Ink and Bone(6)

“Grandma, you need a new stove,” said Finley for the hundredth time. She caught herself sniffing for gas like her mother always did.

“Why?” said her grandmother, turning off the burner. “It still works. You don’t just get rid of an old thing because you want something new.”

“Yeah,” said Finley, “ya do.”

“Hmm,” said Eloise. “Maybe you do.”

Finley wrapped Eloise up in a hug from behind and squeezed gently. Her grandmother was small but powerful, giving off some kind of electricity even though she was skin and bones. Then Finley gave Eloise a big kiss on the cheek and released her.

“There’s nothing wrong with new things,” Finley said.

Eloise offered a patient smile as she brought the pan to the counter and slid scrambled eggs onto two plates. Finley’s stomach rumbled.

“Did you hear it this morning?” Eloise asked.

Finley nodded quickly as she grabbed the orange juice from the fridge. “Squeak-clink?”

“I thought it was something in the basement,” said Eloise. “But no.”

“Can we talk about it later?” Finley asked.

She could already hear it starting up again. She poured orange juice into cloudy glasses. I am in control of my awareness.

“Sure,” said Eloise. She knew the drill, changed the subject. “Are you ready for your exam?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Finley sat and Eloise put the plate of eggs, bacon, and fruit in front of her. She caught her grandmother’s eyes lingering on her bare arms. Even though Eloise didn’t say anything—and never had since the first day she discovered that Finley’s arms were sleeves of tattoos—Finley wished she’d worn her hoodie.

When she first got to The Hollows a little more than a year ago, she’d sought to hide the richly colored dragons and fairies, butterflies, graveyards, mysterious-looking women in long gowns, dark shadowy figures of men and ghouls, a witch burning at the stake, a vicious dog on a chain. Each piece of art on her body meant something—was someone or something she’d seen in her visions or dreams. She’d started getting the tattoos when she was sixteen and hadn’t been able to stop.

“Oh, Finley,” Eloise had said that day. “Your beautiful skin.”

“I’m sorry,” she’d said. She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for—for the tattoos, for hiding them, for shocking her grandmother. “But this is me. This is who I am.”

Eloise had rested a gentle hand up Finley’s arm. Some of the art on Finley’s body, which started at her wrists and snaked up her arms, over her shoulders and down her back, was still just a black outline at that point.

“It’s a work in progress,” said Finley.

“Meaning you’re getting more?” asked Eloise. “When are you going to stop?”

Finley had lifted a defiant chin. “When the outside looks like how I feel on the inside.”

Eloise had seemed to consider this. If anyone could understand how different was Finley’s inner life from her outer life, surely it would be Eloise. Who knew better than a renowned psychic medium that the world of the spirit was altogether other from the world of the body?

“Okay, dear,” Eloise had said. “I understand.”

They hadn’t discussed it much since then, and Finley didn’t seek to hide her tattoos any longer. At home with her mother, she would never even dare wear a tee-shirt—because Amanda had no boundaries whatsoever. Or rather, Amanda didn’t think that Finley deserved to have any. Amanda would stare and harp and moan about what Finley had done to her perfect skin, and how could she mutilate herself like that and what kind of life was she going to have and oh my God, what about your wedding day? Because everything was about Amanda and her anxieties, her need to have control, and her dashed expectations—even and maybe especially Finley’s life.

Eloise sat with her own plate. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Even though the temperatures were still warmish, Finley could feel the icy lick of winter in the air. When the roads got bad, she’d have to put the bike in the garage and borrow her grandmother’s Prius to get around.

“Yes,” said Finley. “Gorgeous.”

Finley’s mood was growing sourer by the second. That was the thing she still needed to figure out. The boundary setting? The pushing off until such time as she could devote her attention to their needs? It was completely exhausting and tended to make her cranky. As if she had to build a wall of stone every day, only to have it knocked down again.

“You’re going to do wonderfully,” said Eloise. Her grandmother grabbed her arm and Finley felt the warmth of her. She was a giver, a recharger. “At everything.”

Finley forced a smile, taking comfort in the fact that her grandmother was almost always right.


*

At the door, Finley pulled on her leather jacket and walked outside to her Harley-Davidson Sportster. The purple gas tank gleamed, filling Finley with a familiar tingle of excitement.

No one wanted her to ride a motorcycle—not Amanda, not -Eloise, not the woman in the black dress. Not even Jones Cooper, her grandmother’s occasional business partner, approved. At your age, you think the world forgives mistakes, he’d warned grimly. It doesn’t.