Flawed / Perfect

So far I haven’t made a sound, and I won’t.

Bark’s hand comes into sight and injects my chest with the anaesthetic. Again, I’m numb. The red-hot poker comes towards me again. I can feel its heat. I feel the familiar squeeze of Tina and realise it has nothing to do with support and is merely procedure. She’s readying me, but by now I’m ready to pass out. The smell is unbearable. It is the smell of my own burning skin.

I feel a blast of air. June has opened a window or something, must be to get rid of the smell of burning flesh. They’re not used to this. I can tell from the anxious looks on their faces. The average Flawed person receives one brand, rarely two. One man in the entire history received three, but never, ever five. I am the only person in the world to receive five. I feel dizzy, but I know I’m not moving. I close my eyes and squeeze tight.

“One, two …” Sear.

I feel like I can’t breathe. I haven’t felt the sting on my chest, but it’s as though psychologically I do. Pressure on my chest so immense I want to escape the constraints. I battle against them, still not making a sound. I refuse. The floor is moving. It’s rising upward. It’s going to hit me in the face.

“Celestine? Celestine, are you okay?” I hear Tina, but I can’t focus on her, her face keeps moving. She’s saying something about the bucket, but I can’t concentrate. I keep thinking of the tongue. I see Clayton Byrne’s tongue as he coughs in my face. I don’t want my tongue to be seared.

Tina tells me to take deep breaths.

“This is too much for her,” Tina says worriedly to Bark, who surprisingly is viewing me with uncertainty, too. “We need to alert someone. Maybe take a break. Do the rest tomorrow.”

“Guys, I know this is hard, but we have to do it,” June says in a low voice. “The longer we chat, the harder it is for her. Let’s not drag it out on her any more. The family is watching,” she adds with a whisper. “Let’s finish this for everybody’s sake.”

An injection in my temple. Quicker this time.

A squeeze on my shoulder. I know that for all time, if anyone squeezes me on the shoulder, it will be the trigger that brings me back to this.

“One, two …” Sear.

I gag. I retch. Smelling burning flesh. My own flesh.

Bark is mumbling something.

“Sweet Jesus,” June says, suddenly changing her mind. “We should be tending to her wounds now. This is taking too long.”

“You’re doing great, Celestine,” Tina says close to my ear. “A real little hero, almost there now, okay? Hang in there.”

I half-laugh and half-cry.

I look up and see both of my parents and Granddad standing now, in a row at the window, lining up. Distraught, angry faces. Mr Berry is not pleased. He is pacing. He is on the phone. Probably hearing the guards’ concerns, he is trying to do something about it. Granddad is arguing with the security guard. I can feel the tension in that room from here. I take deep breaths; I will not scream.

“Here.” Bark appears in my line of sight with a bottle of water and a straw. It’s a trick; it must be a trick. Tina guides it into my mouth, and as I suck I think about my tongue being seared. It’s next. I retch again. I can’t hold down the water.

It is pandemonium in the viewing gallery. I can feel their energy, their erratic, angry movements. My eyes move from side to side. I try to focus, but I can’t. I know why I’m here, and then I don’t know why I’m here. I understand, and then I don’t. I think it’s fair, and then I don’t. I wish I’d never done what I’ve done, and then I’m glad I did. I want to scream, but I don’t.

Suddenly my family members scatter like a flock of birds, as though something was thrown at them, and then I see Judge Crevan in my face, a smug sneer twisting his mouth. Mr Berry must have gone to get him, tried to stop the inhumanity. Too late, but now he’s here in the Branding Chamber. He blocks my view of my family.

“Had enough, have we, Celestine?”

I groan. I will not cry. Not to him.

They say I’m numbed, but I’m feeling sensations on my wounded body. Tingling. If the anaesthetic wears off, it will turn to stinging, then burning. I don’t want it to wear off. Suddenly, this is my main fear. I wish I’d paid more attention to the information in my cell – how long does it take before the anaesthetic wears off?

“I warned you. I told you this would happen, but you didn’t listen.”

Crevan’s red robe is the same colour as the scar on my hand, and I’m guessing as my foot, chest and temple. My blood is on his robe. He did this to me. Him. I feel nothing but disgust for him. I used to think that I couldn’t be afraid of someone so human, now I realise it is his humanity that scares me most, because despite having all those traits, having shared the moments we’ve shared, he could still do this to me. Now I find him terrifying. I see the evil in him.

