State of Grace (8 page)

Capsules are just one thing that the Books say about hooking up. There’s also stuff about all creations having natural desires and how it’s fine in Dot’s eyes to hook up with whoever you want, as often as you want. It’s not like we
have
to hook up once a day or anything like that though. It’s just about having fun and being happy.

‘I’m surprised Dot’s never wanted you and me to do this before.’

Gil has his hand on my shoulders and I know he wants me to sit down. So I do. The green grass at our feet is long and soft and littered with glossy leaves that the trees all around us have dropped. Gil pulls me onto his lap so our faces are close enough to touch. I creep my hands across his back, the way I know he wants me to. The way
Dot
wants me to. My fingers find nubbly things underneath his skin and across his shoulders. Gil closes his eyes. I feel his lips against my cheek. He wants to hook up, that’s obvious. It’s just, I’m not sure I do.

For one there’s the way Gil feels,all cold to the touch. His snake-lips are thin and papery as a page of one of Julius’s prenormal books. Dry too, which explains why he’s always licking them. I notice all these things about Gil because our first kiss isn’t one you lose yourself in or anything. What I mean is, I don’t start kissing Gil then suddenly look up and see the sun’s gone down and nighttime’s here. Every rotation of his head, every time our teeth clank, I notice it all.

‘This is nice,’ Gil says. ‘Very dotly.’

That’s when I get it. I finally figure out what’s going on with those dreams. Those people and places aren’t real, just like I always thought. I’m seeing them because Dot wants to test me. That’s why she made them up and planted them in my head. Some creations are dotly and some are predotly, and Dot wants me to prove to her which one I am.

If I were a less dotly person, the wide-awake dreams might make me doubt my faith in Dot. Maybe that’s what’s going on with Blaze. It could be that he’s predotly.

Not me, though. I’m absolutely, definitely, one hundred per cent dotly. I’m going to show Dot my faith’s unshakable. I’m going to show her I
believe
.

The best time to start, obviously, is right now. Gil has always been superdotly. So even if I’m not totally convinced I want to get close to Gil, I’m going to do it because it’s what Dot wants.

I close my eyes. So far I’ve been kind of holding myself apart from Gil just a little bit, but now I make myself relax against him. Gil drops his head to my neck and starts kissing it, eating it practically. He moves his mouth from my neck back to my lips. We kiss properly, his dry lips to mine again.

The whole time, I’m thinking,
See, Dot? See how dotly I am? I’m doing just what you want.

At the same time, I start wondering about completion night, whether if I show Dot I’m a good believer, I might be one of her chosen ones. And obviously I’m desperate to be chosen. I want it more than anyone has ever wanted anything. Those prenormal images of life outside Dot’s creation have given me a little taste of what it’s like to feel your faith slipping. I know for sure I don’t want that to happen anymore.

Gil pulls away. ‘You’re somewhere else.’ Even though he says it quietly, it comes out shocking as a slap.

I laugh a high little laugh, as though Gil’s got it completely wrong. ‘Oh yeah? Like where exactly? The lagoon? No, I know. I’m climbing the rocks!’

‘Are you prehealthy?’ Gil says this slowly.

‘What? No. Are you serious? I’m feel great. Why would you say I’m prehealthy?’

‘You’re acting distracted,Wren.’ He sort of considers me then. ‘It’s your eyes as well.’

My hands fly up to my face, like feeling my eyes is going to tell me something. But of course, everything up there feels the same as always. Lashes, lids. You know, the standard stuff, all still in place.

‘My eyes?’ I squeeze out another laugh. Can Gil see I’m being tested just by looking at my face?

‘My eyes are fine.’

Everything
is fine. I’m going to repeat that to myself, over and over, until I make it true. Until I pass Dot’s test.

Gil lifts his face and says, ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’

If Gil wasn’t holding me up, I’d probably collapse right there on the ground.

‘Obviously! This is completely dotly.
I’m
completely dotly so of course I’m –’

‘Good.’

Gil tugs at the hem of my sungarb. ‘You should take this off.’

‘Okay.’

If this is what is takes to prove myself to Dot, then I’ll do it. I’ll do it a million billion times over if I have to.

