Perfect

Evelyn jumps up and down with excitement, wanting to start it off.

“When Lennox first came here he was so nice to me. He used to carry me around on his back and pretend that he was the daddy monkey and I was the baby.” Lennox becomes embarrassed. “And he was the first person I ever heard burp the alphabet.”

Everyone laughs.

Evelyn continues. “Lennox is always happy and makes jokes and I love that about him because he makes everybody else happy. But then Lennox was sad one day. I found him crying in his room and asked him what was wrong. He was looking at photographs of him and his wife surfing. He said that he missed the sea. I told him that at least he’d seen the sea. I’ve never ever seen the sea. I’ve been here most of my life. The next time Lennox went out when he wasn’t supposed to, he came back with a shell for me. He told me to put it to my ear and whenever I wanted to hear the sound of the sea then all I had to do was listen. And always, when I feel a bit sad, I put the shell to my ear and I close my eyes and even though I’m just in my cabin with Mum, I imagine I’m on the beach, my toes in the sand, and the waves are crashing and I’m in my swimsuit and I’ve made dozens of castles and Lennox is surfing with his wife. So thank you, Lennox, for giving me the sea.”

Cordelia wipes her eyes, tears for her little girl, who has missed so many experiences while living here in the facility.

Kelly starts clapping and everybody else joins in.

Lennox clears his throat. “Man, this is going to be hard.”

And it is, but it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed – a room of people heaping praise on somebody and through their stories I receive a huge insight into Lennox’s character. Sure he’s a wisecracking smart-arse, but he has a kind soul. It also teaches me more. Lennox is married, or was, so where is his wife? What happened? What did he do to become Flawed? I know now after Mona’s reaction last night not to ask that question so easily. Yet I can’t help but wonder what everybody did in here to become Flawed, especially Carrick’s parents.

Eventually everyone but Carrick and I have spoken about Lennox.

“That’s it,” Bahee says. “Celestine, you are new here – we don’t expect you to say anything about Lennox; you have yet to discover his charming ways.” Everyone laughs.

“Carrick never speaks,” Mona whispers to me, as though Carrick has been there for longer than his two weeks.

“Uh, wait,” Carrick speaks up, and everyone falls silent in surprise. He unfolds his arms and steps away from the wall, a rare glimpse of awkwardness from him as he fidgets and cracks his fingers.

“Nice,” Mona mutters.

He glares at her and shoves his hands into his pockets instead.

“Right, Lennox,” he says awkwardly, his voice deep and serious. “We met around two weeks ago and I didn’t know much about you. Still really don’t.”

“Well, this is moving,” Lennox says to chuckles.

“But I needed your help with something. And you were there. I got a call from Dahy, and we had to move fast. Because these two idiots’ faces are posted everywhere in the city –” he refers to Fergus and Lorcan – “I needed you. You rose to the occasion. You were there. You didn’t ask many questions. You helped me find someone –” he looks at me and my heart pounds and my stomach flutters – “who is incredibly important to …”

Thud, thud, thud.

“… the Flawed cause.”

Mona tuts.

“And I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”

While I melt under Carrick’s intense gaze, Lennox interrupts: “Cash will do just fine,” and everyone laughs.

“Let’s not get into a discussion about any ‘causes’,” Bahee interjects nervously. “The only cause we should be discussing is the cause for celebration yesterday that we only learned about today.”

Suddenly the lights dim and there’s an outbreak of ‘Happy Birthday’ and Kelly, who was beside me and disappeared without my noticing, is exiting the kitchen holding an enormous cake with eighteen candles in it. Evelyn skips alongside, excitedly singing and licking her lips. When the cake reaches me, Evelyn sits on my knee and helps me to blow out the candles.

I said I would never wish again, but twenty-four hours later, I do.

“Thank you so much, everybody,” I beam.

They give me a very generous portion, one that is far beyond what a Flawed is allowed to take in, with our rules on weekly luxury intakes.

“Do you like it?” Evelyn asks. “What’s your favourite part?”

