Skin Debt

Renee Wren doesn’t do magic for people. She does it with them — taking their pain into her own skin, one tattoo at a time, in a cabin on Rock Riffle Road in Appalachian Ohio.

Then a man sits in her chair and lies to her face — and the debt he cuts loose doesn’t die. It comes back wearing someone else’s face, pressing against the glass, trying on the living like clothes. The ledger knows the difference between a debt you chose and one you were born into.

Even if you don’t.