“Oh, Celestine, it hurts me for you to look at me like that. I’m not the winner, either, you know. Art says he’ll never speak to me again. Heartbreaking for me, as you can imagine. First, I lost Annie, and now Art. And you caused that.”

Don’t speak, I tell myself. One more branding and it will all be over. It will all be over.

“I’m here to give you mercy, Celestine. Say you’re sorry, admit you were wrong, that you are Flawed, and I will cancel the tongue. It’s the worst one, that one. Everybody says so.”

I try to shake my head. But I can’t. I won’t speak. Instead, I stick my tongue out, showing him that I’m ready for the branding.

I see the look of surprise on everyone’s face. Granddad punches the air in defiance, not happy, but bursting with anger. He won’t want me to give in. I’ve come this far, it would be illogical to stop now, I will have gained nothing. I feel tears dripping down the side of my face, but I’m not crying.

“Brand her tongue,” he says coldly, then steps back.

I see my family take a step back from the glass, Crevan’s closeness too much for them.

My family does not sit still. Nor does Mr Berry, who starts thumping on the window, trying to get Crevan’s attention. My dad shoves the guard, trying to make him do something to stop this, and they end up having a physical fight in the viewing room. I have never seen my dad like this before. Crevan turns around and watches the pandemonium.

“Get the family out of there!” he shouts. Funar appears at the door, and he manages to pull Mum and Granddad from the room. Mr Berry follows them out, ranting and raving at Funar. Dad is holding his own against the security guard, delivering a blow to his jaw, but suddenly Funar appears again, having taken my family somewhere, probably into the holding room or the nearby cells, and takes Dad by surprise. The two guards gain control and drag Dad out. The viewing room is now empty.

“Oh my God,” June whispers over my shoulder.

“Do it,” Crevan says.

I whimper slightly as they open my mouth and place the clamp in.

“It will be quick, dear,” Tina says, urgency and panic in her voice.

“Step away from her,” he demands angrily.

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d like to do my job and remain by her side,” Tina says, a tremble in her voice.

“Very well.”

An injection in my tongue. It instantly feels swollen and enormous in my mouth. I gag.

“One, two …” Sear.

I don’t scream. I can’t. I haven’t the use of my tongue. I want to kick my legs, stamp my feet and wave my arms, but I’m restrained and can do nothing. I can just feel my body push against the restraints and hear a sound that I don’t realise until a moment later is coming from me. It is worse than a scream; it is an animal, guttural sound, a groan, a grunt, something so deep inside me, a pain that I have never experienced nor heard before. One I never want to hear again, but I will, over and over in my nightmares.

“Repent, Celestine!” Crevan shouts at me.

I’m unable to get the word out as my tongue is numb and feels swollen and oversized, but I can see that he is distressed now. He is not getting his way. I’m not following his plan. It was for me to say sorry and the branding would stop. I will never say sorry to him.

“Judge Crevan, we must get her to the ward. Her wounds need medical attention,” Tina says, urgency in her voice. “We have never gone on for so long. We must see to her quickly.”

I feel the strap around my head release, and I am able to lift my head from the headrest and look at him directly now.

“Repent!” he shouts at me, louder again.

I shake my head violently. I’ve come this far. It’s finished. I’ll never tell him I’m sorry even if right now it is the thing I am feeling most.

They free my hands and my ankles. They are moving quickly now, wanting to remove me, and probably themselves, from this situation. They start to help me up, Tina on one side, June on the other. Bark begins to clean and tidy away the equipment. They can’t wait to get me out of here. I can’t walk – my foot is completely numb and my legs are shaking so badly. A wheelchair has been placed beside me.

“Brand her spine,” Judge Crevan says suddenly, chillingly.

Bark turns to face him slowly. “Pardon, sir?”

Tina and June freeze, look at each other wide-eyed.

“You heard me.”

“Sir, she’s just a child,” Tina whispers, and I can hear the shake in her voice and sense the tears about to come.

“Do it.”

“Sir, we have never seared a spine before,” Bark says nervously.

“Because we have never seen anyone so Flawed to their very backbone like this lady. Brand. Her. Spine.”

