Pucker

by Melanie Gideon

  A jolt of pleasure courses through me. When I see someone do something extraordinary, it makes me want to do something extraordinary too. The Changed do not share my pleasure. Murmurings of disapproval reverberate through the crowd.

  “Mitsuko 99, I would expect this kind of behavior from a 24, not somebody who’s nearing the hundred-day mark. The three Rs,” Nancy says.

  Mitsuko collects herself. She presses her palms together as if in prayer.

  “Ruined by chance, Redeemed by invitation, Regenerated by work,” she recites, her head submissively bowed.

  Nancy nods her approval as if she were Chairman Mao.

  The testimonials go on all evening and each one ends with a recitation of the three Rs. The last two Rs are always the same, but the first can be answered either “Ruined by chance” or “Ruined by genetics.” I guess in this way they account for both tragic accident and cellular abnormality. Finally it’s over and everyone begins filing out of the benches and making their way to the dormitories except for us. Dash tells us to wait. He disappears for a moment and comes back with a bearded man.

  “This is Adam 856,” says Dash. “He’s been sketching you.”

  “Your name?” Adam asks Rose. He’s carrying a pad of paper.

  “Rose Garabedian?” she says like a question.

  “That’s the last time you’ll answer that way,” says Dash. “Tomorrow you’ll be Rose 1.”

  Adam writes Rose’s name on the pad. Then he tears off the piece of paper and places it in her lap. Rose’s chin wobbles as she looks at the sketch of herself, her legs strapped to a wooden chair.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask. “She doesn’t need a reminder of how she looks. That’s why she came here.”

  Tears stream down Rose’s face.

  “It’s my job,” Adam says. “What’s your name?”

  I shake my head. I don’t want my sketch.

  “Everyone has it done,” says Dash. “There has to be a record.”

  “Your name,” repeats Adam.

  I refuse to answer.

  “Thomas Quicksilver,” Dash answers for me.

  Adam scrawls my name on the pad, tears off the page, and hands it to me. I hand it back.

  “You got it wrong. That’s not my name. My name’s Pucker,” I say.

  Dash scowls but says nothing.

  TWENTY

  AND THEN I SEE HER. She’s standing in the aisle, her head tilted to one side as if she’s waiting for a cab.

  I’ve never seen a girl with a gaze like this. It streams from her eyes creek-cold and clear as a November night. She has the look of someone who could have lived in the nineteenth century—no, all the centuries that have ever passed. She’s long necked and has a generous mouth. Hundreds of lunar moths hover above her in the trees. Even though she’s standing still, she appears to be moving.

  My cells feel like they’re being rearranged and I can only think of one thing: I can’t let this girl see me before I get my new face.

  “Hurry up,” I say, trying to move Michael along, hoping she hasn’t seen me yet.

  There’s no rushing a five-hundred-pound man and it’s too late anyway: the girl is staring at us openly. She’s the first Changed (other than our Hosts) to have done so. In the minutes it takes us to reach her, my heart beats out a tattoo of distress. I think of my favorite painters. I recite them like a litany: Caravaggio, Magritte, Vermeer, and Modigliani. The musicality of their names calms me.

  “Hello there,” I say as we approach, and immediately cringe. I sound like a librarian.

  She sticks out her hand. I go to shake it and she quickly withdraws her arm, leaving me hanging. Had we known each other, had we been old friends this would have been funny. But given our circumstances, it’s hostile.

  “That wasn’t very nice, Phaidra. Keep it up and you’ll have to go through orientation again,” says Dash.

  Phaidra looks at Dash with amusement, her arms folded across her chest. Around her neck she wears a delicate filigree chain. I know from my Barker’s that all the personal possessions of immigrants are confiscated. I wonder how and why she got away with keeping it.

  “It’s all right,” I say, not wanting her to get into trouble.

  Dash turns to Phaidra. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to the dorm?”

  She shrugs.

  “Let me rephrase that. Get back to the dorm,” he says.

  Phaidra shrugs again, as if nothing he could ever say would matter, then saunters off slowly.

  Dash watches her go, and, despite myself, I watch her as well.

  “She’s trouble. Get her out of your mind right now,” says Dash.

  “She wasn’t in my mind.”

  “Sure, she wasn’t.”

  Phaidra is so beautiful it’s hard to imagine she was ever not that way. “Why’s she here?” I ask.

  “You mean what was wrong with her?” says Dash. He smirks. “I’ll never tell. That’s rule number one. We don’t discuss what brought us here. That’s why none of the Changed looked at you tonight. You’re invisible until you’re Changed.”

  “Then why wasn’t I invisible to Phaidra?”

  Dash rummages around in his pockets. “No idea. Must be something special about you. That what you want to hear? She saw beneath your monstrous face to your handsome, noble self?” He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, shakes one out, and places it between his lips.

  That’s exactly what I had hoped.

  “You were Phaidra’s Host?” I guess.

  Dash peers at me through squinted eyes and inhales deeply. “Aren’t you the perceptive one?”

  “You had her before me?”

  I cringe when I say this, realizing how it sounds. What I meant to ask was if Phaidra had been Dash’s recruit before me.

  Dash knows exactly what I meant, but he decides to toy with me. He laughs cryptically. “You could say that.”

  Jealousy rockets through me. I can taste it in my mouth, dirty and copperish. This is crazy. I’ve just met the girl, but I can’t stand the thought that Dash has been with her. Now the necklace makes sense. She has it because he let her keep it.

  “She’s had a hard time giving up her wild ways. If she doesn’t watch herself, she’s going be in a boatload of trouble,” says Dash.

  I wonder what a “boatload of trouble” means here among the Changed. How is punishment meted out? I don’t know. But one thing I do know is that the brighter the shine, the bigger the shadow—and Phaidra glows like a klieg light.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I SNEAK OUT THAT NIGHT to do reconnaissance. Partly because I need to find out if I can sneak out and partly because I’m going stir-crazy. By eight that evening Dash is snoring away.

  I’d forgotten about this. Everyone goes to sleep early in Isaura because once it gets dark, there’s nothing to do. I have little desire to sit around the kitchen table and watch the candle burn down to a stub. Dash has locked me in my room, which I find more than a little creepy, but I climb out the window easily enough and drop to the ground.

  Tonight I intend to find my way back to the portal. I want to make sure that it’s still there and that I can get back on my own.

  I get lost, but eventually I find the tunnel. It’s deserted, completely unguarded. I guess no one ever tries to sneak out of Isaura; I find this really depressing. I walk through the tunnel and stick my hand out into the cone of shimmering light that pours down from the sky. The air nips at me gently, like a kitten.

  It’s a perfect summer night. I’m seventeen years old. I should have no cares other than what I’m going to do on Saturday night. But that is not my life. That has never been my life.

  I step into the light. I think of our apartment. Its worn couches, its blender and coffeemaker. The electricity, the invisible current of energy that warms us and keeps our rooms lit. The portal begins to tug on me. I stagger backward and grab the hedgerow with two hands. I can’t stop thinking of my mother. What’s happening to her now? Are the visions coming so qu
ickly and in such a torrent that she’s no longer even conscious?

  “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

  WHEN 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

  WHEN 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.”