across her chest for me to hold. I take it. She grunts slightly when Martin touches her with the needle, but she doesn’t flinch. He paints in what must be a few dots, then asks, “How’s that going to be? It won’t get any worse, but it won’t get any better, either.”
“Compared to how much my arm hurt,” Henna says, “this is like a mild headache.”
“Good.” Martin carries on with the tattooing.
“You know if your parents find out,” I say, “they’ll blame me and Mel for sending you off the rails.”
“‘Off the rails’?” Henna asks, wincing. “You talk like an old woman sometimes, Mike.”
“I talk like a politician. My mom has a speech where she says ‘off the rails’ a lot when she’s talking about the other party.”
“Well, maybe it’s time I went off the rails,” Henna says, frowning. “Maybe I’ve been on the fucking rails for far too long.”
“Language,” Martin says, still tattooing. We both look at him. He’s covered in tattoos, some of which aren’t exactly family viewing. He sees us, shrugs. “Just a personal pet peeve. Everyone does it. So why be like everyone?”
He sticks her again with the needle. Henna tenses up. I think she’s holding her breath. He finishes, looks up. “That’s one element done.” He re-inks his needle and gets to work on the rest.
“How many elements are there?” I ask Henna.
“Just never you mind,” she says through gritted teeth. A single tear escapes from her eye. I wipe it away with my free hand. “Thanks,” she says.
We don’t say much through the rest of the tattoo. It takes a little over an hour, but from the area where I see Martin working, I don’t think it’s going to end up too big. A tattoo is out of character for Henna, which I think is her entire point, but a big, ugly tattoo and she’d stop being Henna altogether. It’ll be something right-sized and good.
She looks down at it once, only once, during the whole procedure. “I didn’t know they bled,” she says.
“No one ever does,” Martin says.
He finally finishes, gently pats the blood away, then covers it with a square of clingfilm, taping it to her body. “No swimming for a month,” he says. “And try to keep it out of the sun for as long as you can.”
“Do you have a mirror?” Henna asks.
Martin gets up and brings over a large mirror that reflects her side and the brand-new tattoo.
Under the cling film, her skin is livid from where it’s been poked and written on. Blood wells up but not as much as I might have thought. The tattoo is there, clear as day, reflected in the mirror. It’s just one word, in some really amazingly beautiful lettering. No wonder she wanted Martin specifically.
Henna takes my hand again. And she cries again. And I wipe away her tears again. “I don’t even think your parents would mind if those were the rails you were coming off of,” I say.
“I don’t want them to know,” she says. “This is mine. All mine.”
In the mirror, reflected backwards, Henna now has a tattoo that reads, simply, Teemu.
I wake in the middle of the night for some reason or another. Maybe my own snoring was getting too loud or a dream I can’t remember.
I say this because I know it’s not the car that wakes me. I don’t hear it until I’ve turned over and made myself comfortable again. A car not my family’s is rare at our end of this very, very wooded road, but not impossible. There’s a turning just before us and sometimes people miss it.
But then I realize it’s heading in the wrong direction.
It’s coming from the Field.
I get up without turning my light on and look out through my curtains. There’s a car pulling slowly out of the entrance of the Field, like you have to do because of all the mud and bumps. It’s got its headlights off and all I can make out are those small yellow lights on the side that some cars have for no apparent reason.
I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that it’s dark out here. We’ve got streetlights, but they’re spaced far apart and the closest is down the road a bit, only enough to cast a shallow light as the car pulls out of the Field and past my driveway.
But it’s enough to see the driver.
It’s Nathan. He’s been parked in the Field in the middle of the night, and now he’s driving away with his lights off, hoping nobody sees him.
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH, in which Satchel doubts the Prince’s intentions towards her; he weeps, professing his eternal love, one that he’s been waiting to give for millennia but had never found a repository for until he met Satchel; they kiss, it might lead to something, but then they hear the explosion from the outskirts of town.
“But you said you didn’t want to go,” Meredith says to our mom. “You said people took advantage of politicians in crowds and that it was like having squirrels crawl all over your naked skin.”
“Try not to say that in public, sweetie,” Mom says. “And while that may be true, Mommy’s running for Congress now and to be seen at a Bolts of Fire charity concert in my own future district, hopefully–”
“But you said you didn’t want to go,” Meredith says again, apparently too stunned to get past her main point.
“I didn’t then, but I would like to go now.”
Me and Mel wait behind Meredith. The concert’s in an hour, pre-dusk so all the little kiddies get home in time for bed. Meredith is covered head-to-toe in Bolts of Fire fan gear: T-shirt, twisty bracelets, belt, shoe buckles, tasselled trousers like Sapphire wears in the “Bold Sapphire” video, a cowboy hat that has the clean-shaven Caucasian faces of Bolts of Fire around the brim.
