Indelible
Dawn Metcalf
Joy Malone learns this the night she sees a stranger with all-black eyes across a crowded room – right before the mystery boy tries to cut out her eye.Instead, the wound accidentally marks her as property of Indelible Ink, and this dangerous mistake thrusts Joy into an incomprehensible world – a world of monsters at the window, glowing girls on the doorstep and a life that will never be the same.Now Joy must pretend to be Ink’s chosen one – his helper, his love, his something for the foreseeable future… and failure to be convincing means a painful death for them both.Swept into a world of monsters, illusion, immortal honour and revenge, Joy discovers that sometimes, there are no mistakes.
Some things are permanent. Indelible. And they cannot be changed back.
Joy Malone learns this the night she sees a stranger with all-black eyes across a crowded room—right before the mystery boy tries to cut out her eye.
Instead, the wound accidentally marks her as property of Indelible Ink, and this dangerous mistake thrusts Joy into an incomprehensible world—a world of monsters at the window, glowing girls on the doorstep and a life that will never be the same.
Now, Joy must pretend to be Ink’s chosen one—his helper, his love, his something for the foreseeable future…and failure to be convincing means a painful death for them both.
Swept into a world of monsters, illusion, immortal honor and revenge, Joy discovers that sometimes, there are no mistakes.
Somewhere between reality and myth lies…
THE TWIXT
The lightest touch on her quivering eyelid was like butterfly wings, hardly anything at all. Her lashes fluttered against his thumb. She could feel the closeness of his palm, her head full of his scent. He feathered the tips of her eyelashes and followed their edge to the bridge of her nose—tracing a long line down and resting a hush on her lips.
Like a kiss.
Her eyes opened. She stared straight into Ink.
He dropped his hand.
“Thank you.”
They were both surprised when he said it.
Ink stood up, backing away cautiously—Joy kept her eyes on him as he moved, step by step. It looked as if he might do something, as if he wanted to maybe say something more, but he waved a hand and stepped forward into the breach, disappearing as he’d come.
Joy stared at the space where he’d been, doing everything in her power not to touch the side of her face.
Indelible
Dawn Metcalf
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
To Maestro & The Pigtailed Overlord,
Mommy loves you!
Contents
Chapter One (#u6bbfdcf9-b1de-5876-b49a-b64fa0e66ab3)
Chapter Two (#u35d41c01-fee2-5e10-bf27-1c538b9f03a4)
Chapter Three (#u55aea61a-7300-5f51-ae0e-d921ce80ba56)
Chapter Four (#u269b8d87-30a4-51fa-8110-1e32c1528228)
Chapter Five (#ufabf3e5a-9aca-5576-a800-0f7718e8cb3b)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THE MUSIC BEAT hard against Joy’s ribs. She could feel the rhythm in her chest and the bass in her teeth. The Carousel spun slowly, crammed with mirrors and frantic dancers. It was dark. It was light. It was dark. It was light. Joy felt the music call to her, dizzying and loud.
“Isn’t this great?” Monica shouted next to Joy’s ear. They stood just inside the nimbus of carnival lights and techno grind. Behind them, the Tilt-A-Whirl roared.
Joy nodded. “It’s wild!”
“Well, come on, wild child! Time for fun.”
Monica loved fun. And Joy loved her for it. Despite the craziness of the past year, Monica had stuck by her, so even if Joy wasn’t too sure about going to the spring fair among several dozen rabid cool-hunters prowling the Carousel on the Green, she wasn’t about to ruin it. Instead of ballroom dancing classes or community theater-in-the-round, the Carousel was attempting to become Glendale’s hottest indoor/outdoor scene. People pumped their fists in the air and smartphones caught the rave on glowing screens. Joy checked hers for the time.
“Well, fun better get started. Dad’s only letting me stay out till eleven.”
Monica snorted and smoothed the edges of her razor-cut bob. “You’d think you were the one who skipped out.” Then she winced and whispered, “Sorry.”
Joy shrugged. “’S’okay.”
Lots of parents split after their last kid went off to college. Mom could’ve waited two years before running off to L.A., but by then, her twenty-six-year-old graphic artist, Doug, might have been considered too old for a cougar like her. As she’d tried to explain before she left, she had “needs.” The memory still brought an embarrassed ache, but no tears. Joy had cried herself out months ago. Nowadays, she half expected Mom to reappear when her boy-toy turned thirty.
“Come on.” Monica tugged Joy up the incline. “Party’s wasting!”
They held hands and jumped onto the crowded dance floor. The old hardwood shivered, rotating slowly on merry-go-round gears. The Carousel was packed, but Monica nabbed a spot beneath the peeling brass ring—the only original piece left after the horses had been auctioned off. Joy edged toward the speakers as the Carousel turned. The town fair fell into purple shadow rimmed in fairy lights.
Joy moved her hips and shoulders, enjoying the thump of the music. Closing her eyes, she felt strangers’ laughter bubble up inside her as if it were her own and she popped her heels to the beat. Her ponytail brushed the back of her neck, alternately sticky and cool. Hands ringed in glow bracelets and Under 18 wristbands clutched empty cotton-candy cones and miniature teddy bears. The air smelled of hot sugar, cooking oil and sweat. Distant roller coaster screams echoed somewhere out in the glow of a thousand twinkling carnival lights. It was like swimming in a dreamworld, floating in noise.
Joy wound her long arms over her head, stretching her spine. Her hipster jeans hung loose. She’d gotten a lot thinner since Mom left, her abs tight under stretched skin. Mom would have noticed and made her change clothes. The thought brought Joy dropping back to earth, feeling heavy and solid as she sank into her shoes.
No! This was not going to be like last year. Those days had been too long and the house too quiet. She’d become a total stranger. She was officially over it. This was spring, a new beginning in a brand-new year. This year, things were going to change.
Joy checked her posture and her attitude as she spun on the shifting floor. She shuffled toward Monica, who had lightly rebuffed some blond boy and was now glancing over her shoulder at the guy on her left. Joy wasn’t surprised. Monica liked jocks. Or, as she liked to put it, “big strapping jocks,” and Mr. Wide Shouldered Crew Cut in Tight Pants definitely fit her type.
Joy pushed away some stray hand. The floor chugged with the beat.
“Chocolate-vanilla swirl?” Joy shouted.
Monica raised her hands and whooped, “Oh, yeah!”
Monica was more the color of classic grand pianos than chocolate ice cream, but she was always game for showing off. Linking fingers, the two of them slowly undulated their hips, bending lower and lower as they sank to their knees, hanging on to one another for support and inching back up the same way, laughing. They got some applause and even a few appreciative hollers. Joy grinned. Eleven years of gymnastics came in handy once in a while. It’d been over eight months since she’d quit, but she missed it. She missed it like laughing. She missed it like this.
They slapped high-fives before going solo. Monica made her play for Mr. Wide, his large hands sliding down onto her hips. She nodded to Joy and laughed, the black lights on the undercarriage making her eyes and teeth glow an unappetizing purple. It made Joy secretly want a breath mint.
Joy turned away, gazing out at the crowd. Flashes of color and jerky movements made everybody look strangely the same—no one was boy or girl, black or white, freshman or senior. They were all one big glom. Joy usually avoided the Carousel’s Under 18 scene, but Monica had said that there was a new DJ and Joy had to admit that he was really good. The guy was backlit in the gutted central pillar filled with concert notices and band stickers, the giant headphones over his ears making it look like he wore a Viking helmet. Her eyes skipped over faces, trying not to linger too long. She didn’t want company—she just wanted to dance and forget about Mom and Dad and her brother, Stef, away at U Penn.
She turned a one-eighty, swishing her fingers as the music switched over. Joy lifted her face to the ceiling and watched the colored bands of pink and green spin. She turned counterclockwise, making herself dizzy. Searing neon afterimages blinked in her brain. That’s when she saw the all-black eyes.
At first, she thought it was a trick of the light, but everyone else’s eyes had that purplish glow while these stayed flat-shadow. Joy stopped, confused.
A lean guy with spiky hair stared into the crowd with his strange, dark eyes. Shaggy bangs fell forward into his face, the back cut close behind his ears and neck. The girl next to him could have been his twin—shorter, with a heart-shaped face, matching hair and whiteless eyes. They stood on the edge of the dance floor, looking like black thistles against a field of psychedelic blooms.
Goths, Joy figured, with freaky contacts.
He stared, unblinking. His eyes swallowed everything. And when they found her, it felt like falling.
The Carousel turned, but those eyes stayed with her.
Joy adjusted her feet and tried to put the boy out of her mind. The music tracks dovetailed and the view slowly changed. Lightbox signs hawked caramel apples and funnel cakes. Crayon-colored chair swings spun in and out of sight. Monica had disappeared somewhere with Mr. Wide. The music dipped and surfaced, vocals skating up and down scales. Joy’s eyes flicked to the mirrors, the black lights, the brass ring, but an itch kept pulling her gaze over her shoulder. The platform circled, and she saw him again through a sea of indigo limbs.
He stared at her. Joy glanced away, pretending not to notice. She rotated in place, rolling her hips slowly as the floor crept clockwise, not realizing that she was flirting until she’d circled beyond his sight.
Joy considered him from the safe zone behind the DJ booth. The guy’s shirt looked expensive and his vibe was lurkish, intense. He had a sort of animal grace, even standing still, and his serious expression was a sharp contrast to his pretty, boyish face. On the next pass, she wondered if he’d still be there, staring at her.
He was. But it wasn’t a nice stare.
Joy’s stomach dropped as he headed straight toward her. She looked down at her shoes, a hot, awkward prickle crawling over her cheeks. He wasn’t dancing his way closer or being in any way subtle—he was marching right at her, stepping smoothly onto the rotating platform and pushing gently but firmly through the crowd. His attention was relentless. Joy backed farther into the throng.
She scanned the club for Monica, feeling those eyes on the back of her neck. She was afraid to turn around. Didn’t this break some sort of dance floor etiquette? If Joy ignored him, maybe he’d get the hint. But she really wanted backup.
“You.”
Joy was surprised that his soft voice cut so cleanly through the noise. It didn’t sound as if he’d shouted, and she was too surprised to pretend she hadn’t heard him.
He was within arm’s reach—dancing distance—but he wasn’t dancing. His thistle sister stood as close to him as static cling.
Joy closed her eyes, feigning boredom. She’d gotten more details in that second brief glimpse: smoky shirt, dark pants, heavy chain dangling to his back pocket—so Goth! Joy projected a pointedly obvious no.
“Hey, you,” he said again in the simple way that sliced through sound. Joy glared at him. She didn’t like to be rude, but she would if she had to. She didn’t need this. She kept her arms moving, trying to keep things casual. Colored lights flashed off tent tops, stuffed animals and sweaty faces, making it impossible to see where he was looking with those blacked-out eyes.
He took a step closer. Joy smelled rain on the breeze.
“You can see me?” he asked.
Joy stopped dancing at the patently stupid question.
“Yeah. Why?”
A strange look passed over his face, determination that looked like regret. His arm rose at the shoulder, snaking out in a short burst of speed. Bright lights licked the edge of something sharp in his hand. Joy flinched and fell down hard. She skidded on the floor and banged against knees.
Cupping a hand to her eye, she inhaled a scream, but it stuck in her chest. What had just happened? There’d been a flash. It was bright. Had he cut her? Was she bleeding? People backed away. The floor kept turning. Joy could feel it shudder.
Monica appeared beside her. “You okay?” she gasped, voicing the panic Joy was just starting to feel. “What happened? Joy?”
Her eye hurt. A lot. Every time she tried to look up, she blinked rapidly over a pinprick of pain. It felt like a splinter.
Through the blur, Joy saw the Goth girl’s hand bright against her brother’s shirt, shoving him back into the crowd. Her voice had that same slicing clarity.
“Well, now you’ve done it.”
Joy wanted to get up and grab them, but the twinge in her eye and an icy fear pinned her to the floor. Slippery tears wet her palm.
“He cut me!” Joy said in accusation and disbelief. Her words caught fire to those nearby, passing quickly from person to person in the breathy excitement of a night on the Green gone bad. Staffers descended. Rent-a-cops were called. There were shouts to remain calm, shut off the music, man the gates, but by the time any of it happened, the two Goth kids were gone.
* * *
Dad drove her home from the E.R. with a neat patch over one eye and a bottle of numbing drops in her hand. The scratch on her cornea was clean, but kept flipping open, so the nurse had taped her eyelid shut. Joy’s pleas to stay home for the next three to five days had not met with success. There was a text from Monica and a message from Mom. Dad hadn’t called her, had he? Joy frowned and shut off her phone.
“I’m glad Monica called,” her dad said. “It was the right thing to do.” Joy didn’t say anything as she gazed out the window. There was a long pause. “You sure you weren’t drinking?”
“Dad, Monica’s the treasurer of S.A.D.D., for Pete’s sakes. She’s like the poster girl for prevention,” Joy said. “Besides, no alcohol at Under 18 Nights.” She rubbed her eye patch.
“Stop that,” he chided.
Joy dropped her hand. She and Monica had agreed not to say anything about what had really happened. Monica hadn’t actually seen the guy and if Dad found out, he’d never let Joy out of the house again. Their story was that something had dropped from the ceiling, but it didn’t explain the shaky feeling that had stayed with her hours later.
Like looking into those all-black eyes.
She picked at the tape with her fingernail. “It’ll take me forever to do my homework,” she complained.
“Fortunately, you have the whole weekend to do it,” he said. “It’s still Friday night—” he glanced at the clock “—well, Saturday morning, and there’s plenty of time. Just do a little bit every few hours.” He glanced left and right quickly as he ran a yellow light. “If you have a test, I could quiz you.”
“No tests,” Joy said. “But this totally blows my weekend.”
He frowned. “You had plans this weekend?”
She didn’t, but he didn’t have to sound so surprised. She might have had plans if she’d had a life.
Dad seemed to sense that he’d stepped in it. “How about after the first pass at your homework, I take you to the mall for ice cream?”
Joy grimaced. “Looking like this?” She pointed at her face. “No, thanks.”
Her dad sighed and kneaded the steering wheel. “O-kay,” he said. “How about this—you invite Monica over since she’s seen you already, and I’ll pick up a pizza and then vacate the house? Girls’ night in and Dad’s gone out?” Joy tried not to brood over her father’s idea that the greatest gift to her was being absent. She twiddled the eyedrops in her lap.
“That is my final offer,” he added.
“All right, fine,” Joy said.
“All right,” her father agreed. “Fine.”
