Indelible

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!