by Kim Smejkal
“We need to get the Kids away from this,” Celia said, peeking out between her fingers, her face smushed in her hands and her words slurred. “Maybe Gil and Millie can take them to visit another troupe until this calms down. I’ll suggest it to Kitty Kay.” Gil and Millie were the most elderly of the Mob, the resident authorities on traditional story lines and continuity, but they hadn’t performed for years, and the “New Commedia” had been making their role fairly redundant of late.
Anya looked out the window, her eyes unfocused as she admired some horizon beyond the loud theater grounds around them. “We’re going to take her world from her, Cece, just like she’s done for generations.” Still determined to burn everything down. “The people are right. This is canon in the making.”
Already planning the design of the first tattoo, all Celia could think was, The Mob will survive this. Vincent will survive this. Only their skin will suffer.
Chapter 20
Celia and Anya began with Seer Ostra’s order the next morning. Away from the troupe, sitting together on a blanket on the pretense of mending costumes, Anya kept a lookout over Celia’s shoulder while Celia prepared to ink.
“Get it over with,” Anya said, pulling one of Passion’s huge dresses into her lap. She stabbed the needle into the hemline without even looking at what she was doing. “The first one will be the hardest for them to accept.”
Seer’s note was simple: She will not find the future in a stack of cards. The image was to be on her chest, to show what her heart was supposed to turn away from.
If Celia had been isolated at the temple, she would have understood it as a clear order against reading tarot. She might have imagined someone addicted to the point of ruining her family, wealth, morality, or health.
But now she knew that every message was nothing more than a ruse. A ploy. A game.
A random dance to entertain.
Because Celia now knew Seer Ostra well, it made her furious.
More furious. She already hated the idea of etching onto so much beautiful skin without permission.
As Anya continued stabbing the innocent dress, Celia unbuttoned her blouse and began to draw on her chest, muttering through her anger. “Take away someone’s livelihood, her life. Wouldn’t it be hilarious to see how a sloth navigates the world without the one thing she loves?” She pushed the quill harder into her skin to get a thicker line. “Ouch, shit.”
She used as few lines as possible to form the picture while still making it as beautiful as she could: a difficult thing to do when drawing the Devil tarot card.
Years of experimenting had taught her how to fulfill an order and keep it ambiguous at the same time. Celia didn’t know people’s circumstances, so she’d tried to stay broad while addressing the heart of the order. Fiona Jenoah’s mirror tattoo—Family is everything—gave no tangible instruction. She could have chosen to see it as a rallying call to take her children far away from the threat in her life.
Dante had seen it. “You leave too much room for misinterpretation!” he’d hissed at her more than once. To which Celia had always thought, Well, why do we bother with art at all? Why don’t we ink a blunt line of text on their foreheads?
Just as they took the opportunity to leave a tiny gap in the upper-arm bands enlisting new mistico, Celia and Anya had always incorporated ambiguity into their work. No one but Dante had ever called them out on it, but it had always been there.
Seer Ostra had told Celia that the Devil card related to bondage, addiction, and materialism. (“It looks like you under your bell jar, doesn’t it?”) Celia fulfilled the order with the image. No mistico inspecting her tattoo could argue that it wasn’t a clear message against tarot reading.
But.
When Seer Ostra looked down, she’d see the Devil reversed, which represented detachment, breaking free, and a reclaiming of power.
She glanced up for Anya’s feedback. “Perfect. Now let’s hope we’re not the last ones to arrive for Seer’s show.”
Celia sent the image to Seer, concentrating on allowing more ink to funnel away so that it—hopefully—appeared slightly larger than she’d drawn. The experiment would either work or it wouldn’t. Then she buttoned her blouse and pulled her cloak tight as Anya quickly collected the blanket and costumes.
In the distance, Seer’s alarm rang loud with yips and exclamations as the image began forming on her skin. People quickly emerged from their wagons to see what all the noise was about.
Seer reacted to the tugging pain, but also to the picture itself. “It’s the Devil tarot!” she cried, stretching out every word in her sloth-speak. “The most o-min-ous por-tent!”
