The Boy I Am

by K. L. Kettle

  The audience applauds in a disorganized trickle.

  “Raise your glasses to Russal Walker, last of his name.”

  A wall of voices shakes the curtains. “Russal Walker, last of his name.”

  Every bone of me wants to break their rules, shout his name. I wait for my brothers beside me to react. There’s nothing. Silence.

  Wrong, says a voice. Something’s wrong.

  Vik?

  You there?

  Vik?

  The anger in my gut turns to terror as I reach out, waving my arms blindly around me. In front – nothing. Behind – nothing. Beside me – nothing!

  Tearing at the blindfold, I scan the stage to find I’m alone. My whole body goes cold inside the armour of my suit. Where are my brothers?

  On the other side of the curtains the sweeping shadow of the Chancellor parades in front of her audience. Her shadow looms large against the fabric. Powerful applause erupts round the Auction Hall.

  “Ladies, ladies,” says the Chancellor’s swimming shadow. “You’re too kind. Beautiful, wonderful. Each of you here today is part of something amazing. As you know, today is meant to be our annual auction,” she says, soft and sweet. “And, as was agreed with our Council, it is to be our last one.”

  Last? Did the vote already happen?

  My back teeth clamp as the women chatter, as some applaud. What did she do with my brothers?

  “We have a break with tradition this year. What can a girl do? I fell in love.”

  There’s a sick feeling inside as the audience hums with glee and soft laughter. Is she talking about me? She’s lying. She has to be.

  “I know we normally wait until the auction to finish the affairs, settle our bills with the tenacious Sophia here.”

  “Please, Madam Chancellor,” says Madam Glassey. “It was nothing.”

  “No, no, we all know you never let a merit slide, Chief Bookkeeper. But, well, I couldn’t wait for the event tonight so a few days ago we managed the paperwork to complete our oaths and I invite you all to celebrate here, now.”

  She wants to make me her ward before the auction starts? Should I play along? We need a distraction – what better than an oathing? Maybe she really wants me. That has to be why my brothers aren’t here. They’ll be held in the stairwell until all this is over, right? Why won’t you answer?

  Think fast. No auction means no speech. Any moment now the curtains will open and I’ll smile your number thirty I-did-it smile, all ear-to-ear-love-me-I’m-yours-and-I-can’t-believe-I-won. Flapping at my cheeks as they warm, wiping my tears of humility away. Thanking my House Father. Blessing my brothers … and when we’re alone – if Ro hasn’t arrived by then – I’ll have to finish what Walker started.

  Careful not to move too much and aggravate the burning stitches in my side, I tidy my suit, my hair. Wipe the sweat from my neck, my forehead. Do I put the blindfold back on? My fingers and thumbs fumble with the ribbon in my hand. The curtains shiver. I take a deep breath. But a new shadow appears on the other side at the Chancellor’s hip.

  Slim, muscular and as tall as me, smart-cut suit. I swear I can even smell his boot polish. My head screams Walker but I know it can’t be.

  “Ladies, debutantes,” the Chancellor coos. “May I introduce my new ward. Our new Head of the House of Boys, Viktor Perrault!”

  Someone took all the air out of the world. Someone took the floor away.

  “Madam Chancellor,” says your voice. You but not-you. You but deeper. You but hers. “You’re too kind. After everything you’ve done, I can’t accept your affections without offering my services.” The long shadow of not-you bows, almost right to the floor.

  She asked me to kill the Gardener or run. Run. You ran. What choice did she give you? What did she offer you?

  “Pshh!” the Chancellor says, following with her musical laugh. “Let me tell them. Ladies, debutantes, this brave, incredible young man is the reason we have successfully obliterated the pernicious Hysterical element beyond our walls.”

  Waves of cheers and screams of adulation. I’m dizzy and I want to go home. Curl up in my bunk and hold on to my knees and let the earth swallow me up.

  “A year ago,” the Chancellor continues – even with my hands over my ears, I can still hear her – “I encouraged this brave boy, the first I hope of many in our midst, to rise above his nature. The Hysterics, led by the murderous Romali Vor, corrupted his innocence, sent him to kill me.”