Joy turned her head fully to study his balding profile in the window. The streetlights etched the worry around his eyes and the pinch of his lower lip. She sighed against the headrest. He was trying so hard. Neither of them were good at the reaching-out thing; they’d left that stuff up to Mom. But Mom was gone, and Stefan was at college, and everything had changed. Dad was the only original piece of her family she had left. Joy needed him to be the one thing that stayed.
She smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”
He smiled back.
* * *
Not only was there pizza, but her father had left a carton of ice cream in the freezer with a Post-it note that said Study Break. Picking out the chocolate chips while dancing to satellite radio, Joy had to admit that Dad wasn’t half-bad at spoiling her. She’d heard that she could expect it now that her folks were officially divorced, but this was the first time it had tasted like victory instead of leftover Chinese takeout. To Dad, dessert was love, or the next best thing. Every time he bought her a treat, Joy felt obliged to have some right away. It was Dad’s way of saying “I love you” and her way of saying that she knew.
Fortunately, she liked ice cream—unfortunately, not mint chocolate chip. Mom would’ve known that. Stefan was the one who liked chips. Joy sighed as she made a little wet stack of brown rectangles for her brother, who wasn’t there. Mom was gone, Stef was gone, but she still had ice cream and pizza and Monica. Hooray!
Joy vaulted over the couch and landed smoothly on the cushions, repositioning herself for maximum pillow access. There were a lot worse things than hanging with Monica at home watching classic chick flicks. Having Dad stick around while they watched When Harry Met Sally came to mind. She was actually glad that he was going out. He’d been haunting the house ever since the divorce papers were signed.
“I’m off,” Dad called from the hallway with a jingle of keys.
“Night, Dad,” Joy said, bouncing her feet in time to the music. She waved her mismatched blue polka-dot and pink-and-purple socks. “Have fun.”
“You, too,” he said. “Emergency numbers are on the door.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“And don’t be afraid to call the cell.”
Joy leaned back and enunciated pointedly: “Good. Night. Dad!”
“Okay, okay, I’m going.” His hand rested on the doorknob. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Dad!” she warned.
“Bye!”
The door clicked closed. Gone.
Joy spent a few minutes clicking around the TV. Channel surfing was hard on her eye, so she shut it off, figuring she’d save it for the movies.
Hauling herself out of the couch, she went to double-cut the pizza into long triangle strips. Monica only liked to eat pizza that didn’t smudge her lip pencil and Joy had adopted the habit. Now she didn’t eat pizza any other way. She put her playlist on shuffle and grabbed a couple of plates.
She was singing and sawing the pizza slicer deep into grease-soaked cardboard when the phone rang. It was Monica on caller ID.
“Hey, there,” Joy chirped, shouldering the cordless phone.
“Hey...” Monica hesitated.
Joy stopped slicing. “What’s up?”
“Please don’t kill me or make me out to be the worst friend in the world.”
Joy laughed and lowered the volume. “Well, with an introduction like that, how could you go wrong?” she said, switching ears. “Spill.”
“Gordon asked if I could meet him at Roxbury downtown.” Monica paused, sounding unsure. It was weird. Monica was cocky and confident when it came to boys asking her out. She’d be the first to say that she’d had lots of practice. “And since we got interrupted last night by, well, you know...” Several things clicked together.
“Gordon’s the guy?” Joy asked. “Mr. Wide from the Carousel?” She put down the pizza slicer.
“Yeah.” Monica sounded guilty, maybe even shy. “But I told him I had plans tonight.”
Joy filled in the blanks. “Plans that maybe you could get out of?”
“Only because you’re my very best friend.”
Joy smothered the pathetic feeling that she’d be home alone with a patch over one eye and too much food for one person. Monica sounded so hopeful. “This must be some guy.”
Monica’s voice warmed with relief. “I’ll let you know!”
“Spare me the details,” Joy said as she placed one of the plates back on the shelf. “Go have fun, and remember—don’t be stupid.”
“I know. No Stupid. Sorry it’s last minute.” Monica’s voice slowed, clearly wanting to sound torn. She wasn’t fooling anyone, though. Gordon won, Joy lost. Score one for Team Penis.
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” said Joy. “Rock the Rox for me.”
“And you go enjoy some Joy time.”
“I’ll try,” Joy said, but Monica had already cut her off with “Bye!”
Joy hung up the phone and sighed. The last time she’d watched this movie, it’d been with her mom. There was a tight, hollow feeling in her stomach and a dry twinge in her eye. She brought her plate of pizza to the couch, tucked herself under the afghan and thumbed the remote to Play.
Well, she still had ice cream and pizza.
Hooray.
* * *
She fell asleep in the middle of Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist and woke to the sound of scratching. Joy sat up, clawing at the unfamiliar obstruction over her eye. Then she remembered: Weirdo in the club. Knife. Scratched cornea. Her fingers came away from the latex weave as she adjusted to the idea of being awake.
Alone. Dark. Ditched by Monica. Decent movie. Cold pizza. The TV was a blue screen. The clock said 2:18.
The scratching came again.
Joy threw off the afghan, removing the warmth from her body. The condo felt chilly and very, very empty. The automatic thermostat was set for sixty-two. Energy-saving mode. She shivered and got to her feet, accidentally knocking cold pizza slivers onto the floor. Grumbling, she knelt and tossed them back on the plate, ruffling the thick carpet with her hand to mask the stain.
Making her way to the door, Joy wondered if Dad had lost his keys. Why didn’t he just knock? Her brain waded through the fuzz. That didn’t make sense. She yawned. It was late. Or early. She was too tired to think straight.
The scratching came again. But it was coming from the kitchen window.
Turning around, Joy squinted. The sky outside was a patchwork of blue-orange low-glow. The wind was blowing through the backyard. She could hear it whistling outside. Maybe a branch was scraping the glass?
There was a long, drawn-out scrrrrrrrrrrrick!
A large shadow with glowing eyes loomed in the dark. The eyes were shaped like arrowheads and fiery, electric white.
Joy stumbled.
The eyes slanted in amusement. There was a scratch at the glass again.
Joy’s back hit the wall, her whole body tingling. The kitchen phone was still on the couch, impossibly far away. So was her voice. So was her breath. She stared, quivering.
A large palm pressed flat against the glass, thick fingers ending in points. There were only four of them. The hand flexed and dropped into darkness, but the eyes were still there, burning.
Joy blinked her one eye over and over, gripping the edge of the sliding closet door. She couldn’t be seeing what she was seeing. She wanted to hide behind the coats, but she didn’t dare let the thing out of her sight. If it didn’t stay where she could see it, it could be anywhere.
Wake up, she told herself. Wake up, Joy!
The eyes narrowed. The claw reappeared and thumped dully against the glass. Once. Twice.
Joy could feel her head shaking. No no no no. Her fingers gripped the fake wood. No—go away!
The heavy hand retreated and reappeared as a fist. It struck casually, with a little more force. The window shivered. Sealant creaked. She watched the hand draw back again and slam down, spiderwebbing the first double pane.
Joy screamed on the third impact. Screamed again when the web spread. Her heart skittered as a single gray talon tapped the splintered glass, skipping on a shard or jag, white light shimmering as the finger drew words:
Joy stared at the words as they slowly flickered and died. The eyes and their owner faded from sight.
She wanted to move, bolt for her room or the couch or the phone and 911.
Smack! A bulbous nose plastered itself against the window. Joy shrieked and grabbed the flashlight out of the closet. She threw it at the broken window, knocking the light over the sink. The hanging lamp swung wildly, throwing erratic light and shadow.
The monster laughed, lips peeling back over fat brown tusks, and slid its tongue recklessly over the shards. The mouth opened wider. Its tongue curled and shot forward, shattering a waterfall of glass.
Joy sprinted for the couch. Laughter followed her like a rusty saw through wood. She dove, clearing the cushions, tucking smoothly into a tight, upward crouch. Her fingers shook as she grabbed the phone and dialed, botching the numbers. Joy hung up, swearing, and glanced back at the window.
Nothing.
She froze.
Joy glanced around, breathing hard.
Where was it?
She squeezed the phone, shaking, refusing to let go. Behind the patch, her eye burned, salt tears stinging. She was dreaming. Wasn’t she dreaming? She’d been watching old movies. She’d fallen asleep. It could have been a nightmare.
Joy peeked over the couch into the kitchen. The window wasn’t webbed in shattered glass. It reflected nothing but shadows and the light above the sink.
She sank back and blinked her one good eye, feeling her heart pound. Had she just woken up? Had she grabbed the phone, half-asleep? Her body tingled with leftover adrenaline splash.
Vaguely wondering if she had subconsciously picked up some horror movie preview, she dropped the phone, glad that she hadn’t dialed an emergency operator in her sleep. Joy rubbed her patch. She’d had one too many emergencies lately, thanks.
She shook out her hands and checked the clock: 2:29. Joy shivered and wondered what Dad was doing out so late. She grabbed the pizza plate—something for her hands to do—and went to dump it in the sink.
Froze.
There were shards of broken glass in the four corners of the window, like jagged photo holders.
One pane left.
The plate shattered against the floor as Joy grabbed the phone and called her dad’s cell.
CHAPTER TWO
JOY GAVE THE same statement for the third time, bundled in a sweatshirt and her tea growing cold. She kept forgetting to drink it. She held the mug in her hands, letting the warmth seep in. She said she’d seen a “monster face” at the window and had thrown the flashlight at it, but decided not to mention the words written in light. She remembered hearing stories of her great-grandmother seeing things, and they’d ended up putting her in an asylum. The idea of being crazy had haunted Joy throughout her childhood.
“Could’ve been a prank,” the officer said. “Someone wearing a Halloween mask. Having any problems at school, Joy?”
“No.”
“Anyone bothering you on the bus? On your way home?”
Joy rotated the #1 Dad mug in her hands. “No,” she said and took a lukewarm sip.
“What happened to your eye?”
Her father glanced up at the question, too.
She set the mug down, not liking to link the two things together. “I got a scratched cornea at the Carousel—a splinter, I think. I was looking up when something fell.” Joy pointed at the patch. “I have to wear this thing for two more days.”
The officer glanced at her, then Dad, forehead crinkled in a what-can-you-do ripple. He dug into his pocket and held out a business card. “Well, we didn’t find anything out of the ordinary outside. We’ve got your statement. If you remember anything else you want to add, my number’s on the card. Feel free to give me a call.” He handed the card to Joy’s father, who nodded.
“Thank you, Officer Castrodad,” he said with a firm handshake. “I appreciate you coming out.”
The policeman nodded. “Just doing my job.” He cast a last look at Joy, who hid her face behind the cheap ceramic cup. “Mr. Malone. Joy.” The officer let himself out.
Her father flipped the card onto the table and took a stroll around the room.
“Well, that was some excitement,” he said, setting his hands on his hips. “You certainly got my attention.”
Joy frowned. “You think I made this up?” She felt more angry than scared, but he was obviously angry, too.
“I don’t know, Joy, did you?” he snapped. “You weren’t particularly truthful with the man when he asked you about school.”
“Dad—”
“No. Don’t ‘Dad’ me,” he said. “Grades slipping, quitting gymnastics and ignoring calls from your mother may be par for the course after something like this....” Mothers leaving their families for younger men in California was apparently considered a something like this. “All the damn books say acting out is normal, and, yes, getting suspended last year for knocking over chairs is a little rough for a zero tolerance–policy school, okay, but lying, Joy? The E.R.? Police? That’s not like you. And you were lying tonight.”
“I wasn’t lying!” she insisted. Joy hated when he threw the suspension in her face. That was forever ago. Just like Mom leaving, or quitting gymnastics and giving up her Olympic dreams, not to mention her entire social life.
Dad threw his keys hard into the couch. “Oh, really? Where’s Monica, Joy?”
Joy gaped. “She ditched me!” she said, but knew the facts were stacked against her. “That wasn’t my fault! I didn’t know she was going to back out last-minute to go dance with some guy!” She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to cry. It was so unfair! She was half inclined to tell him what had really happened yesterday, but he already thought she was a psychopathic liar.
“When I called the Reids to tell them I was on my way, I woke them up, Joy! Monica was asleep in bed after telling her parents that she’d been here all night.”
Joy groaned. “So Monica’s a liar and I get the blame?”
“Were you covering for her?”
“No!”
“Did you make this all up?”
“No.”
He crossed his arms. “Joy, I won’t be any madder than I am right now—”
“No!”
Dad softened a little; he was still mad, but he wanted to believe her. She could tell. They had to trust one another—they were all they had left. It was like he was thinking the same thing. He deflated over his belly.
“I get that you’re angry, Joy. We’re all angry. But there’s defiant, and then there’s reckless. The constant moping and lashing out...” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Did you break the window, Joy?” he asked softly.
“No, Dad.” Joy punctuated her words with a fist on the table. Frustration shivered through her body. Why wouldn’t he believe her? Her voice broke like glass. “I didn’t! The outside pane’s broken and we’re two floors up! There was someone at the window and I was all alone and I was so scared!”
He wrapped her in his arms, rubbing her shoulders through the sleeves as if she were cold. Tears trapped under gauze were suddenly dripping off her chin. She sniffled as he rocked her slowly. Everything felt twisted and wrong.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered, but she couldn’t say what she was sorry for.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said with a squeeze. “Tomorrow I’m getting an alarm. We’ll both sleep better then.”
She gave his forearms a last bit of hug.
“Did I ruin your date?” she asked. Joy felt her dad pause.
“Do you want me to answer that?”
She thought about it. “Not tonight.”
Her dad sighed and stroked her hair. “Deal.”
* * *
Monica trailed behind Joy in the hall.
“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!”
Joy trusted her hair to provide some cover for her anger and the frayed, peeling patch. It looked hideous, like an old wound, gummy and gross.
“You’re sorry,” Joy muttered. “Dad’s nearly got me under house arrest.” She picked at her patch in irritation, then stopped. Dad had caught her trying to remove it this morning and threatened a serious grounding. Joy hated the way she kept bumping into things and misjudging distance. Plus the nausea. And the stares in the hall. She hadn’t felt this awkward since she’d dropped out of training. “I’ve gone from being invisible to Public Enemy Number One!”
“Sorry to infinity,” Monica begged. “Sorry to infinity plus one!”
Joy thumped her head against her locker.
“Stop it,” she said, working the combination. “Just tell me it was worth it.”
“It was worth it,” Monica said dutifully.
“Really?”
“No,” Monica said. “Not if it got you into trouble.” But a smile crept into her voice and over her lips. “Otherwise, yes. It was totally worth it!”
