“What makes you think this lad Carrick has the video?” he asks.
“Well, it just makes sense,” I reply.
“But Berry’s husband said that you have it. Not anybody else. That you have it.”
I nod, hearing him but thinking it couldn’t possibly be true. I would have remembered being given it.
“Did Berry send you anything since you’ve been home? Think about it, Celestine.”
“Granddad,” I say, holding my hands up to my pounding head. “I haven’t been able to do anything but think about it. But there’s nothing. Apart from an envelope with an invoice, there was nothing. He left his home number for me, and I called his husband. That’s the only message he left for me.”
He goes silent. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”
“Thanks for your help, Granddad. I appreciate it. I don’t want to get you into trouble, though.”
“Trouble?” he barks. “I’ve been trouble since the day I was born. You’re not cutting me out of this excitement.”
I smile, feeling grateful.
We turn off a country road onto an even smaller track, and Granddad slows.
“This can’t be right,” he says, confused, squinting out the windows at the view of fields around us. We’re surrounded by thousands of acres of wind turbines, and a liquid-air storage plant rises from the horizon, enormous though it’s miles away. “Let me see the directions again.”
I hand him the crumpled slip of paper with Alpha’s handwriting. It’s a messy scrawl, something I think she did deliberately so nobody else could decipher it.
“Hmm,” he says, face screwed up in concentration as he reads. Then he looks up and around. “Looks like we’re going the right way,” he says, but he sounds uncertain. “This woman, do you trust her?”
I look at him. “I don’t trust anyone anymore.”
“That’s my girl.” He chuckles. “Well, we’ll soon find out.”
He continues driving down the narrow road, on the hunt for Gateway Lodge. I’m expecting a hotel of some sort, a conference room with a dozen or so people all talking about their experiences, but this doesn’t seem like the place anybody would come to to stay in a hotel. It’s too remote. My stomach tenses. Becoming lost is a concern of mine now, as is running out of gas. I worry about a random event occurring that will stop me from returning home in time for my curfew. Even worse, I’m afraid Mary May will orchestrate something to deliberately get me into trouble. She can’t be happy with the outcome of the photograph and alcohol charge, and I’m expecting trouble. I must beat this fear. I thought the Guild couldn’t do anything to hurt me anymore, but I was wrong—targeting my family would be an unbearable pain, a guilt I don’t think I could live with, and it’s the fear that they instill in us that is the continuous punishment for what we’ve done. I trust Granddad. I trust he will make sure I get home. But he’s old. What if he has a heart attack, what if he passes out…?
The road gets increasingly narrow as we delve deeper. The branches of the trees are now brushing up against our windows. Just when I think we’ll be crushed by branches and overgrowth, a gate appears after the next bend in the road. The gate is enormous and towers over us with multiple security cameras covering all angles. A twenty-foot wall hides whatever is behind it. The plaque on the wall announces it is Gateway Lodge.
We’ve arrived.
FIFTY-SEVEN
WE LEAN FORWARD and strain our necks to look up at the height of the walls.
Before Granddad even has a chance to reach out the window of the truck to press the buzzer, as if hearing our conversation, the gates suddenly open. Granddad moves the truck forward, and after following a mile of driveway, surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns and sloping hills, which block what’s coming up next, as though driving through a golf course, finally, we are faced with an enormous mansion. “Lodge” did not accurately describe it. There are dozens of cars parked in front of the house and a series of minibuses that must have had a hard time squeezing their way down the country roads. As we park, the front door of the mansion opens.
“That’s not her,” I say, walking toward our greeter.
Granddad immediately speeds up and almost blocks me, reaching the woman first.
“You made it,” a timid, but polite, woman says excitedly. It’s pulsating from her, her smile so enormous it is contagious. “I’m Lulu,” she says, her voice high-pitched, but soft, like a cartoon character. “Alpha’s assistant. I’ve held you a seat. Two, just in case.” She smiles and gives Granddad the quick once-over.