“Are they all going to be this loud?” Anya mumbled as they approached.
“Relax, Seer,” Celia whispered to herself. “Once you see it, you’ll love it.”
A formidable crowd had formed around Seer’s wagon, everyone watching her pace.
“No one in the troupe has ever been inked by the Divine before,” Lilac whispered out of the corner of her mouth when they joined her. “This is an earthshattering freak-out from placid Seer.” Her brow furrowed with her frown, and Celia could see the trail Lilac was ready to amble down. What will we do without our card reader? What does this mean for the Mob? Lilac looked at each face in the crowd, her frown deepening. If Seer needs guidance, do others too?
More murmurs started, and Celia saw the beginning curls of doubt licking through the foggy air, yet these people didn’t believe in much beyond the edge of their glorious stage. She knew none of them were believers, but could this be what turned them into such? It happened all the time. So deviously manipulative: the only true magic in the world, and how long can anyone ignore magic staining their body, staring at them? Everyone yearned to give it meaning. With the transfer complete, Celia let the ink go so it became permanent.
Anya cleared her throat. “But, Seer. Don’t the cards mean something different when they’re upside down?” Yes. Move it along, Anya. Perfect.
“But it’s right side up!” she wailed. “Why would this happen to me? Why now?”
“It’s only right side up to us.” Remy caught on first, clever thing! She walked toward Seer, sucking on one of her candies, and bent herself in half so she saw it upside down, her head beside her feet. Celia willed it to happen: See what you need to see.
Seer paused, moved her gaze to her half-open blouse, and stared at the image on her fuzzy chest: a slightly larger one than Celia had drawn on herself. A few people lost interest and went back into their wagons when her pause stretched on and on.
When Seer finally looked up, her smile was as bright as the sun. “The Devil reversed!”
Celia met Vincent’s eyes and nodded. Pull the leash as tight as you want, Diavala, and we’ll always pull back. We know the practical boundaries of Profeta even better than you do.
Beside her, Anya glared and muttered something similar, but also completely different. “Your own rules will choke you until we choke you ourselves.”
Vincent mimed a round of applause.
* * *
Celia and Anya tried to avoid everyone for the rest of the day, waiting for the shock to settle before inking the next tattoo.
But daytime Kitty Kay, silent and ominous, was peculiarly active. She appeared at their side when they collected their lunch, watched from across the field as they rehearsed, even entered their wagon and stood there, staring through her hair, as they tried to nap.
Celia’s skin crawled. She twisted Salome’s bracelet into knots, traced the Mob bracelet from finger to wrist and back again. For hours, she lived an unsettling preface. As Anya walked by on her way to change, Kitty Kay trailed behind her like a shadow. Anya kept up a one-sided conversation, but Celia saw the cracks in her fake composure. Their eyes met, and Anya shrugged. Well, looks like she’s onto us.
As soon as the sun set and Kitty Kay transformed into the glamorous phoenix, she pointed at them with a long finger. Under her usual nighttime comp
osure lurked obvious, simmering anger.
Come.
It was their audition all over again. In their wagon, after Kitty Kay had kicked everyone else out, Celia collapsed into a pile of pillows, pulled one into her lap, and started wringing it. Anya bravely sat right beside Kitty Kay, her spine locked, her face set as her mind whirred. Kitty Kay poured drinks, her fake smile intimidatingly large. Only Lupita was missing.
“This has gone too far.” Kitty Kay had no hidden menace in her voice; it was bared like fangs. No preamble. No pleasantries. “Time for truth.”
Anya began explaining.
Kitty Kay held up a hand, cutting her off, the rolling boil of her anger perilously close to spilling over. “Lupita plays a drunken fool well, but we go back so many years, I know her better than she knows herself. I’ve known since the beginning what you were and what I encouraged the Mob to accept.”
A thick silence fell. Anya’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to form words around this revelation. Celia’s mind bees buzzed in a confused mess.
