I shrink away from them. “No. Please, no,” I say, terror in my voice.
FORTY-FIVE
SOMEBODY PUSHES ME away from the wall and unzips the back of my dress. I struggle but am held in place by Natasha. I feel her small hands around my arms. Her nails dig into me.
My dress falls to my feet, and I’m left standing in my bra and underwear in the shed. The only other item on my body is the anklet that Art gave me. Despite our uncertain future, I don’t want to take it off. It reminds me of a time when things were perfect, that I’m not as Flawed as everyone says. I start crying again. There is nowhere to hide.
“Okay, you’ve done it,” Colleen says quickly. “Let’s go.”
Someone whistles.
“Shut up, Gav, she’s Flawed. She’s scum.”
“Looks like a girl in her underwear to me.”
“Look at those scars,” Natasha says, close to my face. She’s examining the one on my chest. I swallow hard. I want to cross my legs, bring my arms around the front of my body to protect myself.
Gavin and Natasha talk about me like I’m not there. Logan doesn’t say a word, which scares me all the more. They examine my scars. Lift my hand and my foot. They keep the hood over my head. It wouldn’t help to see that the body has a head, has a heart.
“Not looking, Colleen?” Logan says. “Oh no, I forgot. You’ve seen them before.”
“This is sick. I’m getting out of here,” Colleen says. The door unlocks, and I smell fresh air and I hear her footsteps leave the shed.
I’m left alone with them. My body is trembling. I’m afraid and I’m cold.
There are a number of things I realized later that I could have and should have done. Lashed out, screamed, ran, but I am frozen to the spot. They picked the one thing that humiliated me most: my body. I never wanted anyone to see it, no one, and yet here I am standing near naked while three people who I thought wanted to be my friends are shining a flashlight on all the parts of me I can’t even bear to look at myself. Through the sackcloth, I see the camera flashes as they take photographs of my scars and who knows what else. They talk among themselves, at how gross and disgusting my skin is. I know that by the time they leave here, these photographs will have worked their way around to every student in the school. Who knows, they could possibly be Pia’s front page tomorrow.
I feel someone walk around me, light on the toes. Must be Natasha.
There’s a gasp. “Oh. My. God,” Natasha says suddenly behind me. “Look at her spine. Get over here.”
They jostle around the back of me to take a look.
“Man,” Gavin says. “Crap. That one must have hurt. It’s not as neat as the others. But wait, how many is that?”
They go through them all, counting my sears, counting my flaws.
“Six?” Logan says, surprised. “The reports only said five.”
“Five was the most ever,” Gavin said.
“Three was the most ever,” Natasha corrects him. “She’s got six,” she whispers. “I don’t think we’re supposed to know she’s got six.” Suddenly she sounds nervous.
Their energy has changed. I sense that they’re not enjoying it as much as they thought they would. I’ve made them uncomfortable. The reality is not what they imagined it would be. My scars are scars caused by pain. Pain in theory and pain in the flesh are two different things. I think it has had a sobering effect on them. This, oddly, gives me strength. I have gone through what they seem to fear. They have brought me here because they are attracted to their fears. They want to analyze it. Understand it. Rise above it. Laugh at it. But I have lived it. It is my tragedy that they fear. And that gives me strength.
“What time is it?” I ask. There is still hope.
“You’ll be home in time. Get over it,” Natasha says, trying to sound tough, but I can hear her fear. “Right, my buzz is gone. I’m bored. Food, anyone?”
“Yeah,” Gavin says, a little too quickly, and I almost smile beneath my sackcloth.
“You coming, Logan?” Natasha asks.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
I can sense the others’ uncertainty and reluctance to leave.
“Go on if you’re going,” Logan says, eager to have me to himself.
“Just don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
Gavin pauses. “You won’t, you know…”
“Gavin, don’t offend me. She’s Flawed scum. I wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Gavin says, and he and Natasha laugh. “Okay, just don’t leave this place in a mess. My granddad will kill me.”
