by Marian Gray
I sighed. “It’s not about the color, age, or tradition behind the dress. I simply want to wear something that is me. Something that is comfortable and… agile”—I plucked through several of the dresses black layers—“In case I turn out to be a flup and need to book it back home.”
That last remark didn’t go over too well. We all feared that I might be another black smudge on the family tree. Except, they refused to face the possibility, while I had to. It was my life, my future. The best way I could cope was through humor.
They had kept me under lock and key in the Ebenmore mountainside manor, afraid to release me out into society should the dreadful come to pass. They figured it was safer no one knew about my presence until my status as a blackhand was confirmed. I agreed with their judgement, but it did induce a bit of stir-craziness.
I hugged my knees to my chest as I perched on the cushioned bench, peering out the large circular window. Below me spilled an entire city that wrapped and twisted around the tall mountain tops. Houses teetered over the cobblestone streets, creating eye-catching archways and passageways that piqued my curiosity. The city was an architectural matchup of Victorian and Brownstone. Soot, umber, and mauve dominated the landscape with evergreens towering over chimney tops and steeply pitched roofs.
I had stared at the scene nearly every day since I had arrived. It kept me focused on my goal and reminded me why I was here whenever boredom began to erode my intentions. Once I had my hands unlocked, the city would become my playground—at least for the summer.
I sighed and peeled myself from my seat, desperate to find something else to occupy my mind until the tattoo artist arrived. My bedroom was comfortable but empty. It lacked any kind of quirk or personal touch and served more as a museum for antiques than a welcoming place to sleep, but the view of Rotterpool was the best in the house.
I strolled into the hallway and dragged my fingers across the ebony chair rail as I sauntered down, deeper into the house. I kept my steps light as to not disturb my aunt and uncle. They were rather jumpy about where I ventured in the home. Anytime I neared a room that wasn’t the kitchen, living room, bathroom, or my bedroom, I was met with a round of questioning.
My eyes slipped along the walls as I roamed past portrait after portrait of unknown figures. I had done this routine many times, counting the doors and the golden frames as I went along. There were eight total rooms on the second floor, but as I reached the end of the hall, that number rose somehow to nine… which couldn’t be right. I had prowled the hall and counted the doors at least a dozen times by now, and on each occurrence, there were exactly eight doors. I couldn’t have missed a ninth door every time.
It wasn’t positioned in an odd or inconvenient spot either. It stood in its frame as though it had always been there, and I couldn’t remember what had been in its place before.
I stared at its ominous ebony face for what felt like minutes before I mustered up the courage to chase my curiosity. My hand gripped the brass doorknob and gave it a slight twist. I half expected it to be locked, but the door drew open with little effort.
Before me spilled a room unlike any I had ever seen. The ceiling was painted a deep shade of navy with golden constellations scattered across the surface. It was an exact replica of the night sky with a cloudy milkyway spilling through it, interrupted by white dots with names attached them. I didn’t recognize any of them, but one caught my eye—Zeineb Ebenmore. It twinkled in the soft firelight that poured from a large hearth.
The mantle was topped with several small busts and crowned by a large painting framed in ornate gold. The artwork was vibrant, capturing a small group of people with an impressionist flare. Two mis-matched armchairs stood before the fireplace. One was tall, covered brown leather, and wing-backed, while the other was round, upholstered with a floral pattern, and accompanied by fringe and a footstool.
Cabinets filled with oddities lined one wall, while an unusual piece of art draped along its opposing wall. The top of it started at the ceiling, and the bottom only reached the dark chair rail. Names and faces sat atop leaves and branches that collided and dipped down the length of the tapestry like vines.
I walked over to the cloth scene and peered closer. There were a bunch of names I didn’t recognize, but one I saw all repeated over and over was Ebenmore. It was a family tree. A textile record of everyone born and married into the family dating all the way back to the 1700s with space to grow at the bottom. It appeared as though each generation had been added on as they arrived. The thread and hue changed every forty years, even the consistency in the weave was different.