“Small comfort,” Joy said, but added, “I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks.” Monica relaxed against the bank of lockers and poked at the plastic fob on Joy’s key ring. “So, what’s up with this?”
Joy stacked books in her arms. “Dad had a security system installed. Either he doesn’t believe me and he’s locking me in, or he believes me and he’s locking everyone else out.” Neither option sounded too appealing.
“Did you find out who it was?” Monica asked. “At the window?”
Joy felt guilty feeding Monica her cover story, but the truth was just too crazy. “No,” Joy said, but something else slipped out. “It was a message.”
Monica raised her eyebrows. “Mmm-hmm? Somebody whacks your window with a baseball bat and you might take that as some sort of message,” she said. “Before we came to Glendale, my daddy was from Arkansas and he talked about growing up with all kinds of ‘messages’ left burning on the lawn.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Joy said as the locker door squeaked shut.
“What? The burglar left a Post-it?”
Joy shook her head behind her hair. She was momentarily glad she had the excuse not to look at Monica; she felt as if she’d somehow said too much. Joy didn’t know what 48 deer run midnight meant, and she didn’t know how to tell ink, but Joy could still see the glowing words and the giant tongue pressed flat against the glass. She hugged her books to her chest and scrolled through her text messages for a distraction.
Alice June Moorehead, 1550 Hewey, Apt 10C, Strwbry
4 INK: RAZORBILLS SOUTH 40 OVERPASS, 4PM—SEVER STRAIGHT & DON’T BE LATE! THX
Joy had the crazy instinct to smash her phone against the wall. She eyed the mob of students chatting and banging locker doors under a chorus of squeaky shoes and six hundred ringtones. A flash of bright orange in the crowd made Joy’s head turn, but she couldn’t see the source. She curled against her locker and cupped her hand over her phone’s screen. She checked the numbers: both unlisted. She wished she’d programmed Officer Castrodad into her contact list.
How did these people get my number?
Monica glanced at the cell in Joy’s hand. “Mom again?”
“No,” Joy said. She’d been storing the rest of her mother’s messages. Not playing them. Not deleting them. Not even thinking about them. Not yet. “Have you given anyone my number?”
“What? No.”
“Gordon or anybody?” Joy fished. “Did he borrow your phone?”
Monica’s happy face dropped several degrees, her tone dipped into low centigrade. “When I say no, I mean no. Nobody got your number from me.” She frowned. “Is somebody cyber-bothering you?”
Joy killed her screen. “No. Just being paranoid.” She started walking. Fast.
Monica jogged to keep up. “Somebody comes and breaks your window, that’s not paranoid. That’s legitimately scared. And now someone’s texting you?” She sounded worried.
“Wrong number,” Joy lied. “They might not be related.”
“Yeah, but they might,” Monica said. “Seriously, I don’t want to see your name on the news and feel bad that I didn’t say something.” She tapped Joy’s shoulder. “You tell your dad about this? About what really happened at the Carousel?”
“No,” Joy muttered. “You know he’d freak.”
Monica shrugged as they made for the doors. “Let him freak. It’s okay to freak. Especially if things are freaky.” She shook her head, jangling the gold hoops in her ears as she took the stairs. “Just tell him. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Joy said with a wave, but she knew she wouldn’t. Dad was just coming out of that zombie state of post-marital shock and they finally had a delicate peace. Then he’d been out at 2:00 a.m. and called her a liar. She’d told Dad about the thing at the window and look what had happened! Joy wasn’t about to do that again any time soon.
Joy stayed in the stairwell and clicked into Maps. There were highway 40s in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, New York and Florida. A quick search of Alice Mooreheads turned up hits in Maine, Connecticut, Kentucky.... There were too many to be sure. Something snapped into place as she looked at the White Pages listings. A number plus a street equaled an address!
She hesitated, popping back into Maps, and typed 48 Deer Run with her thumbs. Three hits. One in Glendale, North Carolina.
Joy enlarged the image and smiled at the map. She didn’t even need directions. She could practically walk there from here.
She took the stairs two at a time, determined that no one was going to mess up her life and leave her behind to pick up the pieces. This time, she was going to do something about it first.
* * *
She didn’t walk, she ran. It felt good, even with too-heavy clothes and an underwire bra. Joy’s feet hit the pavement with an even, steady thud thud thud. Her skin tingled with heat and sweat, cooled by a breeze that smelled of dry leaves. It didn’t feel as good as training, but it felt better than sitting still.
She’d tied her hair back with a rubber band, missing half her bangs, and her taped-over eye made her awkwardly blind on one side, but it felt good to move, to be doing something. Joy grinned and added some speed.
Her feet took the corner, pounding the sidewalk squares and squashing the tiny sprigs that had dried in the cracks. She barely realized when she’d turned onto Deer Run Avenue. She slowed to a walk and placed her hands on her hips, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth, digging a knuckle into her patch as she read mailbox numbers.
Number forty-eight was a gray clapboard house tucked into a wooded lot. Its roof was littered in pine needles and the shutters were painted dark red. Joy hesitated at the mouth of the gravel drive. Now that she was here, she didn’t know what to do. Whatever might or might not have happened would have happened last night. Midnight. But everything here looked normal. Joy wiped her face with her hands. What had she expected to find?
Walking up the driveway, Joy was all too conscious of the sound of her footsteps crunching loudly on loose gravel, reminding her of shattered glass. As she approached the porch steps, she saw the first hints that something was wrong. There was a mess of overturned planters and downed hanging baskets, trampled, half-buried flowers littered the porch, and smears of what looked like mud dripped down the steps. Joy looked up at the door, also splashed with mud. The windows were intact, but there was something about them.... She didn’t want to climb the stairs. She didn’t want to touch the mud or the flowers or the broken pottery. Some instinct told her to back away, and she did. Joy knew that there were answers here, but if there was more to see, it was around the back of the house.
Joy had never considered trespassing before.
She hesitated, then walked quickly around the side of the garage, blood pulsing in her ears. Her steps crushed bits of stone and crispy, dead leaves. Joy kept glancing anxiously toward her blind side, afraid of getting caught.
She stopped. It was as if this was what she’d expected to see.
The back deck was destroyed. Smashed planks, broken fence posts, and wide pieces of fiberglass lay scattered in the grass. Chunks of raw wood had been gouged out of the wall with what looked like a hand rake with four tines. Joy squeezed the straps of her backpack and whirled around. Whatever it was that had been at her window had come here, too.
With one hand on the railing and the other outstretched, Joy sidestepped the splinters and pieces of glass. Easing herself around the corner, she peered into what had been the kitchen. It was demolished; the sink, counter and opposite wall were completely blown through. The floor was nothing but shattered tile and crumbly powder. Even the light fixtures were husks of busted glass, their tiny hanging wires trembling in the wind.
That’s what made her look up.
The ceiling was a thick canopy of green—an enormous mandala of leaves, shoots and thorns spreading out from a decorative center medallion. Climbing ivy hugged the plaster with millipede roots, and clusters of red berries shone ripe in the dark. It was unlike anything Joy had ever seen, beautiful and eerie. It made a picture, almost like writing. She craned her head sideways, trying to make it out.
There was a blur on her blind side.
Joy spun around. The backyard was empty. A cloud moved, casting shadows and bringing a sudden scent of rain. Branches flickered. Twigs creaked. A shower of sound rustled as the wind overturned leaves.
There was a whisper of something....
A crack of wood turned her stomach cold.
Her curiosity vanished. She’d seen enough—she wanted out of here! Joy crept down the stairs, being careful where she placed her feet, and stepped off the path onto the grass.
“Excuse me?”
An old man stood on the edge of the yard wearing a soft felt hat and a long wool coat, clutching a ragged umbrella. His mismatched clothes were all the colors of brown and his face was a raisin of smiles. He hadn’t been there before.
“Excuse me,” he continued. “Did you see the Kodama?”
Joy swallowed her first response. While she wasn’t certain what he meant, it was pretty clear the answer he expected.
“Yes,” she said.
“Ah, good,” he said, visibly relaxing. “It is you.” He shuffled forward, and Joy watched him shake his head. “Bad business,” he clucked and gestured offhandedly to a Japanese maple that had been recently cut down; its smell permeated the air and a large twist of rope lay coiled around the stump. “He tried to warn them, you know—tried asking for help—but do they listen? Hardly ever. Pity that.” He smiled up at Joy. The man was a good deal shorter than her. His eyes were soft and his hair was the color of bone. “If you would be so kind...”
He offered her a wrinkled envelope. It looked as if it had been sat on, left in slush and dried overnight. Joy looked at the envelope and him, not knowing what to do. This didn’t seem like a drug deal, but that was the only thing she could think of that made sense. Maybe this “Ink” was a dealer? Maybe she was under surveillance? Maybe this guy was an undercover cop? She glanced around the yard with her one good eye. The old man waved his envelope with an imploring smile.
“I would’ve waited but, you know, he’s so very busy,” he said almost apologetically. “And with you being here, I thought, well, it never hurts to ask.” Joy still hadn’t moved to take the letter. The man paused and tugged at his many layers of clothes, growing awkward and confused. His eyes suddenly lit up.
“Ah! Of course...” He hooked his umbrella over one elbow and fumbled inside his coat pocket, then tried an inner coat pocket, his jacket pocket, a shirt pocket, a vest pocket and his pants pocket before he found something that made him grin. “Here.” He placed a small white shell in her palm and folded the envelope gently atop it. “With my compliments,” he added, beaming. “If you listen, you can hear the ocean.” He winked and made encouraging gestures. Joy held the conical shell up to her ear. There was a cold tickle of air and a tiny whooshing sound. She flinched. With a satisfied bow, he turned to withdraw.
“Wait!” Joy was uncertain whether she intended to say that this was all a big mistake or demand some sort of explanation, but his next words cut her short.
“If you would be so kind as to deliver that missive to Ink, young lady, I’d very much appreciate it.” Then he pointed to the shell in her hand and winked. “Don’t spend that all in one place!”
“Ink...” Joy began. The man stopped and turned slowly, his eyebrows twitching with a sort of itchy suspicion. “...is really busy,” she amended quickly. “I don’t know when I’ll see him next...to give him this.” She held up the envelope, which quivered in the wind. “And I’d hate for you to have to wait.” He looked at her and then at his envelope in her hand. Joy folded it carefully. “Is there anything you’d like me to tell him? In case he asks?”
The man’s face shifted. “He lets you handle the business, then?”
Joy nodded. “Yes.”
His face relaxed into a gentle smile. “Oh, well, lehman—I’m old. What do I know?” He shook his umbrella at the envelope. “It’s all written down, of course. Always best to keep records. But then, this won’t involve the Bailiwick, so that hardly matters, does it?” It didn’t sound rhetorical and he looked expectantly up at Joy.
“No,” she said.
“Fine, fine,” he said happily. “I don’t mind if you read it, then. Just be sure to let Ink know.” He shuffled off, pausing to pet the tree stump with a gentle hand. “Pity,” he muttered and gave a sad, parting smile. “Well, good day.”
“Good day,” Joy said and watched the little man amble off through the trees, picking his way through the neighbor’s yard and poking at the ground with his umbrella as he continued out into the woods. Joy followed. She kept her eyes on him as she circled the house, one hand outstretched, touching the wall. She squinted across the neighboring property, but between one tree and the next, he disappeared.
She backed up a step and then inched forward. She turned around. There was no one there. Nothing.
That did it.
Joy sprinted across the driveway, half-blind with tape and fear, crossing the open expanse of lawn in a rush and dashing out into the street. Kept running. She ran herself to exhaustion, finally slowing halfway between home and school. Gasping, Joy tore open the envelope and read the shaky script:
Twelve roses on her bier, as promised.
Mary Anne Thomas-Wakely, Thursday, 5:15
Love marks her twice. Let it be done.
Thank you for the honor of your service,
Dennis Thomas
She folded the paper and placed it in her backpack. It didn’t sound like a drug drop. It sounded like a sweet old man ordering flowers for a grave. Joy walked home, regaining her breath. But what did any of this have to do with a gutted house, a woodland monster, a bunch of strange messages and some guy named Ink?
The answer was as elusive as a pair of all-black eyes.
* * *
Joy fumbled with her keys as she punched in the new alarm code. The security system beeped clear. Instead of feeling safer, Joy felt caged. Something was out there and she was locked in here. Alone. Now Dad didn’t even have to come home from late nights at work. He could just log on to the site and check in via remote. It was worse than being invisible—it was a high-tech way of being ignored.
Dropping her backpack, Joy went to get some ice water, gulping it down painfully cold. She ground her teeth against brain freeze and filled the glass again. The kitchen window was taped over, crisscross lines obscuring the view. Dad’s note on the fridge said that a repairman was coming at five. She hurried out of the kitchen to avoid standing too near the glass.
Joy wrapped herself in the afghan. She didn’t know what to think about what she’d seen at the house on Deer Run, or what she’d thought of the old man out in the woods, but whatever had happened there at midnight, she didn’t want it happening here.
She picked up the rumpled envelope and Officer Castrodad’s card. From her corner of the couch, Joy considered both pieces of paper. She should call. She should file a report or make a claim or whatever. But she wasn’t sure what she could say that didn’t involve admitting that she’d both trespassed and withheld evidence that might have prevented a crime. Did that make her an accomplice? She didn’t watch enough police dramas to know for sure and wasn’t eager to find out. The last thing she needed was another reason to get in trouble with the police or, worse, Dad.
She read the two strange texts on her phone again. Maybe she could tell the police to warn everyone named Alice Moorehead or to keep watch over every South 40 overpass at 4:00 p.m. But that made her sound like a terrorist. How would she explain? She didn’t even know what to say, because she didn’t know anything herself and it would just link her to them—whoever “they” were—with no proof that she wasn’t involved. Would the police even believe her? Would anyone?
Joy sat debating what to do when the doorbell rang. As if on cue, her stomach rumbled. Monday. Dad’s late day. Frozen dinner in the fridge. She’d forgotten about the repairman.
The bell rang again.
She got up, wincing around an old injury of two broken toes, and dropped the afghan on the way to the door. For the first time ever, Joy looked through the peephole, attempting to see into the hallway with her untaped eye. Colors slid up the sides of the lens, bowing out of focus and bending out of shape. Frustrated, she called through the door.
“Hello?”
She felt the second knock by her ear. Joy flipped on the lights and opened the door.
Five frail women glowed in the hall.
They were identical in that they all had long golden hair, warm, honeyed tans and the same high-cheekboned faces with tiny, button chins. They wore plain sleeveless dresses that hung down to their knees, and all five were barefoot. Their toenails were far too long.
