Pucker

by Melanie Gideon

  “Jesus!” I say.

  “Look, you better get used to the attention. And you’d better figure out how to handle it. It’s not going to go away,” he says.

  He’s wrong. It is going to go away. My mother and her missing Seerskin come winging back into my consciousness. What kind of a sick person am I? I’ve been on the porch making out while my mother’s on her deathbed back on Earth.

  Dash eyes gaze at some spot above my head.

  “You have this weird cowlick thing happening,” he says.

  “I do?” I reach up and pat the back of my head. There is indeed a stuck-up bristly patch.

  “I can remedy that. Snip, snip. Cut it real short? Might be a better look on you anyway. You’re got this polo player vibe going that honestly”—he leans forward and mock-whispers—“only works if you happen to be Argentinean.” He rolls back on his heels and smirks.

  “Get away from me,” I say. I’ve always been vain about my hair. It was the only thing I had going for me before the Change.

  He shrugs and turns to go.

  “Wait!” Even though I’ve spent the evening with eight girls, suddenly I feel completely alone.

  “What now?” he drawls.

  “Don’t go yet.”

  Dash looks amused, but he pulls up a chair and sits down at the table. “Sure, kid. No problem. That’s my job. To babysit you.”

  The words are wrong, but the tone is right. There’s a certain yielding in his voice. Like maybe he remembers what it was like for him when he first arrived 484 days ago.

  “I don’t need any babysitting,” I say.

  “Sure, you don’t, T.”

  He grins softly at me in a way that reminds me of Patrick and my chin, mortifyingly, begins to wobble. My father probably lies buried under the ground not more than two miles from here. I shake my head angrily at him, trying to will my tears to stay in my eyes.

  Dash looks uncomfortable at my display of emotion. “Look, just wait it out,” he says gruffly. “It’ll get easier. In the meantime—stop pissing people off. Stop acting like such an American. Just be a good kid.”

  Be a good kid. Sorry, I’d like to oblige, but I just can’t. I stopped being a kid long ago, the day my face went up in flames. And as far as good—well, a good kid would not have kissed three girls practically one right after another. A good kid would not have pressed his luck and insisted on going further. He would not have let his hands travel south, past the metropolis of neck and shoulder and to the outer boroughs of rib cage and breast. But I’m starving. For life and for touch.

  THIRTY-THREE

  DASH GOES TO BED RIGHT after that, but I while away another couple of hours in my room. I tell myself I’m being extra safe, making sure that he’s truly asleep before I sneak out of the house. But what I’m really doing is replaying the evening. I kissed a girl—I kissed three girls. I feel numb and at the same time liquefied, like I’ve been run through a juicer.

  Finally I get my ass out the door. As I run along the forest path, I try to think only of my mother, of what I must do. I plan to go about this like a mathematician. My Barker’s has a foldout map that shows every room in the Ministry. I have marked a quadrant, a grid that I will systematically search. Getting into the library and through the steel door to Otak’s private quarters will be complicated. I’ll save that for later. I need time to come up with the right plan.

  That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

  When I get to the Ministry, I’m shocked to find there are no guards patrolling the grounds. Besides that, the building’s unlocked; the place is wide open. The lack of security infuriates me even though it makes my job easier. It’s just another example of Isaurian superiority and smugness. I know the way they think because I’m one of them. They don’t have to lock their doors because they would know someone was coming to rob them a week before it happened. They haven’t counted on me.

  I enter the building. The halls are dark, but I have a candle. I light it carefully and cup the flame with my hand to dim it. I open cabinets, rummage through bookcases, and dig through drawers and I’m plagued with nostalgia again.

  I was happy here. I walked these halls every day for eight years. I loved the simplicity and the rigidity of our lives, because I didn’t know anything else. I’ll say one thing for Isaura: I always felt safe here. Until my parents were flayed of their skins, that is.

