Ink and Bone

by Lisa Unger

  Finley brought the bike to a stop in front of the pub. Inside, the lights were already low and the open sign turned off. The street had a quiet, deserted feel. All the shops that surrounded the park in the town square (complete with precious gazebo) were shuttered. The Hollows went to bed early and slept all night. The only twenty-­four-hour diner was ten miles outside of town by the highway. You wanted pizza at two in the morning? Too bad. Pop’s, the only pizzeria in town, closed at nine thirty.

  She knocked on the red door and after a few moments, it opened. Rainer stood there smiling his crooked smile—oh, those icy blues and wild dark hair. Her heart fluttered a little at the sight of him; it always did. Stupid. Stupid. Because he towered over her, she had to gaze up at him—which always made her feel small (which, in turn, annoyed her a little). He was wide, too, powerful through the shoulders, with big arms sleeved with tattoos—a dragon, a geisha, a python, a panther, Dali’s melting clock, Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine. Escher’s Relativity traveled over his right shoulder blade, a raven perched on his right pectoral muscle. He was the only one she knew with more ink than she had.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” Rainer said, standing aside so that she could enter. “You didn’t text me back.”

  Jake, who was at the till, gave her a friendly wave. He was at one with the wood floors, like a pillar holding the place up. A dartboard hung on a ruined wall, pocked with holes from failed throws. Rows of bottles stood behind the bar; pictures of cops all over the walls. Rainer pulled a cover over the pool table, while Jake gave the counter its final wipe-down for the evening. A scent of sawdust, smoke, and beer hung not unpleasantly in the air. Windowless, dark, Jake’s wasn’t a place Finley would come to hang out. It was mainly cops and construction workers who came here, as far as Finley could see. It had a decidedly male vibe. There was one other bar and restaurant in town, Tipsy’s, where you could get a middling cocktail, a more upscale atmosphere, decent food. But that wasn’t Finley’s scene either. She didn’t need to be hanging out in bars.

  “How’s your grandma?” Jake asked. She sat on a bar stool near him.

  “Doing well,” she said. “Planning a little trip to San Francisco.”

  He was a big man, with a mustache that dominated his face and glittering green eyes. Though he was smiling at her, he had a powerful aura of sadness. So much so that Finley got up almost as soon as she sat down and moved to the wall, pretending to look at all the photographs—Jake as a young cop in New York City, stiff portraits from decades ago, celebrations at the bar, memorials to fallen officers, a picture of the World Trade Center pre-9/11.

  “To see Ray?” he asked.

  Jake had some kind of history with her grandmother; Eloise had helped him with something once. Finley didn’t know what it was and Eloise wouldn’t say. Then again, Eloise had history with a lot of folks in The Hollows. Good or bad, Finley tried to stay out of it.

  “Yeah,” she said. She had to smile a little. Her grandma had a boyfriend, and she was going to visit him. I might be out there awhile. That okay? Finley didn’t really want Eloise to leave, but who was she to stand in the way of love?

  “Well, good for them,” said Jake, maybe a little wistful. He was missing someone. Finley could feel that. Someone long gone.

  Rainer shifted on his jacket and walked over to her.

  “Feel like working?” she asked softly.

  “Always,” he said, dropping an arm around her. He turned to Jake. “Okay if I get out of here?”

  “Yeah, we’re done,” said Jake. “Good work tonight, kid.”

  Rainer walked over to give Jake a high five, and then he and Finley were out on the street where a light drizzle had started to fall.

  They walked a few doors down to the plain storefront that Rainer was renting. Called simply Hollows Ink, it was his tattoo shop. Not surprisingly, Finley was one of just a few clients—The Hollows wasn’t exactly a tattoo kind of crowd. But an investor friend had fronted him some money, enough to buy top-of-the-line equipment and get a sign for the window, cover nearly a year of rent. Rainer figured he could make the shop work inside that amount of time. He had a blog with lots of followers, a Pinterest page where he posted his best work. A wealthy couple that had found him online had come in from the city recently, promising to send friends his way. In the meantime, he was working at Jake’s to pay the bills. Rainer looked like a total slacker, but he could be industrious as hell when he wasn’t high. And he didn’t give up—on anything.