“Ink,” they said together.
Joy shook her head. Their mouths had moved, but the sound hadn’t come from them. The word hadn’t even sounded like a voice, but more like feedback from hidden speakers. It buzzed in her teeth.
“Um...” She felt her fingers on the doorknob. She couldn’t remember how her hands worked.
“Ink,” they repeated.
The world slowed, unfocusing into a fuzzy, muzzy mess. Joy tried to think of what you were supposed to do when something like this happened. Glowing, honey-colored girls appearing on the doorstep did not compute with her version of something like this.
“I think you have the wrong apartment,” she said thickly.
“You bear his mark,” they said. “We have a message for Ink.”
Joy’s hand still wasn’t working. Everything felt slippery.
“We require a witness at Grandview Park by the head of the foot trail at 3:16 post-meridian, tomorrow.” There was a pause. “Can you remember that?”
Could she? Why should she? She couldn’t quite recall. Breath oozed in and out of her lungs, shaping words.
“I think so,” Joy said.
“Tell him,” they chimed.
“Wait,” Joy managed. “Who is Ink?”
While they might be identical, they each had a unique expression of disdain.
“Don’t be coy, lehman.”
And the door swung closed under her hand.
* * *
They were gone when she opened the door a second later.
The fuzzy feeling wore off as she stomped down the hall, slammed the bathroom door and yanked off the patch.
Glue stuck in gobby smears across her cheek and above her eyebrow. Light speared a quick flash into her brain. Shaking the prescription bottle, Joy tipped back her head and dripped several cold drops onto her eyeball, runoff spilling into her ear. She blinked into the mirror, monofilament light splicing her vision. It happened every time she opened her left eye: Flash! Flash!
She scrubbed her face with a washcloth. Her skin burned angry pink.
Swaying on her feet, she grabbed the edge of the sink, trying to focus on her own face. There was an afterimage of something superimposed over her left eye. She blinked, trying to see it clearly—Flash! Flash!—no good. The rush in her ears grew louder and wilder. She felt faint.
This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. She wouldn’t let it.
Joy slapped off the lights as she stormed into the kitchen. She scooped up the card with Officer Castrodad’s number and snagged one of the handheld phones, dialing on the way back to her room, letting her feet fuel her anger. The phone rang as she paced.
“Castrodad speaking.”
“Hello. This is Joy Malone.”
“Hello, Joy. How can I help you?”
She stopped suddenly, trying to catch her breath. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m the one with the broken window at one-forty Wilkes Road....” She trailed off, wondering where to begin.
“I remember,” he said. “Is there something you wanted to tell me?”
“Forty-eight Deer Run,” Joy said.
“I’m sorry?”
“It was written on the window. Forty-eight Deer Run. Midnight. Tell Ink.” She improvised innocence. “I think it’s an address for someone named Ink.” The spear of light flinched in her eye: Flash! Flash! She thought she saw something move. A shadow danced. She shut her bedroom door with a slam. “And today, there were two weird texts on my phone.” Joy crossed the room, hugging herself with one arm. “And a funny envelope and another message just now—something about a meeting at the foot trail of Grandview Park, tomorrow at 3:16.”
She could hear him scribbling. “Who told you this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know any of them!” Joy realized, dimly, that she was pacing again. “They just...show up.”
“Would you recognize these people if you saw them again?”
Joy snorted. Like she’d forget? “Yeah.”
Officer Castrodad kept writing and talking. “When did this happen?”
“Right now!” She sounded a little hysterical. Maybe because she was. Joy lowered her voice and locked her door. “Like, a minute ago,” she added. “Maybe two.”
“Are you alone in the house?”
Joy nodded, which was stupid since she was on the phone. “My dad works till ten.” Then it clicked why he was asking. “Wait! Don’t come out here! Please? I don’t want him to...” She knew she should say worry but what she thought was find out. “I just thought you should know.”
“No one’s going to be upset with you, Joy,” Officer Castrodad said. “We just want to be sure you’re safe. I’ll send a car around to check out the neighborhood. Stay in a room with locks and a phone. If anything else happens, I want you to dial 911. Got it?”
Joy rubbed her arm. “Yeah, okay.”
“Good. Call again if you need to—for any reason. I know this is scary, but we’re on it.” Officer Castrodad’s voice shifted from official to empathetic. “You’ve done a brave thing, Joy. Don’t worry. Have you got anything to keep your mind occupied?”
“I’ve got a history test,” she muttered.
“Okay. Go study,” he said. “And good luck on your test.”
Joy sat on her bed, blinking. Flash! Flash! “Yeah...right.”
She hung up and flumped against her bed. Studying was out of the question. Fear quivered under her skin—that jumpy fright-flight adrenaline dump she knew like an old friend, the rush before a competition. It made her want to run laps or do back handsprings, hard and fast, and instead here she sat, trapped in her room, with it percolating in her bloodstream, threatening to explode.
She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand sitting still. She couldn’t stand the quiet. It sounded too much like the Dark Days of Dad’s depression when she’d haunt the house on eggshells and hide in her room. The only laughter had been Stef’s. She missed him! His inside-out shirts and dorky glasses and snarky sense of humor. How could he leave her alone like this? How could she be so homesick when she was the one at home?
Joy auto-dialed Stef’s dorm room, hugging her knees to her chest, stretching her legs one at a time, widening slowly into a split. She felt the burn where her muscles strained against denim. Joy bounced her feet impatiently as the phone rang, one yellow sock with smiley faces and one green sock with shamrocks. Joy needed to hear his voice. She needed to know that he was okay. She needed distraction and a little encouragement, like at State when her brother would say, “You can do this,” and she’d say, “I know I can,” as if saying it aloud made it true.
The phone picked up after the fourth ring.
“Hey.” It was Stefan. Relief washed through her.
“Hey, Stef,” she said gratefully.
“Hello?” He sounded uncertain. Joy’s smile froze.
“Stef?”
“Hello? Hello?” Now Stef sounded anxious. Joy sat up, heart pounding. Had something happened?
“Stef!”
He laughed. “Ah, well, I guess I can’t hear you because I’m not home right now. Please leave a message after the beep.”
At the beep, Joy screamed, “Stef! That wasn’t funny! I was calling you to talk about...something important....” Although now Joy couldn’t decide what was most important: the creepy stalker stuff, getting stabbed at the Carousel or having just called the police. “Gimme a call when you get this, or text me before midnight. I’ll be up.” She eyed the window and closed the curtains. “I miss you.” She hung up and drummed her feet against the sideboard.
She needed to run.
She needed to scream.
She needed to totally let loose.
Instead, Joy sat in her room, twitchy and alone.
She didn’t answer the door when the repairman came; she heard the callback card slide across the tile as she watched the room grow dark. Shadows crept over the ceiling, reminding her of the plant thing spread over the ceiling at Deer Run. She didn’t turn on the light. She didn’t turn on her music. She wanted to keep an eye and ear out for anything. Everything. Just in case.
Flash! Flash!
What was going on? Who was Ink? And what were these...people...doing leaving messages, coming to her home? How was she supposed to find out anything when she didn’t know anything?
She lay in the dark with the phone on her chest, scared to death, listening.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU LOOK LIKE crap,” Monica said.
“Thank you,” Joy grumbled as she spun the dial on her locker. She’d waited half the night for the police to come knocking or Officer Castrodad to call back or, better yet, Stef. But no one had called. Not even monsters. She shook her head against the fog in her brain. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Aww. Well, at least you have both eyes half-open,” Monica said. “That’s an improvement.”
Joy glared at the lock. Flash! Flash! She sighed.
“There’s something wrong with my eye,” she said. “I keep seeing these bits of light. It’s annoying.” Joy resumed twisting her combination. “I told Dad about it this morning and he said if it doesn’t clear up by the end of the week, he’ll take me to the ophthalmologist.”
Joy opened her locker and noticed the photo of her and Stefan taped on the inside of the door. He’d written, Keep strong! in silver marker, which Joy once thought had been an attempt at brotherly wisdom before realizing that he’d probably known about Mom’s affair roughly six months before she did. She frowned. Why hadn’t he told her then?
Why hadn’t he called back?
That’s when she noticed a slip of paper tucked beneath the magnetic photo frame.
Joy pulled it out. The paper was thin, almost transparent, with pale brown handwriting. Her fingers left oil spots where she touched it. Folded inside the message was a perfectly pressed four-leaf clover.
Bairn Madigan, Phineas Dorne. Bantry, West Cork
Mark’t un ryghte mit spare pointe, reg. Umber #4
Curse o’ the Isles be on it.
Monica leaned in. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.” Joy stuffed the note and clover into her pocket. The icy-hot shiver down her spine might have been anger or fear. This was going too far. How had these people found her locker? How had they gotten the note inside? This was evidence. Harassment. Maybe there’d be fingerprints?
A dull pulse throbbed behind her nose and heat flushed her face. No. She was not going to cry!
Joy slammed her books around, catching her sweater on the notebook spiral and banging the door shut.
“You sure you’re okay?” Monica asked.
“Nothing twelve hours of sleep couldn’t cure,” Joy lied.
“O-kay,” Monica said as they started walking. “So ask me about last night.”
“How was last night?” Joy asked dutifully.
“Gordon-ocious!”
Joy smirked despite herself. “You’ve been waiting all morning to say that, haven’t you?”
“I practiced in the car.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
“Is this love?” Joy asked.
“Maybe,” Monica said slyly. “And a little bit lower.”
Even distracted, Joy could appreciate Monica’s delight in smarm. “Well, I’m glad you and your hormones are happy.”
Monica stood up straighter and adjusted an earring. “I am happy,” she said, sounding surprised. “Who’d’ve thunk it? Gordon Weitzenhoffer makes me happy!”
“Weitzenhoffer?” Joy snorted.
Monica tried to look unruffled. “It’s German.”
“It’s hideous,” Joy said. “Monica Weitzenhoffer?”
“He’s gorgeous.”
“Gordon-ocious, so I’m told.”
“It completely makes up for the miserable last name.”
“Good thing, too,” Joy said, pointing left. “Off to precalc.”
“Later, lady.”
They parted and Joy sighed, chest tight. Monica had found an actual boyfriend the night she’d been stabbed in the eye. How fair was that? And what had she gotten? Monsters at the window, glowing girls at the door, a flash in her eye and a note in her pocket. Joy took out the piece of paper and smoothed it against the wall, then snapped a picture with her phone for insurance. She’d forgotten to ask Officer Castrodad for a text address. She’d have to send the pic when she got home.
Somebody thought she knew something. Obviously they hadn’t heard that she was always the last to know anything. Joy stomped up the stairs with all the unknown questions and half answers fluttering uncomfortably under her stomach.
And even with a four-leaf clover, she totally blew the history test.
* * *
Joy slammed the front door.
Fixated on her impending F, Joy completely forgot about the alarm system until the moment before sirens blasted both her ears. She punched in the code while swearing loudly. In the ringing after-silence, her skin crawled and her eye twitched: Flash! Flash! Dad’s increased security was doing nothing for her nerves.
The phone rang. She gave the operator her name and code number, apologized and said everything was okay.
But everything was not okay.
Joy could all but feel the thin note crinkle in her pocket as she clicked through the call history. Joy hit redial. It connected on the second ring.
“Officer Willis speaking. May I help you?”
Joy hesitated at the pleasant-sounding female voice. “Um...I think I have the wrong extension.”
“Were you calling the police station?”
“Yeah, but I was looking for Officer Castrodad,” Joy said, rooting for the business card on the side table. “Officer Gabriel Castrodad?”
“Officer Castrodad isn’t here today. My name is Officer Willis. Can I help you?”
“I don’t know,” Joy said. She knew what to say to Officer Castrodad, but now she was improvising. “He was looking into something for me and I thought he was going to call me back.”
“Oh.” Officer Willis sounded a little flustered herself. “Well, he’s out on leave, actually. If you can give me some of the details, I can look up your file. What’s your name?”
Joy ignored the question. “He’s on leave? Like on vacation?” she said. “What? Now?”
“No, he’s not on vacation,” Officer Willis said. “He’s taken a leave of absence. I don’t know when he might be back, so I’m handling—”
“When he might be back?” Joy interrupted.
“—so I’m handling his caseload,” Officer Willis said stubbornly. “May I have your name, please?”
Joy’s insides seized up with an odd prickle of premonition. “No, thank you,” she whispered and quickly hung up. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to hang up on the police, but she felt eerily guilty. Something was wrong.
Joy opened her computer, typed his name and hit Search. The answer popped up in a brief news blurb:
Officers were dispatched to Grandview Park at approximately 3:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon to apprehend local policeman Officer Gabriel Castrodad, 42, who was arrested for brandishing his weapon without cause. The park was quickly evacuated and Castrodad was taken into custody without resisting arrest.
Officer Castrodad’s sister, Emilia Castrodad, was called into the precinct to translate for the twice-decorated officer, who refused to give testimony in either Spanish or English. Ms. Castrodad explained that her brother had been speaking Rarámuri, the native language of the Tarahumara, Castrodad’s first language, which he’d learned from his grandmother, a native of Cerocahui, Chihuahua.
“But I have never heard him speak a word of it since he was very small,” she told reporters on Thursday.
Officer Castrodad was immediately relieved of duty pending a psychiatric evaluation and indefinite leave of absence due to traumatic stress.
Joy read the words twice, a vague horror creeping up her spine. She was the one who had sent him to Grandview Park. Whatever had happened, it was because of her—she’d caused it. It was her fault. That could have been her—or Dad—because she’d answered the door! Because of those women. Because of this Ink.
Digging in her pocket, she found the tiny brown note and, separating it from the clover, tore it to shreds. Wiping the cascade of confetti into her wastebasket, she debated using matches. Joy did the same with the crumpled envelope, tearing it into smaller and smaller pieces. She took out her phone and deleted the pic. Then the weird messages. All of it. Delete. Delete. Done.
She started scanning online for more about what had happened at Grandview Park or Officer Gabriel Castrodad or any connection to anybody named Ink. She lost herself in searching—there had to be more! Her eyes watered from staring at the screen. Nothing. Nothing but wrong leads and dead ends. She IM’ed Stef. Nothing. Called again. Left a message. Checked her cell. Her email. Her chat boxes. Nothing.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
She opened her cache and trashed the entire history.
“Joy?” Her father’s voice spooked her out of her trance. The clock read 6:26.
“Crap.” She jumped up from the chair. “Sorry...!”
“It was your turn to cook,” he said as his keys hit the table.
