Pucker (22 page)

FIFTY-EIGHT

T
HE TRUTH HAS LAYERS AND SO DO LIES.

At the last minute I change my mind about going to the Ministry. I'm following a hunch. I need to go home.

People stare at me and whisper as I walk down the city streets. It seems my real identity is common knowledge now.

“So you've returned,” Otak says when I walk into the yard of the house I grew up in. There is nothing left but a stone foundation. He's sitting on a tree stump, waiting for me. For some reason, this doesn't surprise me.

“Where's Cook?” I say.

“She's not in any danger,” he says.

“You burned her house down!” I yell.

“
She
burned her house down,” says Otak. “We may be many things, but we are not savages.”

“You're lying,” I say, my discomfort mounting.

“She said it didn't feel like home anymore,” says Otak calmly.

I glare at him while I try and digest this information. Much to my annoyance, it sounds disturbingly like something Cook would say.

“Well, what about Phaidra? You had the Maker Change her back.”

Otak nods. “She has not acclimated well,” he says. “We simply accelerated the process of bringing her back to herself. Sometimes that happens. The Change is not a fit. Rarely, but it's not unheard of.”

He studies me for a reaction. I squint off into the distance, my lips narrowed with rage. He has done this to me every time, with our every encounter. He turns the conversation. He turns
me
.

“I should have recognized you,” he says. “You look just like your father.”

“You're lying,” I say loudly, but my retort is half-hearted, and we both know it.

“It's time someone told you the truth,” he says.

Despite the fact that I want—no, I
need
—him to be a villain, my heart surges. This is the High Seer of Isaura, and when he says there is something of my father in me, it must be so.

I think of Cook. S
he
must have lied to me. But as I said, there are layers to the truth, to lies as well, and perhaps this is part of the reason why I've traveled all this way—to find this out. Cook told me I looked nothing like my father because she wanted to protect me. She knew I was planning on going back to Earth, and that meant going back to being Pucker. Whether my unscarred face bore any resemblance to my father would soon be irrelevant.

And then Otak says something entirely unexpected from somebody who is my mortal enemy.

What he says is, “Stay.”

Does he mean stay so that he can call the guards? Stay so he can summon the Maker and unmake me?

“Stay here. In Isaura,” he says, almost gently. “That face belongs to you.”

“But . . . my mother,” I begin.

“It's not your responsibility to save your mother,” he says.

It is, I think.
Isn't it?

“It's not,” he repeats, as if I've spoken aloud.

I shake my head vigorously. “If you just give me her Seerskin.”

“That's not possible,” he says.

“Why not?” I plead.

Otak looks at me sharply. “You are Isaurian. You are the child of two Seers. What do your hunches tell you?”

But there is nothing in my head. No coalescing of fact and feeling. I am the most ordinary of young men. I don't belong in Isaura. I don't belong on Earth either. I stare at him, drained.

“Her Seerskin is gone,” says Otak. “Used up,” he adds.

A little squeak of despair escapes me and Otak flinches as if it's physically painful to be in the presence of somebody who feels so much.

“You should have come to me when you first arrived. I could have saved you from all of this,” Otak says. His face hardens. “Go back to your world, then. Adalia and Phaidra are waiting for you at the portal,” he says, dismissing me.

Waiting for me at the portal? This entire time? “You
knew
I wouldn't stay.”

“Yes,” he says.

“Then why did you ask me to?” I shout in frustration.

He hesitates for a moment. “Because you were never asked before.”

And there it is again, something against which I am defenseless—the truth. I wasn't asked before. I wasn't consulted. The choice was made for me by my mother and that's how I became Pucker.

“But she'll die if I go back without her skin,” I cry.

He considers this for a moment and I swear I see something like sadness flit across his face.

“She was dying here too,” he says quietly.

FIFTY-NINE

C
OOK JUMPS TO HER FEET when I step into the clearing. Misery distorts her features. “I'm coming with you,” she says.