  Gasps from the audience as the Chancellor puts her shadowarm round your shadow-shoulder.

  I’m falling like when the Lice blew up the hospital. The stage veers underneath me, so I bend and touch the rubber tiles, gripping the curling tape markers with my fingers to hold on, until my nails ache.

  The Chancellor’s voice is soft and light. “But he resisted, instead offering his support for our cause. This, ladies, debutantes, is a good boy. Worth all his brothers combined. Truly, the best I have met.”

  Applause.

  Think! It has to be a trick, has to be.

  Maybe it’s not really you?

  “Madam Chancellor,” you say.

  Maybe you’re going to kill her; maybe you’ve been changed like the Roids.

  Or maybe not. Was this what you wanted all along? Top floor, that’s what you said. Top floor. The best.

  There’s a story I never wanted to tell – before Bocharov, before you ran, before I agreed to help Walker – the one I wanted to bury in the sand, that was easier to pretend away. It happened just before last year’s Reserves. I was searching for you backstage at the Great Theatre, pushing my way through the queue to find you, past other smart-suited boys. For a moment, I thought maybe you weren’t even going to go up for Reserves. I took a risk paying my way in, to talk to you.

  When I found you at the end of the line, it was the look of disappointment that hit first. You were the last one up for the bid, too much make-up on your face to hide the red stripes in your cheek, your lip.

  “Vik, please,” I said, pulling you aside. “Can we talk?”

  Your beefcake friends hadn’t put themselves up. I hadn’t seen them in the queue. Maybe you told them to hold back. Maybe you didn’t want the competition?

  “What do you want?”

  I had all these things I wanted to say. Nothing.

  “So? Say something.”

  The buzzer hummed; only a few minutes until curtain-up. Theatre prentice pushed past us, boys practised their speeches, tidied their hair, pouted into small hand mirrors.

  “You’ve got a buyer already?” I asked.

  You smiled. A full wouldn’t-you-like-to-know? grin.

  “Top floor.” You said that last year too. “The best, you’ll see.”

  “And then we’ll go?”

  “Go?” You screwed up your face in confusion.

  “Outside,” I said. You had the same dreams as me I thought. You wanted to get Outside, have real freedom.

  You buckled over, laughing. “Oh Saints, you mean it. You’re an idiot.”

  It hurt. It really hurt.

  You didn’t stop. “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll see. I’ll be running this place in a month. And there isn’t anywhere Outside to go to, my friend, only up,” you said, pointing to the ceiling.

  I didn’t move. Were you lying, pretending, or did I get it wrong?

  “But we planned it, in the kitchens—”

  “Oh … you’re the kid from the kitchens!” you said. “The one that couldn’t get it up to pop a couple of puppies.” You made it seem like it was nothing, like you didn’t remember me, but I knew how you cried, knew how you shook on the floor at night and couldn’t sleep. I saw the bites they took out of you. I knew where all your scars were.

  Still I took the bait. “Jude,” I reminded you. “My name’s Jude Grant.”

  You nodded like you’d just remembered. “Oh … yeah.” You spun the ring on your thumb. Walker’s ring.

  “You’re joking, right? You’re messing with me.
Playing a joke, pretending you’ve forgotten my name.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” You shrugged. “Your name.”

  The anger came up from my soles. The anger that would later pick a fight with the Roids; that would take out Aspiner’s eye; that could kill the Chancellor…

  All you cared about these days was who’d buy you, I shouted, but there was a whole world Outside. Didn’t you want to see it, taste it? We had dreams once.

  I told you I hoped some bottom-floor woman bought you. Pulled out every cooks’ insult. You were pathetic, a sewer rat, it’d serve you right. They say jump, you say how high; you’d jump off the Tower if they asked. The fact they want to pay for you doesn’t make you worth something! You think you’ll get a good buyer? You’re too short. Too fat. Too old. Too ugly.

  “Keep going,” you dared, turning, your fists clenched. “If you think you can hurt me, you’ll have to try harder.”

