Ink in the Blood

by Kim Smejkal

  After the string of silent noise in her head died down—​his grandmother, surely; of all the luck—​Celia thought two coherent words:

  Damn and it.

  So preoccupied with convincing the hen, Celia hadn’t realized that the hen might have a chick. One who started the show and ended it. One who made Celia’s heart race and blurred edges until she doubted they’d ever existed. “What’s his name?”

  “The plague doctor.”

  “No—​what’s his name?”

  Lilac frowned, and her deep blue eyes tilted up to the rafters. “Ah! Griffin.”

  It had taken Lilac forever to remember.

  * * *

  When the party began after the main show, Celia searched for the plague doctor. To unmuddle him, convince him. He held more sway over their fate than she’d thought. She went to the main stage, assuming he’d be there again, dancing, pressing, laughing.

  But she kept getting foiled by her newfound popularity; everyone wanted to dance with the devil.

  As she spun clumsily around in strangers’ arms, the plague doctor’s white mask appeared then disappeared. Each time she danced her way to where she’d seen him last, he’d conveniently moved to the other side of the stage. Because it was too obvious to be coincidence, it pissed Celia off in rising degrees.

  On the cusp of exploding, she dipped under her dance partner’s arm, being careful with the curled horns that seemed hell-bent to get in her way with every spin, and ungracefully rammed into a chest.

  “May I cut in, good soul?” the plague doctor boomed, the phantom megaphone back in place in his throat. He didn’t wait for Celia’s partner to answer. One of his gloved hands lightly pressed into the small of her back while the other barely touched her fingers. Every inch of her skin exploded, and she’d never felt more awkward inside it.

  Still, it became the most fluid dance Celia had done all night.

  Aside from the white mask he wore, the two were uninterrupted black. No one watching would be able to tell where the devil ended and the plague doctor began.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said when she recovered use of her tongue, squinting into the lenses of his mask, looking for a flutter of eyelid to ground herself.

  “Oh, most definitely.” So loud. Always smiling. Looking around at his ever-present audience.

  “Why?”

  “Because I needed to think some things, and you distract me.”

  She couldn’t figure out whether that was a compliment or an insult, then realized that she truly shouldn’t care. “Our act is good. We’ll fix it up, no more glass needs to be smashed.”

  “Yes. You’re talented.” They swept along in graceful circles. “I can’t argue with that. The crowd lapped you up like kittens with warm, fresh milk.”

  Celia should have been relieved, but that underlying current of opposite still lingered.

  “But—”

  It was a long-drawn-out But—​

  Celia’s heart didn’t know what to do with itself. Full stop? Flutter madly? A little of both? And she didn’t know if her reaction came from a surge of hope, fear of the plague doctor’s but—, or fear of the plague doctor himself.

  He dipped his head so the tip of his hat touched the heavy brow of her mask, his beak pointing straight down between them. If she’d puckered her lips, she could have planted a kiss on the bridge of his white beak. So aware of himself, he gave her the angle she wanted; though still shadowed behind lenses, his eyes became visible.

  He smiled, but his words were tight. “There’s something strange about your act. Something different. And not good different.”

  “We’re not bad different, we only want to be Rovers.” You’re such a lying liar who lies, Celia Sand.

  “I didn’t say it was you. I said it was your act.”

  So, not her, but exactly her. She gritted her teeth and pressed a little closer, as if proximity would force him to make sense.

  The line of his jaw flexed as he smiled. “Seer’s cards might still save us, I suppose. Though the bigness of this feels too much for the tarot to handle.”

  “Well, if Kitty Kay wants us, we’re staying, Griffin.”

  At that, he froze. “Yes, she wants you,” he said after a pause, “despite my reservations.”

  Celia almost whooped, and she never whooped. Freedom! Anya, we did it!

  Then he dazzled her with his opposite smile. The line of his mask drew her gaze down to those delicious lips of his. An infuriating wave of goose bumps rolled over her skin, puckering everything up. “And I’m the plague doctor.”