There’s a long silence, and I hear Gavin’s and Natasha’s footsteps disappear. I’m all alone with Logan. Not a safe place to be.
“Please don’t touch me.” I tremble.
“I wouldn’t lay a finger on you,” he says close to my ear. “You’re disgusting to me. Disgusting to any man. No one will ever want you.”
He starts to circle me slowly. I’m relieved by what he’s said but at the same time wonder what he wants to do with me.
“Do you know what the significance of sackcloth and ashes is?” he asks.
“No.” I sniff.
“The others haven’t a clue. Tonight has been a stupid joyride to them; they’ve no idea the significance of what I’ve done.” He takes on an unusual voice. Like he’s lecturing or preaching. “Sackcloth and ashes were used in the Old Testament times as a symbol of debasement, mourning, and repentance. Someone wanting to show their repentant heart would wear sackcloth, sit in ashes, and put ashes on their head. Ashes signify desolation and ruin.”
I lower my head, the humiliation complete, but he continues talking and circling.
“When Jonah declared to the people of Nineveh that God was going to destroy them for their wickedness, everyone from the king on down responded with repentance, fasting, and ashes. They even put sackcloths on their animals. God saw genuine change, a humble change of heart, and it caused him to relent and not bring about his plan to destroy them. Sackcloth and ashes were used as a symbol of a change in heart, demonstrating that sincerity of repentance.”
He stops talking, stops circling, and there’s silence apart from my heavy breathing under the hot and stuffy sackcloth and my terrified heart banging.
“God is far greater than me, Flawed, but if you repent, I might relent. If you do not admit repentance, then I will lock you up here all night and no one will be able to find you. You will miss your curfew and your whole family can be seared for all I care.”
I bite my lip as the tears stream. I think of little Ewan, how scared he would be, how I have brought such danger to my family.
“And I mean it, Flawed.”
I know he does. He means every word. I feel like I’m back in the Branding Chamber again, with Judge Crevan shouting “Repent!” in my face. I refused to do it then, thinking that I was finished, that things couldn’t get worse. I couldn’t admit I was wrong, not then, but the rules changed and things got worse. They got a whole lot worse. I don’t have the energy anymore.
“Yes,” I cry out suddenly.
He whips the sackcloth from my head, and I’m grateful for the air but terrified by the look in his eye.
“You repent?” he asks.
I nod.
“Answer.” He raises his voice.
“Yes, I do.” I sniff.
“Say you’re sorry,” he says, pushing it.
“I’m sorry.”
“Say you were wrong,” he says quickly, and I can tell he is getting far more of an adrenaline kick out of this than the alcohol or whatever it was they were smoking.
“I was wrong.”
“Get down on your knees and beg me for forgiveness.”
I stall.
“Do it.”
I get down on my knees.
He stands behind me and finally removes the rope from my wrists. I immediately bring them to the front of my body and massage my wrists. They are cut, raw. I
can’t look him in the eye.
“Say it,” he shouts.
“I don’t know what to—”
“Beg for my forgiveness. Hands together, in prayer, like you’re in a church. Do it.”
“Please,” I say, crying. “Please. I’m sorry, I was wrong. I repent. I just want to go home. I just need to get home.”
He smiles, as if satisfied, and throws my dress at me.
I fumble with my dress, finally relieved that it’s all over, wanting to hide my body from him as quickly as I can. He watches me from the open door. For someone who thinks I’m scum, he sure watches me long enough.
“By the way, Flawed, you have twenty minutes to curfew.”
He slams the door to the shed. The bolt slides across, and the keys rattle as he locks me inside.
FORTY-SIX
I HEAR NATASHA’S car drive away, and I look around the dark room lit up in one corner by the moonlight, searching for a way out.
