Pucker (11 page)

“Take care of her, Huguette,” I whisper as I thrust myself back into the tunnel. It's like climbing down into a manhole, dank and musty, and I'm flooded with despair.

I run back to Dash's house. I shouldn't have wasted this night. I should have gone straight to the Ministry to begin my search for my mother's skin. Why didn't I do that? It's that girl's fault. That beautiful girl with the strange name.

I want—I
want
so many things.

TWENTY-TWO

W
HEN I WAKE, I REMEMBER that this is the day I'll be Changed. The first thing I do is vomit because I'm so nervous.

During the years after the fire I took comfort in imagining that I wasn't alone—that there was a whole tribe of people like me who were whole before they were not. Who were these others? I romanticized them. A painter who knew the precise shade of alizarin crimson before he went blind, a violinist who mastered Paganini's 24 Caprices before she went deaf. We were a different species than those who were born disfigured because we remembered a time when it wasn't so. Whether the ability to remember would eventually drive us mad, I didn't know.

Suddenly I remember my Barker's, which I hid in the outhouse. I ask permission to go to the bathroom and Dash looks at me like I'm crazy. Now that it's daylight, he doesn't seem to be keeping such a close eye on me.

I'm relieved to find the book is still buried in the bucket of lime. After a few minutes of deliberation (and after realizing that my new Isaurian pants have no pockets), I decide it's best to leave it there. When I come into the kitchen, Dash hands me a cup of hot tea. It's a small house; obviously he heard me throwing up. We eat our breakfast in silence.

It's raining when Nigel pulls up to the house. I go to the window; the wagon's been covered with a mottled gray canvas.

“I'll be here when you return,” says Dash, placing his mug in the sink.

I nod. I feel sick again.

“It doesn't hurt,” he says.

“Whatever.” I don't believe him.

“I'm telling you the truth.”

“Okay, okay.” Now he's irritating me. I just want to go and get it over with.

I'm the last to be picked up. Nobody says a word as I climb aboard the wagon. Once we get going again, Emma scoots next to me. She presses a photograph into my hand: it's of her parents sitting in a rowboat. Of course, Emma is nowhere in sight, because the photo was taken in the daytime. She must have been in the lodge. Or perhaps they went on vacation without her, left her in a house with tinted windows that filtered out ultraviolet light. The photograph sickens me. I'm in a terrible mood this morning.

“You shouldn't have brought this. They'll take it away if they find it,” I tell her.

She ignores me. “That's Jewel Lake. My father told me there were jewels at the bottom of it. He brought me back one.” She smirks. “He said he dove down to the bottom and found it. A blue topaz, my birthstone. He made it into a ring. But I couldn't bring it with me. The Recruiter said no jewelry.”

I don't know what to say to her. All I want is to tune out.

Emma takes the picture back, holds it up to her face, and examines it. “There, see?” she says.

I sigh. “See what?”

“That space, between my parents. That's for me.”

“I don't see any space.” Her parents are crammed up against each other, their shoulders and thighs touching, bathing in the sunlight while their daughter is sitting alone in the dark.

“No, there's a space,” she says, her voice breaking. “Mama told me so. They left room for me.”

She begins to cry.

Rose looks over at me and scowls.
Do something,
she mouths. I shrug. I don't want to get involved. But Emma's weeping gets annoyingly loud.

“Lemme see.” I take the picture and pretend to study it. “Oh yeah, now I see.”

“You do not!” Emma shouts, grabbing it back. “You lie and you suck!”

“Give it here,” says Michael. He takes the picture and shows it to Rose.

“Oh yes, dear. I see. They've made a space for you, all right. There on the cushion, under the warm sun,” Rose murmurs.

“I'm sorry, Emma,” I say after a few minutes.

She glares at me. “You must be really scared.”

I look out of the back of the wagon. It's raining so hard it could be night. I see lanterns up ahead. A herd of cows suddenly materializes; then, just as quickly, they vanish into the fog.