11

T
HE LAGOON’S TOTALLY
different at night. For a start, it’s empty. The sun went down ages ago and now, in the thick, still prelight, I’m the only one here. And the water, which is normally bright blue, now looks all deep and mysterious. The only light comes from the bottom, which is dotted with silvery pinpoints that start to sparkle when the sun fades.

I pull my sungarb over my head and drop it so it puddles in a damp pile at my feet. Since Gil and the gazebo and the magnolia trees, I’ve been sweating like that’s all I was created to do. I spent ages – too long – examining my eyes in the mirror in my hut. At first, the black circles looked normal to me. At least, that’s what I told myself.

But the longer I looked the more I had to admit they were pretty small, just like Blaze’s. So to forget about that, I tried sleeping in my hammock. Except every time I closed my prenormal eyes I saw things I didn’t want to see.

You know, places called parks and creations called Julius and Mum. I guess I thought hooking up with Gil might erase all that, or dilute it somehow. I hoped it would show Dot she didn’t need to test me anymore. But the images inside my head are as clear as ever. Apparently in Dot’s eyes I’m no better after the thing with Gil than I was before. Now, basically all I feel like doing is getting clean.

I slip into the water. Under the surface, my legs look all bleached, nothing like a creation’s skin normally does. It’s sort of like I’m someone else altogether, someone I don’t even know. In the shallows, I drop to my knees and slide under the water completely. About a million fish slip past me and I stay down there as long as I can, hidden, until everything inside me is on the point of bursting. It’s only then that I shoot up again, flip onto my back and lie in a starfish pose, arms and legs pointing outwards.

I open my eyes and I can see the ledge Blaze wanted me to climb to, jutting out from the rocky wall of the escarpment. Above the ledge, the escarpment goes higher and higher and that starts me wondering. If Blaze thought I could climb to the ledge, then maybe I could climb to the very top. From up there I could see the whole of creation.

Floating under the great big velvety dome of the sky, the idea of seeing Dot’s brilliance laid out in front of me makes me feel so happy. I can’t help wondering why Dot doesn’t want us to climb the escarpment so we could see all creation for ourselves.

Then I remember. I
know
why. It’d be presafe to climb so high and Dot only wants to protect us. She knows what’s best for us. That’s what I’m busy telling myself when I first hear the noise.

I plant my feet on the bottom of the lagoon and stand waist-deep in water, listening. The sound has stopped, but I know I heard something. I definitely did, and I’m pretty sure it was coming from the trees around the lagoon. I look up, figuring I’ll see a monkey springing from branch to branch, or an owl with those big glossy round eyes or whatever. But there’s nothing apart from a bunch of leaves shivering in the night air.

Diving under the water, I start convincing myself I imagined the noise. It could happen. I mean, I’d have to say my head’s not in the clearest state in all creation right at this moment. But when I pop up and look back to the trees, I see a flash of movement. I swear it. An arm pokes through the leaves of an avocado tree, then straightaway disappears.

‘Gil?’

I have no clue why I think it’s going to be him. I can’t even work out if I hope it is or I wish it isn’t.

Whatever, because there’s no reply anyway. Nothing. If this is a joke, it’s kind of prefunny. Whoever’s playing it really should be owning up by now. That’s pretty much the whole definition of a joke. When it’s not funny, it’s not a joke anymore, right?

‘Brook?
Blaze?
Hello? I saw you, you know.’

I haul myself over the edge of the lagoon and onto the cool, flat rocks. It’s kind of difficult and I work out that’s because my arms have started shaking.

‘I’m getting out,’ I say. Completely pointless really, since whoever’s in the trees can obviously see every single thing I’m doing.

‘I’m coming over.’

Water rolls down my skin, leaving a trail of droplets behind me as I walk towards the trees. Straightaway I see something. Well, some
one
really. A person.

Suddenly I remember the word. A
boy
.

The
boy
is crouched behind the avocado tree. His face is round and open and shiny with sweat. His hair is short and cloudy soft. And he’s way smaller than anyone else in creation.
Not much bigger than Julius
, I think. Except Julius is only an image in my head whereas this boy is right here in front of me.

The boy stands up, staring, looking away, staring again, and the whole time he’s got this tiny little smile on his face. Smiling to himself – not to me, if you get what I mean.

I think my mouth is hanging open, I don’t know. Absolutely for sure my cheeks and tongue are all numb.