“I can’t do it, sir. I’m afraid I’ll have to check first with the—”

“I am the head of the Guild, and you will do what I say or you will find yourself in my courtroom first thing in the morning. Are you aiding a Flawed?”

Bark freezes.

“Are you?”

“No. No, sir.”

“Then get to it. Brand her spine.”

“But we don’t have any more anaesthetic.”

“Do it without.”

“Sir, the law states—”

“I am the law. Do it!” he yells. “By order of the Guild!”

“No!” I protest, but it doesn’t come out like that. My tongue has swollen in my mouth, from injury and numbness. I can taste blood, feel it rolling down my throat. I start coughing. All I can do is whine, but I don’t like the sound I make, so I stop. I see the evil in his eyes, the enjoyment he is getting from this. I won’t let him get any further satisfaction.

It is going to happen, and I must be prepared. I must ignore the madness and the pandemonium that have just occurred in the viewing room, the injustice that is happening in the chamber right now. I must block out the fears I have for what is happening to my family now and find stillness within myself.

Tina and Bark open the ties at the back of my robe.

“Oh dear girl, I am so sorry,” June says, taking hold of my shoulder. “Oh dear God.”

“Stop talking,” Judge Crevan snaps.

Tina takes my unseared left hand in hers tenderly, then holds on for dear life, with her back to Judge Crevan so that he can’t see the tears streaming down her face.

Bark comes towards me with the red-hot poker, looking uncertain.

“Do it,” Judge Crevan says again, then watches me. “Any time you want them to stop, all you have to do is say you’re sorry.”

“She can’t speak, Judge,” Tina says through her tears. “How can she stop it?”

“She can stop it if she wants to,” he says slowly, quietly.

He wants me to call out, to repent. I don’t.

Suddenly, Carrick appears in the viewing room. I can see tears in his black eyes, so I know that he has heard it all. He is panting hard, as though he has run a marathon. Sweat and blood are on his brow, and he has a cut lip. Blood drips down on to his T-shirt. Funar, with a busted nose, struggles in the doorframe behind him, doubled over. Mr Berry rushes in behind Carrick into the room, his phone in his hand. The security guard who had been battling with my dad runs into the room and runs at Carrick, but Carrick knocks him out with one fierce blow. The security guard falls to the ground out cold.

Completely outnumbered, Funar doesn’t bother to fight any more and slithers from the room, hand over his pumping nose. Mr Berry pushes the door closed, and I see his face, and he suddenly looks his age. He is holding his phone up in the air, recording. Crevan hasn’t noticed the activity behind him. Neither Bark, June or Tina have alerted him to this.

“Do it,” he says, urgency in his voice, sweat above his lip. “Brand her spine.”

Carrick stands right at the window and looks at me intently, forcing me to hold his gaze. He holds one hand up to the glass, presses it flat. Instantly, I zone out of the madness in this chamber and in my head and focus on the stillness in Carrick’s body. I focus on his hand. The hand of friendship he offered me earlier.

I’ll find you.

At least I have one friend. I am exhausted. I am still. I am ready.

“One, two …” Tina counts me in. But nothing happens. I don’t feel a thing.

“Judge, I can’t do it,” Bark says. “I just can’t; this isn’t right.”

“Fine,” Crevan snaps. “If you won’t do it, I will.” He grabs the iron from Bark’s grasp and he and Bark swap places, Bark standing where Crevan was, so that he blocks Crevan’s view of Carrick. I can’t take my eyes off Carrick; I won’t take my eyes off Carrick. I take a deep breath.

And as the hot iron touches my spine, the noise I make is the loudest, most excruciating, agonising, animal sound I have ever heard in my life, and it echoes through the corridors of Highland Castle for all to hear, so anyone and everyone knows Crevan’s poster girl has been branded.

Day one.

I’m home, propped up in my bed by a dozen cushions, organised by Mum, who keeps stepping back to take a look at her work before fluffing and punching again, as if it were a work of art. If she can’t fix me, she can fix the image around me. This is all for the visit of Dr Smith, our family GP. After inspecting my dressings, he sits in the chair by my bed and looks at Mum as he answers her questions.