  I only manage to get through two rooms, because it takes a decidedly long time to do a thorough search. I have to paw through the most mundane and quotidian of items: ancient, musty robes, sheaves of paper, and an entire cabinet filled with nothing but empty picture frames. Finally I blow out the candle and stand in the corridor. This is going to take some time, I realize. And I wonder why I’m not feeling any sense of panic.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  ONCE AGAIN I’M LATE FOR breakfast. I hurry from the house, trying to dodge the huge pellets of rain. This morning I am Thomas 9.

  The days are bleeding into one another: a blur of carpentry, girls, and nights spent searching the Ministry for my mother’s Seerskin. Well, that’s not completely accurate. I haven’t searched every night.

  This morning I can’t get to the Refectory fast enough. I need my fix. Not of eggs or sausage, but of attention. I crave the gaze of others like I crave water.

  I push my plate away, aware that people are watching and that their watching is beyond their control: my face requires it of them; it commands them to. Under their eyes I become something outside myself. I have to be disassembled in order to be understood. The curve of my jaw, the arch of my eyebrows, the way my hair falls onto my forehead.

  Somebody tugs on my shirt.

  “Don’t forget about tonight.” It’s Emma.

  “Tonight?”

  “We’re meeting for dinner, remember?”

  “Oh yeah.” I can’t hide my disappointment. The last thing I want to do is have dinner with my group. But it’s required. All groups must meet once a week. I glance over at the table where the rest of them are sitting. They’re rarely apart. Michael looks up at me sourly. He has elected himself foreman, and our dislike of each other has grown. The sight of him makes me feel like I have a noose around my neck. I have no time for him or for my group. I’m running the race of my life, to live every moment I can with this face before it’s taken away from me, but I can’t tell them that.

  Rose gives a little wave. The twins are busy shoveling food into their mouths.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I say.

  Emma smirks at me. “Michael said there was a snowball’s chance in hell of you coming.”

  Michael. He’s beginning to become a problem. I get up, put my arm around Emma, and walk over to their table. “See you tonight,” I say, trying to sound chipper.

  “Gonna grace us with your presence?” asks Michael.

  “Michael,” cautions Rose.

  “No. Someone’s got to say it.” He stands up, puts both palms flat on the table, and leans forward. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, son, but it’s getting tiresome. At least pretend you think there’s somebody else in this world besides yourself.”

  “Sir, yes, sir.” I clack my heels together.

  He glowers at me. “Perhaps you could be a bit more creative. Or has your face eaten up your brain?”

  A spasm of fury sets my jaw twitching.

  “Just come,” says Rose.

  “I said I would,” I snarl.

  “All right, then.” Rose turns to Michael as if he doesn’t speak the language and she has to translate for him. “Thomas is coming.” She looks out the window. “Shall we go out and get some fresh air?”

  After they leave, Jerome turns to me and asks, “What’s got into you?”

  “Listen, I already have enough people telling me what to do.”

  Jerome throws up his hands. “Not the enemy.”

  “But Michael . . . he’s just—” I say.

  “He’s not so bad,” interrupts Jerome. “If you spent any time with
us, you’d know that.”

  “He’s a dick,” I say.

  Jerome stands up. “Don’t bother coming tonight.”

  “Fine. Whatever you want.”

  He looks at me with disgust. “It’s not what I want. It’s what you want. But that’s the point, isn’t it? You get whatever you want now, right?”

  “Well, don’t you think it’s time? Don’t you feel the same way? That you should get every damn thing you missed out on, every single minute of your life that you spent suctioned on to your brother’s rib cage; that it should all be given back to you to do over? Come on. Aren’t you angry? The least little bit?” I bait him.

  Jerome wipes my spit off his cheek. “No. I’m not angry. I’m grateful,” he says softly.

  I don’t show up for dinner that night. Or the next night either.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  PHAIDRA TUCKS HER TAPE MEASURE back into her tool belt, hefts the plank over her shoulder, and carries it into the hallway. Her competence dizzies me. She’s nothing like the girls who make up my fan club. I have begun thinking of them as a collective: “the Connecticuts,” I secretly call them.

  The Connecticuts are pleasant and easy to please and they adore me. They are bejeweled rivers that may rise above their banks but will never flood. And they are interchangeable.