Granddad always receives these looks from people. For someone with a soft heart, he does a good job of scaring everyone off with his deeply lined, scrunched-up, grumpy face.
“This is my granddad.”
“Oh my,” Lulu says, her voice going up an octave as she gets excited. “It’s an honor to meet your family.” Lulu pumps his hand up and down enthusiastically. Then she turns to me. It hasn’t been long, but I instinctively know not to offer my branded right hand to her to shake. She reaches for it instead herself and holds on for dear life, looking at me expectantly. I’m not sure what she’s waiting for. I look to Granddad uncomfortably.
“Okay, okay,” Granddad barks, and she jumps a little.
I finally free my hand from hers, which seems to break her from whatever spell she’s under.
“I’m sorry.” She blushes. “It’s just so nice to see you in the flesh. I’m a big, big fan of yours.”
“We all are,” Granddad says proudly.
“Follow me,” Lulu says, and we make our way through endless halls and corridors. “All of us are thrilled you’re coming today. It will mean so much to everyone. A boost. These are such hard times, and you mean so much to them.” She stops walking and clasps her hands together at her chest and gazes at me.
“She’s not that special,” Granddad snaps, which makes me giggle. “Now, let’s keeping moving. We’re late.”
“Indeed,” she says, continuing. “Though all our first-timers are always late. It’s not the most obvious of places. Most people turn back at the main road. Exactly as Alpha intended.”
Granddad looks around. “Does her husband live here, too?”
I’m about to interrupt, with embarrassment that this isn’t her home, when Lulu replies.
She looks at him uncertainly and gives him a brusque, “Yes.”
We follow her to an elevator and go to the basement. We step out of the elevator into a large lobby. There are double doors ahead of us, plush carpets with elaborate designs. It feels like the Four Seasons, not somebody’s home.
She stops before the double doors and turns to me, eyes wide and filling with tears. “I can’t tell you how excited everybody is about hearing you speak. You speak what they think, if you understand. You represent a voice that has been silenced for decades, and all of a sudden you’re here. The person we’ve been waiting for.”
“Lulu, I’m not speaking today.” I don’t have Juniper’s paralyzing fear of public speaking, but I’m not ready to say anything to anyone. I don’t have anything prepared, nor do I really know what I’m getting myself involved in. I just wanted to be a spectator, see what it’s about, ask Granddad his opinion on whether we can trust Alpha or not, as that’s something I’m uncertain of.
“Oh.” Her face falls, and then she’s confused. “But everybody is here to hear you.”
I fume at the mistake that’s been made; it’s strike one against Alpha. Before I get a chance to object or run away, Granddad pushes open the double doors.
Faces turn to stare as we walk in. The room is enormous, like a ballroom, with a chandelier dripping from the center of the ceiling. A woman is speaking at a lectern onstage, so most eyes are on her. Only a few people at the back of the hall turn to look at us when we enter. Each time one sees me, the person in the next seat gets an elbow or a nudge, and the other turns around. Lulu walks right up the center aisle to the front row, expecting Granddad and me to follow her, but
Granddad grabs my hand and pulls me into the back row. We slip into two seats and watch as Lulu turns around first with pride, then confusion as no one is behind her. Her face turns puce, and she hurries from the front row and back through the double doors in search of us.
The man I sit beside shakes his head and motions for me and Granddad to swap places. At first, I think it’s because he doesn’t want to sit beside a Flawed, but then I realize we’re at a Flawed gathering; he has an F on his temple, an armband on his sleeve, and only two Flawed people can sit together. I am making it three. So Granddad sits between us, and I notice that this has been the case in every row, just as it was in the courtroom. Despite the fact that there are at least one hundred people in the room, every two Flawed have been separated by a regular, unflawed person. This is not the small counseling group that I had been imagining. A banner on the stage reads BRING BACK OUR BABIES.
Granddad notices it, too, and whispers to me. “She’s on dangerous ground here.”
