THE MARK
{excerpt from THE MERCY RECORDS: EPISODE-2}
“The Mark”
He had been telling himself it was a circulation thing.
The warmth at his right wrist. Inside. At the pulse point.
Two weeks ago it had been warmth only.
Then it darkened.
Not a bruise. Not any damage he could account for by contact or friction. Something pressed into the skin from beneath. Slightly raised.
Warm when he touched it.
Warm before he touched it.
Caleb Rusk held his wrist under the desk lamp and looked at it and then turned the lamp off and finished dressing in the dark.
He pressed his thumb to the mark through his flannel cuff on the way downstairs.
The warmth came through the fabric immediately. Specific and alive — the warmth of something doing a thing and generating heat as a byproduct of the doing.
He pressed harder.
The mark pressed back.
Not resistance.
Rhythm.
A pulse at its own interval. Distinct from the one in his thumb. Not consulting him about it. Not slowing because he needed it to slow.
His mother was at the kitchen sink when he came down.
Back to the room. Hands in the water.
She turned around.
She didn’t usually turn around in the mornings.
Her eyes came up from the sink — one second, just one — before they found his face.
In that second, her eyes went to his wrist.
Not his hand. Not his face.
His wrist. The right one. The inside of it. Where the flannel cuff covered the mark.
One second.
Then her face was ordinary again.
“There’s toast,” she said. “Don’t be late.”
She turned back to the water.
Caleb had not mentioned his wrist to her.
He had not mentioned it to anyone.
His cuff covered it completely.
There was no reason her eyes should have gone exactly there.
No reason in the world.
He ate his toast and said nothing and went to school.
Under his cuff, the mark pulsed at its own interval.
Steady. Patient.
Entirely indifferent to whether he was afraid of it.
He was afraid of it.
{excerpt from THE MERCY RECORDS: EPISODE-2}