“Sorry sorry sorry,” she said as she clicked windows closed and shut off her screen. “I was online.”
“For three hours?” Her dad appeared in the hallway, still wearing his coat. He didn’t look pleased.
“Um...yeah.”
“I think I should listen to the talk shows and yank that thing out of your room.”
“I have to do my homework,” Joy said.
He crossed his arms and leaned in the doorway. “Were you doing your homework?”
“Um, no,” she admitted.
“That tears a small hole in your argument.”
“Dad...”
“Never mind.” He sighed. “I hate to reward negligence, but I’m starving. Grab your shoes and let’s eat out.”
“Saigon?” Joy asked hopefully.
“You wish,” he said. “Subway or KFC?”
Joy pulled on her coat. “No fried foods,” she reminded him.
“Subway it is.”
In the car, Joy watched her father as he drove, noticing the deep wrinkles by his eyes: smile lines and worry. She debated telling him about last night and the glowing visitors at the door. Maybe tell him there’d been strange texts on her cell, a note in her locker, a man in the woods, that she’d called Officer Castrodad, trespassed on a crime scene, and confess that it had been a black-eyed boy and not a splinter that had sent her to the emergency room. That she was scared. That she was lonely. That she was going to fail history this semester. But she knotted her fingers in her lap and sat quietly in the passenger seat, unable to find the words, afraid to rock their fragile boat. Joy settled on feeling oddly proud that she had inadvertently forced Dad to eat something healthy for once.
He had never talked about her eating habits while she’d been training for competitions, so she wasn’t about to start lecturing him now. Besides, she could have said something a year ago. Six months ago. Looking at him forty pounds later, it was clearly too little, too late. Like quitting gymnastics or dropping her blog or Joy’s mother leaving—when some things went unsaid long enough, they got way too big to talk about now.
They ordered dinner and sat down, chewing and slurping soda noisily through too much ice and not enough syrup. Joy debated life’s tiny cruelties as she stabbed her straw to the bottom of the cup.
“So Monica has a new boyfriend?” her dad said into the quiet.
“Fresh out of the box,” Joy said. “Name’s Gordon.”
“Sounds old,” he muttered.
“He’s our age,” Joy said while thinking that she didn’t really know his age, and that he had looked older in the half-light. It had been an Under 18 Night, but of course, everybody knew that some older guys came to hook up with younger girls. She’d have to remember to ask Monica about it. They hadn’t talked that much lately.
“How about you?” he said, interrupting her thoughts.
“How about me?”
Her father took a huge bite and had to chew and swallow first. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Dad!” Joy cried.
“What? Can’t a father ask?”
She sucked noisily at the last drops of her drink. “I think there might be some law against it.” It was easier to hide behind banter armed with a straw. She fumbled it around the ice some more.
“So, no guy?”
“No guy,” she quipped. “Not even one stashed under the bed.”
Dad groaned. “That’s not funny.”
Joy wrinkled her nose. “It’s a little funny.”
“That’s a little funny like being a little grounded.”
“Hey!” Joy said. “Seriously, Dad, no guy. I’ve got no guy, I have no beau, I have no boyfriend—there, I said it. Happy?”
“Okay, okay,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I wanted you to know that if there was a guy, I’d want to meet him,” he added. “I’m your father and if some boy wants to date my daughter, I would have to meet him...if there was a guy.”
Joy popped her cup down on the laminate. “What’s all this about guys?”
“Nothing,” he said testily. “Just making conversation.”
“Because you’re hardly one to talk seeing as we’re both dateless wonders....” Joy’s voice trailed off as she saw her father’s face: a mix of hope and guilt. “No,” she whispered, the truth finally dawning. “You have a date? Last Saturday—the late night—you had a date?”
“I had a date,” he confessed.
“I thought you were out playing poker with guys from work!”
Dad scoffed. “When was the last time I played poker with the guys?”
“Is she...?” Joy tried to make the word fit her mouth. “Your girlfriend?”
He raised a hand to whoa. “Now, hang on—no one said anything about ‘girlfriend’—just friends. Friends who went out on a date to...find out if there was something more.”
Joy watched her own fingers play with a balled-up napkin, recycled brown paper twisting over her knuckles.
“So this was just a friends thing?” she asked. “Not a date-date?” Her father looked as rattled as she felt. She twisted the napkin tighter, a matching feeling in her chest. It had been an innocent question! They never talked about stuff like this. Why here? Why now? She didn’t want to be having this conversation. In this restaurant. At this table. They were in public, for Pete’s sake! Other people were watching, listening, like the old guy behind the Plexiglas sneeze guard wearing the white paper hat—he knew as much about her father’s love life as she did!
“Is this the real reason for your late nights at work?” Joy asked.
“No, no. No more office romances for me,” he said. The words hit her like a slap. Joy knew her mom and dad had met at the office. She stirred her straw around the hurt. “Just trying to get ahead at work. You know what they say, ‘If you can’t be a yes-man...’”
“‘...be indispensable,’” Joy muttered. It was cruel to use one of her mother’s old sayings right then. “So what’s her name?” she asked hollowly.
“Shelley.”
“Shelley?” Joy repeated. “As in Michelle, or is her name really Shelley?”
“I don’t know,” her dad admitted, chewing. “I didn’t ask.”
“How could you not ask?” Joy said. Had they been talking on this date, or doing something else? She scrubbed that mental image. Ew.
“Well, are you going to ask?” she said.
“Is it important?”
“Yes. No,” Joy snapped. “I mean, are you going to see her again?”
“Well, not just to ask about her name...”
“Dad!”
“Yes,” he said, finally, with a strange look on his face. “Yes, Joy. I want to see her again. But I want you to meet her when I do.”
Her stomach fell, a punched hole through her seat. A circle of her insides and recycled molded plastic should have been lying on the floor.
“Is it serious?” Joy asked.
“Not yet,” her dad said. “Maybe not ever.” He folded his napkin carefully into fourths. It crinkled softly, muffled under his hands. “But you’re my family and I wanted you to know.”
Joy examined the lines of her paper cup even though she couldn’t really see them. Her eyes were open, but nothing registered. Ice sloshed around like kaleidoscope beads.
“Does Stef know?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
That was something. Petty, but something. This time, whatever it was, she knew it first.
The need to talk to Stef burned in her throat.
Joy looked at her father, the worry creasing his hands and the corners of his mouth. This was too hard. She wanted to give him a break. But it hurt more than she’d thought it would.
“So...” she said, “this wasn’t really about you meeting my theoretical guy as much as me meeting your actual girl?”
“Something like that,” he admitted. “So what do you think?”
What did she think? Her thoughts were a jumble.
Mom. Dad. Doug. Shelley. Gordon. Monica. What did she think? What about me?
She gazed out the window, seeing the spark zip by each time she blinked. Shots of color winked orange and purple, silver and white, echoes of shadows and carousels and all-black eyes. Her mind whirled.
What did she think?
“I think I have to go to the doctor.”
Dad frowned. “You feel sick?”
“No, just that bit of light whenever I blink,” she said. “It’s annoying.”
There was a long pause. The only sound was the rumble of ice cubes inside her paper cup.
“I’ll make an appointment,” he said softly and stuffed their trash into the bag. Standing up, Joy instantly wished that she could take it back, rewind and record over, but then, she wished that about a lot of things.
They got in the car and, just like that, everything went back to being unsaid.
CHAPTER FOUR
JOY DRIFTED THROUGH the school day. She barely listened as Monica chattered endlessly about Gordon Weitzenhoffer, age seventeen and a half. No word from Stef. No email, no text, no IM, nothing. He had a new answering message recorded during a loud party. It sounded like he was having fun. Her brother hadn’t been half this popular when he’d lived at home. Instead of feeling happy for him, Joy wanted to smack him with her phone.
She’d been stabbed with a knife, weirdos were stalking her and Dad was dating some unknown person named Shelley. Joy knew Stefan would somehow understand, but if he was busy with some new girlfriend, it might be weeks before he remembered to call. And if Dad hooked up with this Shelley person, then he’d be busy, and Monica would marry Mr. Gordon-ocious, and Joy would end up living alone in an attic apartment with too many cats.
Returning home, Joy punched in her code and found a plate of cookies on the kitchen counter, proof that last night’s father–daughter bonding over Subway sandwiches had met with Dad’s approval. She snagged two, stuffing one in her mouth as she vaulted the couch. She welcomed the slightly sick, stuffed feeling of eating unhealthily on purpose, and promised herself she’d have something low-calorie for dinner. Sugar never tasted as good as gymnastics felt. She ate the second cookie just to smother the guilt.
Joy cracked open her homework. It started to rain. Around six-thirty, she made a frozen Lean Cuisine and ate while reading about the French Revolution. She wiped a spot of marinara off the textbook page and tried to ignore the sound of frightened squirrels on the roof.
There was a skittering of tiny nails, a nervous tickle across the ceiling. She followed the sound with her eyes. Being on the second floor meant that she was used to the local wildlife using the roof as a communal playground and convenient highway between trees. The pok-pok of acorns and drumming rain against the shingles often forced her to wear earphones to bed.
The noises made her twitchy. She couldn’t concentrate. Pushing back from the table, Joy washed her knife and fork in the sink. Wind and rain pelted the new window, copious steam obscuring the glass. Scrubbing, Joy wondered what was on TV, but as soon as she shut off the water, she heard the squirrel sound again.
But it wasn’t on the roof. It was inside the building.
Something scrabbled past the front door and faded down the hall. Every hair on her arms rose and all her senses cringed. She didn’t believe for a moment that it was a squirrel. But instead of fear, she felt a hot flare of rage.
Joy slammed down her dish. She’d had it! If this was another one of those creepy things with a message for Ink, she was going to tell it to leave her alone! If it was small, maybe she could scare it. Maybe it would just go away.
She grabbed the broom just in case.
The hallway was nearly dark, lit only by a failing fluorescent light. She stepped out onto the old, flat carpet beaten down by years of feet. The moldy smell normally hidden under air fresheners was newly kicked up by the storm. There was no noise now save the applauding gush of rain. Joy cautiously leaned farther into the hall and glanced both ways.
The small window at the end of the hall was propped open. The baseboard dripped rainwater and there was a puddle on the floor.
“You.”
Joy ducked, already knowing that it was too late. She was only half surprised to be pushed into the wall by something vaguely resembling a human-size bat. Nostril slits puckered between its enormous yellow-green eyes and a wide mouth split its football-shaped head as it spoke.
“You are the Scribe’s.” Its voice was gravelly, menacing. “Lehman to Ink.”
Impossibly long fingers wrapped clear around her throat, cutting off her voice. The horrible face glared at her with its wet, bulbous eyes.
The broom clattered against the floor.
She choked out, “I...don’t...”
“Tell him—tell your master that Briarhook is waiting. Mustn’t be kept waiting,” the thing emphasized with a brain-rattling shake. “Hear?”
Joy nodded, fingers scratching against his knuckles, pulling for air.
“Yes,” she croaked with tears in her eyes. “Yes!”
The creature released her with a shove, banging her head against the wall. Colors sparked and wobbled. Her tears were more fear than fight. She stared after it as her vision cleared.
Skeletal arms hung from its bony, gray shoulders, with pink scar tissue blooming over its back and ribs. The wide head sneered as he turned. “Don’t dally like you did for the guilderdamen. Won’t stand for it,” he warned. And with a sniff, he clambered up on the windowsill and leapt silently over the edge.
Joy propped herself against the wall as if it were the only solid thing in the world. Her legs were boneless beneath her, her breathing quick and shallow. A tingling swept over her limbs, all pins and needles, and there was a sudden taste of nausea in her mouth. Joy swallowed, took a deep breath and lunged through the door, slamming it closed, flipping locks and punching the alarm’s safety code with shaking, spastic fingers.
Joy slid to the floor. She started crying and, as soon as she realized it, stopped. Her face felt hot. Her eyes hurt. Her neck stung with what felt like a million tiny paper cuts. She rubbed her throat and coughed.
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real....
She’d been thinking that a lot lately.
Stumbling to the bathroom, Joy switched on the lights and craned her chin back to look at her neck. Tiny cuts wound across her throat, nips in her flesh like thin tire tracks. She scrubbed at them, first with her fingers, then with a washcloth. They looked angry and red.
She threw the washcloth into the sink. Balling her fists, she screamed. Shaking, wet, horrified, she screamed again. She yanked out her hair tie, tears pouring out of her eyes as she trembled and kicked the cabinet in helpless rage.
Joy ran to the kitchen. The new sheet of glass reflected the pelting darkness. She threw out her arms.
“STOP IT!” she screamed. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” Joy shrieked her throat raw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I don’t know who you’re talking about! I don’t know anyone named Ink and I have no idea what the HELL is going on!”
“That was an aether sprite,” said a voice behind her. Joy spun around to stare into a pair of all-black eyes. The boy gave a bored shrug from just inside the front door. “And he was looking for me.”
“You!” she shouted. It was the psycho from the dance floor. In her house. Joy blinked in half-remembered pain. “You’re Ink?”
“I am Indelible Ink,” he said. “My sister is Invisible Inq.” He pronounced her name with a clipped “q” as he pushed off the doorframe. “Personally, I call her Impossible Inq.” He gave a humorless smile. Joy didn’t know what to do. Panic lodged in her throat.
Ink stepped forward.
“Don’t,” she said.
He stopped.
“What would you do?” he asked. “Kill me?” Joy stared at him—at his whiteless eyes—without saying a word. She weighed her options and snatched the phone from its stand.
“Get out,” she said. “Get out or I’ll call the police!”
Flash! Flash!
Ink was gone in the blink of light.
“Yes, well, what good would that do?” he asked from behind her, frighteningly close. Joy choked and stumbled sideways as she turned around. Tilting his head, Ink calmly took a seat at the kitchen table. Joy watched him move, sinuous and serious. His boyish face looked harsh in the overhead light. “No one can see me,” he said. “No one but you.”
Impossible. It was all impossible.
“I came to talk,” he said.
“About what?” she asked cautiously. Joy held the phone in her hand but didn’t want to make any sudden, telling moves.
“About that night at the Carousel.”
She glared at him. “You mean the night when you stabbed me in the eye?”
“About what has been happening since that night,” he amended.
“The messages?” She swallowed, wetting her voice. “Those were for you?”
His voice was as expressionless as his eyes. “Yes, but they should never have come to you. That was a mistake. My mistake,” he said bitterly. “One of many mistakes.”
Joy gave a little laugh and gestured with the phone.
“Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry?”