My finger slid down the cloth, feeling the centuries until at last I found myself all the way at the bottom. My face and name stood alone in my generation, centered in the tapestry as though everyone before me had drained and compiled into one singular person: me.
“How did you find this room?”
I jumped at the sound of Uncle Hank’s voice. “You nearly give me a heart attack.” I pressed a hand to my heart, feeling the hard thump on my palm. “And I didn’t find it. It was just there, in the hallway.”
He sighed. His head tipped back and eyes clothed. “I can’t believe I forgot to lock up. This is the family room. It is sacred. It isn’t a room I enjoy having individuals rummage through.”
“I wasn’t rummaging. I was looking at the family tree. That’s it. And why am I the only one at the bottom?” I pointed to my name.
“What do you mean?” He crossed the room, joining me where I stood.
“I mean, where are my cousins?”
“You don’t have any.” He shook his head.
His words cut through me deeper than I would’ve ever thought possible. My stomach dropped to my toes and spun itself into knots. “What?” I mumbled, unable to speak louder than a whisper.
“You’ll be the last Ebenmore, I’m afraid.” His breath stifled. “I just haven’t mustered up the courage to hire someone to weave the bottom border of the tapestry and finish it.”
“How can I be the last?” There were plenty of people above me. “Or do you just mean the last of this direct line?”
His hands slid into his pockets and eyes darted to the ground. “No, I mean the last. Most of the people that you see here have a death date attached to their names or lack a dot beside it. The color of the dot tells whether they were a blackhand or a whitehand.”
Starting at my great-grandmother, the dots beside names faded the farther one went down the tree. It looked dreary when compared to the top which was splattered with black.
I couldn’t ignore how many of my family members were already deceased. My own grandfather had died a year after my mother was born. He was only twenty-six. My grandmother died just fourteen years later. And I had never known that I had an uncle, Pieter. He passed away right before my mother’s nineteenth birthday.
Her whole family was dead.
“Why has everyone passed away?”
“The world changed. A new order took control” he answered. “The party came into power in the late 30s.” He pointed to the time period on the tapestry. “If you look, that’s when everybody begins to die, young and fast. I’m one of a handful that have managed to live past thirty-five.”
“But why? What is the party doing that’s killing everyone?”
“War. We aren’t the only magical beings in the world, and the party didn’t like that.”
Before the 1930s, many of my ancestors lived into their eighties, nineties, and a few even surpassed one hundred.
“What’s that?” I asked. There was a little phrase woven below some names and dates. “Why do some of them have ‘Imperial Black’ beneath their portraits?”
“Because they were members of the Imperial Black.” His voice was terse.
“It looks like nearly the entire family was a part of the Imperial Black.” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. The way Aunt Margot spoke about the organization the other day, I thought they were something awful and evi
l?”
“It’s difficult to explain. It’s best you forget you ever saw it. The family has worked hard to distance themselves.”
“Zuri!” Aunt Margot’s voice bellowed from below. “Zuri, please come down here.”
“Oh! That’s your aunt. I bet Lakshmi’s arrived.” He seemed beyond relieved to get me out of the room.
I surrendered and exited to the hallway, but this wasn’t over. I wouldn’t forget what I saw on that tapestry, and one day, he would provide me with a proper answer.
I found my aunt and a young woman, who I assumed was Lakshmi, in the kitchen’s breakfast nook. She wore a pair of black sweatpants with a peach colored crop top tucked beneath a teal blue saree. Long, braided black hair rode over her shoulder and stopped just at her waist. I couldn’t quite place her age, but her face seemed very childlike in composition—round, soft, and innocent.
“Zuri, why aren’t you wearing the dress?” Aunt Margot folded her arms across her chest.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I told you I didn’t want to wear it. I want to wear my own clothes. They’re all black though, as you stated was important.”
“What is about to happen here isn’t just important but divine in nature, Zuri. Hallowed and spiritual. A black shirt and leather pants are not appropriate attire for such an affair.”
