Page 24 of The Witches of Cambridge

“He’s brilliant, you know,” the wife said.

“It’s likely you’re just as smart,” Lauren remarked.

“Wait till you fall in love,” the professor’s wife assured her. “Then you’ll see you can’t be so selfish.”

The other Radcliffe students were perched on hardbacked chairs, apologizing whenever they spoke, anxious that their opinions might interrupt the men’s ideas. In a fever of resentment, Lauren slipped out the door while the professor was still discussing the role of guilt and shame in the play.

When she returned from class, Lauren locked herself in her room and immediately began to write in her grimoire, ignoring the assignment to evaluate Lady Macbeth’s character. There was no need for her to do so. She knew the lady as well as she knew herself. Take what you want, take what you must, take magic for your own. Lauren could feel her blood becoming hot as she was beset by a haze of emotion so bitter she could hardly breathe.

As Lauren wrote, the black words rose into the air and settled onto her skin. Even after she bathed, she noticed the words were still there. Her heart had opened despite herself. That was what it meant to be a writer. You couldn’t wish it away, and no one could take it from you. Letter after letter appeared, the ones she had carried just beneath her skin ever since childhood. A for atrocity, for acts of evil, for accountability, for amulet, for astonish, for always. B for betrayal, for bad luck, for behaving badly, for backstabbing, for the black arts and bewitchment, for beauty and brilliance. C for cheating, for corruption, for cruelty, for contrition, for crystal, and for conjure, a word that arose over her heart. But not all spells last forever; and as the days wore on, Lauren noticed that the letters had begun to fade. When the word conjure disappeared entirely, Lauren made up her mind to have permanently etched on her skin words of her own choosing.

Tattoo parlors refused to serve women customers unless patrons were over twenty-one and accompanied by a husband or father. Lauren placed a finding spell and soon found herself at a cellar door in Central Square where there was an artist who cared nothing about the law, only interested in the art he created. He’d been a painter, and he’d had dreams, all of which had been wrenched away from him. You had to knock three times on his door, then wait on the narrow stair until he was convinced the police hadn’t found him.

“What do you think you want?” he said when he answered the door, not at all happy to see a young woman on his doorstep, especially not one with short pale hair and black Cleopatra eyes. She certainly wasn’t his usual customer. Lauren was bundled up in a sweater and wore tight black pants and the red boots made for her by the shoemaker in Harvard Square. She appeared to be both older and younger than she was.

“Know, not think,” Lauren told him.

“Fine then” was the prickly response. He was doing his best not to be immobilized by her presence, but he was already impressed by how fearless she was. “Let’s do it.”

The tattoo artist was in his mid-twenties, so tall he loomed over Lauren. His dark face was sullen, and no one, not even a practicing witch, could read his mind. He’d spent a great deal of time alone and was good at shutting out anyone who might come near. People in the neighborhood called him Goliath, a nickname he’d had ever since he was ten, when they began to compare him to the giant in the First Book of Samuel, not knowing or caring how tenderhearted he was, for he was more David than Goliath, likely to end a war with a single stone and very easily wounded, not by weapons but by words. Some neighbors said he was a monster, and local children vowed Goliath might eat them alive if they knocked at his door on Halloween. He’d stopped speaking to most people, but now he found he was grateful for this pale young woman’s company.

Lauren slipped into the basement shop, a dank place where the walls were covered by sketches that were filled with dark, brilliant images. When the artist drew the curtain that separated his workshop from his sleeping quarters, Lauren removed her blouse. He certainly didn’t say anything then. He felt as if he’d entered a dream. She was already covered with letters, but they were fading, and she wanted them filled in permanently.

“I want the word conjure,” she said, pointing out the spot above her heart. “Right here.” She had felt a sort of panic when the words began to disappear, as writers often do. “What are you looking at?” she said when he just stood there staring, suspecting that once he had opened the door to her he might not be able to close it. He couldn’t look away from Lauren, and the fading letters seemed like ashy bits of falling sky.

“This is crazy,” the tattoo artist told her. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Is it magic?”

“Isn’t everything?” Lauren said.

His name was Carrick. Whether that was his first name or a surname, he never bothered to tell his clients, although on this day he might have admitted that his proper name was Aaron, not that Lauren was asking. All the same, he’d never seen anyone so striking; his hands were shaking just at the sight of her, which had never happened to him before. He’d been a student at the museum school in Boston, but all of that had been put to an end when he spent time in jail for selling marijuana to some rich kid from Sudbury who had gotten off scot-free. He’d found himself this rented basement, where he both slept and worked. But now, in this desolate place, a woman who seemed like a miracle had walked through the door. He understood. She was a writer.