With her gaze flicking between Celia and Anya, Kitty Kay continued. “I assume Lupita never told you when our love affair ended in a broken heap. At exactly the moment she abandoned me for a tattoo around her arm. She saw sense eventually, but it cost her much. It cost me much. But it will not cost my troupe.”
Anya tried talking again, only to be quickly silenced. For someone who’d demanded truth from them, Kitty Kay was reluctant to relinquish the floor. A burst of wholly inappropriate laughter tried to worm its way out of Celia’s throat.
“My hatred for the cult runs deep. Smuggling two inklings out of Asura was a small revolt. Or let’s call it revenge. Me cackling with glee at fooling the thing that had stolen my own rapture, my happily ever after. I accepted the risk on behalf of everyone here, never imagining it would truly endanger anyone.
“What I’m not willing to accept, right now, is a revenge so bitter on my tongue. I thought it a small rebellion. But with Seer’s skin stained with what I hate so fiercely, it’s become bigger. Now we must become bigger.”
But all Celia could think was, She doesn’t understand. The villain isn’t a herd of mistico in robes. They’re pawns as much as we are. They get the Touch. They’re used too. She managed a croaked, “But she’s real. Diavala is real. And she’s here.”
Anya nodded ferociously.
Kitty Kay’s eyes widened. Then her lips pressed together hard and her eyes narrowed. For a brief moment her determined face didn’t know what to do with itself.
When they told her about Vincent, Kitty Kay’s eyes misted and she slammed back her drink. When they told her that the intention of the show was to help spread Profeta to neighboring countries, she brought out the hookah.
But when it was all said and done, Kitty Kay leaned forward. With a trembling hand she straightened Celia’s top hat, she cupped Anya’s flushed cheek. Tender gestures disguising fierce resolve.
“Diavala may be real, but so am I. You will finish the orders, brush away your insufferable isolation, and then we will plan, Inklings. Nobody comes into my troupe uninvited. No one. Now it’s even more personal.”
Dropping her hand, Kitty Kay assessed Celia and Anya both. “You realize there’s no way we’re making it out of this with our lives, right?”
Blunt.
Harsh.
True.
They nodded.
“So let’s agree to do as much damage as possible before we go.”
As the phoenix rose to her full splendor, Celia was blinded by a vicious, revenge-seeking red.
And for the first time, instead of the thought of help frightening her, she liked it.
Chapter 21
When Lilac’s tattoo appeared after the show that evening, Kitty Kay had called the Mob together to address what looked to be the beginning of a trend. “This is nothing but a play of desperation, my lovelies!” she announced through a wicked smile, making sure that her gaze lingered extra long on Vincent’s woeful face. “The mistico have always been wary of innovation, but rest assured—we break no laws here, we practice no blatant blasphemy in our shows—you are doing nothing wrong.”
Ever polite, Georgio pressed their Fazzi mask to their chest and dipped into a bow, nearly poking themself in the eye with the long nose of their mask. “But please, Kitty Kay, what if the Divine is actually speaking to Seer and Lilac with these messages? Shouldn’t they listen?”
It seemed as if Kitty Kay had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. Anya gifted Celia with a smirk. Dia, she is our people, isn’t she?
“That’s fair enough, Georgio,” Kitty Kay said. “But remember, we’ve had the luxury of seeing with our own eyes that most of the world has much more sense.” She paused. “I will never tell you what to believe. Your mind is your own. I only want to point out that you needn’t worry about retribution from the institution.” She nodded to Seer Ostra and Lilac. “But ask yourself if you want to listen to a deity whose institution deals in retribution.”
Anya nearly swooned.
Kitty Kay clapped her hands and held them above her head. “Now, let’s concentrate on making the rest of our stay in Malidora a memorable one!” Her hands formed fists. “Sastimos futura!”
And the Mob had chanted back, then dispersed, the matter settled.
Everyone looked appeased by Kitty Kay’s logic: it solidly connected the visiting mistico, their concerns about the show’s message, and the tattoos.
The runaways they’d taken in from the temple were a separate matter entirely.