Ink leaned into the back of the chair. “My only regret is that I did not take your eyes. Blind of the Sight, you might have been spared all this.”
Joy gaped, mind blank. This stranger had just admitted that he’d tried to blind her with a knife! And he’d said it so casually. As if he could do it anytime.
“You’re being perfectly awful, you know that?” a new voice said from the bedroom hall. His Goth sister walked quietly into the kitchen. She hadn’t come through the door. Her eyes and long lashes were as black as Ink’s, but her smile held a kindness. “Look,” she said. “You’re scaring her.”
Light moved strangely around Inq. Slithering calligraphy swarmed over her skin. Strange designs moved like living watermarks, like pale worms, writhing. It made Joy queasy to watch.
Inq smiled wider, crinkling her wide, fathomless eyes. “Sorry. This is his own fault—and he knows it—so it’s making him surly.”
“Stop,” Ink warned her.
“You see?” Inq said. “Surly.”
Inq stared at Joy, running her fingers over the edge of the counter as if caressing Joy’s arm. “Still, now that we’re stuck with each other, I suggest we make the most of it.”
Joy slammed the phone onto the counter and quit considering the steak knives as potential weapons. It sounded like the sister could be reasoned with. And, besides, now the odds were two to one.
“Will one of you tell me what the hell is going on?” Joy asked as she ticked off her fingers. “Who are you? What are you doing here? And what do you want with me?”
“It isn’t really about you,” Inq started to say.
“Oh, but it is!” her brother interrupted. He turned his accusation to Joy. “You saw us at the Carousel.”
“I didn’t see anything—”
“He means you saw us,” Inq explained.
Joy frowned. “What? I’m not allowed to look at you?”
“Wrong question.” Inq scooped Joy’s phone off the kitchen counter and flipped it playfully. Before Joy could protest, Inq held it up and gave Joy an impish grin.
“If it makes you feel any better...” Inq flashed a huge smile and snapped a picture of herself. Glancing at the phone, she handed it back to Joy. “Here. See for yourself.” Joy did. There was nothing on the screen but the auto-flash bouncing off the wall, catching the corner of a picture frame directly behind where Inq stood.
“Is this some sort of trick?” Joy asked. “And that somehow gives you permission to cut out my eye?”
“Technically, yes and no,” Inq admitted, leaning against the breakfast bar. She had the same spiky hair and liquid eyes as her twin, but she wore a corset of gunmetal gray and layers and layers of black, lacy clothes. She looked like an upscale street kid or somebody terribly, tragically hip. “There’s no trick. Simply put, very few people like you can see people like us, and there’s an old rule that says if someone like us ever comes across someone like you, we should remove your Sight, one way or another.” Inq shrugged. “True Sight is rare, but often runs in families, sometimes skipping a generation or two. Sound familiar?” Joy’s stomach lurched. Great-Grandma Caroline might have actually seen things that were all too real. And she’d been locked away for life. “My brother might have gone to extremes, but he’s right—you might have thanked him in the long run.”
“Thanked him?” Joy shouted. “Screw him! And screw you!” Terror had a taste in the back of her throat. “Get out of my house!”
“You cannot banish us,” Ink said softly. “The fact that you are even able to see us puts all of us, including you, at risk. Removing the Sight might have let you live a normal life.”
“Minus eyes!” Joy spat.
Ink tilted his head. “A more normal life,” he amended. “More normal than the one you will have now.”
“That’s all in the past,” Inq said. “No mas. Capice? Ink didn’t blind you—he missed. Instead of taking your eyes, he accidentally marked you.” She lifted her small hand up to one midnight eye. Her hands were perfect and perfectly smooth. No knuckles. No fingernails. Like a doll’s. She gazed at Joy through the space between her fingers. “You wear it on your face.”
Joy touched her cheek. A trick of light caught her eye. Flash! Flash! Was that what she’d seen in the mirror?
“You’ve been touched by a Scribe,” Inq continued, “and since no one ordered that you be marked, you’ve been imprinted as his. As belonging to Ink.” She turned and regarded her brother sitting at the kitchen table. “He’s had to claim it was on purpose, that he chose you as his own, so that no one learned of the mistake.” Her voice grew quiet. “We are not permitted mistakes.” Inq switched her infinite eyes to Joy. “So we must find a way to work together. It would go poorly for everyone otherwise.”
Joy didn’t understand half of what Inq was saying, and she didn’t like the sound of the other half. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said, not feeling very sorry, “but I think everybody has me confused with someone else.” She looked desperately from Inq to Ink. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen anything weird until last Friday night and—no offense—but I didn’t mean to see you and, frankly, don’t want to see either of you ever again. So, if you don’t mind, can we just forget this ever happened and will you please leave?”
She’d meant it as an order, but it came out more like a plea. She knew she should call the police or hit the red emergency button or simply scream for help, but Joy clung to the insane hope that these two might go away quietly if she said or did the right things. Besides, there was an unspoken threat that she couldn’t stop them if Ink and Inq decided to get ugly.
Ink spread his hands on the table. They were smooth and unearthly against the polished wood.
“Let me explain,” he said. “We are Scribes. Our job is to draw signaturae.”
“Signaturae?” Joy echoed.
“Special marks. Symbols worn upon the skin,” Inq explained.
Joy frowned. “Why?”
“To keep track of who is who,” Inq said archly, “and, more importantly, whose is whose.” She reached her arms over her head in a lazy stretch. “Once upon a time, our people and yours shared this world. We were tied to certain territories and a few chosen bloodlines, bound together to safeguard the world’s magic from corruption and decay. Nowadays, with so little unspoiled land left, we require far more people to anchor the magic and maintain the balance.” She drew something on the counter with her finger. “We use signaturae to mark those who are ours the way the land was once ours, those who share a little bit of magic, identifying who is connected, who can be claimed and who is strictly off-limits.”
Ink held up a hand. “We take orders and place a signatura upon a person,” he said, choosing his next words carefully. “A human, according to ancient laws.” Joy shivered. They weren’t human—that much was obvious, but Ink saying it aloud put it out there for real. “But a signatura must be given willingly and only to those who qualify. Our work safeguards our people from corruption and signifies that the chosen human is protected, formally claimed by one of the Folk. It is a message to others—touch this human, and you risk offending their patron and upsetting the balance. A signatura gives fair warning of whom you might cross.”
Joy turned his words over like a snow globe in her head, her thoughts scattered and shaken. “But no one asked you to mark me?”
Ink looked away. “No.”
“Anyone can order a mark.” Inq played with a bead of water. “At least, anyone who takes an interest and makes a legitimate claim and pays the fee,” she said. “But that’s not important. What is important is that there are very few who can place others’ signaturae onto living flesh. As Scribes, our job is to take orders from the Folk and make a mark in their stead. We are their instruments by proxy. Per procurationem. In absentia. In loco deus.” She flicked the bead of moisture, sending a spray over the laminate. “You understand now why we can never make mistakes.”
Joy pointed to her eye. “But this was a mistake.”
“Not if Ink claims that he has chosen you for himself,” Inq said. “It doesn’t happen often, but any of the Folk can claim a special little someone for themselves.”
“By stabbing them in the eye?” Joy said. “How romantic.”
Inq cast a catty glance at her brother. “His heart clearly wasn’t in it.”
Ink frowned and kept his eyes on the table.
Joy crossed her arms. “But why mark me at all?”
“Humans are dangerous,” Ink said darkly. “And one with the Sight is the most dangerous of all.”
“The Folk are few,” Inq added. “Detection makes them skittish. We exist as a buffer between our worlds.” Her eyes flicked over Joy. “We protect our people from taking unnecessary risks.”
“By stabbing people with knives?”
Inq laughed. “Not always,” she said. “In fact, I don’t need anything but these.” She spread her hands before her; images swirled and the air bowed like warped glass.
Joy glared at Ink. “And you?”
For an answer, Ink drew out a long leather wallet attached to his belt by a silver chain. Unfolding it, he revealed a number of strange implements: a scalpel, a straight razor, a silver quill, a glassy black arrowhead, a sleek metal wand and a wooden handle ending in a single fat spike.
“She is Invisible Inq,” he said. “Her marks are not meant to be seen—they exist below the skin. I am Indelible Ink and my marks are meant to be obvious, permanent, there for everyone to see.” He glared at her. Joy felt it in her scratched cornea. She tried very hard to ignore the sharp objects spread out on her kitchen table and the intense way he stared deep into her eyes.
“You marked me,” she whispered.
“Not intentionally.”
“No,” she said, finding her voice. “You intentionally tried to blind me!”
“Yes. And I failed. Now you wear my signatura, and everyone can see it.” Each sentence was clipped, hard, almost an accent in its precision. His anger might have been with himself or her. Ink waved a hand as if to dissipate something between them. “I had not realized that some might see this as an opportunity to circumvent the Bailiwick. That is why they have been coming to you with messages, requests—there are those who believe they will find special favor through you because they believe that you are mine.”
Joy flung her arms out and shouted, “That’s because you told them I was yours!”
Ink’s eyes grew impossibly darker. “I never thought...” he started, then sighed. “I would have come sooner if I had known.”
“It had to be done,” Inq said. “If anyone knew that there had been a mistake, that a signatura had been given in error, all our work would be put into question.” She gestured offhandedly to Joy. “You would be killed as a matter of course, to save face—a human with the Sight is especially dangerous, after all—and my brother and I might be judged obsolete and destroyed. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” She pouted dramatically. “Come now. This way you have status, a place in our world and considerable protection, and Ink keeps his reputation. Everybody wins.” Her voice pitched lower. “Know that this thing has never happened, not in all these years—instead of an error, it would merely be seen as about time Ink chose a lehman for himself.” Inq didn’t hide her smirk. Her brother did not share it.
“Lehman?” Joy said. The word sounded familiar. “What does that mean?”
Inq shrugged as she considered the overhead lights. “A human who has been chosen by one of our kind. Confidante, contact, significant...”
“Slave,” Ink said dully.
“What?” Joy snapped.
“Or lover,” Inq added. “It loses something in translation.”
“No,” Joy said. “No way!” Pretending to be his...whatever...was so not happening! Joy glanced desperately at Ink. “Just take it back, all right? Fix it.” She pointed at her left eye, which flashed as she talked. “Can’t you undo this?”
“Not even to take out your eye,” Ink said as he folded his wallet back into thirds. “That option is now closed. Since you are mine, I would have to explain why I would maim you so soon after claiming you, unless for my own amusement.” He smoothed the leather flat. “It is not unknown to happen, but I am without precedent and not known for malice.” His attention turned to Inq. “Evidently, I have a reputation to think of.”
Inq circled around the counter, approaching Joy with tentative steps.
“It’s merely a ruse, a title to spare your life. You see now that this is the best way?” Inq asked. “We did not mean to do you harm.”
“He tried to cut out my eye!” Joy yelled, pointing at Ink.
“Sometimes, we must choose immediately unpleasant things in order to prevent greater unpleasantness,” he said flatly. Joy bristled. Ink barely noticed. “It is nothing personal,” he added. It sounded as if he regretted the situation far more than Joy.
“See?” Inq said, smiling. “One big happy. We can work together, right?”
Joy dropped her eyes, massaging her palm with her thumb. Pretend to be a pseudo–sex slave for a supernatural freak or end up either blind or dead. Was this a choice? Her maimed eye split the light—Flash! Flash! She sighed.
“So what do I have to do?”
Inq patted her arm. Joy tried not to shrink from her touch. “We’re not certain yet,” Inq said. “While we figure it out, Ink will bring you along with him sometimes so that you can be seen in his company. Try to appear...together.” Joy couldn’t help glancing at Ink. He stared pointedly at the fridge. “It’s just for a little while,” Inq soothed. “Keep quiet, act natural and, after a time, the novelty will fade and no one will question why you are no longer with us.”
An unsettling chill crept up Joy’s spine. She didn’t like the way Inq said that last part. Was that a threat? And, if it was, what could she do about it?
A parental voice whispered in the back of her mind, If you can’t be a yes-man, be indispensable!
“I’m sure I could do something useful,” Joy said quickly. “I could help. I could learn.”
“You cannot even take a message,” Ink muttered.
“That’s unfair,” Inq said, stepping closer to Joy. “She had no idea what the messages were, nor for whom. She was frightened, poor girl.” Inq petted Joy’s hair. Joy stood very, very still. Inq played with a curl. “Something unfortunate might have happened,” she cooed.
“Is that what happened to the policeman?” Joy asked, sliding from under Inq’s hand.
Ink sighed. “Who?”
“Officer Castrodad,” Joy said. “Gabriel Castrodad? He went to Grandview Park after the glowing girls left.”
Ink glanced at Inq. “‘Glowing girls’?”
His sister coughed, attempting to smother giggles, but soon erupted in rich belly laughter. “The guilderdamen!” she crowed. “Glowing girls—hahaha!” Inq clapped her hands together, delighted. “Oh, this will be fun! I’m tempted to steal you away from my brother just for that!” Inq laughed harder. Joy cringed. Ink grinned without humor.
“Ah, the witness,” Ink said. “There was a man who was meant to see the Rising. I was supposed to mark him as theirs, a witness to their majesty.” He cocked his head, a gesture similar to Inq’s. “But since I was not present to mark him at the manifestation of the guilderdamen, I suspect he went mad.” Ink spoke with a hint of accusation. “They are an awesome and fearsome thing to behold, naked in their glory.”
Joy shook her head, guilt and fear constricting her throat. “But...he wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t told him where it was happening!” she insisted. “They couldn’t have chosen him before he even knew about it. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps not,” Inq said. “Fate’s a fickle thing.”
“It wasn’t fate,” Joy said hotly. “It was you!”
Inq pouted. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Joy shuddered very slightly, containing her temper. “None of this makes any sense,” she whispered. She shook her head and tried to think. “Look, there was a note in my locker, an envelope from some guy and two texts,” she said to Ink. “They were for you.”
“Do you still have them?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted. “But...there may be more on my computer. I can go check. In my room.” The idea of getting to her bedroom held the promise of shutting and locking the door and never coming out.
“Do you remember what the notes said?” Ink asked, sounding exasperated.
“Some of it,” Joy said while inching her way past the counter. “Hang on.”
Snippets of an escape plan flashed through her head. Joy eased her way between Ink and Inq, glancing at the foyer and considering sprinting for the door. If she could turn the knob fast enough, open the door and scream...
The alarm beeped. The locks unlocked. And the doorknob twisted with a familiar rattle of keys.
Joy whipped around. The microwave clock glowed 9:51. The kitchen was empty. Ink and Inq had disappeared.