‘Nathan’s never going to believe this.’

The boy is pretty happy, I can tell. ‘You really don’t wear any clothes.’

I say, ‘Come here.’

If I touch him, I’ll see my hand pass through him. Then I’ll know he isn’t real. I mean, of course he isn’t. This must be part of Dot’s test. Another phase or something. She’s realised the images in my head are never going to shake my faith. So now I guess she’s wondering what I’d do if someone new, someone who shouldn’t exist, appeared right in front of me.

Then something forces its way out of the boy’s mouth. A bubble, melon-sized. It’s like the gazebo bubbles except it’s purple and smells of … of … I know the smell. I know the name.

Bubblegum
.

The boy’s feet are encased in fat, white things. And his sungarb isn’t like mine either. He has on some grubby thing that reaches as far as his knees. It doesn’t even ripple free. Instead it’s split in two so each leg can move independently. On his top half, he has something with yellow-and-blue stripes and the outline of a horse.

‘You’re the one they were talking about on Nathe’s computer.’ I have no idea what the boy means but I can guess from the way he’s talking that something prenice is involved. And I’m not prenice. I’m good. I’m kind. I’m dotly. This is a test, so I need to be clear about that. But if there’s ever been a time when I don’t know what to say, this is it.

So naturally, I’m blurting.

‘I’m not a computer
.
I’m one of Dot’s creations, just like everyone else. Not you though. You’re just here to test me. You’re not even real.’

The boy’s mouth goldfishes open. He looks a little less certain, a little less pleased.

‘Is this … is this Club Naturelle?’

My eyes sweep up to the sky. I wish I was in the gazebo right now. That way, I’d be sure my words would find a bubble and make it to Dot. Right now, I don’t have that option. I’m just going to have to hope she can hear me anyway.

I say, ‘Hello, Dot? I know you need to be sure everyone loves you and everything. But you can rely on me. You don’t need to test me. No matter what happens, I’m never going to change my mind about you. I love you Dot, I really do.’

The boy says, ‘Who’s Dot?’

Apparently Dot didn’t hear me. Or maybe she didn’t want to stop the test for whatever reason. Which makes a whole other feeling sweep though me. It’s prehappiness, I guess you could say, only not the ordinary kind. This prehappiness is like the intensest ever. It’s bitter and hard and tastes all sour. I picture Gil’s face moving above me as I lie by the pond. I’m doing everything I can to be dotly. But it still isn’t enough.

The boy blows another purple bubble and pops it. He opens his mouth to talk and I notice something prenormal about his mouth. Where there should be teeth, the boy has a gap.

He says, ‘You’re weird.’

I sigh. I want to pass Dot’s test and that means I can’t ignore the boy. I’m going to have to engage with him, to play along. That must be what Dot wants.

So I ask, ‘Where did you come from?’

‘Woodend.’

‘Oh,
Woodend
. Sure. That’s a place, is it?’

I figure Dot wants to see if there’s any way I’d believe something exists beyond the trees. And, I guess, whether or not this boy can tempt me to go there.

The boy wrinkles his nose. ‘You haven’t heard of Woodend? It’s the biggest town for ages. Woodend. Where Shepherd is?’

‘Town,’ I echo. The word’s familiar but I’m not totally sure what it means.

The boy shakes his head at my blank expression. Inside I’m thinking how amazing it is that Dot would dream up this whole story about a
town
called Woodend just to test me.

‘Okay. So how do you get there?’

‘Easy. You fly.’

‘You mean, like a butterfly?’ There must be ten of them circling around us right now. ‘You can do that?’

Now I’m confused. In the awake dreams, the smaller creations don’t fly. Not that I’ve seen, at least. I figured this boy would be the same as them, only right here with me.

‘You’re not pretending, are you? You really think I can fly?’ The boy laughs. ‘Woodend’s over there. You can walk there in ten minutes.’

The boy jerks his head towards the fringe, like a place called Woodend located right there is the most obvious thing in all creation.

‘That’s enough, Dot. Please?’

The boy doesn’t get I’m not talking to him. He turns a finger in one ear.

‘I don’t know Dot. I already said that.’

Not knowing Dot is like not knowing your own hands exist. Or like saying you’ve never taken a breath or gone to sleep or had a sip of water. I know that. Somehow I have to let Dot know I know.