I laugh to cover my awkwardness and look at the sponge cake, cream oozing from the layers.

“The vanilla,” I say easily, taking another bite.

Evelyn frowns. “But it’s lemon sponge.”

I feel my cheeks pink and I heap another spoon into my mouth to avoid having to say anything else. From the corner of my eye I feel Carrick watching me.

Kelly sits beside me, puts her arm round my shoulders, and speaks quietly into my ear. “Your taste will come back eventually. Trust me.”

As I swallow the next tasteless piece of cake, I can’t help but wonder what lie Carrick’s mother told.

At night, when everybody has finally gone to bed, or to work, Carrick comes for me in the cabin. Mona raises her eyebrows at me suggestively, and I laugh as I leave. It’s not what she thinks it is; Carrick and I desperately need to talk. Even though I understand why she’s doing it, Kelly constantly trying to be near Carrick and fussing around him has prevented us from being able to talk. And then I had to wait for him to finish his shift, and when he finally did there was a group dinner, where Kelly sat between us, thinking she was bringing us all together when, really, Carrick sat by stiffly, giving one-worded answers, and I was too tired to speak.

It’s been an exhausting two weeks, a terrifying twenty-four hours, and now that I have finally stopped, and the adrenaline has worn off, I am sore and stiff, my head aches, and I feel like I could sleep forever.

Carrick takes me to the kitchen, the furthest room from everybody’s sleeping quarters, and closes the door. We sit at the kitchen table.

“Did you hear anything from Dahy about my granddad?”

It is the tenth time, at least, that I’ve asked him and Lennox today, though at one point Lennox fixed me with a dangerous look and said, “North, I like you, but I will swat you like a fly.”

“Yes. Just a few minutes ago. Your parents went to see him today. He’s in a holding cell; they’re treating him well. They’re questioning him and holding him for another twenty-four hours on suspicion of aiding the Flawed. They’re trying to say he’s been giving his employees privileges.”

I’m both relieved and not, at the same time. He hasn’t been charged, or hurt. Yet.

“They have no proof against him, or they would have charged him by now. They’re just holding him to smoke you out.”

I wince.

“Sorry.” He backtracks. “I didn’t mean to use that expression. But on the positive side, the fact that they’re holding on to him means he knows you’re still alive.”

“You’re sure?”

“Certain. He’s not stupid.”

I smile. “No, he’s not.”

“So … I’ve been formulating a plan to get us out of this mess.”

“What mess?”

He makes a general gesture, indicating the room around us, the factory.

“You want to leave Vigor?” I ask, surprised.

“You don’t?”

Would it be stupid to say that I like it here? That for the first time in weeks I feel safe? Surrounded by steel, metal, enormous structures, key cards to get through doors, heightened security, all to keep the outsiders from getting in. I don’t feel locked inside, I feel protected, as if for the first time it’s me who is being guarded.

“I feel safe here,” I admit. “And you’ve found your family, and your brother – did you even know you had a brother? Why would you want to give up being with them?”

“I understand, Celestine, I do. But this place isn’t real life. This isn’t freedom. Poor Evelyn is six years old and hasn’t been outside these walls since the day she arrived. She has no friends her age, probably has never met anyone her own age. Bahee doesn’t want us to fight for freedom. If he hears us speak about it, he tells us to stop, so nothing around here is ever going to change.”

“But I got ten hours of sleep last night,” I whine, and he laughs gently.

“I felt the same for about a day, but you’ve just arrived. You’ll see.”

“You sure you’re not just trying to run away?” I ask gently. “It’s going to take some time to get to know your family again, Carrick. It’s normal for it to be … awkward.”

“You noticed,” he says sarcastically. “When I left the institution, the worst thing I could have done to the Guild was to find my parents. I didn’t think the Guild would really be watching me. Of all the students, I was the person to least suspect, I thought I’d fooled them. I thought they trusted me. It just taught me that no matter how good a relationship I thought I’d built up with them, they didn’t trust me anyway. The dean came to see me at the castle.”