Her father wandered in looking ragged and worn.
“Hey,” he said, sighing.
Joy slammed into his arms.
“Dad,” she breathed gratefully into his coat.
He chuckled, caught off guard. “Well, hello to you, too.” Her dad gave her a quick squeeze and patted her arm. “Mind telling me why our broom is in the hall?”
CHAPTER FIVE
JOY COULDN’T TELL Dad or Stefan or Monica. She didn’t want any of them thinking that she was crazy, and she really didn’t want any of them ending up like Officer Gabriel Castrodad. She had to keep quiet. Act natural. Keep everyone safe. She was almost grateful that everyone else was too preoccupied with their own lives to notice anything wrong with hers.
Almost.
She felt eyes on her during the bus ride to school—kids turning to look at her just as she was looking at them. She glanced away quickly. Joy wondered if people always did that? She’d never noticed it before. Then again, it hadn’t creeped her out before.
Could they see that her world had changed? Could they read it in her eyes?
Flash! Flash!
Joy hunched down in her seat and willed herself smaller.
Ink’s people, whoever they were, knew where she went to school, where she lived, her locker, her phone number... What else? She was grateful that she’d listened to Monica and been extra careful with her online profile, but who knew where or when the next note would appear? She’d buried her phone in the bottom of her book bag and stuffed it beneath her seat. Pushing her hands in her pockets, she kept her back to the window and concentrated on the floor.
Joy tried thinking about ways that she could make herself indispensable and yet stay as far away from the Scribes as possible. She figured any information she got she would hand over to Ink and then walk away, job done. Stay silent. Not one word. If they could keep things just business for a little while, then, Inq had said, the scrutiny would eventually go away. It grated on her that she had become some sort of secretary for the weird, but she could do that if it kept her family and friends safe. Be indispensable from a distance. She could do that.
But she walked into school with a head full of worry about Stef and Dad and news blurbs and glowing girls and inky, all-black eyes.
“Hey.”
Joy jumped. Her shoulder bounced off her locker door. Monica frowned.
“Try decaf,” Monica suggested as Joy dug inside her locker. “What happened to your neck?”
Joy touched the redness at her throat and gave the same answer she’d given Dad: “Fashion accident.” She shut the metal door.
“Touchy,” her friend said.
“Sorry,” Joy apologized. “Really bad night.”
“It’s more than that,” Monica said.
Joy nodded, having a preplanned explanation handy. “Dad started dating somebody,” she said as they began walking. At least it wasn’t a lie.
“Really?” Monica said, but—like a good friend—bit back the chirpy That’s great! which Joy appreciated. Instead she asked, “Know her name?”
“Yes. Shelley.”
“As in Shelley or Michelle?”
“I don’t know,” Joy grumbled. “He doesn’t even know!”
“Pfft. That’s criminal.”
“I know!”
Monica glanced at the hall crawlers as Joy regained some composure. Her hands felt hot. Her fingers twisted in her shirt. She suddenly missed the feel of powdered chalk, soothing and smooth on her skin. She wanted to take a running jump down the hall, kick over and fly, but instead hugged a textbook hard against her chest. Monica patted Joy’s shoulder in sympathy.
“We’ll talk later, ’kay?” she promised. They shared a quick shoulder squeeze before splitting at Hall B. Joy watched her go. Monica was the best, and Joy resolved that she would do whatever she had to do to keep her friend safe. She checked her lucky tartan and black-and-white checkerboard socks as she headed off to precalc.
She had almost forgotten about the weirdness until her calculator started speaking in tongues.
Cubic runes danced across the tiny gray screen. They weren’t numbers or English letters or any language that she knew, but it was clearly a message. Grabbing her pencil, Joy copied the shapes as best she could. It looked like some old language written in liquid crystal lines. Joy gripped the pencil, turning her fingernails white.
“Joy Malone,” a voice barked. She flipped her notebook over.
“Sorry, Mr. Grossman.”
“Something more interesting than proofs, Miss Malone?”
She turned to the next blank page. “Um, no.”
Her teacher smiled. “Somehow, I find that hard to believe.” The rest of the class gave halfhearted chuckles. “All right, people, back to question ten...”
Joy smoothed her hands over the lined paper, promising herself that when the time came, she would simply hand the message over to Ink and be done with it. No muss, no fuss. She could do this. For Monica. For Dad. For a little while, anyway. Then things could go back to normal.
Hooray.
* * *
“Anything for me?”
Joy glanced over her monitor at Ink, then spun around to check that everyone else in study hall was busy clicking mice and keys.
“What are you doing?” Joy hiss-whispered, forgetting the silent treatment. “Go away!”
“No one can see me. Or hear me,” Ink said. “You have a message?”
Glaring, Joy yanked out her notebook and tore off the page. The rip of paper rent the quiet, but no one looked up. She held it out, but Ink shook his head.
“Not here.”
Joy grated through clenched teeth, “I’m in class...”
“It will only take a second,” he said and disappeared.
Joy sighed and stuffed the note into her pocket, then reluctantly asked the senior proctor if she could use the bathroom. Grabbing the bright pink hall pass, she slipped quietly out the door. Ink was waiting for her by the fire extinguisher.
She dug out the paper and handed it over.
Ink took it and read it quickly, then handed it back.
“Easily done,” he said. “Ready to go?”
“What? No!” Joy whispered angrily. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Ink glanced around in mock surprise. “No.”
“Well, I am,” Joy insisted. “This is school. I can’t go anywhere right now.”
Ink opened his wallet and drew out a thin knife.
“That is where you are mistaken,” he said. Joy stepped back. Was he going to gut her right there in Hall C? Somehow she didn’t think so, and the more she watched him, the more she thought that he didn’t look menacing—he looked like he was being clever. Ink twirled his blade with a hint of mischief. Joy hesitated, wondering what he was up to.
Ink slashed, acting as if he didn’t care whether she was impressed, but obviously pleased that she was as he peeled back a layer of nothing. A thin membrane of space hung loosely in midair.
He’d cut away a flap of the world.
Joy stared at it and him and the school and what once was.
Ink offered his hand, smooth as glass.
“Come with me,” he said.
“I—I can’t,” Joy said, but found that she’d somehow already stepped forward. It was all too impossible as he slit the door wider and they walked together into nothing at all.
The breach disappeared with a sharp scent, like limes.
In that instant, Joy was aware of Ink beside her—a soft smell of rain clung to his clothes, his shoulder hard against hers. She held on to his shirtsleeve and tried to adjust to the new light.
Flash! Flash!
She blinked and let go as Ink stepped into a softly lit room. The bedroom had that blanket quiet Joy recognized from years of babysitting: a mix of moon-shaped night-lights, pastel colors and talcum powder. Ink leaned over a wooden crib, a blue-footied baby curled inside like a tiny cat. The plug-in monitor whirred and clicked, registering Joy’s footfalls in the thick, plush carpet.
Ink opened his wallet and selected an instrument, holding the long, thin razor up to the wan light. Joy froze, danger tingling down her spine. She wasn’t sure what Ink was about to do, but she didn’t like where this was going.
“What are you...?”
Ink silenced her whisper with a wave and a finger to his lips, then to hers. The touch was impersonal and strong. His hand was stone solid, as if he could easily nudge forward and break her front teeth. Joy shushed but looked worriedly down at the baby, swallowing protests. He saw her anxiety.
“I will not hurt him,” Ink said.
Joy twisted her fingers, uncertain. “Really?”
Ink frowned slightly. “I cannot lie,” he said as he lifted the blade. “Watch.” The monitor did not so much as click at his voice.
Joy watched Ink place the long knife between two of the baby’s shrimpy fingers. She held her breath, not sure whether to scream or keep from screaming.
At the touch, a tiny pattern of black script burst across the bitty palm. Joy stared, surprised at the unexpected tattoo fireworks as they faded and disappeared. The baby didn’t even change its deep breathing. Spellbound, Joy leaned farther over the crib’s edge to watch Ink do it again.
Switching to the left hand, Ink repeated the procedure. Like a drop of dye in water, the pictographs expanded and curled in invisible eddies, fading quickly. She caught a few images that danced in the design: something like fat blueberries and a bird with a crown. Then those, too, disappeared and the baby slept on.
Ink withdrew the blade and blew on it, then folded it back into its sheath with no wasted motion. He stepped away from the crib.
“That’s all?” Joy said.
“Shh,” he chided, but smiled, pleased. It made his boyish face even more so. She was shocked that he had dimples.
“That is all,” Ink confirmed.
“Huh,” she whispered. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Still, it is good that you came along,” he said. “It is important that you be seen with me.”
Joy frowned, glancing around without moving her head. “There’s nobody here.”
“Shh.” Ink hushed her again and stepped back, pointing to the telltale monitor. The cow-over-the-moon night-light outlined his features, catching all the impish hollows. He shrugged with open hands, as plainly as if he’d said, One never knows who is watching.
Joy nodded, eyeing the shadows. They were supposed to act “together.” She slipped her hand into his and gave a soft squeeze. Ink stiffened, staring down at their hands. Turning them over, he inspected the configuration of their fingers from all sides. Joy wondered if he’d ever held hands before. His staring at their entwined fingers felt stranger by the moment.
Finally he said, “Time to go.”
“Okay,” Joy whispered, the weirdness tossing her mind in strange directions. Ink sliced a new doorway and Joy decided she wouldn’t be half surprised if she saw a giant caterpillar with a hookah or a Mad Hatter sipping tea. She was more surprised to find neither of these.
Joy stepped gingerly into Hall C, nearly bumping her nose against the red emergency case. She blinked at the fire extinguisher. She was in the exact spot where she’d last been in school. Ink waited calmly at her side.
She exhaled. Slowly. Somewhere in between, she’d let go of his hand. His gaze stayed on her fingers a fraction longer, then it was gone.
“If there are no other messages, I should go,” Ink said, running his finger absently along the chain at his side. “Should you need to contact me, close your eyes and speak my name.”
“Ink?”
He smiled. “Exactly.” He turned to go.
“Wait.” Joy tried to get her bearings. She glanced back at the classroom door. She held up her hall pass. She’d forgotten she’d had it the whole time. “What was that all about?”
“It is a covenant,” Ink said. “The boy is a descendent of high priests. A promise made, a promise born.”
Joy frowned. “That means he’ll be a priest?”
“No. He is the son of holy men. He is a priest.”
“That’s what the symbols meant?” Joy wondered.
“Symbols?” Ink sounded surprised.
Joy nodded. “The letters, the birds, the fruit...?”
“Ah. The images are embedded in the signatura of those who ordered the mark,” he said and shrugged. “They release when I inscribe the mark. I hardly notice them anymore.”
“Oh.” Joy peeked through the glass, trying to catch sight of the clock. “How long have we been gone?”
“As I said, it only takes a second,” Ink said. “If that.” He gave a strange sort of bow and waved his arm in a swirling, downward stroke. This time Joy noticed the razor tucked inside the palm of his hand, slicing the breach. He sidestepped to the left and disappeared.
Joy stared at the spot, trying to see something that was no longer there. She lifted her hand, raising her fingers as if she could touch the edge of an invisible door, nearly leaping out of her skin as the class bell rang.
* * *
It was impossible to sit, impossible to concentrate, let alone take notes. Her daydreams were a jumble of colors and questions. She had stepped through space and time! U.S. history paled in comparison. She bit her fingernails and wandered through the rest of the day in a haze, feeling that itchy, excited terror that she hadn’t felt since competing for State.
And, being an adrenline junkie, she really wanted to do it again.
Joy begged Monica to take her to the next best thing.
“You know, normal people go to a dance club or something,” Monica said as she drove out to the abandoned soccer field after school. “It doesn’t have to be the Carousel—there are a few good places midweek.”
“I need space,” Joy said as she shimmied into a pair of yoga pants. “It’s not like dancing. I need to move.”
“You need to move like I need a manicure.” Monica turned up the side street past Abbot Park’s welcome sign. The well-kept field stretched before them, framed by an ironwood fence and short, brown grass. While the old soccer field had long since retired, John Abbot tended his family’s donation to the town as a matter of personal pride. He faithfully brought his own lawn tractor and seed based on The Old Farmer’s Almanac. The field was flat and even, stray rocks and shoots carefully plucked and discarded, and the earth beneath it springy yet firm. Joy knew every inch of Abbot’s Field by hand and by foot. It was her secret personal training ground ever since she was six.
The gravel crunched under tires with the sound of country roads. Monica sighed as she pulled into the empty lot, grimacing at the woods and weeds.
“This place has Lyme disease written all over it.”
“You don’t have to stick around,” Joy said.
“I am not leaving you alone while you’re currently a crazy stalker magnet,” she said. “Let it not be said that Monica Reid is a fair-weather friend. Nor is she to be found unprepared.”
Joy rotated her ankles. “You going to do homework?”
Monica blew a raspberry. “Get real. I’ve got video calling on my phone.”
Joy laughed and got out of the car. “Tell Gordon I say hi.”
“Will do, sunshine. Now go burn off some steam.”
Joy beamed, bouncing on her heels, feeling the stretch in her ankles and calves and massaging her wrists over and back. She shook out her fingers and took off for the fence, top speed, the first chords of “Alegría” ringing in her head. Her palms hit the worn wood as she cleared it, landing smack against the ground, her feet remembering the feel of the terrain. She’d braced for it in her knees. She knew it without thinking.
She didn’t want to think. She felt better already!
Joy ran, building speed, preparing herself for the cold, hard earth. She swung into a roundoff, launching into a back tuck, the world singing sideways, the sting of grass on her hands. She punched the landing and took off hard. The building chorus in her head egged her on, the blend of synthesized organs and drums and a high voice imploring longingly in French.
Joy flung herself into a series of back handsprings, end over end over end like the beating of her heart, like her feet at Deer Run, like the feeling of flight—a wheeling momentum that carried her far from her self. She twisted, landing smoothly, and performed a split leap, touching down lightly. She wound from the shoulders, leading with her chin, diving in quick succession: one leap, two, three. Spinning, she launched into another roundoff, pushing from her toes, hips twisting sharply midbend and snapping her feet to the ground. It surprised her how easily this all came back. Part of her wondered why she’d ever left.
Mom.
Joy tucked and bolted, leaving that thought far behind.
