Scratch Marks Novels & Stories

The staircase led toward the blind doors, the wall marked with my own handwriting: “Nothing happens. Proceed.” I ran a finger along the words. The chalk was dry, the surface clean. Two steps higher, on the corner, a tiny, nearly invisible scratch in the stone: two short lines, pause, five quick, then two short again. Five and two — centered. Not human-carved; more like the tip of a claw or sharp shard. Not deep, not menacing. A sign. “You see it?” Aedan asked. “I see.” I held the chalk in my palm. “I won’t erase it.” Above the scratch, with small, unobtrusive motions, I wrote: “noted.”

Please. *Answer me.* The Scorchmark *cracked.* Not breaking. *Opening.* A seam appeared in the black glass. Widening. And from within— *Light.* Not silver. Not red. *Both.* Intertwined. Spiraling. *Beautiful.* The light surged upward. Coalesced. And when it faded— A blade remained. Hovering above the crack. Waiting. It was *magnificent.* The metal was dark—almost black—but traced with veins of silver and crimson that pulsed like a heartbeat.

I turned it, and there was a gentle click. I pulled, and nothing happened. I pulled harder, and I could hear the cracking paint. The hinges had been completely painted over. I reached up and pulled harder, and scraped away at the paint. I got my fingers in enough to grab a hold of the door, and yanked hard. I could begin to see the outline of a tall, thin, narrow compartment. I yanked again. And it opened. Old air, stuck for centuries, came out at me, along with a cloud of dust.

Whole sections of the wall were covered in them, layers upon layers, until it looked as though the stone itself bled with her frenzy. Some scratches stood alone, straight as tally marks. Others looped into crooked circles, spirals, or childlike patterns that ended abruptly, as if she had forgotten what she meant halfway through. In one corner she carved the outline of a cradle over and over again, each smaller than the last, until the last one was no bigger than a fingernail. She pressed her forehead against those etchings until her skin bruised, whispering, "Hush, sleep, hush."

I needed a brush, a shower, something to shake this out of me before it swallowed me whole. The mirror didn’t help. My face looked as wrecked as I felt—dark smudges under my eyes, lips swollen, neck marked up like I’d been chewed on. Enzo’s marks. My chest gave another traitorous kick at that, and I gripped the counter like it might hold me steady. I turned the faucet, grabbed my brush. And then I saw it. Scratches. Long, deep grooves carved into the countertop by the sink. I froze, staring. My chest stuttered like someone hit pause.

The marks are purple by morning. I notice them while getting dressed, my sleeve riding up as I reach for my hairbrush. Four distinct ovals pressed into the inside of my left wrist, thumb-shaped and deliberate. I study them for a moment under the bathroom light. Then I pull my sleeve down and finish getting ready.

For a breath, it seemed to unmoor him further, as if my approval was as dangerous as my fear. Then, as if pulling himself back on a chain, he blinked and the edge dulled—though not gone. “Not me.” The sheets held the faintest memory of his shape when he finally eased away, but he left slowly, deliberately, as if to teach my body a different lesson. On the windowsill, where the paint peeled in curls, a small mark had been pressed into the flaking white. The shape of one claw, no deeper than a thumbnail. Not ownership. Not a threat. A tally mark. Night one.

What I didn’t know: How much of what she said sounded official because she said it like it was. “Marks can fade,” Angel went on airily, as if lecturing a freshman. “Trial bites. Emergency claims. There are a dozen ways to make something look like a mark that isn’t one. Press silver nitrate and salt into a scratch and humans swear they can smell the oath. Pretty, but not the thing.” “Is that what you had?” The question came out before I could stop it—my curiosity undressing my fear. “A pretty, not the thing?”

A mark appeared. Faint, the way watermarks appear in paper held toward light, visible for three seconds before it faded. Not one of the bond marks, not the crescent scar from my first night. Something entirely different. It looked like a tree, roots and branches in equal measure, radiating outward from a central point.