“You’re made out of words,” Carrick said with a sense of wonder.

“I will be,” Lauren agreed. “By the time you’re done with me.”

He found it interesting that she didn’t seem afraid of him, the way many people were, and that was likely the reason he didn’t mind talking to her. It was as if he took off his armor and was, briefly, himself as he’d once been, before life got the best of him. He drafted a sketch of the words, so she could approve the print he would use. Carrick told her there was only so much ink and pain a body would tolerate, and so he worked on her tattoos only a few letters at a time in Gothic font, also known as black letter. It would take time, and he found himself grateful for that, for she would have to come back to him day after day. Lauren laughed in his face and assured him she wasn’t like other people, which he’d known to be true after he wiped away the blood the first time a needle went through her skin. She didn’t wince, and he saw that her blood was black. He’d read about individuals who looked mortal but were something more. In fact, Carrick didn’t care if she was more than human. He couldn’t resist her. Because he wanted time with her, he refused to rush. He told her he wanted everything to be perfect, which was true as well.

They told one another stories during the hours they were together, and each tried to frighten the other with how bad they were. They each had their own path to walk. Carrick said he had leapt from roofs and broken his legs, he had gone swimming in the Charles River in March, when there were still ice floes and the water was so cold it had turned his feet and hands blue. Lauren insisted she’d done far worse: she’d slept in trees, refused to leave the beach during a hurricane, walked barefoot through the snow.

Carrick wasn’t for her, that much was certain. Lauren could tell he was tenderhearted, and that no matter what people might say he wouldn’t hurt a fly, several of which buzzed around a single lightbulb over the sink. She needed a man who walked the Crooked Path, someone she could want without loving. In her opinion love was the worst spell of all. All the same, one night they drank too much cheap wine and soon found themselves in Carrick’s unmade bed, a mattress on the floor. They agreed the sex would be meaningless, but each time Carrick kissed her, Lauren wanted more. She knew she had best be rid of him. Once she was back in her room, she sewed his name onto her clothes with black thread so that she would forget him, but every day she remembered him, for she’d never been told his full name, and he wouldn’t tell her, convinced the unknowing kept her returning to him all that fall.

She cast an anti-love spell upon herself the next time she went to see him, well aware that it had to end. Their meetings were bordering on real emotion, something she avoided at all costs. Before she left her room she rubbed her skin with oil mixed with her own menstrual blood, but for some reason the spell backfired when she got to Carrick’s and they wound up in bed. She had forgotten one element, juniper, and in its place had added St. John’s wort, which made her even more receptive to him. When it was over, she felt like a giddy fool. She needed a man she could respect, not one who opened her heart. Carrick had been half-dressed. As he turned to grab his shirt Lauren spied Medusa inked across his back, wings spread, hair of tangled snakes, the most beautiful woman in the world until she was punished and transformed into a monster who could turn men to stone with one look. Tattoos told the story of a person’s life, and his was a story that made Lauren want to hear more.

“You’re a fairy tale,” she said, delighted.

“More like a horror story.” He was in a rush to pull on his clothing, and she understood why. He didn’t wish for her to see that there was a freshly inked letter on his arm, but she saw it all the same. It was an L.

“I didn’t plan it,” he said of his new tattoo when he caught her staring. “I have an addictive personality.” It wasn’t really the truth. He had drawn that letter as if it were a lamp in the darkness, as if he had fallen in love. He thought his answer would satisfy Lauren, but it didn’t.

“Please tell me that doesn’t signify the first letter of my name.” Lauren felt nervous, which wasn’t like her at all.

“No, of course not.” Carrick shook his head, as if that wasn’t even a possibility. “I always tell people not to do that. Never have anyone’s name inked on you. You’ll regret it if you do because nothing lasts.”

It was an answer good enough to satisfy Lauren. Clearly, the relationship wasn’t meaningful. How could it be? She was a girl from Brattle Street; he’d grown up just down the alleyway in an apartment above a package store. She looked like an angel, and he was often mistaken for a monster. At night, women crossed the street when they saw him, and he never once blamed them. All the same, if he saw a woman walking alone, he would follow in the shadows until she was safely home. He thought of himself as a hawk, a creature that was far away but could protect you even when he was somewhere in the dark.

After her last tattoo was completed, Lauren worked a banishing spell.

Ego obliviscar te. Nihil nisi umbra es.