Tattoo Read online

  Zo groaned, and Annabelle and I broke into giggles.

  “Come on,” I told Zo. “Dance tonight. You could have a hot date” That reminded me …“Hey, Delia, who are you going to the dance with?”

  “Thepizzaboy,” Delia said in a rush.

  “What?” I asked. “I couldn't understand you”

  “The pizza boy,” Delia said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You know, the guy who delivered our pizza”

  “And he asked you when?” I waited patiently for Delia's answer.

  “Last night,” Delia said innocently. “I ordered pizza when I got home, and happened to mention that there was a dance tonight, and he just couldn't help himself. Voilà! Date”

  Zo slung her arm around Delia's shoulder. “Tell me,” she said seriously, “did he ask you or your breasts?”

  Delia stuck her tongue out at Zo. “He asked all three of us, thank you very much”

  Zo joined our giggling, and a moment later we were rolling around on the gym floor, laughing so hard we could barely breathe. It wasn't that funny, but I figured we could chalk it up to exhaustion. After what we'd been through, we deserved a laugh.

  “Ahem”

  At the sound of the voice, we broke off our giggling as best we could and turned toward the door.

  The principal glared down at us. “Shouldn't you ladies be in class?” he asked.

  “No,” Zo said flatly. She elbowed Annabelle. “Tell him, A-belle”

  Annabelle sat up and went into proper-miss mode. “You want us to take the rest of the day off,” Annabelle told him. “We did a lovely job here”

  Without warning, the principal began surveying the gym. “You girls did a lovely job here. You should take the rest of the day off”

  “Them?” an outraged voice squealed from the doorway. “They didn't decorate the gym. They aren't even on the dance committee” Alexandra glared at us. “They don't belong here,” she complained to the principal.

  “Don't be ridiculous,” the principal told her. “These girls did a fine job, and they're taking the rest of the day off, and you, Ms. Atkins, should be in class”

  Alex's jaw dropped. “But…but. “

  The four of us hooked arms and walked past her without saying a single word.

  “You know,” Delia said finally, “I'm going to miss these powers”

  “Yes, yes, sort of, and I am a genius” Delia pronounced her judgments on our outfits one by one as we stepped out of the car.

  She and I were still the yeses. Annabelle, her long hair pulled out of her face except for a single wispy tendril, was the sort of. Delia was still holding a teeny tiny fashion grudge that A-belle wasn't wearing an outfit that Delia had picked out. As for Zo…

  “This is the last time I'm ever wearing a dress” Zo grimaced as she made an attempt at walking, but her eyes were smiling. “Ever”

  When Delia had turned Zo's T-shirt and jeans into the gorgeous black dress she'd tried on in Escape, I'd thought Zo was going to kill her, but after our brush with death (er …our brush with Life if you wanted to get technical), Zo had slung her arm around Delia's shoulder and told her to do her worst.

  Delia Cameron wasn't the type of person who had to be asked twice.

  So there we were, alive, gorgeous (well, in my case, passable), and walking through the gym door to the first official dance of the year.

  “Ready?” Delia asked me, a huge grin on her face.

  I took in the dance floor. “Ready for what?”

  Ready for the deathfest this dance would have become if we hadn't stopped Alecca?

  Ready for the scene I'd seen too many times before: the lights, the music, the shining decorations? I'd been seduced by it. I'd been so wrapped up in wanting it to be real, wanting Kane to like me back, that I'd almost sentenced this dance (and maybe the world) to complete and utter destruction.

  There was no way I was ready for this.

  “Confidence, Bay,” Delia told me. “He askedyou to save him a dance, remember?”

  “Whatever” I wrapped my arms around my waist.

  “No whatever,” Delia said firmly. “You're here, you're gorgeous, your tattoo is showing just the right amount, and that outfit is to die for” Delia paused. “Annabelle, do your mind mojo. Tell her she's irresistible,” she commanded.

  A-belle bit back a grin. “Weeeeelllllll,” she said teasingly. Zo jabbed her in the side.

  “You look great, Bay,” Annabelle said.

  “There,” Delia said, pointing. I groaned. Could she be any more conspicuous? “There he is. Go ask him to dance” She paused, waiting for me to obey, and when I didn't, she spoke again. “Now, Bay, before Alex super-glues herself to his chest for the night”

  I tried to rid myself of that mental image, but it was impossible, and I couldn't help but think that if it wasn't for us, Alex wouldn't have been able to superglue herself to anyone's chest ever again. Not that I expected a thank-you (which, by the way, would have been nice).

  “You should ask him,” Annabelle said quietly. “Ask him to dance” Almost immediately, I felt strangely compelled to ask Kane to dance.

  “When do these powers wear off?” I asked, exasperated when I realized what Annabelle was doing.

  Annabelle looked down at her watch. “Any time now,” she said softly. “Just go”

  “But what if there's some side effect and you guys need me and “ Frantically, I stalled.

  “Bailey,” Zo said, her hands on her hips. “Don't make me hurt you. Just go”

  “But what if I set him on fire?” I asked. “If our powers aren't gone, and something makes me angry or upset or.”