“I agree,” the young woman added. “Your outfit is distasteful. You should do as your aunt says and wear the dress.”
Heat seared beneath the surface. My outfit wasn’t distasteful, just modern with an edge. “If this is so divine, then why am I getting tattooed by someone who looks like a child? Shouldn’t the person holding the gun have some experience? This will be on me for the rest of my life, and I don’t want to have sloppy lines or poor artistry.”
Margot’s jaw unhinged slightly. “Zuri, what’s gotten into you?”
“Teenagers.” Lakshmi rolled her eyes. “And Margot, I don’t remember red hair running in the Ebenmore family.”
“It doesn’t,” Margot said. Her eyebrow cocked, inquisitive.
“Good, because it isn’t that flattering.” Lakshmi smirked at me, proud of her personal dig. “Where would you like me to set up?”
Margot stared at her for awhile, taken aback by her comment before mumbling, “Wherever is most comfortable for you. And Zuri—” Margot turned her attention to me. “Go upstairs and get changed.”
I shook my head. “No, if I’m to get my hands unlocked, I’m going to be doing it wearing what I want to wear.”
“Well,” Lakshmi began as she pulled metal needles and several jars of black ink out of her bag, “I don’t think anyone will question whether or not she’s an Ebenmore with that brash stubbornness.”
“I’m not dealing with this. It’s not my family name and tradition.” Aunt Margot flicked her hand as though she were swatting the matter away. “But I will be letting your uncle know about your attitude.” She strode out of the dining room before another word could be said. Her kitten heels clicked across the hardwood floor, carrying her heft frame.
I shrugged. It wasn’t as though Uncle Hank were going to come downstairs and start stripping me. They couldn’t force me to wear the dress.
“Are you always this rude or is it just because you’re nervous?” Lakshmi asked.
I side-eyed her. “I wasn’t being rude. I simply don’t want to wear the dress. If anyone was rude, it was you, sticking your nose into a conversation where it didn’t belong—not to mention, the attacks on my appearance.”
Lakshmi didn’t respond but continued to set up her workspace on the kitchen table. The last bit of equipment to be hauled out of her bags was a jar of some clear thick substance.
She ignored me. “Ready to begin?” Her face relaxed, inviting me to the table, yet there was still an ever present strictness in her eyes.
“Aren’t you supposed to use a machine?” I asked, joining her at the table. I couldn’t help but notice the lack of instruments.
Atop a paper cloth rested a scalpel-looking blade, several small syringes, nearly ten jars of black ink, a small pot of an oily-looking substance, and an array of hypodermic needles.
Her black eyebrow cocked for a slight moment before dropping down back to normal. “Ah, the undermen.” She shook her head. “No, you won’t be getting that type of tattoo. We aren’t beautifying, we’re unlocking.”
“Will it hurt?” It appeared as though she were about to perform surgery.
“Everyone’s different.” Lakshmi shrugged. “Hands, please.”
I stretched out my arms and pressed my palms flat on the wooden surface. Lakshmi wiped a wet cloth across the skin, cleaning away any dirt or debris. Her touch was delicate, as though she were afraid the skin would slough away from a tighter grip. She angled my hands this way and that, the three black eyes on her own flesh staring back at me.
“My family has been tattooing yours for centuries.” Lakshmi withdrew a small circular piece of glass from her bag and held it an inch from my knuckles. “They met in Kolkata while Roman Ebenmore was working for the East India Company.” She set the piece of glass down. “This is going to hurt.”
She leaned forward in her chair, and her finger pressed right in the center of my forehead slightly above the eyebrows. The area warmed and something was pulled through the surface like a nestled splinter being tweezed. It stung. When she pulled her hand away, a liquid trailed down the bridge of my nose. I touched it and bright red stared back at me.
“Am I bleeding?”
“When you take an essence from a human body, the skin can tear.” She said it so nonchalantly. “But it’s necessary.” Her index finger slipped into the jar of oil, stirring as she whispered, “Sni aks.” A visible sheen built in the liquid. “Are you ready?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Don’t I need to pick out a design or something.”