  The wild butterflies in her stomach had joined her mind bees, and she laughed, trying to calm her insides down. “Well, we’re either Celia and Griffin or the devil and the plague doctor. You decide, but make the right choice: you’re either dancing with a person or dancing with the devil.”

  She named his language Riddlish and vowed to master it.

  He tensed, not in an uncertain way, but in a fighting way. Someone fluent in Riddlish wouldn’t appreciate being cornered by Riddlish threats.

  “Well played, Celia Sand.” The plague doctor had either spat out the tiny megaphone or swallowed it, for his words came out as soft as a whisper.

  Unexpected enough to startle her.

  “We’ll have to see how this plays out, won’t we? Welcome to the Rabble Mob.”

  He dropped his hand, inserted his performer’s megaphone, and Celia was in another’s arms before she could even get her lungs working again.

  Chapter 9

  The rest of the night passed in a blur.

  Celia had no time to figure out whether she was celebrating or delirious. She laughed and danced until she ached from foot to throat. She flirted like a devil, giving the people what they craved. She caught glimpses of Anya throughout the night. The angel was as much in demand as the devil.

  The gates closed, and the noise died.

  In the sudden silence, Celia would have floated away if not for Anya’s hand pulling her toward Seer Ostra’s wagon. The last hurdle to overcome: Kitty Kay’s insistence that Seer consult the tarot.

  With each card that she flipped, Seer’s countenance became a little less guarded, until eventually her frown softened. Lupita had once shown them a book of fantastical creatures of the world, and Seer Ostra gave Celia a clear impression of a sloth: slow and deliberate, placid and gentle. She wondered if Seer hadn’t posed in a tree for the sketch so the artist could get the perfect rendering.

  After reading the spread, Seer sat back and folded her large, blunt hands in her lap. “Three of Cups, Page of Cups, Six of Wands, The World, The Fool, The Chariot, Ace of Pentacles, The Sun . . . I couldn’t have organized a more fortuitous spread if I’d planned it out ahead of time.” Her gaze took forever to get to Kitty Kay. The lines to see her each night must stretch long not from popularity, but due to slothness. “I can see no ill omen at all.”

  Good!

  But too good? The plague doctor’s words buzzed in Celia’s head, much harder to dismiss now that the cards were so favorably skewed. The cards might save us, but this feels too big for tarot to handle.

  Even Seer Ostra had no explanation. “No confusion. The message is as clear as still water.” She tilted her head back, as if ramping up for a monster of a sneeze, but wheezy laughter erupted from her wide mouth instead.

  Buzz, buzz, buzz, went the plague doctor’s message. Not quite Something enough to be concerned about, but not quite Nothing enough to completely ignore, it became an annoying fly among Celia’s bees.

  Seer Ostra’s card reading felt like lies.

  * * *

  While Seer Ostra, Kitty Kay, and Lupita sank deep into a bottle of wine, Celia grabbed the pile of cards and snuggled into Anya. Bad form, terribly bad form, touching another person’s tarot uninvited, but desperate times . . .

  She had no idea how to read tarot, but they were cards with pictures, and she understood pictures. She cut the deck three times (that seemed about the r
ight amount) and then pulled one card out.

  A black sky background, with lightning striking a stone tower perched on a craggy peak. Flames engulfed the top and poured out the windows, gray smoke billowed, and a golden crown floated through the sky as if it had been knocked off the tower by the lightning.

  A message Celia could rally behind. Though she couldn’t fathom how two inklings joining a theater troupe could cause such destruction, maybe she could hold it up as something to strive toward. Huzzah, Profeta falls!

  But Anya’s breath caught.

  Two figures fell from the tower. Two poor souls, not having much fun at all as they plunged to their deaths.

  Celia replaced the card and put the deck back on the table. Anya found something interesting to admire out the window.

  That card felt like truth.

  * * *

  When they emerged from Seer’s wagon, the Mob had already packed most of the wagons and hitched the horses. Mud licked their boots from the late-night deluge of rain.

