Flawed (23 page)

When I was a child, I always thought that to run away, you had to physically get up and run, as the kids did in the movies. A hateful shout, a slam of a door, then run. I've learned that lots of people run away without even going anywhere. I see it in Mom's newly polished face, I see it when Dad disappears into his head at the dinner table, I see it when Ewan gets down on the ground and really focuses on his cars and helicopters. Juniper does it when she puts on her headphones and blares her music with her back to the world. I've never known how to do it before. But now I do. I'm running and running and running in my mind, through endless nothing but feeling free. When I open my eyes, I see Angelina Tinder standing at the open door, her head-to-toe black a stark contrast to the fresh white walls. She stands at the door listening, so I continue to play. Then she slowly nears me. I feel her beside me, behind me, and then she sits beside me. I'm afraid to look at her in case I scare her away. Bob stands at the door with a smile on his face. Happy and sad at the same time. Then he closes the door gently on us both.

When I'm finished, I look at her, the room in total silence. Tears stream down her face.

“You play,” I whisper.

She shakes her head.

I look down at her hands, once again covered by the black fingerless gloves. They are clasped tightly on her lap. I slowly reach down and take her hand in mine. She doesn't protest, but she is intrigued, as though she has no control over her hands. So I slowly bring her hand up to the piano keys and uncurl her fingers. I reach for her other hand and do the same, getting more confident as I lift it to the keys and uncurl her fingers again.

She sits there, perfect posture as she always used to, her in that position fitting better than any glove over a Flawed hand. Her fingers start to move slowly over the keys, not pressing them. No sound is being made, but she gets a feel for the keys again. She smiles.

“Go on,” I whisper encouragingly.

She lifts her hands gracefully, and I'm waiting, holding my breath to see what she will play, and then she quickly slams her hands down again on the keys. Up and down, up and down, bang, bang, bang, like a toddler let loose on the instrument. I jump at first, then freeze as I watch her, waiting for her to stop this madness. And it is madness; I can see it in her face. There is anger and hate and pain all bursting through her, trying to get out, but her eyes are mad and wild. The sound of the keys is disturbing, the clash of the notes being hit over and over again.

I look around uncertainly, not sure what to do.

“Angelina,” I say gently, but my voice can barely be heard over the notes. So I raise my voice. “Angelina, please stop.”

She ignores me, continuing her attack on the piano, moving from the lower keys to the higher keys, making the most unusual, distorted sounds from something that she used to make sound so beautiful. I wonder if it sounds beautiful to her, now that her mind, too, has become so distorted. If she hears Mozart where I hear madness. She continues as if I'm not there, her elbow digging into me, almost pushing me off the bench. I stand up and move away from her, and I wonder if I should call for help, as she's having some kind of an episode.

The door is flung open.

“What on earth?” Bob says, stepping inside.

She ignores us, continuing to be lost in her music with a smile on her face. But there is no happiness in it, just a demented picture of contentment.

Bob stands there in shock, watching her, not recognizing her.

“What's
she
doing here?” Colleen asks suddenly, appearing at the door. “What's going on?” She looks inside and sees her mother. Her mouth falls open. “What did you do to her?” she shouts over the noise.

“Me?” I ask, shocked. “Nothing. I didn't do—”

“What did you do to my mom?” she yells, angrily, coming close to my face.

I back away. “Nothing. I didn't do…” but she's not listening.

“Get out of our house,” Colleen shouts.

I look to Bob for some kind of normality, to bring logic to the situation, but he is distracted. He makes his way over to his wife, holding his hands near her, hovering around her body as if he's afraid to touch her.

Colleen puts her hands to her ears as though she just can't take this anymore, not just the sound of her mother but whatever else she is hearing in her head. Her own voice, her own cries, her own anguish.

“Get out,” she says to me, disgust written all over her face.

