“Don’t ignore me.”
I pause, deciding what to do. Stay or go? The indecisive quiet feels like hours. He says nothing as he stands, then he reaches his arms around me. He isn’t a ghost, certainly. He feels solid, warm, slender, and firm. I don’t speak or move away. He smells of a forest, and his arms provide a sense of eternity. Whatever he wants, I am not afraid.
“So, you can touch me and you feel real . . . even when I’m not dreaming?”
He quickly releases me, almost pushing me away. “Enough.” He rubs his hands up and down his face. “I’m not here to get close to you.”
“You are doing a pretty good job of it,” I joke, fidgeting with the frayed edge of my T-shirt. “I mean, you’re in my bedroom every night.”
“It appears I still have some human instincts. Certain feelings transcend time, I guess.”
“What exactly are you?”
“A guide. A native spirit. Your mother sent me.”
I stare into his dark eyes and see years of my people fighting and running. I see the screams of women and the war cries of men.
“I don’t know how my emotional connections or physical connections affect things,” he says, “but I’m not here to find out.”
“Fall in love with him too, if you want. He also won’t last.”
We stand at the top of the stairs, and I wonder if he is as unwilling to end this moment as I am. I much prefer him in the daytime, even as the light is fading under the darkness of an oncoming thunderstorm.
“So,” he starts, “you’re going to get some coffee at Higher Grounds.”
“What? How do you know?”
“It’s my job to know. However, some things are predictable.” He tucks an errant strand of hair that didn’t make it into my ponytail behind my ear.
“To be honest, you seem to be the only unpredictable thing in my life. You could be who I need protection from.”
“No. Not me. Never me. The reservation needs you back when the time is right. And until that time, I have to keep you safe.”
“Why? Why do I have to go back? There is nothing there.”
“That is why you must go back. To put something back that is missing.” He looks at me sideways through a lock of dark hair. He leans in and kisses my cheek, before he is gone. A pocket of frigid air where he once stood envelops me as I walk down the stairs.
4
“Tylenol?” Max offers. “You look like you have a pounder of a headache.”
Max’s tall frame steps toward me, his reddish hair glows under the skylights of the kitchen. But over his shoulder is a pale-skinned, waifish figure with straight blue-black hair. She is delicately framed, yet not vulnerable looking. Her violet eyes seethe with anger and disgust at the two of us. Max, imposing and tall in his thrift store trench coat, seems dwarfed by the space she takes up in the room.
My eyes burn and my mouth tastes metallic as she looks at me. I try to point, but I’m frozen. Max quickly turns to see what has captured my attention. Nothing. He sees nothing. The angry girl disappears, fading around the edges until she becomes translucent and is gone.
“I will be back.”
* * *
We head to Max’s loft and I join Jenny on the couch. His living area is cluttered, but spotless at the same time, at least from what I can see in the warm light of the galley kitchen. One wall is nothing but shelves with old CD’s, iPod chargers, and music books piled everywhere. On the other side of the room, two battered skateboards lie next to a snowboard.
Max sits in a lounge chair and props his MacBook Air up on his legs.
My phone vibrates. It’s Layne.
“You haven’t answered your phone all day. I texted you all night.” He sounds a mixture of weary, confused, and annoyed. “Where have you been?”
I feel like my throat is closing in on me. “I finally slept late, and now we are just hanging at Max’s. Do you want to talk to him?”
“No,” he snaps. “I called you, remember?” His tone is sharp, but he sighs and his tone softens. “I miss you. Not to sound obsessed, but you are my light. Things are dark when I’m not with you.”
At first, I don’t know what to say. Max and Jenny are next to me, trying not to pay attention. I whisper into the phone as I walk away. “I don’t know that you see me for what I am, Layne. There’s a lot you don’t know about me. But I miss you too. I miss you being here.” I sigh and he laughs.
“He’ll never love the real you. Not when he sees all of you.”