“But you said–”
“Meredith,” Mom warns. She looks at me and Mel. “I’m going to take her. Why is that a big deal?”
“It’s a little out of the blue,” Mel says, frowning. “Almost as if a campaign person heard you talking about it and suggested you go instead.”
Mom’s face hardens. “Neither of you even like this band. You’re about eight years older than their target audience.”
“And you’re about thirty years too old,” Mel says.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” our mom says briskly to Meredith. “I’m your mom. I’m taking you.”
“But I’ve got three tickets,” Meredith says.
“Even better. Do you want your brother or your sister to join us?”
Meredith looks back at both of us, looks at Mom, looks at both of us, looks at the floor, mumbles something.
“What was that?” our mom asks.
“I wa
nt them both,” Meredith says, sticking her brave little face up into the air, her chin trembling a little. She’s so freakin’ brainy you sometimes forget that she’s still only a kid.
“Well, you can’t have them both–”
“I want them both,” Meredith says, more strongly. “They both said they would take me. I got tickets for all of us. If you had wanted to come, I could have tried to get four, but you didn’t. You said you didn’t want to come–”
My mom’s eyes flash. “There’s always the possibility that no one gets to go.”
“I thought this campaign wouldn’t interfere with our lives,” I said.
“When did I ever say that?”
“What about Ferocious Mama Bear?” Mel says. “Did that mean you were just going to be ferocious to your kids?”
My mom throws her hands up. “I genuinely don’t understand what the problem is–”
“They’re leaving,” Meredith nearly shouts. She’s really crying now, her little arms crossed against her chest.
“Hey,” I say to her, picking her up before my mom has a chance to. She’s big, getting bigger, an unrecognizable teen before too long, but I can still lift her, even if it makes my still-tender ribs ache. She cries into my neck, the brim of her cowboy hat cutting into my ear.
My mom looks at the ceiling, hands on her hips. She taps her foot so fast Mary Magdalene comes running over and starts whapping at her shoelaces.
“Stop that,” Mom says, under her breath. She looks at us. “Fine.”
She leaves the kitchen. I can feel Meredith relax in my arms. “Good,” I hear her say, her voice thick. “Can we leave now before she changes her mind again?”
“We’re younger than every single parent,” Mel says, looking around, “and older than every single fan.”
The performance space at our pitifully small county fairgrounds is an outdoor amphitheatre, built next to a huge, sheet-metal stable where they have the livestock competitions during the fair. The biggest star that’s ever performed here before now was a local girl who came third on a TV singing competition. Bolts of Fire are playing in the domed arena in the big city tomorrow night, where there’ll be approximately eight million times as many fans.
We’re about nine rows from the back, but the amphitheatre is so small and deep – dug partially into the ground – that there really isn’t a bad seat. There are actually fewer parents than I expected, though it’s also possible they’re commiserating with each other at the coffee bars before the actual music starts. Mostly it’s just little girls. More than you’ve ever seen. More than you would think could possibly fit into a small county fair amphitheatre. So many it’s like space and time folded together and every little girl who ever lived will arrive eventually.
“Do you see any of your friends?” I ask Meredith.
“Bonnie isn’t coming,” she answers. Bonnie is the other girl in her grade who takes all the insane extra tutoring that Meredith does. They have Jazz & Tap together. Bonnie’s mom is the meanest person I’ve ever met in my entire life.
“Anyone else?”
Meredith doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking around. I begin to wonder if there is anyone for Meredith besides Bonnie. God, poor Meredith.
“You don’t have to sing along,” Meredith tells us, “but I’m going to. Just don’t make fun of anything.”
“We won’t, Merde Breath,” Mel says.
“And don’t call me that.”
“Where’s the cancer girl?” I say, trying to see if they’ve roped off a VIP pit somewhere down front.
“She’s called Carly,” Meredith informs me, very seriously. “Our Thoughts and Prayers are with her.”
“I heard these tickets were going for $3,000 on the internet,” I say.
“NO TRUE FAN WOULD DO THAT!” Meredith yells. “And it was fan-club members only and you had to prove that you lived here and everyone had to show ID at the gate.”
She has a point there. It was like getting on an international flight with the President just to get inside. And that was after the half-hour it took to get through the rows and rows and rows of TV newsvans and journalists covering the story. We kept hearing reporters say “this little middle of nowhere” as we passed. Which, yeah, I also say a lot, but it’s different when I say it.
“Anyone want a pop or something?” Mel asks.
“No!” Meredith says, horrified. “It’s going to start in five minutes.”
“Oh, please,” Mel says, “concerts never start on–”
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” the loudspeakers announce. “Please take your seats, as the Bolts of Fire concert will start in FIVE minutes!”
