Ink and Bone

by Lisa Unger

  Around the corner and down the road, private detective Jones Cooper mowed the lawn in front of the house he shared with his wife, Maggie. His wife had been nagging him to hire the neighbor’s son Greg to do the yard work. The boy was a boomerang, unable to find a job in banking after college and living in his parents’ basement; he needed the work. But Jones Cooper needed the exercise. Of course, it was only a matter of time before he did what Maggie told him. He was a man who loved his wife and was smart enough to know that she was right about most things, even if he took his time getting around to admitting it.

  There were 9,780 living souls populating The Hollows. There were good people and bad ones, people with secrets and dark appetites, happy people, and people buckling under the weight of grief and sorrow. There were people who were looking for things and loved ones they had lost, and people hiding. There were lost people, trying to find their way home. Each of them was connected to the others in ways that were obvious or as hidden as the abandoned mine tunnels beneath the ground. Each had his purpose and his place in The Hollows, whether he knew it or not. Every thing here had its time and its season.

  After a few minutes, Finley came out of the bakery with a pink box that she carefully stowed in her backpack, mindful not to crush the contents. Then she climbed on her bike. She zipped out of town, returning home the way she came. Even though she had been born and had grown up ­someplace else, The Hollows had kept its tendrils reaching out to her, tugging at her, keeping her connected until very recently, when it was time for her to come home.

  Finley had noticed that all the warmth had gone from the air and knew that it meant winter, her least favorite season, was approaching. She didn’t know how fast it was coming or how hard it was going to be. She didn’t know that something would be asked of her, something she didn’t want to do but in which she had little choice. And she certainly had no inkling that she might not see another spring.

  Even The Hollows couldn’t tell the future.

  ONE

  Squeak-clink. Squeak-clink. Squeak-clink.

  Oh my God. Finley Montgomery rolled over in bed and pulled the pillow over her head. What the hell is that?

  Squeeeaaak. Clink.

  It wasn’t loud exactly. In fact, it was faint but unceasing and arrhythmic, like the dripping of a faucet in another room. It was its stuttering relentlessness that made it so annoying.

  The unidentifiable noise had leaked into her dream, where Finley had been repeatedly turning a knob on a door that wouldn’t budge. In her dream, her frustration grew as she tried in vain to enter the room, tugging and pulling, twisting the rusty knob. Finally, the sound had woken her, tickling at the edges of her awareness as she came to wakefulness, her irritation lingering.

  Sitting up, she looked around the mess of her bedroom—open laptop on her desk, stacks of books, laundry in a basket to be put away, more clothes on the floor, boots in a tumble by the door. She was alone, the door closed. She knew that the sound was inside her, not outside.

  Squeak-clink.

  “Okay,” she said, drawing in and releasing a breath.

  Finley focused on the details of her room, listing off what she saw. The gauzy curtains are billowing in the cool breeze. The wind chimes are tinkling outside. The golden sunlight of an autumn morning is dappling the hardwood floor. She took another deep breath and released it. By staying in the present moment, she could—allegedly—­control “the event.” This is what her grandmother—who had a way of making it sound so easy, as if it were just a choice Finley could make—had told her. But it required an unimaginable amount of discipline, of psychic (for lack of a better word) effort.

  Not that she was trying to get rid of the sound precisely, not for good. At this point, she understood that if she was hearing something—or seeing something, or whatever—there was a reason. It was just that she was trying to train herself to take in information in a time and place that was appropriate for it. She was trying to learn how to set boundaries so that “this thing” didn’t destroy her life. I let it take too much, her grandmother confided. You can do better than I did.

  “Not now,” Finley said firmly. “Later.”

  The sound persisted, oblivious to Finley’s desires.

  Downstairs, Finley’s grandmother Eloise was moving about the kitchen, making the music of morning—the opening of cabinets, setting of dishes, the gong of a pan on the stove. Then wafted in the scent of coffee, of bacon on the stove.

  Squeak-clink.

  It was fading as Finley climbed out of bed and stretched high, then bent over to touch her toes. Usually Finley took care of breakfast, thinking it was the least she could do, considering she was living with her grandmother rent free while she finished school. But on important days, Eloise made a point to get up early and cook—which was really just so nice. Finley marveled at how different were her mother and her grandmother.

  Squeeak-clink. It was fainter still. But what was it? It wasn’t a sound that was familiar to her. As soon as she put her attention on it, it grew louder again. She made her bed, still breathing deep. I am in control of my awareness, she told herself. My awareness does not control me.

  As Finley turned toward the window, she saw the shadow, faint and flickering like a hologram, of a little boy in the corner of the room. He sat playing with a wooden train. She’d been seeing him for a couple of days. He wasn’t any trouble, but she had no idea what he wanted from her yet. Choo-choo, he said quietly, moving the train across the floor. She watched him a moment, but when she took a step closer, he was gone, a trick of light.

  The woman in the black dress, as usual, stood by the door to the hallway. Finley knew from her grandmother that the woman was Faith Good, a distant relative on the maternal side. Finley did know what Faith wanted. She wants you to be careful, Eloise had told her. Of course, that’s what everyone wanted from Finley.

