Ink

by Alice Broadway

  “Mayor Longsight was there and a man got marked as forgotten.” She says it with an excited whisper, as though it’s a swear word she’s saying out loud for the first time. “The mark was a crow, right Lor?”

  I nod.

  “How archaic,” Simon says lightly. He turns to the stove and turns on the gas under a pan. It seems the conversation is over. But Verity persists.

  “Does it always happen in the square like that? How come I’ve never seen one?”

  Simon sighs, adjusts the burner to low and turns around, leaning against the smooth slate work surface. He is quiet for a moment, rubbing the side of his face, making his beard look even scruffier than usual.

  “When someone’s forgotten it’s done in public, yes – but it’s been such a long time since it last occurred, I couldn’t tell you what the usual protocol is. Anyway, shouldn’t you know all about this if you want a job in government?”

  He winks at Verity who rolls her eyes. Then she says more quietly, “Have you ever known someone who’s a forgotten, Dad?”

  Simon stirs the pot, and the comforting smell of chicken stew steams hotly round the room. For a long time I think he won’t answer. Then quietly – all the time watching the bubbling pan as he stirs – he says, “Yes, I did once. It very nearly broke my heart, my love.” He looks up and to my astonishment I see his eyes are bright. Could he be talking about Dad? “Let’s not discuss this any more, girls. Some things are too much. Now then, Leora, are you staying for dinner?”

  I am tempted to say yes and then just stay in this lovely house for good, but I know I can’t.

  “Thanks, but I should be getting home. Mum’ll be wondering where I’ve got to.”

  “OK, well give my love to Sophie; tell her we need to arrange another night out soon. Julia and I will check our shifts.” I nod and say goodbye, feeling glad to know Mum has people looking out for her.

  Verity comes to the door with me. “Are you going to be OK?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I smile and try to look normal, but I expect it makes me look slightly deranged.

  “All right. Well, shall I come round tomorrow? We could revise a bit together?”

  “That’d be nice – I am so behind it’s not even funny. And Verity – sorry for getting so upset earlier. I don’t know why it bothered me so much.” She gives me a hug and I head out into the streets to go home.

  Chapter Five

  Mum is eating already when I get back. This is a bad sign; she’s pretty fanatical about us eating together every night – even more so since Dad died. It’s good for relationships or digestion or something, I can never remember. When I walk in, she carries on as though she hasn’t noticed me. This is her not incredibly subtle way of letting me know I’m in trouble. I’d prefer shouting, but she is always so poised, so careful. Even her emotions seem neat.

  On the walk home I decided I wouldn’t confront Mum about Dad and his mark. Not yet. I don’t have the words.

  And part of me wants to see if she’ll tell me the truth about Dad herself.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I venture as I hang my things up. “I went round to Verity’s and we lost track of time.”

  Mum puts down her fork and takes a sip of water. “You know I worry, love.” Her face is stony. I’m not sure she was worried – just cross with me, I expect. I try to look my most penitent, but I don’t think it’s working. “If you had just left a note…”

  “I know, I’m sorry.” I put my hand on her shoulder, make her look at me. “It won’t happen again. I promise.” When I turned fourteen Mum told me I had earned greater freedom. From then on, as long as I told her where I was, who I was with, what I was doing, when I would be back and what I was wearing (in case I got lost and she had to tell the police), I could stay out until the street lamps were lit. Some freedom. I know it’s because she cares, and I know it’s all more intense now because of Dad, but I wish she would just trust me.

  She sighs and wipes her mouth on a napkin. Sometimes I feel like she’s resigned herself to be disappointed in me; as though she’d prefer to notice my mistakes rather than have to make the effort to see when I get things right. She brushes my hair to one side in a way that I hate, but I let it go.

  “There are sausages in the oven, they should still be warm.” Mum goes back to eating and I guess I’m forgiven, for now. Maybe I’m being unkind. I grab a tea towel and remove the tray with the leftover sausages; I almost burn myself as I put a couple on a plate with my fingers. There’s mashed potato in one of the pans on the side and I help myself. She doesn’t pay much attention when I sit down at the table; she’s reading a book now that she’s finished her food.