There’s a deafening scream from around the amphitheatre that happens at about the height of my ribcage. Little girls jump up and down and hug each other and go crazy and are just otherwise disturbingly hysterical, while their parents start streaming in from the side, holding, yep, cups of coffee – no alcohol for adult prisoners of Bolts of Fire.
“That’s it?” Mel asks, having to shout over the whoops and hollers. “A five-minute announcement? No opening act? No music and lights to warm up the crowd?”
“If the crowd were any warmer,” I shout back, “we’d need paramedics.”
Somehow a group of voices singing “Bold Sapphire” has emerged from the sound avalanche, and more and more of the girl crowd join in, including Meredith. “I broke Bold Sapphire’s heart on the day she turned eighteen/I never meant to do it and I hope she still loves me.” Within seconds, the amphitheatre is one loud, off-key, but really enthusiastic voice singing the band’s biggest hit.
Which, I admit, is kinda catchy.
“Are you singing?” Mel says to me, eyes wide.
“No,” I say, too fast.
The amphitheatre lights go down, which is ridiculous as it’s still daylight, but never mind, eighteen hundred little girls burst into simultaneous overwhelmed tears. I think my eardrums are about to explode. Meredith, though, is practically levitating. She’s between me and Mel and she’s so excited she doesn’t know whether to hold our hands or clasp her own or just stand there and hyperventilate. She tries to do all three, which basically makes her like every girl here.
She looks up at me, tears in her eyes. “I’m so happy.”
“They’re not even on yet.”
She just cries some more.
The screams get even louder as someone comes onstage, but they drop respectfully quickly as we all see it’s a girl in a big-deal hospital wheelchair being brought on by what I’m guessing is her mother and a nurse. The girl’s got an oxygen tank with her and looks really bad. The non-nurse/possible mother takes the microphone that’s centre stage.
“Hi, everyone,” she says, “I’m Carly’s mom.”
There’s another huge scream.
“Thank you,” she says. “Carly has something she’d like to say to you.”
The audience quiets down. Every girl there is pulled as taut as a bow to listen to Carly. I hear a girl behind me say, mournfully, “I wish I had cancer.”
Carly’s mom brings the microphone over to Carly. We can hear her ragged breathing for several beats before she says anything.
“Yikes,” Mel mouths to me with a sad look.
“Would you…” Carly says. Breath, breath. “Please…” Breath, breath. “Welcome…” Breath, breath. “Bolts…”
That’s all she gets out because the audience screams like they’re watching their families be murdered in front of them.
Bolts of Fire are walking onstage.
There are five of them, they’ve got names, I could probably tell you what they are if I search my memory, but how can it matter? The noise in here is so bad my phone is vibrating even though it’s not ringing. Mel has her fingers firmly in her ears, and I can see a father in the row in front of us sympathetically pointing to the earplugs he’s wearing.
The Bolts of Fire guys – all in fashionable stubble with fashionable lopsided hair that manages to weirdly sugge
st that they’re both thirty years old and fifteen years old at the same time – bask in the applause for a minute, then gesture for the audience to quiet down. This takes a while, and even then it’s only relatively. The dark-haired one who does most of the singing talks anyway.
“Thank you all so much!” he says.
Another skull-fracturing roar.
“Ready for a good time, people of–” and then he names, not our little town, but the larger town about an hour away. The audience roars anyway. Mel shoots me an irritated look, but I can’t hear a word she says.
“We’re here today,” says the blond one who doesn’t sing very much but who’s prettier than the others, “for one special Bolts of Fire fan.”
Another roar as they put a Bolts of Fire cowboy hat on Carly’s head.
“We’re going to start,” says the one whose voice you can always tell is modified by computer to make him hit the right notes, “with Carly’s favourite song.”
“Maybe you know this one,” says the main singer.
He sings an “oooh” and holds it, the others joining in one at a time. I look at Meredith. She’s pretty much tearing her shirt in ecstatic weeping. I put an arm around her and she leans into me, holding on like I’m comforting her at a funeral.
Then Bolts of Fire, all together, a cappella, surrounding poor Carly in her wheelchair: “I broke Bold Sapphire’s heart on the day she turned eighteen…”
And the scream from the crowd is so loud that it takes a second before we realize that a bomb has gone off.
At first, we all assume it’s some kind of bizarrely timed firework from behind the stage, but then pieces of stage set and burning curtain come flying straight at us, Bolts of Fire have been knocked to the ground, and Carly’s mom and nurse have wrapped themselves around Carly’s body to protect her.
As the debris starts falling – fortunately it seems to be mostly styrofoam and cheap fabric – the screaming of the audience changes so much you can feel it in your body, a rising terror that seems to come out of the ground like a flood of water, rising up to choke you before you even start to swim.
We are in the most incredible danger.