I move closer to the door. I give one last look to Angelina, crazily banging down on the keys, an entirely different woman, maddened by the branding of her body and the treatment that comes with it. Suddenly she lifts one hand off the keys but continues banging with her right hand, and she reaches for the lid. I think she's about to stop playing just as Bob is asking her to, and then I see what's about to come.

“No, Angelina!” I shout, and they both look at me and miss her slamming the lid down on her right hand. The hand that is branded.

Once is not enough. She cries out in pain yet continues it over and over again.

“This is not my hand! These are not my fingers!”

It takes both Colleen and Bob to stop her, but by then I know the damage has already been done. She has broken her own fingers.

 

FORTY

STUNNED, I STUMBLE
down the corridor to the front door. I open it and am faced with the media. They see the look on my face, which I have forgotten to adjust.

“What happened, Celestine?”

“Are you planning a coup?”

“Are you gathering a Flawed army?”

“Is Angelina Tinder part of your alliance?”

“Is it true you're setting up a Flawed political party?”

I push through them and stagger forward to my house.

Mary May waits for me at the front door. The press aren't allowed to photograph her, but I know they're loving this. They can sense that I've done something wrong, that I'm in trouble again. Big news day. Already upset by what has just happened in the Tinders' house, I don't think I can take any more. Mary May steps aside so that I can enter.

Juniper and Mom are standing nervously in the kitchen. Ewan runs upstairs and away from me as he always does, afraid to be in the same room as me.

“What did you do?” Mom asks quietly.

“Nothing,” both Juniper and I reply at the same time, which makes us look at each other and smile for the first time in a long while.

Juniper throws me a worried look and whispers, “Did you do something yesterday?”

I swallow hard. I think of meeting Crevan and wonder if he discovered I was looking for the guards and Mr. Berry, and if so, what is my punishment. Mary May marches into the kitchen in her black-and-red coat and looks straight at me. I'm so afraid that it has something to do with my trip to Highland Castle and asking for the guards that when she produces a newspaper and slams it down on the kitchen counter, I'm relieved.

Now I know that I can't trust Pia. It's a ridiculous article about how I am getting preferential treatment at the school by missing classes and swimming, something I know was written purely to pressure the principal to make me leave the school. If he is seen as aiding a Flawed, or even making my life easier, then the parents will want his head on a plate. The picture that appears alongside it is a photo of me taken sneakily by someone at school. It's supposed to be a photo of me with my braids down, covering my temple, which is against Flawed rules.

“That's not me,” I say instantly.

We all huddle in closer.

“That's me,” Juniper says.

“You understand the rules, young lady,” Mary May says to Juniper. “You cannot lie for your sister, or you will face punishment or incarceration or both.”

“I'm not lying,” Juniper says, and I can sense her getting a hot head. The old Juniper is back.

“The newspaper says it is Celestine,” Mary May says, a little put out, folding the paper again. “This photograph is a clear breach of the rules, Celestine. You will receive a punishment.”

“I'd like you to call the newspaper and get clarification,” Mom says quickly. “A mistake has clearly been made here. I know my daughters, and that is not Celestine in the photograph.”

Mary May is having none of it. “For a total of one week, starting Monday, you will be under house arrest. You cannot leave this house after school hours.” She signs a form, leaves it on top of the newspaper, and leaves.

“I hate her,” I say quietly, watching Mary May drive away.

Mom shushes me even though she's too far away to hear.

“She's just a stupid woman in a ridiculous costume,” Juniper snaps.

“No, no, no.” Mom grabs her by the shoulders and looks her straight in the eye. Juniper is startled by Mom's aggressiveness. Mom realizes what she's done, and she sighs. Then she leads us both to the kitchen table and we sit. “Girls, we have to be careful. You think she's a woman with a grudge, but Mary May is one of the most senior Whistleblowers, and do you know why?”

“Why?” Juniper asks.

“She reported her sister to the Guild as soon as the Flawed rules were introduced. And then when her family turned its back on her, she reported all of them. Her father, her sisters, and her brother, something to do with their family business. Everyone was taken away, branded, punished.”

