Indelible

“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.