She shook her head. “The essence does it for you.”
I stared at her. I had no idea what that meant, but I let it be. “Then, I guess I’m ready.”
“Good.” She pulled her finger from the jar of oil and tapped the central eye on her other hand. The black symbol blinked sleepily, waking up. I gasped as I looked up and met Lakshmi’s eyes. They had gone completely black.
“What the—”
Lakshmi stared up at the ceiling. “Keep your hand flat on the table. The design is coming to me.” Her eyes closed gently. And we sat in silence for a few moments before her lids reopened. Her fingers plucked the scalpel and dipped the blade in the oil. “I will begin the outline.”
Before I had a chance to ask a single question, the tiny knife was on my skin. It sliced through the top layers of flesh with an unbelievable grace, stinging like a sharpened pencil’s tip being dragged across my hand, but not once did I bleed.
We must have sat there for at least thirty minutes as she carved my one hand. I watched her, struggling not to squirm beneath the irritating pain.
“How are you holding up?” Uncle Hank’s voice emerged from the kitchen entrance, soft and unassuming.
I sighed. “It’s not… bad just extremely uncomfortable. Why have you been hiding?”
“Next hand.” Lakshmi demanded, not glancing up from my skin.
“I wasn’t hiding.” He huffed, taking a step closer. “It’s just that the process makes me a little queasy, and my stomach is already tight from nerves.”
If I wasn’t in pain, I would’ve shot him a teasing grin. He was such a delicate man. “Eee!” I hissed as the blade cut deeper, sending the nerve-endings aflame. Blood pooled around her knife.
Uncle Hank winced, and he had to look away. “Black and white, save me.”
Once Lakshmi had completed the line, she blotted the surface. “Hold still.” I wasn’t moving though.
Hank swallowed hard before glancing back to me. “Are you still feeling alright? You look a little pale.”
I nodded, taking a deep breath. “I feel fine.” My skin was just on fire. “And if anyone looks a little pale
, it’s you.”
He grabbed a nearby dish towel and dabbed his forehead before joining me at the table with cloth still hand. “As I said, I don’t handle these well. I’m not the one who usually sits with person getting tattooed, but seeing as there’s no one else…” His words drifted off on a sorrowful note.
“Thank you, I’m glad you decided to come down and be with me.” It didn’t bother me either way. I was capable of being a big girl and sitting there with Lakshmi and her alien-esque black eyes.
Uncle Hank patted my shoulder before slumping in his chair. His stomach jiggled and a tiny airy burp blew past his lips. “It’s a good thing I never wanted to be a physician.” He rested his hands on his belly, and I stared at the tattoos along his skin. They were so intricate and fragile in design. I had never seen mehndi on a man before, but it was beautiful. A small spark of pride bloomed inside of me as I examined the weaving patterns. This was the art form my family had adopted long ago. Something that nearly everyone who came before had worn, and I had a hunch Lakshmi’s ancestors were the ones who had led us there, baptizing our hands in the sacred ink.
We sat in silence until Lakshmi had finished carving my skin. She set down her small scalpel and uncapped one of her ink jars before selecting the smallest of her needles. “This is the ink for the outline. If it starts burning, say something. You should only feel pressure.”
Uncle Hank leaned forward in his seat, holding his breath. His grip tightened on my shoulder. “May the black ink hold.” He said it like a prayer.
Lakshmi drew ink into the cylindrical glass barrel, filling it halfway. She brought the metal tip to my skin. It met one of the grooves she had just carved. Then, without warning, her thumb pressed down on the plunger, injecting the ink into the fresh cut. Black bloomed from the needle and filled in the thin outline of my unknown design.
“Any burning?” Lakshmi asked.
I shook my head. It didn’t burn per se, but there was a noticeable tingle, as though my hand had fallen asleep and was just now waking. An unavoidable and irritating static rippled just beneath the surface of my skin.
