Indelible. Dawn Metcalf

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