  “Bailey!” All three of them yelled my name at once, and whenever they team up on me like that, I have absolutely no choice. I bit my bottom lip, and with one last pathetic look at each of them, I turned around, mentally prepping myself to cross the dance floor to Kane.

  Of course, since I was Bailey, queen of clumsiness, when I turned around I ran smack into a large, male-shaped object.

  A Kane-shaped object.

  “Hayl—” He stopped and corrected himself. “Bailey, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, stumbling over the word.

  Great, I thought. After all that—psychotic fairies, killer fantasies, magical powers—I still couldn't form a decipherable word around Mr. Eye Candy.

  “You wanna dance?”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it again.

  “Yes,” Delia hissed in my ear. Then she looked up at Kane. “She'd love to,” she said smoothly, “and,” she added, eyeing her own date, “so would I”

  The pizza boy (whose name none of us, including Delia, knew) took the hint, and led Delia (and her breasts) onto the dance floor.

  As she passed me, I saw a flash of blue-green light.

  Sídhe blue. Blood green.

  I turned around and looked down just in time to see Zo's tattoo darken to black and in the next instant fade from her foot entirely. Annabelle's hand went to the back of her neck, and even without checking, I knew that her tattoo was gone as well.

  It was over. No more tattoos. No more powers. Things were back to normal.

  “Uhhh …Bailey?”

  Except, of course, for the fact that the hottest guy in school was actually talking to me. That was extremely un-normal.

  “Right,” I said out loud, mentally berating myself for it even as I said it. “Kane” I'd almost forgotten about him.

  “So you know my name,” he said, “and I know your name” He paused. “So now can we dance?”

  Completely unable to speak, I nodded.

  I put my hands on his shoulders, and he put his loosely around my waist. We swayed, completely out of rhythm with the music. He stepped on my foot four times.

  It was great.

  As we moved awkwardly back and forth, my hands decided to start sweating, but even that couldn't remove the dopey grin from my face.

  Kane struggled to make conversation. “Your hair,” he
said finally.

  Your hair looks like moonlight.

  “It's …uhhhh …nice”

  My cheeks warmed. He thought my hair was nice. It wasn't moonlight, he wasn't in love with me, and I was a horrible dancer. This wasn't my fantasy. It was real.

  The second the song ended, he dropped his hands from my waist. “Thanks,” he said.

  “You're wel—” I was in the process of accepting his thanks and simultaneously shifting my weight from one foot to the other when my ankle rolled beneath me, and I went toppling onto the floor. From the corner of my eye, I saw Marissa Baker, newspaper goody-goody, snap a photo of my fall, with my luck, for a front-page story:

  GIRL LOSES FOOTING OVER HOTTIE.

  The hottie in question reached down to help me up, and I could feel my body warming with a blush. It spread from my cheeks down my neck and to the small of my back.

  Absolutely mortified, I pulled my top down and tried to appear cool, calm, and collected.

  “You know, you're pretty cute when you do that,” Kane said.

  My mouth dropped open and the heat drained from my body. Cute? He thought I was cute? Cute when I did what? Blush? Fall? I made a mental note to blush and fall more often.

  “And that tattoo is awesome,” Kane added. “Is it real?”

  “Tattoo?” I repeated dumbly. My heart started beating faster and I could feel the blood rushing through my veins. “What tattoo?”

  Twisting my body, I turned. There, in the middle of my back, like a sun rising out of my skirt, was a tattoo the color of Sídhe blood.

  It's in the blood. Things of power always are.

  My power. My tattoo.

  You are Sídhe, Bailey. Adea and Valgius spoke in my mind, and it took me a moment to process the fact that they were all right. And you are ours.

  “Is it real?”

  For a second, I thought Kane was asking about the voice in my head, but then I realized that (duh) he was referring to the tattoo. I brushed my fingers lightly over it, and it flashed once, brilliantly, in my mind.

  Always. You are Sídhe. Always.

  “Yeah,” I said after a moment. “It's real”

  I scanned the dance floor for my friends, and when the music ended, I did what I needed to do. “Listen,” I said, and I couldn't believe I was saying it. “I have to go”

  Kane looked at me and then nodded. “Okay,” he said, “but maybe we could, you know, dance later?”

  It wasn't telling me that he knew me and wanted me and loved me, but it was a start. I nodded and worked my way over to Annabelle and Zo.

  “How was it?” they asked in unison.

  “Yeah …was it great or was it great?” Delia asked, joining us. “I sent pizza boy to get some punch so we could talk, so dish. Why aren't you still over there? Did you kiss? Did he say anything about your shoes? I really love those shoes. “

  “It was “ How was I supposed to describe my dance with Kane? It hadn't really been magical. At all.

  But it had been real, I reminded myself, and remembering the actual feeling of him stepping on my feet and telling me I was cute, I smiled. “It was nice,” I finished. “And you'll never guess what else”

  “What?” all three of them asked immediately.

  I turned around and lifted my top up just a little. “Check out my tattoo”

  Zo's mouth dropped open. “It's still there,” she said.

