The Tattooed Heart (Messenger of Fear 2)

Ariadne, whose fate had been concealed from Messenger. For his own good? Possibly. As some part of his own punishment? Perhaps.

“Yes,” Messenger said at last and lowered his head to avoid my eyes.

“You . . . She was a . . . She did something wicked,” I said.

“Yes,” he said tersely.

“You were sent to offer her the game.”

“Yes.”

“And she lost.”

He nodded.

“That must have been . . . That must have been the worst thing in the world for you,” I said.

No response. His eyes were not seeing me but some other place, and some other face.

“Did she . . . What happened to her? After, I mean.”

“All this has been concealed from me. I knew her, I . . . I loved her. Before, you understand, before I became this.” He waved a hand that encompassed his body. I took it that he meant he had known and loved her before he became the Messenger of Fear. Back when Messenger and Ariadne had just been a boy and a girl.

“You must know if she survived,” I pressed.

“The fates of all who endure a visit from the Messenger of Fear are few: they recover and go on with their lives however damaged and transformed they may be, or else . . .”

“The Shoals?”

He closed his eyes and kept them closed for so long I would almost have thought he slept but for the labored way he drew breath, each exhalation shuddering ever so slightly. At last he regained control of his emotions, opened his eyes, and said, “I have not visited the Shoals since. Please don’t ask any more.”

He was done talking about it. What could I do but respect his right to keep at least some secrets?

I went back to the sink and scrubbed the stain, working the milk and jelly out of the fabric. I drained the sink, wrung the shirt out, filled the sink with clear water, and rinsed it.

I wanted desperately to ask more. But there were limits even to my curiosity when I know that it will bring pain. I didn’t need to know. He didn’t need to talk about it, at least not with me, not now.

Later. Maybe. Another time.

I spread his shirt on a coat hanger, hung it from the shower curtain rod, positioned my hair dryer on the toilet seat, using a towel to steady

and direct it, and turned it to “high.” The gray shirt fluffed out in the loud, hot wind.

I steeled myself to seeing him again, and returned to the kitchen to find him looking in the refrigerator, like any typical teenaged boy searching for food. His back was as full of ink as his chest, but with his shirt off it was the first time I had seen his back. How can the sight of such a tableau of misery still excite something in me? Was it that I had to look longer and more closely to see the lean waist, the strained muscle, the smooth V of flanks rising to strong shoulders?

He did not know I was watching, and I took advantage of the moment. Yes, what I was thinking was silly and wrong. My excuse was that I was lonely. My excuse was that he was my whole world now, aside from the damaged and the doomed and the monsters. My excuse was that I had some slight understanding now of what he had endured and I wanted to offer him some sort of comfort.

My excuse was that he was absurdly attractive and he was after all a straight boy and I was after all a straight girl and it would have been strange had I not been drawn to him.

I wanted to touch the boy who was not to be touched.

I closed my eyes and steadied myself with a hand on the counter. I pictured myself coming up behind him, sliding my arms around him, flattening my palms against his chest, kissing the place where strong shoulder rose to elegant neck, pressing my breasts against his back.

It was almost overpowering. I think I would have done it, except for the fact that I knew what would happen the moment I made physical contact with him. Far more than the images on his flesh would have flooded my mind. I would have touched him and been assaulted by detailed memories of each horror—the wicked things done, the games endured, the punishments that could drive a person mad.

It would have been a high price to pay simply to let my lips brush his neck. And yet such was my loneliness and my sad longing for him, that it still seemed possible.

I pushed the thought aside, feeling frustrated, and with my loneliness only exacerbated.