Pucker (14 page)

The schoolgirls whisper and I look up. They're teenagers. My heart thuds as I realize chances are good I know some of them. But I've been gone for nine years. Will I recognize them? Will they recognize me? Suddenly I need to test the possibility.

I stand up so I can see better and I hear a low warning growl. Accompanying the girls is an old woman. Of course they wouldn't be unchaperoned, especially here in the city among the Changed. The woman wears the brown hooded robe of a teacher. I can't see her face—it's hidden in the shadow of her hood—but there's no mistaking her warning. She steps closer so she can see me better and I busy myself with my sandwich.

I hear Phaidra chewing methodically beside me. I glance up at her face, which is uncharacteristically vacant. I wave my hand in front of her and she smiles dimly. She lifts her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear and her shirt cuff falls to her elbow and I see that her forearm is riddled with tiny slashes. It looks like someone's taken a penknife and cut her again and again. Did Dash do this? Punishment for her insolence?

“Phaidra,” I whisper, and snap my fingers.

She stares out into space

I grab her wrist and gently twist it. She gives a little screech. When she sees her arm exposed, that I've seen the crisscross of cherry-colored lines, she gasps. She yanks her sleeve down and buttons it tight around her wrist and in that instant I understand that Dash didn't do this to her; she's cut herself. But why?

“I see you're done hiding, Tom Quicksilver,” a familiar voice says.

I groan silently and look up. It's Otak and this time he's not alone. He's flanked by a coterie of blue-robed Seers. You're Changed; they can't read your mind, I remind myself, but I'm filled with doubt. They look at me like they know exactly who I am and what I'm thinking. Otak leans in close to me, so close I can smell his breath, which is surprisingly fresh, and he turns my face to the left and right. I half expect him to pull my lips back and inspect my gums.

“Some of the Maker's best work,” he says, letting me go.

I feel a weird combination of shame and pleasure at his comment.

He looks over his shoulder at the group of Isaurian girls.

“Rule number three, girls,” he calls out.

“Never touch a Changed,” they answer in unison.

But he's just touched me. That doesn't seem to occur to anybody. I stare at the girls with bewilderment. Each one holds a set of books in her arms—they must have been coming from school. Before walking off, they examine me so coldly that I feel shredded.

“Bitches,” whispers Phaidra, glaring at the Isaurian girls as they sashay across the plaza.

I turn to her, surprised by this gesture of solidarity.

“Don't get all excited. A jackass is a jackass,” she says. “Doesn't matter what world you're in.”

THIRTY-TWO

T
HAT NIGHT THE GIRLS COME CALLING. There's Lina, Tammi, Trixie, Veronica, Penelope, Mee-Yon, Alex, and Mildred-I'm-changing-my-name-to-Montana.

I can't help myself. “Have you given the name Nebraska any thought?” I ask her.

“Why, no,” she says. “I should have, though. I should have considered that.”

She sounds just like Judy Garland, tinny and yippy, like her voice was imported from 1938.

“Certainly you toyed with Dakota?” I say.

“No,” she says, blinking like she's just come out of a movie theater.

“Wyoming, then? Surely Wyoming. It's a nice place. No speed limits. Or maybe I'm confusing it with Montana. But cowboys live there. That's the important thing,” I say. I pat her hand.

She smiles. She has no idea that I'm mocking her.

I am powerful for the first time in my life. I lean forward and kiss Mildred-I'm-changing-my-name-to-Montana and very quickly it no longer matters what she's changing her name to.

 

It's four hours later and I've had eight dates. Exactly thirty minutes with each girl. Now all I want to do is to go to sleep and replay the moment before the kiss when I have no idea how a girl's lips will taste, how her teeth will feel against my tongue, when I have no clue that her neck will smell of limes.

Tonight Montana is kind enough to show me a way out of the backwater of my inexperience, as are Lina and Trixie, and it's more than enough to make me believe in a life where anything is possible.