Layne changes the subject and I am instantly more comfortable. “I’ve been thinking of my next tattoo. I’m getting psyched for more ink.”
“Where will you do it? Vegas? New York?”
“Ha-ha, but no. Stuart at The Black Line is one of the best. I like to support local businesses.”
“He did my mom, years ago.”
“Wild. I had a bizarre dream . . . really tripped out. The idea for the tattoo just came to me.”
“What was the dream?” In the corner of Max’s loft, I see the pale girl with dark circles under her eyes. She is on her toes, as if dancing ballet, her arms lifted over her head, fingers touching gracefully. She has no shoes. I shake my head, blink, and she’s gone.
“It was more of a feeling, really. It was as if my emotions found a form, an actual dimension in space.”
“He’s as crazy as you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve been crazy lately. Touring, hotels, diners, late nights. Half the time, I don’t know how I feel or where I am. Sometimes scared, sometimes pissed, sometimes ecstatic. But never in the right zone. And this dream . . . it was filled with things that were wrong or inverted—people with feathers for hair, markings on their skin, and vines on their bodies. The air was a mixture of colors. I could breathe in color. You know, unreal things.”
“Come home soon, Layne. I think you might be catching my dreams.”
“Soon, I’ll be there soon.”
* * *
“What is that?” I ask Stuart.
“Ink for Layne’s tattoo.” He lifts the bottle and pours some into a series of miniature paper cups. The shop is dim and I can’t quite make out the colors, but the liquid drops down like huge black tears from a bottle. I am so happy Layne is home for a week’s break from his tour, and after seeing me; the next thing on his mind was the tattoo shop. But when we both came in, Stuart had acted like we’d never met before. No eye contact, no greeting, no nod, nothing.
The machine hums as the needles touch Layne’s bare back.
“Do you want me to wait outside?” I ask. There is something sexy about watching the needles pierce the surface of his skin, but it’s almost too intimate.
“No. Stay.” His face is a mixture of concentration and pain.
“Are you okay?” I feel a need to move around now; my body is tingly and my legs feel numb. The room begins to smell strange, like heat and blood.
“And you think you can do this? That you can get your mother’s ink? Fool of a girl.”
“I’m good,” Layne manages between breaths. There is a fine line between the excitement and pain. Layne is in that place.
* * *
Layne comes to my house to rest. We go upstairs, and he walks with a slight stoop.
“Get rid of the bandage,” he says from between his clenched teeth.
“I can’t. I mean, you aren’t allowed. Doesn’t it need to heal more before it’s exposed to air and bacteria?”
“I don’t care. I can’t breathe with it on. It’s too tight.”
“Okay, hold still.”
He takes his shirt off and I peel back the bandage carefully. It’s damp, not with blood, but with pinkish-clear plasma, mixed with tiny spots of ink. “Your shirt will stick to your back if you put it back on. We should have left it on.”
“No. I’m glad it’s off. How does it look?”
“Painful. Sore. Red.” He motions for me to join him on my bed, as he stretches out on his stomach. “You
can take your shirt off too, if it would make you feel better.”
I crawl next to him, but am careful to avoid the shiny, red skin around his new crow tattoo. I blow on it gently; he winces as his skin tightens with goose bumps. The Celtic knots and pattern around the crow intertwine with arrows pointing in four directions, like a compass. Finally, a bridge of sparrows flies across his shoulder blades.
“Tell me everything about you, Sparrow,” he whispers. “The good. The bad. I want all of it. I feel like I am only getting the edges of you.”
“I’m just slow, Layne. It takes more time for me to connect to people.”
“The most important thing for you to know is you can trust me. Always.”
“He’ll never trust you. You can’t even trust you.”
* * *
Max, Jenny, Layne, and I squeeze in as much time together as we can, before Layne’s band, Junk Shot, starts touring again along the Southeast a week from now. Hopping onto the metro red line, we head to the National Gallery of Art. We enter the room that holds Edvard Munch’s Master Prints, and I can taste the mood of each piece.
