Black "rope" marks on her skin

"What the..." Bri holds her arms up to the light. On her skin, where the spirit cords had been, she sees strange black marks, as thick as her little finger and dark, like she'd drawn them with a large black marker. Wrists and biceps both. She checks her legs and confirms the same. They're plainly visible, a startling contrast to her skin.

Surprised, she moves to a nearby mirror to inspect her face. Sure enough, the same bold lines can be seen on either side of her mouth where the gag had been. Holding out her tongue, she notes no discoloration there. It seems all of the skin touched by the cords has taken on a slight mark. 'That wasn't mentioned anywhere in the book... was it?' Bri furrows her brow, picking up the old journal to flip to the simple spell she'd used. 'I didn't sign up for this! What the hell?'

Re-reading the entire page, the only new thing she notices is a small circle noted in the top corner of the paper. It had been written with a different pen than the rest of the book. It looked like ball-point. Flipping trough the other pages, she notices that many spell pages are marked with a small number, ranging from 0 to 7. But to her horror, she also sees that several of the pages have become terribly smudged. Words and drawing illegible. A few pages are so smeared that she can't even tell what was meant to be writing and what was meant to be drawing!

It definitely wasn't like that when she found it. Bri feels a moment of panic. She must have damaged it somehow! "Oh no! How did this happen?! I was so careful!" She runs to her desk to lay the book out under her lap for a close examination. The pages are all perfectly dry, as is the ink. She can't smudge anything further by running her finger along the page. It's as if it's always been so smudged, but she knows it wasn't.

*KNOCK KNOCK* "Bri? I heard you cry out. Is everything okay?" A feminine voice calls from the hallway.

Bri's mother. With a groan, the girl hides the spellbook under a heap of schoolwork and moves towards the door. "Yes, Mom, everything is fine." She pulls the door open to face her mother, realizing too late she's forgotten about the strange marks on her face.