Page 9 of The Shadowed Oracle
And in that moment, the artist understood. She could see the alienation. The pain. Resentment. Injustice. Suffering. Abandonment. Abuse. Someone who had been blessed with beauty, yet cursed in all other aspects of her life. A paradox in which that beauty only served to stir up more issues.
The artist agreed to the job, but surprisingly told Ingrid the tattoos would cost much less than what all the others had quoted her for… on one condition. Ingrid would sit down with the artist for a week and plan out every single part of her body. If she wasgoing to cover it with monsters, at least the monsters would be skillfully coordinated.
It was art, after all, and art could not be rushed.
The days that followed were among the best of Ingrid’s life. She and the artist met late at night at the tattoo parlor, brainstorming and sketching out ideas. They’d order food (and more food) and laugh together like little girls at a sleepover, swapping stories and bonding over the good, the bad, the absurd. The artist never asked prodding questions about Ingrid’s strange past, never treated her differently, and not once did she mention Ingrid’s odd eye color.
Ingrid had made a friend and, consequently—but purely by accident—she’d been completely sober throughout their time together. It never occurred to her to alter her mind during the collaboration. She was too happy. Felt too present, too understood.
By the end of the month, they had turned Ingrid’s body into a remarkable, albeit terrifying, piece of artwork. Her neck was covered with a ghoulish face and surrounded by shadows and framed on the sides by two half-dead trees. Her arms were a perfect blend of monsters and creatures of the night. Her back was now a haunting and ominous landscape. Her chest, stomach, legs and feet were covered in black vines, intricate lines and symbols, with deadly insects and mythical creatures crawling through them. And her back was so detailed you might find some new nightmare every time you examined it.
But that was where the ink ran dry. In their time together, the tattoo artist convinced Ingrid to leave her face bare. If the goal was to embody and embrace her nightmares, while also deterring men from seeing her as an angelic little morsel, then that goal had been achieved. Anything on her face would’ve been overkill, deterring from the masterpiece below—or, at least that’s how the artist put it. She was adamant, and Ingrid’sopinion might’ve differed, but she trusted her. The rapid transformation, the idea of using an entire body as one big canvas, it was already so hypnotizing to look at.
Photographs of Ingrid’s body were framed and put up in the tattoo shop. Word spread, and every tattoo artist in the area had seen, either online or in person, and marveled at the work. The popularity of the images brought a small amount of fame to the artist. Hundreds of thousands of people online followed and shared her work. Hordes of new customers came into her shop and requested her specifically. The artist became so in demand that even Ingrid struggled to get an appointment, though both women knew there was no new tattoo idea, and it was only an excuse to see her friend.
Work came first, and so the artist worked, and worked, and worked… until an opportunity at a better shop in a more desirable location came in.
“I have to,” the artist told Ingrid, pointedly averting her eyes. “It’s too much, too good to pass on.”
Ingrid didn’t argue. A part of her had always prepared her for the worst. And only a few months after those intoxicating long nights, Ingrid was alone, once again.
As for her goal, it had worked for the most part. The predators were fewer in number. Only now, they were of a more off-center and unpredictable breed. The men who looked at her with that animal, sickly desire were men with voids and gloom not dissimilar to hers. Men with self-destructive curiosities and macabre tendencies. Men that, Ingrid began to think, might send sadistically ominous text messages in the middle of the night—their idea of flirting, or a warm-up to whatever they had planned next.
Chapter Five
“Sleeping much?”Ingrid slapped a napkin down and handed over a menu. “Your eyes look like two piss-holes in a snow bank.”
The patron in front of her was a new regular named Dean. Tall, boxy jawline, wavy brown hair, and hazel eyes that he would lock directly on to her when ordering.
He didn’t seem offended. “Not at all, actually,” he said, managing a self-effacing grin. “Thank you for asking.”
Ingrid hesitated at this answer, something like guilt weighing down her tongue. It was the night after the run-in with Kyle Twyker and the stink of him hadn’t quite come off of her yet.
“Sorry,” she said finally. “I don’t know why I?—"
“I know I look like shit,” he cut her off. “Work has been exhausting lately.”
Ingrid scanned the rest of her patrons, doing a quick estimation of how long it might be before one of them shouted at her for another drink. The bar was half full, but since the incident, her frequent patrons were more lenient with Ingrid’s attentiveness.
“I know how that goes,” Ingrid continued, tucking her bar rag in the waistband of her leggings. “What do you do for work?”She leaned on the wooden tabletop, indicating she wasn’t just mindlessly making small talk.
Dean perked up in his seat. “What?”
“What do you do for work?”
“No, I heard you.” He laughed nervously. “I just meant… are you okay?”
Since first coming in a month ago, Dean had gotten the usual cold treatment Ingrid reserved for men she thought were a little too flirty. He was always well-mannered, well-dressed, and vexingly attractive—but had the arrogance to match his good looks. The first few weeks after meeting him, he tried all manner of tactics to get Ingrid to soften to him. Even used the old, “you have such interesting eyes” line when the prospects seemed bleak.
Directly after that comment, however, something changed. He seemed embarrassed, hurriedly apologizing. Where some men devolved and darkened around Ingrid, Dean had shown genuine vulnerability and kindness. He swapped the flirting with smiling glances as she took his order, moved on without pouting, and stopped saying anything to her beyond a “thank you” or “please.”
Ingrid figured that night, of all nights, seemed like a good time to match his politeness. She’d be happy with any distraction.
“Something’s gotta be wrong with me, right?” she asked. “If I’m being friendly?”
“Honestly? Yes. I once heard you call a guy avapid little worm, just because he asked about ‘the meaning’ of one of your tattoos.”
Ingrid couldn’t remember ever calling someone a “worm,” but that didn’t mean Dean was misremembering entirely.