  So if Lina, Tammi, Trixie, Veronica, Penelope, Mee-Yon, Alex, and Mildred-I’m-changing-my-name-to-Montana are the Connecticuts, then what does that make Phaidra? Phaidra, who would sooner saw off her arm than assimilate into the Changed community. I think I should file her under the oft-maligned New Jersey—a misunderstood and underappreciated state.

  I like New Jersey and think of it fondly, in much the way someone would think of a crackpot uncle. I went with Patrick and his mother once to the Jersey Shore. I remember some rinky-dink boardwalk. Eating fried dough. The icy greenness of the aloe vera gel Clara spread on our sunburned backs at night.

  For the first time since I’ve gotten here, I find myself alone in the half-finished Ministry library. Everyone else has gone out for lunch. Finally I’ve got an opportunity to search Otak’s private quarters. The steel door has been haunting me. I’ve dreamed about it; the bronze curlicues strangling me in the night.

  I see a flash of color and movement and Brian stands beside me. He has a habit of suddenly appearing out of nowhere, like a roadrunner. He takes a swig from his canteen and wipes his chin with the back of his hand.

  “You coming?” he asks.

  “In a minute.” I heft the broom, indicating I’ve got more sweeping to do.

  “I’ll save you a sandwich,” he says, and leaves.

  I like Brian. He’s serene. Occasionally a bit of his dry wit surfaces, but mostly he does his job and goes home. I try to stir him up now and then, hide his hammer, drop a wood shaving into his soup, but he is unruffleable.

  It’s the same with most of the Changed who have been here awhile. Dash said things would get easier after the first hundred days. And it really does seem to be the case. But there’s something about Brian’s tranquility that bothers me. He’s nice but disturbingly remote. Same with the Connecticuts, who let me touch them wherever I want but whose personalities, it occurs to me now, are like distant islands glimpsed through the fog of a winter dawn.

  But not Phaidra. She is still sharp, hard, blindingly bright. Why is she different?

  A thought bubbles up: none of this will matter in a few days, once I find my mother’s Seerskin. And suddenly I feel like I weigh a thousand pounds.

  I wait a moment to be sure Brian is gone and then I open Otak’s door.

  THIRTY-SIX

  HERE IT IS, THE OLD man’s bed. I find it a grotesquely intimate sight, like seeing a pair of discarded underwear on a city street. It’s a massive piece of furniture, a fortress, really; the headboard is one single length of wood. I want to dirty it somehow, penetrate its invincibility. I fight off the urge to lie down. Oh, what the hell.

  I press my face into the pillows; they smell of bleach and lavender soap. I lean over and riffle through the top drawer of his bedside table. I do not find my mother’s Seerskin; I find a candle stub and five cherry candies.

  Suddenly there’s a loud rattling. Startled, I hurl myself off the bed and onto my feet. A bird has flown into the window. It remains glued to the glass for a moment. Its obsidian eyes look at me with a disturbingly human gaze before it slides off. I swear I see its claws steepled together as if in prayer.

  “Crashing into the window rarely kills them. It’s the twenty-foot drop that does them in. Most of their bones are hollow, you know.” Otak stands in the doorway, a toothpick wedged between his teeth. “Have you lost your way?” he asks me pleasantly.

  What I have lost is my ability to speak. In his private quarters Otak appears to have grown to twice his normal size. I understand why he needs such a large bed to accommodate him. His gnarled, yellowed hands are as big as lions’ heads.

  “Tommy, is it?” He looks at me with interest, his head cocked. It seems all I’ve done since the moment I arrived is to draw attention to myself.

  “Tom,” I say.

  “Tom, yes. Are you in search of something, Tom?”

  Yes, indeed, Otak. You son of a bitch.

  “There you are!” Phaidra storms into the room. She seizes my wrist. “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you follow simple directions? I told you the supply room was down the hall and to the right.” She bobs to Otak. “I’m sorry. He’s only just arrived.” She wrenches me across the parquet floor.