“I know,” I say.

“I should have come years ago. I never should have let you and Serena go alone. You were too sick, both of you.”

“Yes, all right,” I say. I just want her to stop talking. I can't pay attention to her right now. I'm too focused on Phaidra. She's sitting on a little boulder, her face turned to the side. Does she hate me?

“Phaidra,” I breathe.

Phaidra stands. I walk toward her. Pine needles crunch beneath my feet.

“Stop,” she says loudly, holding up her hand.

Desperation balloons inside me, filling me with white heat. There will be no taking back what I've done. No second chances. Then suddenly, miraculously, Phaidra's face begins to soften.

“Stop hating yourself,” she says.

“I can't,” I say. I shut my eyes. I want to be in the dark where she is. I would give up the light for her.

“You have to,” she says. “It's enough now. Enough,” she says, stepping forward.

When I see her coming toward me, relief, ridiculous and uncomplicated, begins to wash over me. A gentle tide, it laps at my feet.

Then she's in my arms and there is one kiss, there is one girl—there is one love.

PART FOUR

SIXTY

I
T'S NEARLY MIDNIGHT WHEN WE get back to Peacedale. Cook, Phaidra, and I walk down the deserted streets in stunned silence. Dressed in our Isaurian garb, we look like refugees from
The Scarlet Letter
. I can hear Cook breathing heavily as she tries to take it all in: the streetlights buzzing, the July smell of fresh tar and creosote, the roar of I-95.

I haven't touched my face, but I know the scars have returned. I felt it happen as we traveled through the portal. There was something strangely soothing about it. It didn't hurt; it felt tender, like somebody draping cool, wet gauze on my cheeks. I think of Patrick's mother, Clara—the way she would warn me before she peeled off my skin with tweezers.

Our house is just outside of town. About twenty minutes later I'm standing on my porch. I peer through the mesh of the screen door and slowly turn the knob. The floorboards creak, announcing my arrival.

“Thomas?” My mother's voice floats down the stairs. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” I say, but I don't move.
Now
I feel my face—the weight of the scars. They burrow themselves into my flesh. A sob escapes from my throat.

“Oh, my boy,” my mother cries softly. And then I'm running up the stairs, I'm standing in the doorway of her room—I'm kneeling at her side.

SIXTY-ONE

I
AWAKE TO THE SMELL of waffles and bolt upright. I have a hunch something is terribly wrong. My intuition is coiled up inside me like a spring.

I jump out of bed and run into the kitchen. Phaidra, Cook, and Huguette are sitting around the table, talking. They dip back in unison when they see me standing there. I am not looking my best. My hair is flattened from sleep; my jeans ride low on my hips. I'm concave, a pile of bones. I've barely been able to eat since we returned.

“What's happened?” I ask hurriedly.

“Nothing. She had a rough night, but she's okay,” says Huguette.

Cook gets up and pours me a cup of coffee. “Sit,” she says.

I go over and kiss Phaidra on the cheek and she presses my hand to her face for a moment before letting it go.

It's been nearly eight days since I returned home, and my mother is still alive. She should be dead by now, but somehow she's managed to hold on. She tells us it's because we're all here. That we've made a wall of love that keeps the visions out. But all of us know that's a lie. The visions are sneaky and relentless. They will smother her one night when we step out of the room.

Here's how the days have passed:

Cook makes breakfast. I bring in a tray to my mother. I sit down on the edge of her bed and we have long, winding, circuitous conversations that last hours, sometimes until dark. We've had a lot of work to do, peeling back the layers of truth. But we have: we've shed the layers one by one until all that remains is a shining nugget of devotion. Her devotion to me. Mine to her. This is undisputed. This is all that matters. Everything else we have done, all the mistakes we have made, all the lies we have told, all the ways we have hurt each other have ceased to matter.