Silently, we walk back and forth, studying and gazing. The colored prints and his hand-painted variations swallow me whole; the prints evoke basic human themes of birth and awakening, next attraction and love . . . then jealousy, separation, and death.
“Are you Catholic?” Max asks me as we leave the exhibit. “Or do you do the Blackfoot ceremonies?” His question doesn’t surprise me, as Max asks pointed questions of everyone.
“Well,” I begin awkwardly, with three sets of eyes and ears locked on me. “I am both, really—Catholic and traditional.”
“Traitor.”
Jenny walks closer and links her arm in mine. “Sometimes, I can’t help but feel guilty being part of the white Anglo culture.”
“Stop, Jenny, really. What’s funny is that Catholicism sort of mirrors the Blackfoot faith. ‘I am the Sun, the Moon, and the Morning Star’ refers to our creator, but it’s biblical in its trinity.”
“Do you pray?” asks Layne.
“Yeah, I pray. Everybody prays, even Atheists. They just lie to themselves about it afterward.”
5
I know the moment Mateo enters the house now. I can taste the cold and the heat of him. Finally, I feel the dark feeling of descent settling in my heart.
“Go.” I hear Mateo’s voice in my sleep. “Go to The Black Line.”
* * *
Jenny comes with me the next day. I’m embarrassed by my hesitation. I walk down the sidewalk. Stop. Look in a window. Stop. Nervously chatter. Stop.
Maybe it’s that I’m not ready, but something inside me feels like the tattoo will make me stronger. I remember being held by my mother, being swayed in her soft, warm arms. The colors of her tattoo dancing on her upper arm, while the wolf on her forearm protected me.
The dim lighting of The Black Line makes the dust look like fireflies when the outside light shoots through the blinds. Jenny and I blink, eyes adjusting as we step inside.
Stuart turns around. “What can I do for you?” He looks only at Jenny.
“It’s me,” I say loudly. “I am here to choose a design.”
Stuart circles toward me. He picks up each of my arms, twisting them over, looking at them up and down. He pulls up my sleeves and runs his palm along my skin. Then he drops my arms, as if they burn his hands, throwing them almost from his grasp.
“Do you want me to cover those cuts and scars? I don’t think I have to explain how you’ll wreck your ink if you cut yourself.”
“How dare you!” Jenny says in my defense, unaware of the truth behind Stuart’s words.
“He’s no fool.” I hear the voice whisper like a breeze through the room.
“Sparrow was in an accident,” Jenny hisses, with her chin to her chest and eyes glaring. “Asshole,” she mutters under her breath. Grabbing my arm, she heads for the door. “Let’s go.”
Stuart is nonplussed by my cuts and by Jenny’s outburst, as he knows the truth. “Do you want your back done instead?”
I gently untangle myself from Jenny’s grasp and follow him back to the drawings. Jenny stays in the front, glaring at Stuart. Large portfolios litter the table; plastic sheets cover intricate patterns and sketches.
“Listen,” he growls. “I will tattoo you. But don’t put me in a position to fail. And don’t waste the ink.”
“What are you talking about?” I stiffen, flipping through pages. “Put you in what position? I’m a paying customer and my skin is the same as anyone else’s.”
“You better wake up and realize it’s not. There is no room for error here. Your ink must be perfect. Perfectly timed and perfectly placed.”
“It will never happen. You are imperfectly you.”
* * *
Mateo lies on my bed, looking at me as I enter the room.
“Can you wear a bell or something?” I ask.
“I thought you were getting pretty good at sensing when I’m here.”
“Not today. I went to The Black Line.”
“Good,” he said, but then continued in my mind. “When the desire becomes too great, the night will not contain me. I will prowl in the sun like the others.”