“No,” I start to cry. For a moment, I give up. I completely give up. I huddle in the corner and cry. I am in a shed, on a mountain, who knows how far from my home. Even if I screamed, no one would hear me. But then I begin to think rationally. Natasha seemed to think I could be home in time, which means I’m near my home, and it clicks with me. We didn’t go far away at all. We drove uphill for some time. I am in a shed, surrounded by gardening tools. I know where I am. I’m in the community gardens on the summit minutes from my house. Although I know the gardens are closed at this hour and there will be nobody around to hear me, I try it out and scream anyway. I scream until my throat is raw and my voice is hoarse. I try everything, but from inside it sounds muffled. No one will hear me. I am not here.
I break down and freak out. I pull and push at the door, but it’s useless; it’s locked from the outside. I bang the wood with a spade, but it has no effect; I’m exhausted and don’t have the required strength.
There is a narrow window high up. I could squeeze out if lying flat, but to get up that high and get out at such an angle would be difficult. Then I would fall straight down on my head once out the other side. But it’s the only option I have. I have to work with it.
I take the spade and smash the glass. I clear the edges of broken glass as much as I can. I stack a toolbox, boxes of plants, and compost bags on top of one another to try to reach the window. I work out the logic, painfully aware that my time is running out. I pull myself up, line the window ledge with the sackcloth so as to protect my skin from the broken glass, and push my head out, thankful for the fresh air. That is enough to invigorate me. I can do this. I pull myself out, scraping my belly over the cloth, sucking in air, and hissing from the pain. I reach for the fencing to the left of the shed and hold on as I pull the rest of my body out through the flat window. I cling to the fencing for dear life, hands, fingers raw from grasping the wood. I dangle from the fence momentarily and then fall, feeling the sting in my feet on the pebbles. I sit on the ground for a minute to wait for the pain to go. I look around to get my bearings. I’m familiar with this hill. It is where I used to meet Art, not here by the gardens, but nearby. Despite my time being precious, I feel drawn to the spot where we always met. I will never in my life be able to be here at this time again, ever, and it is so close. And something, an instinct, is telling me to go there.
It is a one-minute sprint away; and when I arrive there, I know that it was the right decision. Two figures are in the place where Art and I used to be. So quickly replaced. A spot that I thought we owned now belongs to another couple. It looks like me and Art.
Because it is Art. And the girl with him looks exactly like me.
Me as I used to be, happy, beaming, smiling, laughing, looking like there is nothing wrong in her world. But I know it’s not me, because I am here. Barefoot, bleeding, bruised, and crying. Running for my life. Fighting for my life, but I don’t know why I’m bothering, because the last piece of hope and energy that I had for myself has been instantly drained from my heart, and I no longer care. My heart is empty; they can do what they like to me now.
The girl is my sister.
FORTY-SEVEN
ART IS THE first to look up.
I realize I’m crying.
His eyes, his eyes that I love, run over me in shock. For the first time since all this began, my heart breaks. I feel the pain in my chest instantly. I didn’t cry out for five of my brandings, but I cry out now. This is a pain more intense than anything so far. More than the pain of the brandings, more than the humiliation in the shed. This tops them all.
Juniper twists around to look in the direction he’s staring, and her face gives it away, too.
Caught. Immediately my tears stop and anger takes over.
“Celestine!” Art jumps up. “What happened? Are you okay?” He comes toward me, worried, panicking, but I know it’s not about what I’ve just witnessed. He’s worried about the state of me.
“Stop!” I yell, and he freezes.
“Oh my God, Celestine,” Juniper whispers, looking at me, hands going to her face. “What happened?”
“Celestine,” he says, taking steps near me again. I take steps back, which makes him halt again. “Are you bleeding? Where are your shoes? What happened? Who did this to you?” I hear the emotion in his voice, how it cracks with anger and pain.
Juniper joins him, and the two of them side by side again angers me intensely once more.
“Don’t you come near me ever again. Either of you. You both betrayed me once. I should have known you’d do it again.” I turn to Juniper. “You knew where he was hiding all this time?”