She wanted to do a bigger tumbling pass, knowing she couldn’t really do it out here, but a wild recklessness ran through her, as if she didn’t care what happened as long as she didn’t have to stop. Joy pumped her arms hard and threw herself into it: roundoff, back handspring, double back tuck, one-eighty. Joy stuck the landing and gazed around, dazed. Had anybody seen that? There was no one around but Monica chatting on her phone. Joy tingled like snowflakes, her own eye blinking: Flash! Flash! She bounced on her toes, testing the ground. There was no way she could have done that without a sprung floor.
She stared at her own hands speckled with earth.
Curious, breathing deeply, she ran, gaining speed through the stamped-on grass, jumping into the roundoff, hitting the handspring, flipping into the stratosphere of a three-sixty, soaring over: Bam! She hit it. Not even her toes complained. She tilted her face up, fingers splayed, beaming out of habit for an imaginary audience. She felt incredible; her body sang.
It was impossible, but she’d experienced a lot of “impossible” lately.
She spun, dramatic, knee counting the beat. Thinking, artistry and expression, daring a judge to not notice her eyes. Joy twisted into two turning leaps, graceful and full, the wind in her teeth, her arms stretched like wings. She scissored into a tour jeté, half twist, and stuck: supple arms drifting down, completing the haunting Cirque chord.
Final pass. Roundoff, back handspring, quick and flowing. Joy committed herself to the Arabian even before she left the ground, turning midair to somersault forward, sailing clear and clean, her feet kicking out to complete their arc like a gentleman’s bow. She sank her weight into her knees and locked the pose, slowly becoming aware of her own body’s sudden stillness. She lifted her lashes like waking from a dream.
Joy looked up into all-black eyes.
Ink flinched, surprised.
He’d been staring at her while leaning against a fence post, startled at being caught. And he had been staring at her—again—just as he had that night at the Carousel. But this time his face wore an odd expression of awe and pride and disbelief. Joy could feel herself blushing. For a long moment, they stayed that way, Ink hovering by the fence post and Joy posed in the grass. It was as if an entire conversation was happening between them without words, him asking, “Who is Joy Malone?” and her wanting to know more about the mysterious Indelible Ink.
“Are you done?” Monica called from the car. Joy’s head snapped around so fast, she felt a crick in her neck. She glanced back. He was still there. Dimples framed his smile. Monica couldn’t see him and Ink kept looking at Joy as if he were about to say something, but no words came. He just stood there, watching, smiling at her.
“Yeah,” Joy said, keeping Ink on the edge of her sight. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Joy felt his eyes on her as she marched past him, launching herself over the rail in a showy front hand tuck. Her feet landed together with a satisfying crunch. Behind her, three words followed with crisp clarity:
“Yes. You are.”
Joy smiled to herself, but didn’t turn around.
Monica switched off her phone as Joy hopped into the car, sweaty and spent. She grinned, exhausted, as she pulled on her seat belt. She no longer saw Ink in the side mirror, but then again, he might still be there.
“Girl,” Monica drawled. “We have got to get you a boyfriend.”
* * *
Joy worried her dad would guess that something was up, and if he did, she was totally doomed. She popped with unspent energy. She couldn’t sit still. She squirmed through their late dinner, trying to stay quiet through the scrape and clink of silverware and polite requests like “Pass the salt?” Joy was overly conscious about making too much noise. Their house had succumbed to a sort of mausoleum hush over the past year as the dinner table grew smaller and smaller. But now she wanted to shout and laugh and scream—she hadn’t felt that way for months and it was incredibly awkward tamping it down now.
Placing the leftovers in the fridge, her dad groaned. “We’re out of milk.”
“I’ll get it!” Joy said, jumping to her feet.
“Never mind. I’ll get it tomorrow.”
“No, really,” she said. “I could use the walk.”
Her father closed the fridge and frowned. She’d pushed too hard, sounded too eager. When had she ever volunteered to buy late-night groceries?
“Oh? Care to tell me anything?” he asked.
Nnnnnno. She switched to the old fail-safe.
“Just that time of the month,” she said. “Biochemical warfare and all that. I’d like to get some chocolate at the C&P while I’m there.”
Dad hesitated, then fished out a ten. The mention of anything “womanly” made him fidget. “Fine,” he said. “Remember—milk and chocolate, not just milk chocolate, understand?”
“Yes,” she said and gratefully snatched the bill and her keys in one hand while she shrugged on her jacket. “Be right back,” she called over her shoulder and bolted down the stairs, flying across the courtyard and out into the cool night air.
The walk to the convenience mart wasn’t exactly convenient, but it was well lit and paved and gave Joy some precious room to breathe. She knew she had been expecting creatures at the window, scrapings at the door, mysterious notes under her pillow or in her locker or in her shoes, but it hadn’t happened since she’d gone out with Ink and being outdoors after Abbot’s Field, she felt better and less vulnerable than she had in a long while. She skipped down the sidewalk. Freedom felt good!
Pushing open the door at the C&P, the electronic bell buzzed its two-tone hello. No one was there save the store manager, a man of unknown ethnicity and uncertain age, who was busy shelving cigarettes.
“Hello, Joy.”
“Hi, Mr. Vinh.”
Joy grabbed a gallon of milk out of the refrigerated compartment, two chocolate bars and some sugarless gum. She plunked them on the counter and watched him stack the menthols as she dug out the ten.
“No smoking, right?” he asked.
Joy shook her head. “Bad habit.”
“Underage,” he said as he rang up her total and began to count change. “I noticed the gum. Not many kids chew gum nowadays unless they quit smoking. Chocolate, yes, candy, yes.” He smiled. “Not so much gum.”
“It’s a nervous habit,” Joy said.
“Too many habits,” he chided. “You’re young. Relax.”
Joy pocketed the candy bars and change and hefted the milk. “Not many kids relax nowadays, either,” she said with a wry smile. “Have a nice night.”
“You, too, busy kid. You, too.”
Shouldering open the door with its two-tone goodbye, Joy backed out into the night. The air was cool and the sidewalk looked surreal in low-glow orange, flecks of mica winking like stars in the concrete. It looked almost magical. Joy stepped on the constellations, lost in thought. It was tough to know what to think of a world that held black-eyed time travelers and $3.19 milk.
A rising prickle on the back of her neck should have been from a cold breeze, but the air was eerily still. Her eye snagged something white wafting by. Flash! Flash! She watched the wisp of motion. A silvery sort of light danced on the edge of her already-altered vision, slipping like steam off a storm drain, playing a sinister tag with her nerves. Joy swallowed and kept walking, trying not to quicken her step. Acting afraid only made you look weak. Girls’ Self-Defense 101: walk confidently, head held high. And carry your keys. Joy fitted hers between the first two knuckles of her right hand and tightened her grip on the jug of milk.
A distant roar, like angry whispers down a long tunnel, echoed in her ears. She turned to look. Her footsteps faltered, a misstep on the edge of the pavement. The milk’s weight sloshed, pulling her off-balance. The vapor circled her, like a shark on TV. Girls’ Self-Defense 102: trust your gut.
Her gut said, Run!
The milk was heavy. Should she drop it?
She shouldn’t have hesitated.
The shriek was feral and high-pitched. Joy spun as the colorless film rushed toward her wearing a woman’s face, hair snaking out in a veil and fingers outstretched for Joy’s throat.
Joy ducked, covering her head with one hand, scratching her own cheek with her keys as the thing swooped by. A strange numbness spread over her shoulders as it passed with an odd tingle like Novacain.
She bolted down the sidewalk, hands tight with milk and keys, unable to let go of anything in sheer terror, trying to stay in the streetlight’s sickly orange path. The phantom face swam through the air, a lazy kite trailing a tail of tattered dress. It watched her with dead eyes, matching her in effortless pursuit.
Joy ran.
Panting, eyes stinging, Joy crouched beneath a lamppost and whirled her arm around, whipping her keys sideways. The misty specter slipped through her body, heedless of her blows, and the dentist-office sensation seeped further into her veins. Joy’s knees buckled, her bones filled with heavy, pins-and-needles lead.
The ghost-woman’s eyes contracted like twin mouths, emitting another unearthly shriek, flattening Joy against the ground. The weight of it pressed her into the earth, grinding her down. Her forehead scraped painfully against the edge of the concrete. Covering her ears, Joy whimpered against the feeling that her eardrums might burst.
She couldn’t think. She couldn’t get up. Joy held her keys over her head, squeezing her eyes shut, and screamed.
Something bloomed in the back of her brain, changing her scream to a single word: “INK!”
Her voice rose, as did the phantom wail. A crackle and electric pop, and the orange streetlights exploded, one by one, spitting a hail of glass that bounced against the walk. The numbing buzz in her body wound deeper, filling her lungs, slowly creeping up her throat, smothering her heart. It was getting harder to breathe. Joy wheezed and felt the world tilt.
A metallic shing split the air. The terrible cry ceased.
Joy felt something cover her, heavy and dark, a comforting weight against the pale, numbing light. Joy clung to it blindly, dimly recognizing the slippery shimmer of silk and the cool smell of rain. Joy felt his voice vibrate in his chest flat across her back.
“Stop,” he said.
She could hear the wraith reeling closer. Ink switched his grip on the blade in his hand. The cleaving sound struck again, clanging and clean. The howling retreated.
“She did not get your message,” Ink said, his arm held high. Joy cowered beneath him. “We will heed it,” he promised. “Presently. Now.”
Joy chanced a look. The wraith woman, her eyes wide holes of fury, exhaled a high, modulating cry before spinning into the darkness like a dandelion puff.
Silence returned.
Joy relaxed in small increments, joint by joint. Ink pressed against her numb shoulders and the ground sank with their combined weight in the grass. Joy lay curled protectively under Ink, dizzy and trembling.
Ink stood swiftly, gazing out into the pinpricked sky.
“That was a bain sidhe,” he said. “A banshee. The curse of the Isles. Evidently, a message has gone unanswered for too long.”
Curse of the Isles. Joy remembered the note in her locker. She groaned. “Crap.”
Ink turned and stared at Joy for a long moment before offering one of his glovelike hands. “Now, lehman, you must come with me. We have an obligation, you and I—understand?”
Joy nodded and stood up, her palm sliding off his like oil. “I thought...” she began, swallowing her icy jitters. “I thought you said you couldn’t lie.”
“I did not lie,” Ink said as he folded his knife into his wallet and tucked it away. “I said you did not ‘get’ the message, not that you did not ‘receive’ it. I intended ‘get’ as ‘understand.’ And I was correct that you did not understand the message,” he said archly. “Did you?”
“No,” she admitted and bent to get her keys.
Ink watched her with that shy, intense curiosity she’d seen when he’d inspected their joined hands.
“I felt you,” he said quietly. Joy hesitated. “Even before you called for me.” His eyes met hers. “Inq never said it would be like that.”
Joy didn’t know what to say. Her arms felt heavy, full of wet sand. She debated leaving the milk on the ground.
“Pick it up,” Ink said, as if reading her thoughts. Obediently, she did. Through a woozy sort of haze, Joy hadn’t the will to refuse. Ink followed her movements with those penetrating eyes. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you want to see a trick?”
His words surprised her. And she wasn’t really up for any more surprises, but the way he’d said it made her wonder if this was an offering of some kind.
“Sure,” she said. “But can I sit down?”
“No. It requires your participation and speed.” At her groan, he added, “It will help—the bain sidhe effects fade quicker if you keep moving. It reminds your body that you are still alive.”
Joy rubbed her hand against her jeans. Tingles pricked like electric sparks.
“Great. Okay,” she said. “What do I do?”
Ink extracted one of the deadly blades from his wallet and gestured with it. A dimple teased in one cheek, threatening a smile. “When I tell you to,” he said, “drop the milk, then jump.”
Joy frowned. Was he kidding? Was this a test?
“Jump?”
“I am certain that you can,” he said. “You jump very well.”
It shocked her like a dare. How long had he been watching her at Abbot’s Field? Joy bit back a retort and sank into her knees, ignoring the numb, prickling sensation, ready to spring.
“Okay.”
“On my mark,” he said.
There was a familiar swoop of motion, a tear in the world, and Ink peeled back a flap of nothingness.
“Drop it,” he said. “Jump!”
She tossed the jug high and jumped through.
Her feet landed on green fields so bright they shone. Joy’s first, crazy thought was that she’d stepped into Oz, but that illusion disappeared with the smell. Wet, woolly sheep with dirty coats dotted the hillsides, their spray-painted butts reeking of poop and the smoky scent of peat. Joy squinted up at the open sky, robin’s-egg blue with an early, silver-gold sun. The nearby narrow road was lined with low walls of uneven gray stone. A rock cottage squatted on the hillside, its bright red door ajar.
She gawked in a trance of delight and awe. Ink stood by her side.
“Where are we?” Joy asked.
“Ireland,” said Ink, and he marched through the open door in blatant disregard for personal property. Joy hurried after him, wondering how anyone could live with a door open to the world, where anybody off the street could walk in like this. She tiptoed gingerly into the house.
A boy of nine or ten lay dozing in a chair. A heavy plate littered with the remains of ham and eggs sat on a table beside a cold mug of strong-smelling coffee. He slept in a button-down shirt, loose pants and thick boots, with a floppy hat pulled down over half his face. Only the very end of his nose and his chin peeked out; both were heavily freckled. Joy thought the boy might be more freckle than not.
He didn’t stir as Ink plunked his wallet onto the table and selected the leaf-tipped wand. Joy leaned on the edge of the thick, wooden table, watching Ink unbutton the boy’s sleeve and tug it up over his elbow. No one should have been able to sleep through such treatment, but somehow, the kid didn’t wake. Joy wondered if that was some magic of Ink’s or the young boy’s impressive commitment to sleep.
“Can you move?” Ink asked Joy, pointing the wand. “You are blocking the light.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”
The sleeping boy stirred. Joy froze. Ink’s eyebrows crinkled a stern warning. Joy nodded and silently crept around the table, touching nothing. While Ink might go unnoticed, obviously she did not. Joy stood very still and watched from over his shoulder.
Ink tilted his head and considered the skin: a line dividing the freckled, pale part from a deep farmer’s tan. Ink shifted the boy’s elbow, attempting to drape the rest of the arm awkwardly over the sunken chest, but the loose weight kept dragging the arm down. After three tries, Ink scowled and turned black eyes to Joy.
“You want to be helpful?” he asked finally. Joy nodded. “Stand there.” Ink indicated a spot behind the wooden chair. Joy picked her way over. Ink held up the boy’s speckled right hand.
“Hold this,” he directed, slapping the hand on the boy’s shoulder. Joy gingerly pressed down on the knuckles to keep it in place. Satisfied, Ink reexamined the spot near the elbow and poised the blade like a paintbrush.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/dawn-metcalf/indelible/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.