“I hear you when you aren’t speaking aloud.” I slide over on my bed and breathe deeply, weary of his riddles and pretty words. Mateo glides next to me, pressing his hard body into my back. I look at him over my shoulder, reaching for his cheek. He feels cold. He feels like my mother when they covered her on the roadside. I feel so alone.
A tear falls, before a sob breaks free. The sound of my pain reminds me of a rain-soaked canyon. A growling noise comes from deep in Mateo’s throat. I stare at his lips—crimson and full of warning.
The sound of branches whipping against my window distracts me. We hear strange sounds outside, growling noises that aren’t from an animal.
“This is why you aren’t meant to be here for long.” Mateo slides out of bed and over the window. “This is why you need the ink as soon as you can tolerate its power.” He pulls the curtains closed.
Crunching sounds come from outside. Mateo backs up against the wall, peering through the crack in the curtain.
“What are you looking at?” I join him, looking down to the dogwoods, then back at Mateo as his eyes search the trees.
His eyes narrow at whatever is out there. His body stands still, fierce, and strong. “There are forces that seek to destroy you, to keep you from gaining strength.”
“I really wonder what you’re talking about.”
“You must choose your mark,” he says.
“My mark?”
“Yes, your ink. Time is running out.”
“Mateo, are you looking out for me or for something else?”
“For you and for all the things that go bump in the night. Always have. Always will.” His hands cup my face then glide down my arms and hold my hands. I step backward but stop, my hands still inside of his. “We are all afraid of the night, the dark, the unknown. Sometimes we’re just afraid of ourselves. We are our own worst enemy.”
“I don’t know what to be afraid of anymore.”
“Me,” the girl says. “Be very afraid of me. Be afraid of yourself.”
“Get some sleep. You have classes tomorrow.”
“Where will you be?”
“Inches away from you.”
* * *
I dream about my mother. She stands at the side of the road outside of the reservation. It’s snowing. Giant snowflakes fall in layers over her dark hair and glisten on her eyelashes. Wolves circle around her as she speaks. Her mouth moves but I hear no sound. I go back to a dreamless sleep, until I hear someone reciting Matthew 26:27.
“And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’”
My dream morphs.
“No, Sparrow,�
�� Father Saint Crow says. I see myself standing in front of him. Small. Young. Innocent. Looking at the cold stone of the sanctuary floor. I see myself as a girl in kindergarten: sagging knee socks, dusty shoes, too small of a dress, with my ponytail half fallen. “There is no one following you. No spirits, no ghosts. It’s your imagination. Ask God to forgive you for your sins and relieve you of your impure thoughts.”
* * *
I awake, and my bedroom feels like a block of ice.
Maybe Mateo isn’t the first one.
6
A quiet knock on the door sends me reeling. Butterflies attack my stomach as I fall into a hectic frenzy of sorting the dirty from the clean clothes in the heap on my floor. Jeans, check. Uggs, check. Light pink hoodie over a camisole, check.
I wrestle with the deadbolt and finally open the door. There he is. Layne. Mateo feels like a ghost as I look at Layne standing in front of me.
“Layne! I had no idea you were back!”
“Um. Good morning.” Layne smiles. Something is different, but I can’t put my finger on it.
“Good morning back at ya.” I open my arms and wrap them around his neck. He squeezes me in return, but quickly, with an added platonic pat on my back. Maybe the time away has made him lose interest? He’s probably here to tell me he’s met someone else.
“It’s just you. You are no good for him.”
“Let’s go for a hike. Okay?” Layne’s voice is tight. The muscles in his neck and jaw pop out as he clenches his jaw.
I mentally prepare myself for another loss. My nose runs and my eyes water, but I clear my throat and nod.
“The state park, Leesylvania?”
“Sure.”
As we walk in the direction of his car, I notice he walks several steps in front of me. His body language is disconnected. He opens his door and grabs his keys. The door slams. “We can walk to the trails. There’s no sense wasting gas.”
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