The Mark

“Marigold…. Why marigold,” asked Jason, looking down at her arm in his hand.

“Because of what it represents,” replied Samantha with a perky shrug. Thunder rumbled loudly in the background as she returned to sipping her coffee with her other hand.

“And just what might that be?”

“Well first of all, it represents positive energy.”

“Positive energy,” he stated, looking up from the fresh ink to her eyes.

She laughed delightfully. “Yup. Positive energy.”

“Ok? I’ve heard something else. But I guess there are different interpretations. What else,” he asked as he returned to gazing at all of the fine details of the new tattoo.

“Yes, they can represent negative things to some people, but my tattoo, my reasoning, my interpretation.”

“That’s fair,” Jason said.

“Because if you actually read up on it,” Sam continued, “although they are commonly used to celebrate Dia de los Muertos, you know, the Day of the Dead, and to sometimes symbolize various negative vibes, not only do marigolds actually represent positive energy and positive emotions, but specifically good luck and happiness.”

Jason nodded his head while raising his eyebrows. “Ok, I didn’t know that.” He let go of her arm and returned to his own coffee lying in wait for him on the thick, rustic wood table. “It’s beautiful regardless, but I like that meaning. And that color…. Wow! She really did a fantastic job!”

“Thanks,” she beamed appreciatively. “Besides, I need all of the help I can get.” Her words were accented by a timely flash of lightning that illuminated the towering ocean waves that could be seen from their vantage point in the cliff-side tavern. The lightning was quickly followed by a table-vibrating peal of thunder.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “I figured as much when I noticed there was more than ink in that tattoo.”

She blushed. Pulling her sleeve down to cover her forearm. “You noticed, huh?”

He smiled at her discomfort. “Yeah, I noticed. But don’t worry about that. I can’t say that I blame you. Pretty clever if you ask me. I’ve…” he hesitated, glancing around at the sparsely occupied tables. “Well, let’s just say that I know something of it, and I’ve done something similar.”

Sam cocked her head at that, suddenly curious. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

Jason chuckled. “Maybe one day. I will say this, though… it‘s real. It works.”

“I knew it!” she practically slammed her porcelain mug onto the table, a drop of coffee splashing up and out onto the table.

“Hey, hey, keep it down,” he said using both of his hands in a calming gesture. “Not so loud.”

She nodded. “Right. Sorry.”

He sat back and contemplated her silently for a moment. “That’s a powerful spell you’ve got bottled up right there. What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, you and I both know that you can’t have a spell that powerful built up on your body without a strong enough emotion to fuel it. The amount of fuel it takes to feed an enchantment like that requires a pretty insanely strong emotion, the kind of emotion that doesn’t just come from a break up, or a simple betrayal. What. Happened.”

She sighed heavily, slumping heavily into her chair in resignation. She tapped her fingers on the table while remaining silent for a moment, as though trying to decide how much to tell him.

“Look,” Jason said comfortingly. “I know a thing or two about this world.” More lightning. More thunder. The immense ocean waves crashing to the rocks below continuing their ceaseless assault. “There’s nothing you can tell me that I haven’t heard before.”

She looked out of the thick paned window towards the lightning lit ocean that had no land in sight, thousands of raindrops distorting the view on the glass.

“They were killed… slaughtered… right in front of me. And I was next.” She swallowed in a dry throat. “If it weren’t for the Order of Jade that intervened at that exact moment... I… I wouldn’t be here right now,” her voice fading to a hoarse whisper.

Jason leaned over and placed a hand reassuringly on top of her own. She glanced at his arm, now slightly exposed with his sleeve pulled back further than before. There, just barely, she could see a green tattoo. Three rings inter-linked with one another. One dot in one ring, two dots in another ring, three dots in the third ring, and another marking she couldn‘t make out in the space where all three overlapped with each other.

Her eyes widened and jaw dropped. She looked up at Jason with renewed wonder. “You… you’re…!!”

Jason held a finger up to puckered lips as he silently said, “sssshhh,” and smiled.