  I know what to do. I’m going to test her.

  There’s some paper on the sideboard and I bring a piece with me to the table. With my fork in my left hand as I eat, I begin a rough sketch.

  “Do you have to always draw at the table, love?” She’s joking, kind of. It used to be a standing joke – she always reads and I always draw and Dad would always tell us off for being unsociable. But it sounds a little hollow tonight.

  “I’ve got to keep practising, Mum – exams soon, remember?” She’s watching now and I make my strokes clearer, shading a feathered wing. She lowers her book, and I know I’ve got her full attention.

  “There was a marking in town today,” I say, keeping my eyes on my drawing.

  “Oh yes, I heard.” Her voice is calm, maybe a little higher than usual, but nothing noticeable. “It caused quite a stir – it was all anyone spoke about at readings today. I’ve not seen one of those. I didn’t even know they still took place.” Her fingers flick through the pages of her book, but when I glance up she’s looking right at me. “Was it well attended?”

  “It was busy.” I turn my paper round, so that I can work more closely on the beak. I know she’s still watching. “The man got a mark like this.” I slide my drawing across the wooden table and she brings it closer. Does she flinch, just a little? “It means he’s a ‘forgotten’. Scary, right?” Come on, Mum, just tell me. She spends time examining my picture, avoiding my gaze.

  “You’ll make an excellent inker, my little light,” she says, passing the paper back to me. “But I hope you never have to make a mark like that.” I make myself carry on drawing, adding texture to the feathers, willing her to say more. “I’ll come with you next time, if you like. Who was it?” she asks. “Anyone you recognized?” She gets up and takes her plate to the sink.

  “No. I’d never heard of him. But his crime was terrible. He stole someone’s skin.” I watch her back as she puts the plates into the sink and for a moment I think she goes still.

  I look again at the bird I’ve drawn. The crow looks at me with its dead eye and I screw the piece of paper into a tight ball and push back my chair. As I stand I see what Mum has been reading. The book of our fables lies open on the table; she’s been reading about the White Witch. While Mum’s attention is on the washing-up, I take the book upstairs with me and reread the familiar tale. Dad used to read this book to me all the time, way after I protested that I was getting too old for stories.

  Chapter Six

  The Sisters

  There was once a girl who was as good as she was beautiful. And she was very beautiful. She had golden hair and ruby-red lips. Her voice was like a thousand angels laughing, and her eyes sparkled like the stars in the heavens. People from the town would visit her home in the woods just to catch a glimpse of her lovely face. Her fame spread far and wide and her name, Moriah, was known throughout the land.

  Moriah had a twin sister. Now, the sister didn’t have golden hair or ruby-red lips, her voice wasn’t like a thousand angels laughing, and her eyes didn’t sparkle like the stars in the heavens. If you asked about her in the town, people would frown and say, “Oh yes. The sister…” but she left such little impression that no one could really remember her, except for a vague sense of unease. All they knew was she was not like the girl who was as good as she was beaut
iful, and they called the sister the ghost-girl, because no one could remember her name.

  Now the sisters had a father and he was a woodcutter. He had cut the wood that built their house. He cut the wood that built his wife’s coffin when she died, and he cut the wood that made the bed in which he slept and would soon die.

  The father wasn’t only a woodcutter though. He had been given two magical gifts at birth. The first gift promised that whatever he wished for on his deathbed would be granted, and the second gift was the power to tell tales that captivated the listener. He wove tales more beautiful than any tapestry. He told stories that made men weep and women fall in love. He told stories that broke hearts and mended souls. People would come to the woodcutter’s home to see his beautiful daughter, but they would stay for the stories.

  Each day he would tell a new story, and each day the ghostly daughter would write them down in her book. But there came a time when the stories got shorter and the storyteller’s voice got quieter. Until one day, the stories stopped and the woodcutter took to his bed.