  The sound wasn’t coming from either of them, was it?

  Finley stood another moment, thinking, listening, watching. She yanked her thumb away from her mouth as soon as she was aware that she was biting her nails again. Finally, she walked over the creaking wood floorboards, down the hall to the bathroom. She stripped off her pink tank top and gray sweatpants and stepped into the shower.

  Letting the hot water wash over her, she scrubbed herself vigorously, sang loudly—Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah.” She was a bad singer, completely tone deaf. But she didn’t care. All these actions kept her present in her body, in her life. And when she was done, the sound was gone. It worked, she thought gratefully as she grabbed the handle and turned off the water. Steam plumed around her, rising, dissipating. She was getting better at saying when—something her grandmother taught but had never herself learned to do. Later, after her exam, Finley thought, she’d deal with them.

  Faith and the little boy were both gone when Finley returned to her room to dress quickly—pulling on soft jeans, a black tee-shirt, Doc Marten lace-up boots. She grabbed her motorcycle helmet off the dresser and her backpack off the floor and pounded down the creaky staircase, jumping the last few steps and listening to the walls rattle in response.

  Finley, please! her mother would surely chide. But Eloise let Finley be. Finley and her mother were all hard angles, their edges always knocking up against each other, hurting. But Finley and her grandmother fit together like mated puzzle pieces.

  She trailed past the familiar wall of family photographs: Finley and her brother Alfie on horseback—Alfie roaring with laughter as Finley tickled from behind; her mother Amanda’s high school graduation day, a grainy, orange-hued shot in which eighteen-year-old mother looked pale and decidedly not joyful; Finley’s grandfather Alfie and her aunt Emily bent over a book while a golden light shined on them through the window.

  Finley always looked the longest at that one as she passed. Grandpa Alfie and Aunt Emily were both so present in Finley’s life, though they had both died long ago—killed in a car accident that Eloise and Finley’s mother, then a teenager,
had survived but never really got over. Her grandmother never remarried. Her mother Amanda moved away from The Hollows as soon as she could and never came back to live.

  Amanda talked about Grandpa Alfie as if he’d been the one who put the stars in the sky. She talked about Emily less, except to say that Finley was just like her—wild, fearless, creative, headstrong. Finley got the sense that it wasn’t a bad thing necessarily, but it wasn’t exactly a good thing either, since Amanda usually said it in anger or exasperation or just wonder.

  Amanda hated that Finley was living in The Hollows, with Eloise—both things Amanda had fled. It is driving her absolutely batshit crazy, thought Finley with only a little bit of malicious glee. She dropped her stuff by the door, but not before kissing her fingers and putting them to a picture of her mother and father Philip on their wedding day. Good morning, guys.

  In the kitchen, Eloise stood at the stove, a relic that had been there since Finley was small, and according to Amanda, longer than that. The knobs were worn smooth; the cooktop was so brown around the burners that had no hope of ever being white again. The back left burner no longer lit. Like everything else in the house, it was in need of replacement. But Eloise never replaced anything that wasn’t beyond repair.

  “Grandma, you need a new stove,” said Finley for the hundredth time. She caught herself sniffing for gas like her mother always did.

  “Why?” said her grandmother, turning off the burner. “It still works. You don’t just get rid of an old thing because you want something new.”

  “Yeah,” said Finley, “ya do.”

  “Hmm,” said Eloise. “Maybe you do.”

  Finley wrapped Eloise up in a hug from behind and squeezed gently. Her grandmother was small but powerful, giving off some kind of electricity even though she was skin and bones. Then Finley gave Eloise a big kiss on the cheek and released her.

  “There’s nothing wrong with new things,” Finley said.

  Eloise offered a patient smile as she brought the pan to the counter and slid scrambled eggs onto two plates. Finley’s stomach rumbled.

  “Did you hear it this morning?” Eloise asked.

  Finley nodded quickly as she grabbed the orange juice from the fridge. “Squeak-clink?”

  “I thought it was something in the basement,” said Eloise. “But no.”

  “Can we talk about it later?” Finley asked.

  She could already hear it starting up again. She poured orange juice into cloudy glasses. I am in control of my awareness.

  “Sure,” said Eloise. She knew the drill, changed the subject. “Are you ready for your exam?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Finley sat and Eloise put the plate of eggs, bacon, and fruit in front of her. She caught her grandmother’s eyes lingering on her bare arms. Even though Eloise didn’t say anything—and never had since the first day she discovered that Finley’s arms were sleeves of tattoos—Finley wished she’d worn her hoodie.

  When she first got to The Hollows a little more than a year ago, she’d sought to hide the richly colored dragons and fairies, butterflies, graveyards, mysterious-looking women in long gowns, dark shadowy figures of men and ghouls, a witch burning at the stake, a vicious dog on a chain. Each piece of art on her body meant something—was someone or something she’d seen in her visions or dreams. She’d started getting the tattoos when she was sixteen and hadn’t been able to stop.

  “Oh, Finley,” Eloise had said that day. “Your beautiful skin.”