  Inside, Finley shivered as she stripped off her shirt, her exposed skin tingling in the cold.

  “Is the heat on?” she asked.

  Rainer was watching her in the floor-to-ceiling mirror that dominated the far wall. When their eyes met, he smiled. Then he turned on the ultrasonic and its hum filled the shop.

  “I’ll turn it up,” he said. He rubbed his hands together, his breath coming out in white puffs. “Trying to keep costs low so I’m turning it all the way off when I’m not here.”

  He walked over to the thermostat and a few seconds later warm air blew through the vents above Finley. She stayed where she could feel the heat, rubbing at her skin. She hated the cold; it hurt, made her feel vulnerable and lonely.

  The walls were fresh-painted black, and Rainer had placed two tattoo chairs and a table, some armrests against the mirrored wall. An impressive rainbow of ink colors—blood red, fuchsia, electric lavender, cerulean, sunshine yellow—stood sentry on a floor-to-ceiling rack. Through the curtain that covered the door to the back room, she could see his mattress on the floor, the sheets a rumpled mess.

  “It looks good in here,” she said. He’d hung some pictures, too. Nicely framed images of some of his best work, much of it from Finley’s body.

  “I’m getting there,” he said. His smile told her he was feeling good about things. “I have an appointment tomorrow, and another one the day after that.”

  “Who’s coming in?” she said. Frankly, she was a tiny bit shocked that he was making this work, that he seemed sober enough even though he was tending bar, and that the shop didn’t smell like weed.

  “A kid from the college wants his girlfriend’s name on his arm—big mistake. But I’m not going to tell him that.”

  Finley looked down at her nails. Was that a dig? Rainer had Finley’s name tattooed on his arm—a design around his right wrist that looked like a tribal band. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t let go. Once it’s written in ink on your skin, it’s forever. You can laser it off—if you don’t mind the scar.

  “Oh!” he went on, as he readied the equipment on a tray. Like a doctor preparing for surgery, he washed his hands vigorously in the small sink, then dried them. “Guess who followed me on Twitter? Ari Ash. You know—from Miami Tats? His work kills.”

  “That’s—great,” she said. The night she’d told him she was leaving—him, Seattle, her family, everyone—he’d cried. They’d been alone in his parents’ house, sitting at the dining room table, lights off, the dim light of dusk washing in through the windows. Things had not been good between them, and she really hadn’t had any idea that it would come as a shock. But she couldn’t forget the look on his face—the sad wiggle of his eyebrows, the drop of his lower lip. In her heart, she didn’t really think he loved her, not the way she loved him. She was surprised to see that she’d been wrong.

  “Please, Fin,” he’d said. “Don’t do this. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

  He’d actually dropped to his knees from the chair where he’d been sitting.

  “It’s okay,” she said, dropping down with him. “It’s not forever. I just need to get away from things here—my parents, our friends, all the mess.”

  “Me?”

  No, she thought, the “me” I am when I’m with you. With Rainer she was jealous, possessive. She drank too much, smoked too much pot. She was lazy, neglected her studies, fought all the time with her parents about him. When they were out with their friends, there were fights, high drama. The
other stuff—Finley’s visitors, her dreams—it was all reaching a crescendo. When Eloise told her about Sacred Heart College and suggested that she apply and come live here so that Eloise could help Finley understand what she was, she agreed.

  “I love you, Finley,” he’d said. “I’m sorry I’m such a screw-up. Please don’t go.”

  He’d messed around on her as recently as the week before. Then he felt so guilty that he told her about it right away, like a little boy who wanted to be punished, then quickly forgiven. It wasn’t the biggest deal in the world because they were “taking a break” and Rainer was weak. Girls loved him, those big blue eyes and meaty biceps, all the tats. He was a hottie, and girls just stared. He was oblivious most of the time, wasn’t one of those guys with a wandering eye, always looking at someone else. It’s just that if the opportunity presented itself, and he was high enough, he didn’t exactly put up a fight.

