Indelible

“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.”