“What?” I gasp. “Her own family?”

“She might look like a woman in a stupid costume, but she's dangerous. Let's not find out how far she'll go.”

I swallow and nod. I may have gotten away easily here. My weeklong detention isn't the worst punishment in the world. It means that I can still go to Logan's party tomorrow night, which I've been excited and anxious about, but it will pause my Carrick-finding mission, and I need to find him before Crevan manages to make any more people disappear.

 

FORTY-ONE

“SO DID YOU
speak with the guards?” I ask Pia, biting into my apple.

An urgent request to meet with me has brought Pia to my house extremely early Friday morning. I can hear everybody getting ready for school and work, but I'm in no rush because the principal just called to say that due to the reaction to Pia Wang's article, I can't attend school until we figure out other arrangements. They have finally gotten their way, and they're using the article to get at me, no doubt Crevan's idea. I'm gone, now Art can attend. He just needs to be found first.

Pia is in casual mode, jeans and pumps and a cotton T-shirt, which is unusual on her. She almost looks human.

“I asked for Tina, June, Bark, Funar, and Tony at reception, just as you told me to,” she replies.

“Great,” I say enthusiastically. “So they were all able to back me up, corroborate my story?”

“They weren't there,” she says quietly. “They no longer work at Highland Castle. But you already know that. You were there looking for them yesterday.”

I shrug and bite into my apple. “Maybe, maybe not. I'm gutted, as you can imagine. Now I have absolutely no proof whatsoever that Crevan gave me a sixth brand.”

She flinches at me, saying it aloud.

“My family was thrown out of the room, the guards were fired, and Mr. Berry has taken a sudden and unplanned holiday. He hasn't worked on a Guild case for the past two weeks and isn't responding to any calls. Everyone is gone. It's almost like somebody didn't want anybody who was present at the branding to talk about what happened at all. Like a conspiracy! Oh, wait a minute!” I gasp sarcastically.

This is obviously deeply distressing to her, and she sits very still in the armchair, lost in thought. It is terribly distressing to me, too, in fact, though I'm trying to hide it. It means Crevan really is hiding what he has done to me, somehow getting rid of the witnesses, which makes me feel unsafe.

“There weren't any reports of incidences of the guards' bad conduct,” Pia says. “There were no warnings before they were let go. No reported incidences. No budget cuts. No contracts that had come to an end. It was very sudden. All gone. On the same day. The day after the Branding Chamber. As far as I can see, they're not currently employed elsewhere. I rang Tina's house. There was no answer. She has a daughter, so she must know something. I think I'll take a drive out to her tomorrow.”

“So you believe me,” I say nervously.

“No, I'm not saying I believe you,” she says quickly. “I mean, I don't know, but, maybe, I think that I have to cover all areas before … you know. It's a very serious thing, and if he did it, then…”

“Then what?”

“Then…” She sighs. “Then it calls a lot of things into question.”

“It calls
the entire system
into question,” I say.

“Unfair treatment in the Branding Chamber doesn't necessarily mean you're not Flawed, Celestine.”

I roll my eyes. I can't win with her. “No, but it means
he
is. And what happens if you have a Flawed person at the head of a Flawed court?”

She goes quiet. “I heard the school won't let you attend.”

I feel the anger rising within me. “Because of your article, with the photograph of my
sister
.”

Her guilty look tells me all I need to know. But it also shows me that perhaps there's a conscience knocking around in there that I never knew existed.

“Isn't it better to be at home?” she asks. “So that you're not the only Flawed in the school. That can't be easy.”

“Are you trying to convince yourself you've done me a favor? Because you haven't. I wanted to be at school. It's my right.”

She looks confused and thinks about it. “What's it like to be Flawed at school? The
only
Flawed person.”

I can't find any hidden agenda with this line of questioning, but she's never asked me questions like this, about how it
feels
, because the readership isn't supposed to care about how it feels for a Flawed, unless it's to scare them.