  “And perfectly positioned, if I do say so myself,” Delia added, overcoming her surprise more quickly than the others.

  “Bailey,” Annabelle said softly. “That's not your tattoo”

  “What?” I twisted around, trying to get a better look at it.

  “You know, you're right, A-belle,” Delia said. “It's a little more complicated than Bailey's old one. Sophisticated. Chic”

  Managing to contort myself enough to get a better look at the tattoo, I saw immediately what they were talking about. It looked like my tattoo at first glance, a sun symbol that I knew by now meant fire, but there was another layer to it, another design interwoven with my own.

  “It's like mine,” Annabelle said. She lifted her hand and carefully traced the crescent shapes with her finger.

  Everyone else had lost their tattoos, and somehow, I'd ended up with mine and Annabelle's?

  It's the symbol for life.

  It took me a moment to realize that Annabelle hadn't made the observation out loud.

  Knowledge and fire. Annabelle's tattoo and mine, and now, I was hearing Annabelle's thoughts.

  “Alecca is gone? Isn't that going to screw up the three Fates thing?”

  “All things said and done, the balance has a way of taking care of itself…“

  My exchange with the woman who had called herself Morgan rang in my head.

  “Now that Alecca's hatred is gone from this world, things will right themselves. You will see”

  “Do you still have your …you know …?” Anna-belle asked, making wiggly motions with her fingers.

  “More importantly,” Zo said, her brow wrinkled in thought, “do you have Annabelle's?”

  At that exact moment, I intercepted what Zo would have almost definitely defined as an incriminating thought.

  “Uhhh …maybe”

  Zo groaned.

  “And there's …ummm … a slight chance that I may be.” I mumbled the end of the sentence.

  “Fur feet?” Delia asked, straining to hear.

  “No,” Annabelle said, an awed smile creeping onto her face. “The third Fate” Her mind started working out the logic of the whole thing, and mine swam with her mental words. “Alecca's gone, and her powers went into Bailey. That's why she still has the tattoo—it's the mark of Life”

  Well, if anyone's going to be in my head, Zo told me silently, at least it's you.

  “Okay, so Bailey's the third Fate,” Delia said, taking things in stride. “Coolness”

  I'd started out this whole adventure with three best friends who all knew their place in this world a little better than I did, and I'd ended up with a destiny that I couldn't quite wrap my mind around, but when it came right down to it, the important thing had stayed exactly the same.

  Delia linked her arm through mine. “Well, Ms. Fate,” she said, “if I still had my power, I'd transmogrify us something to toast with”

  Zo shrugged and, moving surprisingly well to the beat of the music, she raised her fist. “To Bailey's tattoo,” she said. “May her mother never find out about it”

  “To stopping Alecca,” Annabelle added.

  “To us,” Delia said. “For being so fabulous”

  I bit back a smile, and the four of us air-toasted as we danced. Some things never changed.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, I owe a great debt to the people who sweated over this book with the same passion I did. Thanks to Elizabeth Harding, who helped me find Annabelle; Krista Marino, who had even bigger plans for Bailey than I did; and Marsha Barnes, who never stopped loving Delia and Zo. In writing a book about four friends, I was incredibly blessed to share the process with intelligent, insightful people whom I consider just that. Working with you all continues to be an absolute joy.

  I also owe a great deal to the friends who saw me through writing, editing, and everything in between. This book spanned our last two years of college, and I couldn't have asked for better people to spend that time with. Thanks to Jackie Kim, for suddenly developing an insane love of young adult literature as a form of procrastination; to Neha Mahajan, for an always-open ear and an incredibly quick wit/smart mouth; to Ellie Marshall, who I'm convinced could probably single-handedly save the world from apocalypse; and to Amy Hart and Sarah Jones, for getting more excited than I was at every single development in this process. You guys are the best.

  Many thanks also to the rest of the people whose support has meant more than I can say over the last two years: my family, Mom, Dad, Justin, and Allison; Laurie Santos—the best advisor a girl could ask for; and everyone at the Blue
Board for being there from day one. I am extremely grateful to you all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jennifer Lynn Barnes is a recent graduate of Yale University, where she and her closest friends formed a society so secret she can't even tell you about it. She's not sure what her forte is, but when she's not writing, she enjoys researching animal and child cognition and shopping for sparkly accessories. Jennifer doesn't have a tattoo, but if she did, it would be small, blue green, and on her lower back. Tattoo is Jennifer Lynn Barnes's second novel. Her third, Platinum, the companion to Golden, will be out in the fall of 2007.

  Published by Delacorte Press

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

  are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales

  is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks

  of Random House, Inc.

  www.randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Barnes, Jennifer (Jennifer Lynn)

  Tattoo / by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When four fifteen-year-old friends share the temporary tattoos

  they bought from a mysterious woman at the mall, each develops psychic

  powers that will help them fight the ancient being who plans to wreak

  havoc at their school dance.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-49823-6

  [1. Psychic ability—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Best Friends—

  Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. Mythology—Fiction. 6. Humorous