Free Two and Twenty Dark Tales by Georgia McBride Page B

those I have touched. I tell him of the stories I have sung into their skin. I tell him how I mourn when the ink fades and becomes forgotten.
    The Boy smiles as I mark his flesh, now one arm, and then another. Without embarrassment, he removes his shirt, and I fill his body with ink and desire.
    It is frenzied, tiring work, and as I mark him, he tells me his name. I say it, over and over, my tongue free to sing and speak.
    Emboldened, I stitch our names together on his skin. First a bold outline, then a filling-in of color.
    As I work, a story appears that has always been there within me. An ancient tale beneath the flesh. A tale of desire and discovery, of seeing and being seen. It is a tale that lives beyond the telling.
    That is when I know for sure that the living may forget, but I am the one who must seek my way. I am the one who is lost. And this Boy—this Man, he is the one who has come to find me, to collect me home.
    I know what to do.
    I hand him my story-needle, and show him how to mark my being. He is nervous, at first, but soon the ink flows like fire, like rivers, like memory, like the endless, endless sea.
    I wince, then cry, then laugh with the new sensation. I, too, am now marked, and this body thrumming with tales and time is now mine. As if awakened from an infinite slumber, I finally am. I can finally be.
    This is the story I was waiting for all along. This is the story that will change everything.
    – The End –

Pieces of Eight
    Shannon Delany with Max Scialdone
    Sleep, baby, sleep,
    Thy papa guards the sheep;
    Thy mama shakes the dreamland tree,
    And from it fall sweet dreams for thee,
    Sleep, baby, sleep,
    Sleep, baby, sleep,
    Our cottage vale is deep;
    The little lamb is on the green,
    With woolly fleece so soft and clean,
    Sleep, baby, sleep,
    Sleep, baby, sleep,
    Down where the woodbines creep;
    Be always like the lamb so mild,
    A kind and sweet and gentle child,
    Sleep, baby, sleep…
    – Mother Goose
    H E jumped at the sound of someone knocking on a nearby door. Outside, a man bellowed, and from his place in the dim room, Marnum could make out the noise of a scuffle before that door slammed shut and another—even closer—was pounded on.
    Dust motes spiraled down in the slender light seeping between curtains drawn tight to hide their impromptu rendezvous, and Marnum looked at the woman whom the barracks boys claimed was his mother—the same woman whose jingling belt held a key that matched the shape of the scar on his cheek. The words of the prophecy came back to him, singing through his head like only the last allowable song could: “Some are born for sacrifice, both catalyst and key … ”
    “It can’t be me,” he whispered. “I can’t be the sacrifice. The prophecy says,” his voice softened, richened, as he sang, “one unscarred, unmaimed, untrue, the opening shall be . ” He shook his head, blond hair tumbling into his mismatched eyes. “I’m maimed,” he said. “Scarred,” he added, his lip curled just enough so she’d know he meant in more than a physical way. “I’m…”
    “ Perfect , except for the searing touch of a misguided mother’s love.” Her hand darted out, fingers brushing the raised, white shape that ran from the corner of his blue eye to the lobe of his left ear.
    He slapped her away.
    “I kept you alive,” she whispered, “and I’ll manage it one more time. Take this.” She tugged a worn and wrinkled piece of parchment from her belt pouch, and pressed it into his hand. “This is how I’ll shake the Dreamland Tree. Find the Pieces of Eight. There was an old woman lived under a hill … Find the woman as old as time. She is a soothsayer—a prophetess. By grace, you’ll be placed on the right path.”
    The next door they pounded on was so close it rattled the walls and flexed the cobwebs hanging in the slender beams above.
    “Out the back,” the woman said.
    He slipped outside and was in an alley.
    “Remember the lullaby,” she urged. Then