“A burn of the tongue will look and feel different, depending on the degree of the burn. A first-degree burn injures the outermost layer of the tongue. This leads to pain and swelling. A second-degree burn is more painful because it injures the outermost and under layers of the tongue. Blisters may form, which is what has happened here, and the tongue, as in her case, appears swollen. A third-degree burn affects the deepest tissue of the tongue. The effect is white or blackened, burnt skin. Numbness or severe pain.”

Or both.

Dr Smith sighs, his friendly grandfather face showing that he is clearly finding this difficult.

“She appears to have received the correct medical attention at the castle. Her tongue is not infected, the blistering will eventually go away. Her taste buds have been destroyed—”

“Not that she’s eating anyway,” Mum interrupts.

“That’s to be expected. Celestine has been through an ordeal. Her appetite will eventually return, as will her taste buds, which regenerate every two weeks. The severe, untreatable pain that she is experiencing now can sometimes lead to feelings of depression and anxiety.”

You don’t say.

Mum purses her lips and lifts her chin. I watch them talk to each other, over me, across my bed, as if I’m not here.

“Most burns heal within two weeks; however, some can last up to six weeks.”

He looks at me sadly, as if remembering I’m here.

“There is one more thing,” he adds. “There is a … sixth brand …” He seems uncomfortable mentioning it.

Mum looks at him in panic. He leaves the sentence hanging.

“We’ve known each other a long time, Summer,” he says gently. “I’ve seen Celestine and this family through measles and chicken pox, vaccines and whatever else. I can assure you of my utmost discretion in this matter.”

She nods again, and I can see the fear in her. She wasn’t in the chamber when the final two sears happened, none of my family was, and I don’t want to talk about it. Ever. I don’t even know if Mr Berry shared it with her. But she’s my mother, and she was there. So she can guess what Crevan did in the state he was in, and she is respecting my silence, though I know Dad wants to know. The question is on the tip of his tongue every time he looks at me, but he holds back, probably holding himself responsible for encouraging me to speak up for myself and landing myself in this agony. I don’t think either of them could imagine, even in their wildest nightmares, that it could have been Crevan who delivered the sixth and final brand.

“I’ll come back in a few days to review the dressings again, but if there’s anything I can do before that, contact me directly.”

I don’t bother to nod.

Everyone speaks on my behalf now anyway. They speak about me like I’m not in the room.

I’m not here.

I close my eyes and allow the pills I’ve just taken to help me drift away again.

Day two.

Sleep. Nothing but sleep, and pain, and disturbed dreams.

Day three.

There’s a knock on my door, and I close my eyes. Mum enters. I know it’s her from the perfume scent and the effortless, perfect way she glides in and sits without disturbing a thing. After a while, she speaks.

“I know you’re awake.”

I keep my eyes closed.

“That was Tina at the door. Tina from Highland Castle. She was asking for you. It took a lot for her to come here, especially with, you know, them outside. She knew you wouldn’t want to see her. She just wanted to give you these.”

I open my eyes and see a box of pretty cupcakes. Pink, lilac, blue and yellow, with glittery edible flowers and butterflies on top.

“She said her daughter made them for you. You can eat one this week,” she says, trying to make that sound fabulous.

One luxury a week is all a Flawed is allowed to have. It is part of the basic living we must abide by, so that we can purify ourselves. We must eat staple foods, nothing luxurious or fancy, nothing considered unnecessary for our bodies, for our life. Basics. Our intake is measured at the end of every day by a test I’ve yet to experience.

“And she brought you this, too.” Mum hands me a bag.

It’s a Highland Castle tourist shop paper bag, which I feel is highly inappropriate. If she thinks I want a trinket to remember the worst experience of my life, she is sorely mistaken.

Inside the bag is a box. I barely want to open it, but curiosity gets the better of me. Inside the box is a snow globe, enclosing a miniature Highland Castle. I shake it lightly, and the red glittering particles are churned around inside the glass. Extremely inappropriate. Even Mum views it with distaste. I’m surprised by Tina, but I’m sure she was trying to be kind, maybe even say sorry, or that’s my own wishful thinking. I put the globe back in its box and straight into my bedside locker. I don’t want to ever see it again.

I close my eyes.

Day four.