“People get mean when they get scared,” she says.

“I'm not scared,” I say softly.

“Yes you are,” she replies.

TWENTY-THREE

W
HEN I GET MY FIRST glimpse of the Ministry—that enormous stone bulwark, far taller than any other building in the city—something inside me begins to throb. Suddenly breathing through my nose is not an option. I open my mouth like a dog and pant as quietly and unobtrusively as I can. Michael watches me guardedly, one arm slung protectively around Emma. I have failed to impress him this morning.

What I'm experiencing is nostalgia. It pierces through me, and while the initial thrust of memory is like a tiny knife stabbing into my side, something that has been dammed up is finally free.

I have forgotten nothing. Somewhere inside me I have stored every detail. The wagon lumbers down the city streets and I know that to the left of me is the cobbler's shop and to the right of me is the blacksmith. The sounds of Isaura are a long-forgotten sound track that now crackles into life: the hollow whoosh of the bellows, the dull thud of a mallet hitting wood, the flapping of clothes strung up on a line.

My past is a giant who has been asleep for a thousand years. Now see his limbs twitch. Now see his stone face turn to flesh.

My smugness begins to melt away. Yes, I buy my shoes at the mall and we get our oil changed at Jiffy Lube and Isaura's insistence on hardship masquerading as purity annoys me. But as I continue to look out on the city streets, I can't help but remember all the good things: the community feasts, the long tables overflowing with food, sticking out my hand to get my future read, knowing that I was safe, that nothing would ever happen to me that I wouldn't be forewarned about.

The wagon jerks to a stop.

“Thomas?” says Rose.

I feel like an overcooked hot dog.

“Thomas,” Rose repeats. “Nobody can leave until you do.”

Nigel comes around the back of the wagon. “We don't have all day,” he says.

I nod but don't move.

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” says Michael, pushing me aside. “Get out.”

 

Luckily for me, we don't have to travel far inside the Ministry. If we did, I think I might drown in my memories. Nigel leads us down the main corridor and tells us to sit down and wait. He raps twice on a closed door and a muffled voice says to bring Rose in first. He carries her in.

No more than twenty minutes pass before she's done. The door creaks open eerily. No sign of the Maker, but we see Rose, still sitting in her chair. She turns to look at us, smiles, and slowly stands. As she pulls herself upright, the years pour down her body and land in a puddle at her feet. I've made a mistake: she's young—younger than my mom.

Michael's called next. His Change takes longer. How many millions of calories did he consume over the years? How many Oreos, pancakes, and Cinnabons were in his past?

I tap my fingers nervously on my thigh as I wait. What if I don't fool the Maker?

When the new and improved svelte Michael comes out of the room, he sits down beside me, biting the inside of his cheek with joy. “Never again,” he whispers triumphantly. “Those sons of bitches.”

I know the ones he means: the same ones who christened me Pucker.

Emma's next. She's in the room for a far longer time, I assume because she was ruined by genetics, not tragedy. The change isn't obvious when she returns. She looks out the window, dismayed. It's still raining.

“I think it'll clear by this afternoon,” Rose says.

Emma runs to Rose and buries her face in her lap. Startled but pleased, Rose strokes the girl's hair while gazing at her legs in wonder.

Jerome and Jesse are called next. I'm frustrated; their chests are fused together—their Change could take hours. And why am I last?

I can't sit still any longer. I get up and begin to pace. Lost in my thoughts, I don't notice the way my newly issued boots rat-a-tat-tat like gunfire on the wooden floor. Suddenly the door at the end of the hallway bursts open and a man well over six feet tall strides out, blue robes billowing around him.

As he stalks toward me I see how old he is, how lined his face is, and for a moment I'm relieved. Why, he's just a geezer, I think, but every step he comes closer, I'm made aware of the fact that old does not mean weak. Then I realize this is Otak. The High Seer of Isaura. The man who killed my father and flayed my mother of her skin. And—according to my Barker's—the man who sees all.