  The woodcutter had lived a good life. He had been a kind husband and a fine father. But he had one regret: of all the stories he had told, he had never told his own. As he lay in bed, consumed by silence, he rued the days he had told stories of imps and kings, of fairies and fawns. His life was worth nothing if his story went to the grave with him. But his voice could not carry his tale and his life didn’t hold enough minutes.

  On the evening of his death, the woodcutter’s daughters sat with their father.

  “Oh, Father,” they said, “if only you would live.”

  But the woodcutter shook his head and the daughters cried hot tears.

  “Oh, Father,” said the daughters, “if you are to die – do you have voice enough to tell us your dying wish?” For they knew that his dying wish would be granted and they hoped he would choose it wisely.

  They gave him some water and he coughed and looked closely at their faces. He had saved just a few words for this moment. He knew what his dying wish would be and he knew that it would come true.

  “My dying wish,” he gasped, “is that your stories will be remembered. I wish that the stories of your lives will be part of you, that your stories go with you wherever you go and that you two girls are known for ever. That is my dying wish.” And with one final rasping breath, the woodcutter died.

  The daughters cried bitterly and their father was soon buried and mourned and longed for. But before much time passed, he was forgotten, and his name was rarely spoken, just as he knew would happen. His story had never been told.

  One day, soon after the woodcutter died, a prince was walking in the woods. He happened upon the sisters’ cottage and knocked on the door – enchanted by its prettiness. When Moriah, the twin who was as good as she was beautiful, opened the door, the prince fell immediately in love. The next day, he took Moriah to his palace to be his wife, and she was the talk of all the kingdom. The morning after they had married, the girl woke and smiled shyly at her new husband. He held her hand and gasped when he saw that it was painted. On her hand was a picture of their wedding day. She washed and washed her hand, but the picture never came off. Moriah told the prince of her father’s dying wish – and they agreed delightedly; this must be what he had wanted. Soon the girl and the prince grew used to the image and smiled at it as they remembered their happy day.

  With each new and special moment in her life, Moriah discovered a new and special mark upon her lovely skin. Every moment was recorded and there for all to see (if they only knew where to look). And it seemed that as the woodcutter’s prophecy came true, so prosperity was coming to the land. At first, the people were afraid to see their new ruler covered in pictures like ink. They feared that she was a sorceress who had bewitched their prince. But when the prince told the people of the woodcutter’s dying wish, and when they saw the harmony that the princess brought to the land, they were satisfied. For with their new princess the people enjoyed peace unlike any that had come before. The harvests flourished and the kingdom grew in wealth and power. This woodcutter’s daughter was soon the toast of the land, for surely she had brought them good fortune when she became their princess.

  When the young princess discovered she was with child, she asked her husband if he would allow her to visit her sister, who she hadn’t seen since the wedding day.

  “I wonder what tales her skin will tell,” Moriah said to her prince, for she knew her father’s wish had been for them both. The prince gave her horses and guards, and she went on her way, back to the cottage built by the wood of the trees her father felled.

  When the princess reached her old home, she saw the cottage was overgrown with ivy, and the garden had been taken over by thorns and weeds. Crows roosted in the trees around the cottage and cawed sharply as Moriah approached. She knocked on the door and was shocked when her sister opened it. It seemed that the years apart had made her plainer and increasingly ghostly. The sister had grown thin, and ever more unsightly. Her hair was as wild as the thorn bushes growing outside, and her eyes as dark as the stormy sky.

  But the sisters embraced and chattered and recounted tales from the years they had been apart. The princess lit a fire in the grate, and, as the cottage warmed up and the fire flickered to life, she removed her cloak. The sister responded with a gasp when she saw the golden-haired princess’s illustrated skin. Moriah showed her sister each mark and told each story. She sighed when she realized she was the only sister with marks.

  “I had thought you would be marked too. After all, Father’s dying wish was for us both. How curious.” And Moriah frowned.

  “I lead a quiet life. I have no riches, no husband, no splendour. Perhaps my skin is blank because my life is too,” the ghostly sister said quietly.

  The princess stayed until dusk, and then rode through the night, back to the palace. She returned perplexed and anxious about her blank sister. But soon her mind was distracted by the joy of feeling the first movements of her baby, and she forgot all about her sister for whom their father’s dying wish had not come true.