Since then, Lilac’s blouse had hung open in front, inviting eyes. Most orders were intended to cast doubt on their livelihoods, as if Diavala aimed to sow discontent, but Lilac’s went further and was far more intimate: her order spoke of childhood trauma and the need to aggressively confront it.
Diavala must have stolen knowledge from Vincent to know these details of Lilac’s past, and that level of invasion infuriated Anya. She’d spent a lot of time perfecting Lilac’s design: at the dipping notch in Lilac’s neck now rested a lotus-shaped pendant with crossed swords etched into the face, tracing the length of her collarbone like a necklace.
“My strength and beauty come from my muddy roots,” Lilac had confided when Celia asked what she thought it meant. Lilac’s cheeks flushed crimson, both embarrassed and proud. The swords were battle-ready, but the lotus softened the sharp edges, and Lilac had chosen to find the peaceful and pure alternate meaning.
“They’re exactly what you’ve been teaching me, Lalita,” Remy said a few days later. “Art is art is art. The heart makes the meaning.” Such a clever, clever thing. She’d hollered with glee when her tattoo had come: an ornate tangle of ivy around a book, unfurling at one end to welcome the sun. Her order had implied that she should study more and bend less. She decided it meant she should bend more and maybe study, too, and she’d immediately arranged herself into a back bridge to practice her sums.
With only a tiny bit of guidance, it was easy for the Mob to grasp the nuances Celia and Anya tried to convey in the pictures. It filled their hears to bursting to see people they cared about find their own meaning in the art rather than the discord Diavala had intended.
But by the time they reached the bottom of the stack after six days of inking—pausing only for nightly dances under the bell jar or the occasional nap—Celia’s body was in full-on revolt. Anya was faring better; after three days it became clear they couldn’t both become incapacitated, so Celia had begun sacrificing her ink for all the designs. Either Anya inked on Celia, or Celia inked on herself. One of them had to keep presence of mind, especially the one who roamed the audience on a nightly basis and was at risk to be plucked by greedy hands who wanted a piece of an angel for themselves.
Anya had given Celia updates on the troupe’s reaction to the wave of tattoos; on Gil’s, Millie’s, and the Kids’ road trip adventure to another troupe; on Kitty Kay’s opinions and their ongoing planning; on Diavala’s eerie calm through i
t all. But at some point Celia stopped listening. The ink swirled around, overtaking everything. The real world didn’t exist anymore except in shards of occasional lucidity.
The plague doctor had always known that the storm swirled around Celia. After every tattoo, he’d nod at her or give her a lingering, too-long gaze. A thick, invisible chain, ghost remnants of the chains she wore while traveling, seemed to wrap from his waist to hers, hell-bent on pulling them together. Once, when she passed him, he put his hand out as if to summon more of his magic fire, so she slowed her stride to watch. Instead, his fingertips grazed her wrist before moving down to her hand. An unconscious gesture, as his smile had faltered like an earthquake. “Marco’s is particularly beautiful,” he’d said of the fire-master’s new flame tattoo. “It’s too bad I won’t get one.” Then he stuffed his traitorous hands in his pockets and walked away, the sad lilt in his voice confusing Celia for days after.
To him, they were a puzzle to be solved. This storm is made of ink, she imagined the plague doctor thinking, and Celia brandishes a quill.
Lilac pressed a cloth smelling of rotten wood to Celia’s forehead to bring down her fever and spoon-fed her a disgusting mushroom concoction. Both pushed heat from her core out of her skin. Celia glistened, but the medicines kept her temperature below the cusp of emergency. She felt stretched out and ragged, like a threadbare nightgown washed too many times.
“Sleep. I’ll check back soon,” Lilac said before leaving her.
Yes, sleep. After the last order was done.
The plague doctor’s. She’d endlessly shuffled it to the bottom of the stack, his words haunting her. Why had be been so positive there wouldn’t be one for him?
She couldn’t put it off any longer. Forcing herself to muster the last reserves of her energy, Celia read his card. She blinked, refocused, and tried again.