  When he’d figured out that she was serious—in that she’d applied and been accepted at Sacred Heart, even had her plane ticket—he dropped his head to her shoulder and held on to her tight, crying. She’d cried, too, holding on just as tight. But she knew with a stone cold certainty that it was time to go. She didn’t imagine that he had the gumption to pick up and follow her across the country. She’d been wrong about that, too.

  Now, he moved in close, putting strong hands on her arms. Soap, wood, and something else, a scent that was uniquely him. The soft cotton of his tee-shirt, the warmth of his body, the strength of it, his pulse, his heartbeat—all of it was a drug, calming her, luring her. It’s why she tried to move away from him. He was nearly impossible to resist.

  “Rain,” she said, trying unconvincingly to push him away. She pressed her forearms against his chest, but he held on.

  “I think about you all day,” he said. Finally, she let him wrap her up because she was cold and he was a furnace, giving off heat and light. “And all night.”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Tell me you don’t think about me.” His voice was gravelly and male, a note that resonated in her body. Oh, she did. She thought about him all the time.

  “Let’s not do this, okay?” she said. “We had our talk about boundaries.”

  About respecting her decisions and what she needed to do for her life, about understanding that what she needed might be different from what she wanted but how that didn’t give him the right to push her in the wrong direction. His lips found hers, and she let them linger for a second, just a second, before she moved away from him. He released her, pushing out a resigned sigh.

  She hadn’t wanted him to follow her here. In fact, she’d told him not to. But he couldn’t be stopped. His idea to start a tattoo parlor in The Hollows seemed outlandish enough that she didn’t think it would last, figured he’d be gone inside a month. But The Hollows must have wanted him here, because it looked like things were going okay. She knew better than anyone that The Hollows got its way. No matter what.

  “Who are we working on today?” he asked.

  Of course, she needed him—maybe that was why he was here. He was the only tattoo artist to ever work on her. And he had a way of knowing what she wanted, and how important it was. He understood her, everything about her. He believed and never judged. The images Finley held in her mind somehow communicated themselves to Rainer. It was beyond words; she and Rainer were connected.

  She lay herself down on the table and turned on her side, her back to him. They were running out of room. Her arms and most of her back were heavily populated, a growing collage of the people she could see that others could not. The old woman, the girl under the bed, the man in the suit, the teenager with the gun. And more, so many more.

  “There’s a little boy,” she said. “He’s about four, with blond hair and a cherub’s face. His eyes are wide and far apart; his lips are full and pouty. He looks like a troublemaker, but sweet.”

  “Kind of like me,” Rainer said. He ran his hands along her back and over her hips. She watched him in the mirror she was facing. His head was bowed, so that those dark curls fell, hiding his face.

  “Yes, like that,” she said. “Sweet but always in trouble.”

  His hand rested on her bare waist. The heat hummed to life again and warm air blew through the ceiling vent.

  “I’m trying to be a better man, Fin,” he said. “You see that, right?”

  She did see that, but it was more complicated than even he knew.

  “You are good, Rain,” she said, feeling guilty for no reason.

  “Then what?” he said. “What do you need me to do?”

  She didn’t answer. It wasn’t about him, or not just about him. It was about her, how he made her want to go to dark places. She’d come here to learn about herself, to absorb the things that Eloise could teach her about what she was and how to control it. She had so much to learn about herself. She couldn’t do that if she was lost in Rainer and all the drama that always seemed to crop up around them, between them: the fight in the bar when Rainer thought she was flirting (she wasn’t); the day she missed an exam because she was sleeping off a high in his bed; the girl in love with Rainer who tried to cause trouble by constantly calling and hanging up on Finley’s cell phone; the argument he’d gotten in with her mother where he’d called her a controlling bully. (Not a deal breaker, but still.)

  “He’s wearing jeans and a striped tee-shirt,” she said. “He loves trains.”

  He rubbed her shoulder, kneading it with two strong hands. “What about The Three Sisters?” he asked.