  As the day of the baby’s birth drew nearer, the prince and princess’s joy was marred by news coming from one corner of the kingdom. While the rest of the land flourished and the people rejoiced, there was a small pocket where it seemed that the princess’s good fortune could not penetrate. They looked on their maps and, with sorrow, Moriah saw that it was her hometown that refused to thrive.

  Messengers came telling tales of failed crops, sick livestock, barren women and fear. There was a curse upon the town.

  When the royal baby was born, the prince and princess discovered the curse’s cause.

  Family, friends and notable nobility gathered to celebrate the birth of a royal baby girl. The guests cooed over the baby and admired Moriah’s new mark, which had appeared the moment the baby was born. They gasped and clapped when they were shown the baby’s own birthmark; she had been born with her name imprinted in her skin. The blessing of the father’s dying wish had been handed down to the princess’s own daughter.

  But they had forgotten someone. Late in the day, before the sun was due to set, the palace became dark. Wind whistled through the great hall making candles flicker and snuff out. The guests shivered and clung to one another, hardly able to see in the dusky gloom. They all heard the door open and felt the icy air that whipped through the hall. They breathed in the smell of moss and fog and mould and ivy. The remnants of the wine on their lips tasted bitter and made them think of blood. And they saw a ghostly figure winding her way through the crowd, stroking fearful faces with her skeletal fingers, laughing at their frozen impotence.

  For Moriah had not invited her sister to the party; and yet, here she was. She brought her gift to the crib where the baby was sleeping; her gift was the promise of early death, of misery and frantic worry, of fighting with fate and losing every time. For she told her sister that her baby would die before she became an adult.

  And then, like fr
ost thaws after winter, the sister disappeared, leaving just a black crow feather in the baby’s crib.

  All that could be heard over Moriah’s screams were the frantic shouts of the prince.

  “Seize her! Seize the witch.”

  Days passed, then weeks and months, and no sign of the sister was found. But stories came trickling through the kingdom, until they flooded the palace with their horror. The sister had been poisoning the land for many years; she cursed the cows and their milk curdled, she stole secrets and broke families, she scared children and told them lies about their parents that made them feel unsafe in their beds at night. Her creeping, insidious ways had taken hold in that corner of the kingdom and the verdict was clear: Moriah’s blank and ghostly sister was, without doubt, a witch. This was why their father’s wish had not taken effect on her skin and in her heart; she had already given herself over to dark and more powerful magic.

  And so there was a royal decree. The town that had been ravaged by the witch’s curse would be cut off from the rest of the land. Walls were built and a feeling of safety reigned within the fortress. The blank woman – the White Witch – was banished, and, although no one ever saw her after the curse at the baby’s celebration, there were always rumours of ghosts in the woodcutter’s forest.

  And once again the kingdom flourished. The land was blessed and the people were happy. The prince and his beautiful princess ruled with wisdom and justice.

  Princess Moriah lived a long and happy life. You can read all about it from her skin. And ever since then, to maintain the peace that came from her rule, the people across the kingdom have written their stories on their skin. For, just like the woodcutter, they know their lives are worth nothing if their stories go with them to the grave.

  Chapter Seven

  I sit on my bed with the old story whispering in my ears. My room is nothing like Verity’s. I was never allowed to indulge my passion for pink, so the walls are white and impersonal. I used to be so jealous of Verity, but now I like it. I open the tall chest of drawers and get my sketchbook from where it’s hidden underneath my tops. Everyone does this – thinks about their future ink. We don’t get any say in our official marks, of course, the standard ones that everyone gets: our birth mark with our name, a new age dot each year, our family tree on our back and marks to record which immunizations we’ve had. We have lines of different lengths and colours to record the things we’ve achieved on our right forearm. Our left arm is reserved for our failures. A thin orange line is for someone who has failed to repay a debt, a red line for a thief, and a thick black line is for a killer, but I’ve never seen one of those. So far my left arm is still empty, but we talk endlessly about what our chosen marks will be. The first ones that we choose will explain who we really are.