“She says the Guild and the government are on her side. They want to end the institutions because they cost too much, but instead allow specially trained families to take in F.A.B. children and continue the Guild’s teachings.” I picture someone like Mary May only too glad to help brainwash young children and shudder at the thought.
Granddad nudges me and points to the far side of the room. I follow his gaze and see what he’s looking at. Leaning against the wall is a Whistleblower, a man, dressed in his black gear and red vest, keeping an eye on everything.
The old familiar feeling of doubt creeps in. What if the Guild is in on all this? What if it’s Judge Crevan’s way of catching Carrick so that he can take him away and silence him as he has silenced the guards? What if this is an elaborate setup? I look around, nervously checking the room for more Whistleblowers, waiting for them to all surround me like I’m in a trap. Though if they’re here, they’re not in their uniforms.
A woman stands at the lectern, addressing the audience. Alpha sits beside three others on the panel on the stage. She sees me and sits up straighter. She nods at me, her eyes sparkling with delight. She looks to see who is beside me, sees Granddad, notes that it’s not Carrick, and gives me a small smile, not doing anything to hide her disappointment. Her acknowledgment of me garners more stares, nudges, and whispers in my direction. I can hear the hiss of my name on strangers’ lips. I try to block them out and, instead, concentrate on the woman speaking.
She is talking about her baby, who was taken from her at the hospital, all because she and her husband are Flawed. She had refused termination. Her daughter, two years old, is still in one of the five institutions in the country that house and rear Flawed babies. She doesn’t know which institution, she doesn’t know how she is, and she receives no communication from them whatsoever. She has lost all rights to her child. The speaker can no longer continue at this point and breaks down. There is an uncomfortable silence as she cries alone onstage, her visible pain making my heart ache. I feel Alpha leaves it a little too long before coming to her aid, as though she wants to rub it in all our faces.
“Loves the drama, this one,” Granddad says in my ear, and I nod in agreement.
Alpha joins the woman at the lectern, wraps her arm around her, and looks right down to the back of the room when she speaks. At me.
“We appreciate how difficult it was for Elizabeth to come here today and share her story with us. But Elizabeth’s reliving her story, sharing how shattering it has been for her and her husband, is not in vain. We can learn from this. It hurts us and it moves us, but we can take this with us and use it to spur us on to make change. Change doesn’t just happen. We all know that. We have to force it. Let us use Elizabeth’s story to help us to force change.”
There are nods of approval all around us, and applause breaks out.
Elizabeth, still crying, shows her appreciation as best she can. Alpha faces the audience as she embraces her, and we see her eyes closed intensely as though this is the biggest hug she has ever given in her life. It’s a little too orchestrated for me.
Alpha’s back at the mike stand. “Of course, Elizabeth’s not alone in her pain. All of us here today have our own stories, our own heartache. Our next speaker is Tom Hancock, and he is here to share his story with us. Please welcome him.”
For the next twenty minutes, we listen to Flawed Tom explain how, after his Flawed wife died, he spent ten years trying to find their son, a journey we hear in all its tortuous detail, only to find that on discovering him, and his grandchildren that he didn’t know anything about, that his son didn’t want to know him. His son had been so brainwashed by the institution that Flawed Tom had to beg his own son not to report him to the Whistleblowers.
After we hear Tom, we listen to a woman who used to work in the F.A.B. institutions and doesn’t believe in, or agree with, them. She gives us a rundown of their daily schedules, the lives the children lead. As she does this, I think of Carrick and what he has lived with for the past eighteen years of his life. These institutions are pumped up with government money, the facilities second to none. The government and the Guild pride themselves on creating such successes and say it is because the Flawed can be successfully cleansed at birth. For people like me, it’s too late, we cannot be healed.
“I suggested to a colleague,” the woman says, “that perhaps the reason these children are so well-rounded, so fully functional and successful, is because of the very fact that they have both genes of the Flawed and that in itself is a strength and breeds perfection.”