  There was an uncompleted tattoo on her inner right arm, an image of Patience, Sarah, and Abigail. It was the black outline of their faces, hair wild, eyes bright, all leaning in together with no space between their bodies. Rainer had started it for her before Eloise even told her who they were.

  A few months after he’d done the initial outline, her grandmother showed her a drawing that was identical to the tattoo, something Eloise had found in The Hollows Historical Society archives. Eloise told Finley their dark history then—that The Three Sisters were tried and burned at the stake as witches in the 1600s. They were only girls when they died—twelve, fourteen, and sixteen. Faith never got over it. Centuries later, poor Faith was still hovering, trying and failing to keep bad things from happening.

  Rainer had started some shading on Abigail—her dress, her hair. But the other two were still just outlines, waiting. As Finley understood them better, they would get their colors, their details, their shading.

  “Not tonight,” Finley said.

  If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. She knew he was dying to continue his work on The Three Sisters, Abigail especially. Instead, he took out a sketchbook and charcoal pencil. She waited, her eyes closing, the exhaustion of the day pulling at her. The sound had quieted, which must mean she was on the right track with her research. She found herself thinking of the rose-breasted grosbeak, its pretty black and white and red body, its sweet and joyful song. Little Bird. The phrase stuck in her head, repeated itself—a loving term of endearment, a nickname. Yes, that was it.

  “How’s this?” he asked. He walked around in front of her and held up the sketch. It was nearly perfect, almost exactly as she’d seen the little boy—from the glint in his eye to the train in his hand.

  “His face could be a little chubbier,” she said. “But yeah. You’re amazing.”

  He gave her a deferential bow and then went over to the copier to make the stencil. She liked him best in the shop, where he was focused and knowing. He was less wild in here, less dangerous. She flashed on that moment in the bar when Rainer came out of nowhere to punch the guy she was talking to in the face. Blood gushed from his nose and he’d cried like a girl. That was the first time she glimpsed Rainer’s dark side, the anger deep inside him. Once she’d seen it, she couldn’t forget it. She couldn’t even remember what the guy had said to her. He pressed charges, though, and Rainer went to court, paid a fine for drunk and disorderly.

&nbs
p; “Hold still,” he said now.

  As he spoke, the hint of movement in the dark corner of the shop caught her eye. She wasn’t surprised to see Abigail leaning against the wall. Rainer pulled his cart over, unwrapped a new needle, put on surgical gloves. He was a professional; he did things right even when it was just the two of them. He arranged the pile of gauze, which he’d use to mop away the blood and ink. Abigail walked over until she was standing behind Rainer, who held the tattoo gun.

  “How about here?” he asked, laying a hand on her lower back, close to her hip.

  “That’s fine,” she said. He pressed the paper there with a crinkle, then peeled it back. She knew it was just a starting point, all the magic would happen with his freehand work.

  Rainer pressed his foot on the round pedal, making the machine hum with its electric sizzle. Finley breathed deep in anticipation of the needle, the heat, the pain. It was a hurt that brought with it a kind of relief. Eloise had expressed concern that Finley’s “tattoo addiction” was a form of masochism. Maybe.

  She released a low moan as the needle pierced her skin, close to the hipbone. The closer to the bone, the worse the pain. There was no denying that it hurt, but Finley could sink into the pain, embrace it. Fighting, bracing against it only made it worse.

  Rainer had his head bent over, totally focused on the task before him. Abigail walked across the room and stood beside Rainer. To Finley, Abigail had real substance—the fall of her hair, the swoosh of her dress, the sound of her shoes on the floor. Finley watched Abigail watching Rainer. She looked at him with such naked longing that Finley finally averted her eyes.

  FOUR

  Merri let herself into the apartment. Wolf had insisted she take the key. If it’s Jackson’s home, it’s your home, too, he’d said. He wasn’t ready to end the marriage.

  “We can’t split up,” he’d urged. “Not now, not like this. Think about Jackson, Merri. How much more can a kid take?”