The doorbell rings. Huguette raises her eyebrows silently at me. I shake my head. I don't want to answer it. It rings again, reverberating insistently through the kitchen. I frown and take a sip of coffee, waiting for the footsteps to go away.

“Answer the frigging door, Quicksilver,” a voice yells. A hand rattles the knob impatiently.

I freeze. It's Patrick.

“I know you're in there,” he says. “There have been sightings.”

“Damn,” I whisper under my breath. I went out last night for groceries. Somebody must have seen me.

“I'm coming in,” he yells. “I'm using my key.”

“Don't,” I say, but it's too late, I hear his footsteps racing up the stairs, and then he's in the kitchen, bewilderment and hurt spreading across his face when he sees all of sitting around the table.

“Guess my invitation got lost in the mail,” he says.

He looks at Cook. She's still wearing her Isaurian clothes: the long clay-colored skirt, the high-necked blouse.

He turns to me. “How was Disneyland, asshole?”

“I wasn't in Disneyland,” I say softly.

“No kidding,” he says, his eyes falling on Phaidra.

“I couldn't tell you where I was going,” I say.

“Why not?” he fires back at me.

“You wouldn't have believed it,” I say.

Patrick shakes his head. “You underestimate me,” he says. “You always have.” Then he clatters down the stairs again. A minute later we hear two sets of feet coming back. My hunch is uncoiling now, stretching to its full length.

“Found her wandering around outside,” Patrick says. A young woman follows him into the kitchen. She's dressed identically to Cook. My mouth drops open in shock—it's Alice, the Maker. Patrick gives her a gentle push forward.

“You feel things,” Alice says to me.

“Uh, yes,” I stammer.

“Like love?”

“Yes,” I tell her. Why is she questioning me? Has she come to hurt us? To make us go back?

“Regret?” she asks.

I blink. I feel like I've stepped forward although I haven't moved, not one inch.

“I feel regret too,” Alice says to me.

Phaidra unfolds herself gracefully and stands.

“Why have you come, Alice?” She asks the question I can't seem to get out of my mouth.

“Because I have Serena's skin,” Alice says.

Phaidra gasps. “Where?”

Alice frowns. “You can't see it?”

“I'm blind, remember?” says Phaidra.

“I'm not talking about that kind of sight,” says Alice. She walks up to Phaidra and takes her hand. Gently she places it on her heart. Phaidra shudders, trying to pull her hand away, but Alice is insistent and then suddenly Phaidra's face transforms. It glows luminously clear.

“My God, Thomas,” Phaidra whispers. “She
does
have it.”

Alice turns to me. “I'm wearing it.”

SIXTY-TWO

O
N ALICE'S THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY SHE was informed by the Ministry that not only would she be the next Maker, but she had been the lead candidate since the day of her birth.
Candidate:
a word that made her sick to her stomach, especially since she didn't know that she had been in the running for anything.

“Smile,” Otak said. Didn't she know that she'd won?

“Won
what
?” she asked belligerently.

Otak considered her through the wreath of his pipe smoke. He was wondering if perhaps he had made a mistake. He had already foreseen that she would grow up to be a powerful Seer in her own right. She had that, and she had the right parents, and she had a kind of shine, an undeniable charisma.

What he didn't know (what he couldn't know, because not even he was powerful enough to see into her cells) was that she was hard-wired for empathy—empathy that would one day put forth tentative little shoots, sprout tendrils, and grow like a weed, spreading through her, until the day she encountered me, looked into my past, and understood how we were connected. She knew who I was the moment she touched me. All of my efforts to keep my memories from her had failed.

Something ended the day that she Changed me: her ability to keep things outside herself anymore.

And just what did happen on her thirteenth birthday? What did Otak say to her parents? How did he break the news? For it was not widely known, in fact, it was a secret that Makers were made, that they were not some mutation, some natural evolution, but instead a result of something much darker. One Seer made twice as powerful by the sacrifice of another.