“I remember that.” I recall the well-dressed gentleman visiting his cell. He looked like a lawyer, but Carrick had chosen to represent himself.

“He said he’d never felt so betrayed by someone in all his life. He’d kind of taken me under his wing.” He shakes his head. “He’d watched me grow up, saw all my sports games, celebrated all my exam results. He has kids himself. And yet he still couldn’t understand my wanting to find my parents. And then I’m branded Flawed, and I’m allowed to search for my parents. There’s no rule to stop me now. It’s so twisted.”

“Illogical,” I agree. “How did you find your family?”

“I was tipped off that they were here. They moved here when I was brought to Highland Castle.”

“They’ve been here less than two months?” I ask, surprised.

“Seems longer, doesn’t it?” he asks. “That’s the weird thing about this place –” he looks around the walls – “it’s as though time doesn’t exist. People come here and they never leave. There’s more Flawed who you haven’t met yet – I dread to think of how long they’ve been here.”

“Apart from Lizzie,” I say.

She’s been playing on my mind. One of the reasons my friends considered me perfect before I became Flawed is because of my perfect grades, always A’s, particularly in mathematics. I just have the head for it. The theorems, equations – they always made sense to me. A problem that could easily be solved. If anything tested me, I’d stick with it until I got my solution. I feel the same way now. Something doesn’t feel right. There’s a problem. It’s lingering, like a ghost with unfinished business, waiting for somebody to figure it out. You’d think after what happened to me, I’d be able to change, but I can’t. When the Guild brands you, they can’t change the person, not really; they just change people’s perception of the person.

“Lizzie?” He seems confused by the change in direction.

“What do you know about her?”

“She was a Flawed girl who worked and lived here. She left a few days after I arrived. She shared a cabin with Mona – they were pretty close. I didn’t pay much attention. The rumour is she told her boyfriend that she was Flawed and he wasn’t interested any more, so she left. I didn’t bother with the gossip, that’s Mona’s territory. Why?”

“Do you know her boyfriend?”

“I know what he looks like. Kind of a nerdy computer guy. Why?”

“Is he trustworthy?”

“Celestine,” he warns. “Why?”

“Just wondering. Humour me: I’m worried about her; you said when people come in here they never leave. She left. She disappeared.”

“I don’t think her boyfriend chopped her up into little pieces, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he teases. “Don’t worry, people here are mostly good. I’m sure a few of them suspect us, might even have seen a brand or two, but they don’t say anything; they let us keep to ourselves.”

He stops talking, but he looks like he wants to say more.

“What?” I urge. “Tell me.”

“I can understand why you want to stay. There’s goodness in here, yes, but there’s something you need to think about. What exactly do you think you can do here?” he asks gently. “What’s your role?”

I had romantic visions of me making cakes with Adam and Kelly in the kitchen. Skating around suds-soaked floors on brush-skates with Mona, cleaning the floors at night while everyone sleeps, Pippi Longstocking-style. Teaching Evelyn maths. Becoming Bahee’s sidekick, donning a white lab coat and sensible glasses and studying things on petri dishes. Wearing night-vision goggles and sitting with the security team, scanning the horizon. For a few hours at least, this factory was my oyster.

Carrick goes on. “After Fergus and Lorcan escaped the supermarket riot, their faces were plastered all over the news. They’re on the Guild Wanted list. They have to work night duty from now on, so nobody recognises them by day and gives them up. Night duty falls to the Flawed mostly. You have one of the most recognised faces in the country right now; maybe that will calm down after a while, maybe not, and people here are good, but I’m sure they’re not that good. They won’t want their lives in danger, because if the Guild discovers that they were working with you day in and day out but never reported you, they’d all be in trouble. They wouldn’t take that risk. You’ll have to be kept away from everyone, for a while.”

The way he says while, he drags it out and makes it sound like a long time.

He shrugs. “For the record, my wanting to leave has nothing to do with how things are going with my family. It’s about me. I’m not settling for this life and neither should you.”