I have a visitor. Angelina Tinder sits beside my bed, dressed in head-to-toe black, which is a look I’ve never seen on her before. She looks like a lady from Victorian times grieving her dead husband. She is wearing fingerless leather gloves to hide the branding on her hand. Her long piano fingers are as pale as snow beneath the leather. She’s not allowed to wear these when she’s out in public, but she can hide it in her own home if she wishes. She is not in her own home. She is breaking a rule. Though it’s not me she is hiding it from, it is herself. She sits upright in the chair, looking at me rarely, just enough to see if I’m listening now, and then she speaks.

Her eyes are rimmed with red, as if she hasn’t stopped crying since she was branded. The tip of her nose is red, too. She is paler than I have ever seen her, as though she hasn’t seen the sun in weeks.

“You’ll have a Whistleblower appointed to you,” she says. “They’re giving you mine. She’s senior. A horrible woman with nothing better to do with her time. She’d volunteer for the post even if she wasn’t paid. Mary May is her name. Calls herself a Christian woman. She’s the same kind of woman who was burning other women at the stake. She won’t give you an inch, Celestine, you remember that.” She quickly glances at me, then away again. “She’s looking to catch you out. She thinks you’re disgusting.” She sniffs as if smelling a bad odour herself. “But they are. The Flawed. Absolutely disgusting. We are not them, Celestine, and don’t ever let them think that of you. Though, what on earth were you thinking helping that Flawed man to his seat? Saying all that in the courtroom? It’s everywhere, you know that. The footage of you on the bus has gone viral.” She looks at me, her face twisted in confusion and disgust.

I don’t answer. I can’t answer. I wouldn’t anyway.

“Be home by ten thirty. They say eleven, but she’ll be waiting for you, and anything can happen. Allow for delays, mistakes, anything. They will probably even try to trip you up. They’re always testing. I missed the curfew once. I won’t miss it again, I can assure you.” She thinks for a moment. “She’ll test you every evening to make sure you’re sticking to your basic meals, and a lie detector test to ensure you’re telling the truth about following all rules. They rely on these to work. They can’t keep their eyes on you all the time, but God knows they’ll create something soon enough in those laboratories. A camera sewn into our head or something, seeing everything we see, hearing everything we think. Because that’s what they want to know, you know. It’s like they want to crawl inside us, under our skin.”

She sniffs again and scratches at her arms. I look at her fingers and see that they’re trembling.

She sees me looking at them.

“They won’t stop. I can’t play any more. It’s like they’re not mine any more.”

She leaves a silence, and I try to prepare for the next onslaught, which inevitably comes. “It’s awful. A woman looked at me today as though I had murdered every one of her children. I would rather they had killed me instead of living like this.”

I’m glad my tongue is so damaged that I can’t speak. I wouldn’t know what to say.

“Good luck, Celestine.”

She stands and leaves the room.

Mum comes to my room later with a hopeful look on her face. “Did that help, sweetheart?”

I close my eyes and drift away.

Day five.

I wake up. And just as I have done every day for the past four days since I’ve come home, I force myself to go back to sleep. I realise it was not all a nightmare. It is true. Sleep is my only friend these days, so I roll on to my side, for my back is in too much pain, move my head on the pillow so that my temple doesn’t brush the fabric, try not to crease the skin on my chest so that it doesn’t sting and leave my right hand flat and open, the dressings preventing me from closing it anyway. This is the only way I can find respite, though for a girl of definitions, I use the term respite lightly.

I have not left my room for four days. I have left my bed only to go to the bathroom. Apart from Dr Smith and Angelina Tinder, Mum, Dad and Juniper have been the only others I’ve seen. They’re shielding Ewan from me, and I agree. Mum has tended to me night and day, cleaning my wounds, changing my dressings, putting whatever potions and lotions on them to take away the pain, to fight off infection. I have woken some nights to find Juniper sitting in the chair beside my bed staring into space; and then when I wake again, she is gone, so I wonder if it was merely a dream. Things were awkward and stilted between us when I returned from the castle. Though I know she did not plan for any of this to happen to me and it’s not her fault, something is bubbling beneath me, an anger over her part in it. She could have come to my aid on the bus, and she could have testified in court that I didn’t help the old man to a seat. Why couldn’t she have said it? I sensed her guilt as soon as I saw her when I came home, and it made me angry, it made me want to blame her. Anything so as not to blame myself.