  “Oh no, you must stay,” he says, picking up a little bell and ringing it. A maid appears. “Ah, Roberta. Tea. Fennel for me. And peppermint for my young friends. And bring me my pipe.” Roberta retrieves the pipe; Otak lights it and waves his hand at us. “Come, sit.”

  Phaidra gives me a stunned look as we follow the High Seer of Isaura to his parlor. The couches are overstuffed and smell of eucalyptus. All the furniture is varying shades of blue.

  “You are a carpenter?” he asks Phaidra.

  “Yes.”

  Otak eyes her tool belt. “You did not do this in your world.”

  “Right.” Her voice surrenders nothing. I love this about her and think it’s the most foolish damn thing, given our present circumstances.

  “And you?”

  I feel ashamed. I want to say I’m a carpenter too, but my broom is propped up against Otak’s bedroom wall. “I’m her apprentice,” I say.

  “He’s only been here ten days,” says Phaidra.

  I can’t believe she’s defending me. I don’t dare look over at her.

  “You’re saying he’ll better himself?”

  “Yes. I think he’s got potential.”

  I feel like a three-year-old whose parents are talking about him as if he’s not there while he’s in the room.

  “What’s your name?” Otak asks.

  “Phaidra,” she tells him.

  The scent of Otak’s tobacco is cloying, dark red and moist, like the inside of a cave or a Black Forest cake. I glance over at Phaidra. She has fallen down into the pillows of the couch. She tries to rearrange her limbs, but the cushions are too deep. She looks like she is drowning. I sit up erect in response to her slumping.

  “Do you mind if I examine you?” Otak asks Phaidra.

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t,” she says.

  “It was not really a question,” he says.

  Phaidra shakes her head vehemently and fear flashes across her face.

  “Come here,” he says.

  She doesn’t move.

  “Now,” he says firmly.

  He is the High Seer of Isaura; she gets up and stands in front of him.

  “You have been here how many days?” he inquires. “A hundred and ten, a hundred and twelve?” he guesses.

  “One hundred and thirteen,” says Phaidra stonily.

  Otak studies her face carefully. “One hundred and thirteen days; I see. Yet you seem dissatisfied somehow,” he says, almost gent
ly. “Aren’t you pleased with what we’ve done for you?”

  Phaidra tugs on her shirtsleeves, nervously pulling down the cuffs. She doesn’t want him to see that she’s cutting into her flesh. That’s when I realize: that’s why she does it. Somehow it keeps her fierce. It keeps her from floating away internally, like one of the Connecticuts.

  She shoots me a frantic look, like there’s a fire on the prairie and the flames are licking her jackrabbity feet. Adrenaline races through me. If he hurts her, I will kill him. I will throw him out the window and then we’ll see if his bones are as hollow as the bird’s.

  But he doesn’t hurt her. Instead he asks, “What was wrong with you?”

  Confusion closes Phaidra’s face like a shutter. She looks at me sideways.

  “Oh, of course,” says Otak. “Not in front of the boy. Well, whisper it to me, then.”

  I feel a sudden wave of jealousy. Don’t fall for it, I think, but it’s too late: she’s telling him her secrets and I understand why. He’s making Phaidra feel like he’s terribly interested in hearing her story. He doesn’t care, I want to yell at her. It’s all an act. Isn’t it?

  “That’s horrible,” he says when she’s done.

  His voice is not riddled with compassion, but something simple and bright that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is—the truth. And I’m filled with longing. How I yearn for fact, how I crave accuracy and precision—it’s the Isaurian in me.

  Otak is seducing us with the truth. Adults rarely take this tack with teenagers. They don’t know how they could reel us in, how they could make us do whatever they wanted if only they told us the truth. Otak’s right. Whatever happened to Phaidra, whatever she was, whatever life she had to live in her old failing body was without a doubt horrible.

  It’s at this moment that I realize I am in trouble. I miss this life, my old life in Isaura. And what if, when the time I have left here is up, I can’t find my mother’s Seerskin? Then what? If I don’t have my mother to worry about any longer, if there’s nothing I can do to prevent her dying, if I have no pressing reason to go back to Earth, can I surrender to the Change?