  And I knew, I knew how much I’d hurt you, but you’d hurt me too. You’d been my friend in the kitchens, the only one I’d had. How long had you hated me? Since the dorms, since the audition, the dogs? Maybe you’d never been my friend. I didn’t stop. The words kept falling out.

  “You’d be better off finding a guardian from the Hysterics in the desert,” I said. “Then no one would have to look at you.”

  I wanted to make you feel like I felt.

  “Go on,” I said as you stepped towards me, your nose to my nose, hot breath, bared teeth, burning eyes. “Hit me. Go on.”

  “You’re not worth it, my friend. The Chancellor’s going to buy me and I’ll be Head Ward and—”

  “You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me,” I blurted out.

  “What?”

  The boys around us bristled. Eager for a fight.

  “You’re only here because of me!” I said. You were used to insults about your face but all this time I’d let you believe you’d got in on your own. All you’d ever wanted was to prove yourself and I took that away from you. “Walker picked me, not you.”

  “Go back,” you said. “Say that again.” It was a threat but your voice shook.

  I couldn’t lie now. “Walker. He picked me. Not you. It was meant to be only one of us. He gave you that ring because I asked him to. You think you’re so special? I bought your way in.”

  The boys around us tried not to laugh. Someone goes to fetch their House Father but the others are chanting for a fight.

  That inside voice getting louder, wanting you to hit me. I needed it. It hated me for what I’d just done to you. It wanted you to hate me. After what I did to your face, I deserved it. I waited. But the House Fathers arrived.

  They tell us our speech is sacred. It’s not. It can kill. But you were a good boy now; you wouldn’t start a fight, not with everyone watching. Not just before Reserves. There were tears in your eyes as you turned to get back to your spot in the queue.

  “Coward,” I said as the House Fathers pulled me away.

  It bursts out of the darkness, that anger Walker was so interested in, that made me so cruel – surging through me again, sending me lunging towards the curtains. I need to see your eyes, to know it’s really you and not some pinhead version of you.

  “I’d have made twice the sacrifice for half your affection,” you tell the Chancellor.

  Did Ro know? She said you didn’t want to leave.

  Did Madam Vor know, or Walker?

  Gone. Not dead.

  As I search for the break in the fabric, her shadow turns. And I swear and I curse. I bring up every bubble of bile in my stomach and I spit it out. The audience takes a breath but I don’t stop. Can’t stop. Won’t.

  I didn’t realize – why didn’t I? – the bone sculpture in the Pent House that looked like you. And you were running back to the Tower, not away from it.

  “I was broken, lost.” You raise your voice above my shouts. “You offered me hope, protection, the chance to make a difference.”

  That dream, to leave, to adventure. You were joking. I wanted it to be true.

  It’ll get you in trouble, that temper, Walker told me. I know that but I didn’t fight my way back for nothing! I have to know – are you you?

  “To work with my brothers and ensure they don’t fall prey to the same corruptions.”

  No. She gave you a speech. You’re playing along. You’re being a good boy, right? Where’s that boy that got thrown out of his prenticeships? Were you being so good that night last year? You betrayed Walker, told her he sent you to kill her, expected her favour…

  You weren’t running away, you were running back. To her.

  A tearing sound fills the auditorium. I look up. Above, the curtain rips and ring after ring pings, stretches and slips free. Everything slows as I back away, cover my head, duck. The poles clang like bells and a wall of fabric crashes down heavily on top of me.

  Over the muffled screeches from the audience, I’m crying out from the pain in my side. My stitches have burst but I don’t stop fighting my way free, crawling, dizzy, into the limelight.

  The Chancellor steps between us, a protective wall. Her dress white, as bright as your hair. Your eyes are clear. She didn’t pin you but the boy you were has gone, like Walker said. Not dead. Gone. He’s been eaten by the unscarred, perfect skin of this man. How long were you in the infirmary? How many procedures did she pay for? This man, this man she made you into, is an old copy of Walker from my audition, even down to the fur of hair on his top lip, his pinned-back ears, perfectly parted blond hair.