“Yes, but—”
“Up here?” I ask, shocked. I think of his hiding in one of the garden sheds and being cared for by Juniper, the very space I was imprisoned in and had to break free from. “I knew you were missing every night.” And then I realize. “I knew this was happening, but I just didn’t want to believe it.… You made me look like a liar.” I know now why I was acting so cruelly toward her. I think I knew this but wouldn’t admit it.
“No, Celestine, please, let me explain. I was just helping him!”
“Shut up! You’re both liars!” I shout, and he backs down and looks away, not able to defend himself.
“This isn’t what you think it is. She was just helping me hide out. We weren’t, you know…” He runs his hands through his hair, in complete turmoil.
“You both looked very cozy to me,” I say, looking from one to the other.
“It’s not like that,” he says. “I told you I can’t go back to my dad. Not after what he did to you.”
“What he did to me? Don’t you think you two had a part in it as well?”
This brings tears to Juniper’s eyes, and Art’s jaw hardens. I know it was a cheap jab, but I am so angry I want to hurt them both more than they have ever known, so that they can feel at least some of what I’m feeling now. I’ve wanted him every day, and every day she’s known where he is, doing who knows what. She could have told me, she could have got a message to him for me, she could have helped me, but instead she helped him.
“Well, isn’t this nice for you.” I look around. “Cozy. Guess what, Art? I don’t have a hiding place. There is none in this world for me. I have to face it all, every day on my own. I don’t have the luxury that you do, using people to make things better for you like you always do. But you can’t stay here forever. Someday you will actually be a man and face it all.” That seems to deeply hurt him, and I’m glad. “You always said you’d be there for me, but you’re nothing but a coward. Both of you.”
“Celestine,” he says, his voice cracking as it nears a sob. “I miss you so much.”
The emotion from him is real. It’s raw. I might be stupid, but I believe him.
“Then why are you sitting here with my sister?”
“Let me explain,” he says, angrily now, frustrated that I won’t let him talk. He steps toward me, and I back away.
“I can’t.” I think of another face-to-face w
ith Judge Crevan in his courtroom, and the fight within me returns. I’m not done yet. “I’m not going to let you two ruin my life again.”
I have four minutes. I turn around and run.
* * *
The next few minutes are a blur of leaves, branches snapping in my face, stones on my feet, and twigs cutting my legs, my breath loud as I run the fastest down the hill that I have ever run before. I don’t look at my watch; I don’t have time. I sprint to my backyard wall. I climb it faster than I ever have and land on our grass, which feels like fur in comparison with what I’ve trodden over tonight. I can see Dad, Mom, and Mary May in the living room. They are looking at the clock on the wall. Dad is pacing. Mom’s hands are clasped by her chest, begging, praying as I was earlier for a miracle to happen. I push open the back door and fling myself at their feet, on my knees, panting and crying, unable to breathe, unable to speak, unable to see, I am so dizzy.
I look up. The minute hand reads one minute past eleven.
I look at Mary May in desperation, unable to speak, still panting.
“One minute past eleven,” she says.
Mom and Dad explode with anger at her, at the injustice.
Then suddenly the watch on her wrist starts beeping. Confused, she lifts it and studies it, and I realize our timings are different. Surely, I will be judged by the Whistleblower’s time. Mom and Dad must realize the same thing and freeze as they look at her for confirmation.
I look up at her from the floor, and I have a sudden fit of giggles. I start laughing, and it hurts my ribs where Logan winded me, but the pain makes me laugh even more. The three of them watch me on the floor, lying down and holding my sides, my head bleeding, my legs and arms scraped and cut, laughing like a maniac.
I did it.
I beat them all.
FORTY-EIGHT
MY PHONE RINGS at 4:00 AM, waking me in the middle of a terrifying dream. I’m standing in the viewing room, hands up against the glass, and Carrick is in the Branding Chamber, tied to the chair. They have forgotten to give him the anesthetic, and he is screaming so loudly, his face contorted in pain, the veins bulging from his muscular neck. Instead of Tina, June, Bark, and Funar in the Branding Chamber, it’s Logan, Natasha, Gavin, and Colleen.