“You shouldn't have kissed all of them,” says Dash.

“I only kissed three,” I say.

“They'll talk. They'll compare notes. They won't be happy when they find out you've been with all of them,” he says.

From the chirpy way they greeted each other as they passed on the porch steps, it seems unlikely to me that they'll care.

“I just told you,” I say. “It was only three.”

“Whatever,” says Dash. “I'm going to bed.”

“Wait.”

“Now what?”

“I need to ask you a question.”

Dash's eyes narrow. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I'll take you to the infirmary. You'll get your protection, don't worry.”

“Jesus!” I say.

“Look, you better get used to the attention. And you'd better figure out how to handle it. It's not going to go away,” he says.

He's wrong. It
is
going to go away. My mother and her missing Seerskin come winging back into my consciousness. What kind of a sick person am I? I've been on the porch making out while my mother's on her deathbed back on Earth.

Dash eyes gaze at some spot above my head.

“You have this weird cowlick thing happening,” he says.

“I do?” I reach up and pat the back of my head. There is indeed a stuck-up bristly patch.

“I can remedy that. Snip, snip. Cut it real short? Might be a better look on you anyway. You're got this polo player vibe going that honestly”—he leans forward and mock-whispers—“only works if you happen to be Argentinean.” He rolls back on his heels and smirks.

“Get away from me,” I say. I've always been vain about my hair. It was the only thing I had going for me before the Change.

He shrugs and turns to go.

“Wait!” Even though I've spent the evening with eight girls, suddenly I feel completely alone.

“What now?” he drawls.

“Don't go yet.”

Dash looks amused, but he pulls up a chair and sits down at the table. “Sure, kid. No problem. That's my job. To babysit you.”

The words are wrong, but the tone is right. There's a certain yielding in his voice. Like maybe he remembers what it was like for him when he first arrived 484 days ago.

“I don't need any babysitting,” I say.

“Sure, you don't, T.”

He grins softly at me in a way that reminds me of Patrick and my chin, mortifyingly, begins to wobble. My father probably lies buried under the ground not more than two miles from here. I shake my head angrily at him, trying to will my tears to stay in my eyes.

Dash looks uncomfortable at my display of emotion. “Look, just wait it out,” he says gruffly. “It'll get easier. In the meantime—stop pissing people off. Stop acting like such an American. Just be a good kid.”

Be a good kid.
Sorry, I'd like to oblige, but I just can't. I stopped being a kid long ago, the day my face went up in flames. And as far as good—well, a good kid would not have kissed three girls practically one right after another. A good kid would not have pressed his luck and insisted on going further. He would not have let his hands travel south, past the metropolis of neck and shoulder and to the outer boroughs of rib cage and breast. But I'm starving. For life and for touch.

THIRTY-THREE

D
ASH GOES TO BED RIGHT after that, but I while away another couple of hours in my room. I tell myself I'm being extra safe, making sure that he's truly asleep before I sneak out of the house. But what I'm really doing is replaying the evening. I kissed a girl—I kissed three girls. I feel numb and at the same time liquefied, like I've been run through a juicer.

Finally I get my ass out the door. As I run along the forest path, I try to think only of my mother, of what I must do. I plan to go about this like a mathematician. My
Barker's
has a foldout map that shows every room in the Ministry. I have marked a quadrant, a grid that I will systematically search. Getting into the library and through the steel door to Otak's private quarters will be complicated. I'll save that for later. I need time to come up with the right plan.

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

When I get to the Ministry, I'm shocked to find there are no guards patrolling the grounds. Besides that, the building's unlocked; the place is wide open. The lack of security infuriates me even though it makes my job easier. It's just another example of Isaurian superiority and smugness. I know the way they think because I'm one of them. They don't have to lock their doors because they would know someone was coming to rob them a week before it happened. They haven't counted on me.