He leaves a silence, gives me time to think.

I want to see my family; my heart hurts when I think of them, of the home that I’ve left behind, of the life I’m missing, but I said goodbye to that life as soon as I was taken to Highland Castle. I’m dreaming of Mum, Dad, Juniper and Ewan visiting me here, transported through the gates hidden in the back of a food truck or something. Special Sundays where we hang around the rec room together, playing football or whatever Ewan wants to do outside. But I know this is ridiculous thinking. Bahee and the others would never allow it. Carrick is right: I’m tired, and feeling safe is a rarity, something so beautiful I should want to fight for it outside these walls.

“This life isn’t good enough for me, either,” I admit.

He grins. “Good. Because when I said I wanted us to get out of this mess I didn’t just mean leave the plant, I meant I wanted out of this entire Flawed life. I’ve got a plan.”

Carrick leans forward, brimming with excitement. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me last night. About Crevan, about his searching for the footage of the branding. Do you have any idea the power that it gives you?”

I ponder that. Mr Berry and Pia Wang knew about the footage and they’ve since disappeared. Crevan thinking that it’s in my possession fills me with fear; it puts me in a vulnerable situation, and I doubt that telling him I don’t have it will be believed. If anything, it makes me feel like the most hunted person in the universe.

Carrick can tell I’m not seeing this the same way he is. “Celestine, you can use that footage to reverse your branding. And not only that, if the public sees that Crevan has made a mistake with his rulings once, then who knows how many mistakes he’s made in the past? It calls the entire Guild system into question.”

My heart starts to pound. I think there’s something in what he’s saying. It’s the first light I’ve seen through all of this. It’s better than revenge: it’s a way out. He has convinced me, I do think it’s worth trying, but …

“What’s wrong, Celestine? You should use this. You should show the video to every single person you can.”

I don’t have the footage.

Tell him, Celestine. Tell him you don’t have it. Say it. I open my mouth. I think how to phrase it. It should be simple. I don’t have the footage. I don’t know where it is. Somebody just thinks that I have it. Because the person who apparently gave it to me told him so.

Carrick’s waiting. I close my mouth again. I can’t break his enthusiasm – he’s holding on to this plan like it’s his only chance to undo all of this. And who knows – I might have the footage. If I could gain access to my house, it could be there. My mind races. Can I get back to my house without the Whistleblowers seeing me? Can I contact my family and ask them to search for it instead? Can I really do this?

“It’s okay,” he says, like the wind has been taken out of him, backing down. “It’s a lot to ask of you, I understand. You’ve just arrived, you’re tired, I shouldn’t have … Anyway –” he perks up – “I brought you in here for a reason.” He stands up, opening the fridge, turning off the lights, and placing two cushions in front of the open fridge on the floor. “Take a seat, please.”

I look at him in utter confusion. The moment has passed. I’m relieved, but I don’t like that I’m keeping something from him. I should tell him.

“It’s okay, Celestine, really. It’s something for you to think about. For now, just sit, please.”

I sit down on a cushion on the floor, the light of the fridge the only thing illuminating the room.

He sits opposite me. “We’re going to have a lesson. Are you ready to begin?”

“Yes, Master Vane.”

He fights a smile, and I wonder what he’d look like if he let himself go, if those facial muscles untensed and a real smile took over; even better, a full-blown laugh, how it would transform him.

“Of all our senses, smell is one of the most important. Animals need a sense of smell to survive. A blind rat might survive, but a rat without a sense of smell can’t taste, therefore can’t mate or find food.”

I realise what this is about. “Your mum told you I couldn’t taste the birthday cake.”

“She may have said something,” he says softly.

“You’re comparing me to a rat.” I pout.

His mouth twitches as he tries to hide his smile. “Listen. You might have lost your sense of taste, but you haven’t lost your sense of smell. Seventy per cent of what we perceive as taste actually comes from scent.”

“I did not know that.”