  Lupita wound an arm around Celia’s and Anya’s shoulders, pulling them away from Kitty Kay. “I’ll miss you.” Lupita spoke softly, uncharacteristically crooning. “Maybe, when the time comes that you can fully enjoy your freedom, you’ll remember me fondly. I’ve owed you for all the horrors I put you through before I woke up. With this, perhaps, my debt is paid.”

  She squeezed their shoulders, smushing them both to her chest. “Wish I could come, but I like my swaying home on the water and my good company too much.”

  “Gin, you mean,” said Celia.

  Lupita cackled her way back to the Lupita they knew. “A friend of mine has been dabbling in the art of homing pigeons. Okay, fine, he isn’t a friend as much as a neighbor I spy on. His hobby is wonderfully loud and entertaining. I’ll extend an olive branch to him and his birds when I get home. Keep your eyes on the skies for little purple messengers.”

  Celia didn’t have the heart to tell Lupita that messenger pigeons flew home, not toward roving caravans and back again.

  Vincent gestured for them to join him in front of the main stage. Without his Palidon costume and face paint, he looked like a regular person, despite those crystal-clear eyes, perpetually downturned mouth, and the fact that he still hadn’t uttered a word.

  Celia spied Sky on their stilts at one side of the main stage, Caspian on the other, and glimpsed a few other faces behind curtains and under floorboards. The rest of the Rabble Mob swarmed around the front, where Lupita, Celia, Anya, and Vincent stood, pressing close together.

  Some custom was coming, this time with two little inklings included. Celia held her breath.

  “Sastimos futura,” Kitty Kay cried.

  The Mob responded with a deafening roar, “Sastimos futura!” The assault of sound boomed in Celia’s chest.

  Vincent smiled down at her as she registered his voice for the first time. “Sastimos futura! Sastimos futura!”

  Anya chanted loudest of all. Everyone, including the mime on her arm, pushed fists into the rain and demanded another day, a healthy future, as the main stage came down.

  It folded like paper instead of wood: walls disappeared under others, boards hinged back and forth like fingers lacing together, curtains disappeared into cupboards that disappeared into other cupboards, new walls came up. They chanted to their collective future until the stage was completely transformed into the largest wagon of them all, ready to roll away with them through the muck.

  “I love that part,” Vincent whispered.

  Celia nodded, but couldn’t answer. She glanced over her shoulder toward the temple, but heavy clouds and darkness obscured most of its massive silhouette. Instead of screaming stones, water torture, and dagger slashes, her thoughts went to Zuni and warm freckles, Wallis and the other fleas snuggled on their cots, Teresia in the kitchen sneaking her honey kisses, even stupid Dante and his stupid, haughty opinions.

  She pushed the images away, picturing instead the marble statue of the Divine crushing Diavala and the harsh mistico who used those images to demand allegiance. One last glare-off to bid farewell to everything she hated. “Sastimos futura.”

  Vincent fished something out of a deep pocket. “We have a gift for you.” The Mob continued chanting as Vincent took her wrist. Gently, as if afraid to startle a bird, he looped a slim braided rope around her wrist, then around her pinky finger, before tying it off. It rested right beside her tattered leather bracelet from Salome. She hadn’t noticed before, but the same bright purple and blue bracelet graced his own wrist. He did the same for Anya, connecting her pinky to her wrist with a thin road of fabric. “Everyone in the Mob wears one.”

  He touched the cord on Anya’s finger, then followed the trail up to the circle around her wrist. “It tethers us together, and then to the world, so we don’t lose ourselves to our own fantasy.”

  “Beautiful,” Anya whispered. She met Celia’s eyes, no doubt thinking of the inked line around their ankles. This one was warmer. Not delivered with pain. And they’d chosen it instead of it being forced on them. Anya’s earnest look said Maybe this cancels the other one out, Cece.

  Vincent nodded and shrugged, pink coloring his pale cheeks. “It’s not much of a welcome, but then again, we’ve never really had anyone to welcome before.”

  Standing apart from the Mob beside the horses, the plague doctor stared at them. He’d chanted nothing.

  Chapter 10

  One truth Celia and Anya had completely forgotten to take into account?

  The reality that to escape by wagon, you had to travel by wagon.

  Wagons moved a lot like ships.