I immediately lose all sense of objectivity and cool. I'm afraid he'll recognize my burned face. I have to be Changed now! I run to the Maker's door and pound on it.

“Hurry,” I cry.

The door doesn't budge. I lean my ear against the wood. I can't hear anything. What's taking so long?

“Thomas,” whispers Rose. “Sit down. It'll be all right.”

“It won't,” I say. It's all over. The old man will take one look at me, remember Serena Gale's child who was burned, and I'll be discovered.

“Who is your Host?” asks Otak, towering over us. “Didn't they tell you how to conduct yourself in the Ministry?”

The Obedient Child is quiet at all times in the Ministry. How could I have forgotten?

He looks me over carefully. God, what if he touches me? What if he reads me? I know we're distantly related and it should be impossible, but what if he can do it anyway?

“He's scared,” says Emma, looking Otak straight in the eye. “You shouldn't pick on people when they're scared.”

This is bad: I need an eleven-year-old girl to defend me. I don't dare lift my head. I can feel his eyes boring into my skull.

“What's your name?”

“Tom Quicksilver,” I tell him, thinking that if I do look familiar, the shortened version of my name might throw him off.

There's a long silence. Finally he speaks again.

“How were you burned?”

“There was a fire in my school,” I lie.

“What, no fire alarms?” he asks.

“They forgot to change the batteries?” I offer up pathetically.

Otak raps on the Maker's door. “Finish up. There's one in agony out here. And you . . .” He turns back to face me. “Stop hiding.”

I look up, terrified, but there's no glint of recognition. Only pity.

“Out of the darkness of unknowing and into the light of certainty,” he says, raising his hand and punching it in the air.

He has hundreds of tiny stars sewn into his flesh.

TWENTY-FOUR

I
'M SHOCKED TO FIND OUT the Maker is a teenage girl. When I lived in Isaura, the Maker was an old woman; that one must have died.

“Sit down,” the Maker says.

She scoots her chair close to mine. She can't be more than fifteen. Like Otak, she has a Seerskin, but hers is copper hued. She notices me staring at her skin.

“You think it's strange,” she says.

“Yes,” I tell her.

“Our skins protect us. Without them we'd go mad,” she explains.

“Really?” I say, trying to sound like I don't have first-hand experience with this.

“Yes, really,” she says coolly. “You may call me Alice.”

“Alice,” I repeat. Already I feel her power. It's like I'm being hypnotized.

“I need you to close your eyes,” she says.

She looks exhausted, probably from Changing all the others in my group. I imagine she just wants to get this last one over so she can go home.

I close my eyes and wait. Nothing happens. I squint like a pirate, taking a peek.

She's cradling her head in her hands. “I'm sorry,” she says. “Give me a moment.”

We sit in silence.

“Are you all right?” I ask after a while.

She looks up at me wearily. “You feel things?”

“Uh, yes,” I say.

“Like love?”

“I guess. Well, sometimes,” I add, wanting to paint a fair picture. “On holidays, mostly.” This is sad but true.

She frowns, dissatisfied with my answer. “Affection?”

“Yes.”

“Remorse? Regret?”

“Sure,” I say slowly, not knowing where this is going.

She shakes her head, as if making some decision.

“Often I have wondered what it would be like to be governed by your emotions. I've felt sorry for your people that they are so imprisoned and grateful that it's not so for us.”

“Okay,” I say, aware she's on the cusp of revealing something. Should I try to say something funny? Attempt to cheer her up? But she isn't sad; she isn't capable of it. Perhaps she's trying to be and this is the point of the conversation.

Alice takes a few deep breaths and collects herself. “I'm sorry. Close your eyes again. This shouldn't take long.” She reaches out for me and I wince involuntarily, terrified she will know who I am the moment she touches me. I hold up my hand.

“Give me a second,” I say.

She gives me a strange look but nods. I close my eyes, trying willfully to empty myself of memory.