  “I’m sorry,” she’d said. She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for—for the tattoos, for hiding them, for shocking her grandmother. “But this is me. This is who I am.”

  Eloise had rested a gentle hand up Finley’s arm. Some of the art on Finley’s body, which started at her wrists and snaked up her arms, over her shoulders and down her back, was still just a black outline at that point.

  “It’s a work in progress,” said Finley.

  “Meaning you’re getting more?” asked Eloise. “When are you going to stop?”

  Finley had lifted a defiant chin. “When the outside looks like how I feel on the inside.”

  Eloise had seemed to consider this. If anyone could understand how different was Finley’s inner life from her outer life, surely it would be Eloise. Who knew better than a renowned psychic medium that the world of the spirit was altogether other from the world of the body?

  “Okay, dear,” Eloise had said. “I understand.”

  They hadn’t discussed it much since then, and Finley didn’t seek to hide her tattoos any longer. At home with her mother, she would never even dare wear a tee-shirt—because Amanda had no boundaries whatsoever. Or rather, Amanda didn’t think that Finley deserved to have any. Amanda would stare and harp and moan about what Finley had done to her perfect skin, and how could she mutilate herself like that and what kind of life was she going to have and oh my God, what about your wedding day? Because everything was about Amanda and her anxieties, her need to have control, and her dashed expectations—even and maybe especially Finley’s life.

  Eloise sat with her own plate. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  Even though the temperatures were still warmish, Finley could feel the icy lick of winter in the air. When the roads got bad, she’d have to put the bike in the garage and borrow her grandmother’s Prius to get around.

  “Yes,” said Finley. “Gorgeous.”

  Finley’s mood was growing sourer by the second. That was the thing she still needed to figure out. The boundary setting? The pushing off until such time as she could devote her attention to their needs? It was completely exhausting and tended to make her cranky. As if she had to build a wall of stone every day, only to have it knocked down again.

  “You’re going to do wonderfully,” said Eloise. Her grandmother grabbed her arm and Finley felt the warmth of her. She was a giver, a recharger. “At everything.”

  Finley forced a smile, taking comfort in the fact that her grandmother was almost always right.

  *

  At the door, Finley pulled on her leather jacket and walked outside to her Harley-Davidson Sportster. The purple gas tank gleamed, filling Finley with a familiar tingle of excitement.

  No one wanted her to ride a motorcycle—not Amanda, not ­Eloise, not the woman in the black dress. Not even Jones Cooper, her grandmother’s occasional business partner, approved. At your age, you think the world forgives mistakes, he’d warned grimly. It doesn’t.

  Only her father Phil understood her need for speed and the silence she found there. He knew that the single place she was ever alone was on that bike. Eloise and Amanda hated him for helping her buy it; if anything ever happened to her while she was riding it, neither of them would ever forgive him. But he’d helped her anyway—not just because he was a jerk and liked annoying her mother (which he was and he did). But because he got it; he got Finley. Her father never claimed to understand the things she saw. But he knew all about the desire to run away.

  She climbed on and with a kick of her foot and a squeeze of the clutch, she brought the motorcycle to life. Just the sound of it—that deep unmistakable rumble—gave her a measure of relief, like the first drag of a cigarette.

  She waved to her grandmother and tried to measure her speed up the road. But once she turned the corner out of sight and the empty span stretched out before her, she opened it up. She couldn’t help it. The bike wanted to go fast; it begged her to push faster, faster.

  With the wind racing around her and the engine roaring beneath her, the sound of it living inside her body, she was only herself. All the shackles that held her, all the things that frightened and pained her, fell away. She could think; her own voice was clear and true. All the other sounds went quiet and she was free.

  *

  She found a safe spot for her bike in the parking lot of Sacred Heart College, bringing it to a stop as far from the psychology building as possible, in front of a tall, shading tree that was raining leaves i
n a shower of gold and red. Students and faculty usually parked their ­vehicles close to the low glass-and-concrete building, one of the newer structures at the college. But Finley tried to leave the roadster far from other cars when she could, afraid that it would get dinged or knocked over. The glittering purple of the gas tank and the fenders seemed to invite damage; she’d already been keyed. There was something about a motorcycle that drew attention, not all of it good. Except on the road, where other drivers often seemed not to see her at all.

  Shouldering her backpack, she slipped her phone from her pocket and checked the time. Forty minutes until the exam, more than enough time to get an espresso from the commissary and go over her notes in the classroom.

  “I’m ready,” she whispered to herself. “I’ve got this.”

  As she drew nearer to the building, she saw two girls she recognized from her abnormal psychology class. They were walking arm-in-arm, laughing at something they were viewing on a smart phone. She lifted a hand in a timid wave, but they didn’t see her, never glancing up from the screen. Lowering her arm awkwardly, she thought with a sting that she hadn’t made any friends in The Hollows, and she probably never would, freak that she was. Meanwhile, her few friends in Seattle were drifting further and further away, and maybe they’d never been real friends in the first place. Maybe they’d just been people with whom it was easy to get into trouble. And once you weren’t looking for trouble, suddenly you weren’t fun anymore. Her sour mood deepened.