I enter the building. The halls are dark, but I have a candle. I light it carefully and cup the flame with my hand to dim it. I open cabinets, rummage through bookcases, and dig through drawers and I'm plagued with nostalgia again.

I was happy here. I walked these halls every day for eight years. I loved the simplicity and the rigidity of our lives, because I didn't know anything else. I'll say one thing for Isaura: I always felt safe here. Until my parents were flayed of their skins, that is.

I only manage to get through two rooms, because it takes a decidedly long time to do a thorough search. I have to paw through the most mundane and quotidian of items: ancient, musty robes, sheaves of paper, and an entire cabinet filled with nothing but empty picture frames. Finally I blow out the candle and stand in the corridor. This is going to take some time, I realize. And I wonder why I'm not feeling any sense of panic.

THIRTY-FOUR

O
NCE AGAIN I'M LATE FOR breakfast. I hurry from the house, trying to dodge the huge pellets of rain. This morning I am Thomas 9.

The days are bleeding into one another: a blur of carpentry, girls, and nights spent searching the Ministry for my mother's Seerskin. Well, that's not completely accurate. I haven't searched
every
night.

This morning I can't get to the Refectory fast enough. I need my fix. Not of eggs or sausage, but of attention. I crave the gaze of others like I crave water.

I push my plate away, aware that people are watching and that their watching is beyond their control: my face requires it of them; it commands them to. Under their eyes I become something outside myself. I have to be disassembled in order to be understood. The curve of my jaw, the arch of my eyebrows, the way my hair falls onto my forehead.

Somebody tugs on my shirt.

“Don't forget about tonight.” It's Emma.

“Tonight?”

“We're meeting for dinner, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” I can't hide my disappointment. The last thing I want to do is have dinner with my group. But it's required. All groups must meet once a week. I glance over at the table where the rest of them are sitting. They're rarely apart. Michael looks up at me sourly. He has elected himself foreman, and our dislike of each other has grown. The sight of him makes me feel like I have a noose around my neck. I have no time for him or for my group. I'm running the race of my life, to live every moment I can with this face before it's taken away from me, but I can't tell them that.

Rose gives a little wave. The twins are busy shoveling food into their mouths.

“Yeah, whatever,” I say.

Emma smirks at me. “Michael said there was a snowball's chance in hell of you coming.”

Michael. He's beginning to become a problem. I get up, put my arm around Emma, and walk over to their table. “See you tonight,” I say, trying to sound chipper.

“Gonna grace us with your presence?” asks Michael.

“Michael,” cautions Rose.

“No. Someone's got to say it.” He stands up, puts both palms flat on the table, and leans forward. “I don't know what game you're playing, son, but it's getting tiresome. At least pretend you think there's somebody else in this world besides yourself.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” I clack my heels together.

He glowers at me. “Perhaps you could be a bit more creative. Or has your face eaten up your brain?”

A spasm of fury sets my jaw twitching.

“Just come,” says Rose.

“I said I would,” I snarl.

“All right, then.” Rose turns to Michael as if he doesn't speak the language and she has to translate for him. “Thomas is coming.” She looks out the window. “Shall we go out and get some fresh air?”

After they leave, Jerome turns to me and asks, “What's got into you?”

“Listen, I already have enough people telling me what to do.”

Jerome throws up his hands. “Not the enemy.”

“But Michael . . . he's just—” I say.

“He's not so bad,” interrupts Jerome. “If you spent any time with us, you'd know that.”

“He's a dick,” I say.

Jerome stands up. “Don't bother coming tonight.”

“Fine. Whatever you want.”

He looks at me with disgust. “It's not what I want. It's what
you
want. But that's the point, isn't it? You get whatever you want now, right?”

“Well, don't you think it's time? Don't you feel the same way? That you should get every damn thing you missed out on, every single minute of your life that you spent suctioned on to your brother's rib cage; that it should all be given back to you to do over? Come on. Aren't you angry? The least little bit?” I bait him.