Everybody looks at one another in shock that this woman, an employee of the Guild, would have suggested such a thing. I watch the Whistleblower in the corner of the room, surprised that she is able to say this in his presence, but he doesn’t react. He looks bored, as though he’s heard it all before.
“Of course, that’s how I lost my job,” she says. “But I enjoyed the looks on their faces when the board called me in to explain what I’d said.”
There is light laughter.
I think of Carrick, of his build, the extensive training the F.A.B. children endure, and the education. He must be fast and strong. And clever. To have beaten the endless brainwashing he received daily makes him mentally strong, too. Perhaps he is perfect, as she says. Yet everybody in the Guild was so dismissive of him. I want him, I need him. I don’t think I will ever rest for the remainder of my life if I don’t find him again. Art and I talked every day, nonstop. Even when we got home from meeting on the summit, we would talk into the early hours over the phone about nothing and everything. Yet Carrick and I never had one conversation, and I feel we’ve shared more than anyone else I know.
My heart is pounding as I feel like just taking off right there and then on a mission to find him, but Granddad’s elbowing me in the already sore ribs brings me back into the room.
Alpha is at the lectern; she has been speaking, though I haven’t been listening.
I understand now why Granddad has elbowed me. People are staring at me. Alpha is looking at me, pretending as though she can’t see me. “Where is she?” she asks. “Celestine, are you still here?”
My heart pounds.
“Be careful,” Granddad whispers. “I’m not sure, Celestine, I’m not sure.…” He looks around as if looking for an exit.
I nod and stand up. I hear the gasps of surprise, and I am stunned that all these people recognize me. It does not thrill me. All I can think is that all these people know that I’m not perfect. All these people know what I did. They know what I am. There is nowhere for me to hide. I can’t even pretend, not as most people can do when they walk into a room.
I can’t help but shake my head and laugh nervously at the applause. I worked so hard to be perfect, to achieve plaudits, not admiration, but to be normal, not to stand out. My grades were excellent, I had enough friends so that I wasn’t a weirdo, but not too many so that I was popular. I was average. I worked so hard to be so average. But I made a mistake, the worst thing I c
ould do, and in a room full of Flawed, I am celebrated. I’m embarrassed. I think they must be mistaken. I am not who they think I am.
They applaud, an enormous applause that grows and grows. Alpha beckons me up to the stage to her. I shake my head, but those around me urge me. Despite his reservations, Granddad looks proud. He starts to clap, too. They call me to the stage, and I have no choice. As I make my way out of the back row, people start to stand. It spreads as I walk up the center aisle, everybody standing and applauding me. The Whistleblower steps away from the wall, alert, not looking so bored now. His eyes on me make me nervous. I climb the steps to the stage and join Alpha, who is spurring them on to cheer. When I near her, she reaches out and takes my hand. She raises it in the air with her own in triumph. Then, suddenly, the cheers die down, so does the applause, and then everybody takes a seat. The rumble dies down, and soon the room is so quiet, my heart beating wildly from the adrenaline of what has just happened and now from the fear. They all look at me, so many faces, looking for me to say something hopeful, something meaningful, something that they can take home with them. Alpha steps away from me, gives me the stage. I can’t. I shake my head, but they encourage me.
“Say what you feel,” someone in the front row urges.
I try to think of how I feel, but all I feel is that this is wrong. I shouldn’t be here in front of all these people. I am not who they think I am. I helped an old man, and I want to bring Crevan down, but I am no leader. I can’t even say that because of the Whistleblower’s presence. I can’t inspire these men and women before me. The silence continues. I can hear my breath through the microphone. I take a step back, look down at my shoes. I have nothing to say. I look back at Alpha; I have to get off this stage. She looks a little angry, not the face I wanted to see. I was hoping for comfort. I’m not getting it from her. I look down the room to Granddad for his support, for his guidance, but he’s gone. I look around in surprise, trying to find him, locate him among the crowd, but there’s no sign of him.