  My heart drums in my ears. My fingers twitch. The audience hums with shock.

  “Vik?” I pant.

  Of course, this is what you always wanted. The truth curdles through me. Viktor Perrault was never really my friend.

  You were never him. You were a voice in my head, the friend I wanted him to be.

  “Stay back,” the Chancellor seems to plead. Can’t everyone tell it’s an act? Her grey eyes still bright, in control, even as she holds up her hands as if afraid, performing for her audience.

  I should look at her but I can’t. I keep remembering my nightmares from the infirmary. Your hands round my aching throat. I thought it was the drugs, the nightmare of that place. But you were there. You’ve been helping her all this time. Her good boy. Her best boy. Walker was wrong – she didn’t want a challenge. She told me what she wanted, back in the garden. She wanted loyalty.

  Blood oozes out, spreads through the red of my suit, turning it black. My heart’s beating too fast.

  “Mr Grant, Jude?” I know that smile. That shark smile. “No need to get emotional…”

  I wanted to tell them all the Chancellor killed the Gardener, that she had Walker’s brain scrambled, that there are boys that lost their minds. But the words aren’t there. Neither is the anger, that forever ache in my head. It’s gone.

  What’s the point in telling them? I’m not born to be believed. I can’t convince them, not on my own.

  “Ladies, sad to say but this boy is what will become of our men if we do not vote to address their worse natures.”

  “What? No!” I take a deep breath, in through my nose, out through my mouth, to focus as the Chancellor keeps talking about how she knows I organized the attack at the ball with Romali, how she failed me, failed to see I was being used, how she tried to forgive me for the Gardener’s murder, for Madam Vor’s abduction.

  “No!”

  How she tried to help me, fix me – I push forwards, bloody hands spread. That’s not what happened, shut up, shut up, liar, LIAR.

  “So, regrettably, now the time has come to officially table a vote to give us the power to protect them from damaging themselves and others. To end this corruption in our gentlemen once and for all. To extend the Mind Absolution Act immediately to all the men in our care.”

  “No, you can’t, not now.”

  “Let’s do them this kindness. Free them from the tyranny of their sins, those toxic instincts; give them peace.”

  She
doesn’t need them to vote but she wants them to, not just so they agree but to make them own it.

  “How say you, ladies?”

  The house lights rise.

  Well, aren’t you just gorgeous? Walker said, the last time I saw all those faces.

  There’s a world where I become everything they reduce us to. Where I kill her. Seconds, and the Chancellor will turn back to you. Arms steady, I’ll reach out and snap the white ribbon round her neck, pulling so tight it creaks. The Chancellor’s silvery eyes will roll back in her head as she chokes.

  The audience will run screaming for the doors, climbing over the ancient chairs, tripping on skirts. Some will shout at me to stop, masks flying from their faces, as others tell me to keep going. In this world, the Chancellor kicks and chokes; her heels will scrape the floor behind me; her fists will pull at my hair, scratching at my face with her armoured nails. I won’t kill her, because she knows I don’t have it in me. But I’ll give her all the votes she needs to pinhead every last one of my brothers. That’s her game. Lose/lose. I can picture that world so clearly I can taste it.

  She needs a killer. Proof for all her lies. Proof that we’re all the same, us boys. Proof she can do what she wants. Proof her people should give her unquestioning loyalty, rather than see her as human like them, like us, like me.

  No, it says.

  It’s not your voice, not any more. Maybe it never was. It’s my voice. And it’s shouting.

  I’m not a killer. Not today… Not ever. I’m more than they say I am.

  She’s still waiting. Holding her breath. Thinking she’s found the right button to push, to tip me over into playing her game.

  There was a time, on this stage, when all I wanted to do was run. Instead, my breath sticks me here. It makes me wait. It pulls my spine straight.

  One.

  Ro isn’t here.

  Two.

  It’s up to me.

  Three.

  Four.

  There’s one last battle in me.

  My heart pounds a beat. A distant dum-da-da. I step back, stamp my foot to the thump in my chest. With a creak, the spotlight, juddering, leaves the Chancellor and her new ward and turns on me.