  They swayed.

  They rocked.

  They bumped.

  They listed.

  Anya’s stomach did much the same.

  Celebrating their escape involved much more retching than Celia had anticipated. Seer Ostra’s wagon didn’t smell much like old fortuneteller and incense anymore. From the bedroll in the corner, Seer Ostra sighed. Poor thing. Probably cursing her beloved cards for welcoming such terrible, smelly company.

  The caravan creaked to a stop, and Anya tripped over herself trying to escape into the night for fresh air.

  “We’re only an hour in,” Seer Ostra said.

  Celia’s bees began buzzing an alarm, and she launched herself at Anya’s leg, grabbing her before she could reach the door. “Seer?”

  “The caravan travels in set blocks of time. Ten hours plus one minus five.”

  Anya gave up trying to get outside, grabbed a discarded cook pot, and heaved.

  “Always?” Celia asked, standing and creeping to the window. Darkness, rain, more darkness, mud. Figures moved farther up the caravan, soggy and misshapen.

  “Always.”

  Someone holding a large umbrella stepped out of the head wagon. Kitty Kay.

  The someone next to Kitty juggled a plum and periwinkle flame in his outstretched hand. The plague doctor.

  With the plague doctor’s light, the formless figures became robes Celia recognized very well, though she’d never seen them so colorful as under the flickering of the plague doctor’s fire.

  A checkpoint. “Seer, may I please douse your lanterns?” Celia asked. Anya lifted her head from the pot, alarmed by the forced calm in Celia’s voice.

  A long, burdened sigh rose from the tangle of blankets. “Yes.”

  Celia moved quickly to the sound of Seer’s long yes. Anya’s chest heaved with her sickness, but her mouth stayed shut. She nodded as Celia blew the last candle out.

  Outside, the conversation upped in urgency. Arms waved around. A beaked face nodded. One mistico reached out, as if to lift the plague doctor’s mask, but a leg swiped out and the mistico found himself kissing mud. The smiling plague doctor shrugged, as if to say, Whoops, I slipped. Kitty Kay helped the mistico stand, and the plague doctor produced a bright handkerchief from nothing to wipe at his face.

  Their thorough ministrations in cleaning off the muddy mistico stretched on, looking
suspiciously similar to showtime.

  “There’s a trapdoor under your feet, devil.” Seer Ostra’s voice rose over Celia’s stuttering heart. “You may hide with my root vegetables if—​and only if—​the angel gets control of her cursed stomach. I will not spend tomorrow scrubbing vomit off my potatoes.”

  * * *

  As soon as the caravan stopped, five hours later, Anya lurched outside for fresh air. Celia, on the other hand, had some trouble controlling her limbs. She and Anya had trembled among those potatoes for an hour, listening to Seer’s sonorous snores. Then, when heavy footsteps clomped above their heads and the wagon shook with the mistico’s violent search, drowsy Seer had calmly offered sweet buns and a free card reading to the mistico who grilled her about two runaways from the temple. Interestingly, they didn’t mention that the runaways were inklings. After the wagon had begun its slow crawl again, Seer yelled “Sastimos futura!” loud and long before falling immediately back to sleep.

  Anya and Celia stayed in the cramped cellar. Celia had wanted, desperately, to look out a window and watch the world outside change, but they were both too busy crying. It had become real as soon as the troupe covered for them—​no longer temple property, something else now.

  Without preamble, she and Anya had been scooped up and cradled.

  But what were they, then, except these orphaned, cradled things? For the first time, they could be anything. They had the world.

  A world they had no idea about.

  After Anya had fallen asleep on her chest, Celia absently thumbed the scars between Anya’s fingers. Anya was ten years old when she got her first slashes, punishment for taking too long with a tattoo, just after they’d graduated from fleas to inklings. The flow of blood had felt infinite, the red alarmingly bright as it coated her hand like a glove. The mistico wielded those dagger blades with precision: punishment was necessary, but it couldn’t permanently disable. “It’s love?” Celia had said to Anya, trying to console her friend as she cried. The mistico used it as an explanation for everything, and it sounded so good.