I could barely eat in the weeks after my tongue branding, as my tongue swelled and scabbed from the sear. It’s been a month and everything tastes like nothing. I’m assuming I’ll never taste again for the rest of my life, which is fine, because the Flawed diet doesn’t allow for luxuries. I might be saved from tasting the endless grains and pulses we have to eat.

Carrick continues the lesson. “When you put food in your mouth, odour molecules from that food travel through the passage between your nose and mouth to olfactory receptor cells at the top of your nasal cavity, just beneath the brain and behind the bridge of the nose.”

I raise an eyebrow. “And when you swallowed the encyclopedia, what did it taste like?”

“This is my good schooling talking,” he says sarcastically. “You can’t taste but you can smell, and you can feel the texture and temperature of the food. You need to use all these things to your advantage.”

I nod along.

“In school we had to do a taste test. We had five items: a pine cone, a cinnamon stick, a lemon, baby powder on a cloth, and a mothball. We were told to sniff each one until a memory came to mind. Up to the age of eight, I hated my parents. The institution made me hate them. Between what we were told about Flawed, and the fact they never came to get me, never rescued me from that place, I hated them more than anyone. But then we did this test, and it brought back some memories I’d forgotten. Good memories, happy memories. It made me wonder about how bad my parents were after all. I wrote the memories down and then I couldn’t stop; as soon as I wrote one, it would lead to another, and then another. I was afraid if I didn’t write them down then I would forget everything forever, so every day, I wrote in my secret diary, all the things I remembered about my parents. I wouldn’t give my diary to anyone – I had to hide it in my room. They like to know everything you’re thinking in there.”

I think of catching Mary May reading my diary in my bedroom, of her wanting to be in my head.

“And everything changed for me after this test. I knew that everything they were telling me about my parents was a lie.”

I want to reach out to him, hug him, tell him I’m sorry he was taken away from his parents at such a young age, but there’s something about Carrick that stops me each time. He’s so contained. It’s like he has a force field round him, like the glass that was between us in the castle cells is still between us now. He’s there, but I can’t reach him.

He clears his throat. “You have nerve endings on the surface of your eyes, nose, mouth and throat. They detect the coolness of mint, the burning of chilli peppers. Use them. You’re not alone in this, you know.”

“Your mum had the same thing after her branding?” I guess. What was her lie? I want to ask.

“It’s not just Flawed people who experience this. Not being able to taste is called ageusia.”

“So it’s a thing?” I ask, surprised.

“It’s an actual thing.”

I feel happy about that.

“So here is a taste bag.” He places a bag down. “And here is a smell bag.”

I laugh.

“Let’s use –” he scans the shelves in the large fridge – “Bahee’s jelly beans.”

“Jelly beans?” I laugh. “In the fridge?”

“He’s an odd man. Consumes more sugar in one day than Evelyn does in a week, and he never shares, which is what makes this all the sweeter.” He takes the bag of sweets out, tells me to look away.

“What are you doing?”

“Crushing the jelly beans, so the odour is released in the smell bag. Now.” He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out a bandana. “Close your eyes.”

He moves behind me and gently ties the bandana round my eyes, his fingers brushing against my skin at one point, and I feel my skin tingle and the hairs stand up on my arms. The last time I was blindfolded, it was by some kids from school, playing a cruel joke on me. They stripped me and examined my scars with ghoulish curiosity like I was some freak show at a circus. I felt terrified then, broken, had lost all faith in people and my new life. But now, I’m completely relaxed, excited even. Despite the terrifying feeling I had when we approached the gates of the plant, I realise I completely and utterly trust Carrick. He feels like my partner in all this. If my sixth brand is as powerful as Carrick says it is, he could have used his knowledge of it for his own purposes. He could have threatened Crevan himself, but he didn’t; in fact, he didn’t tell anybody. He wants to help me reverse my own branding.

“Okay.” He’s back in front of me. “Taste this.”

“You better not slip a chilli pepper in.” I laugh.

I open my mouth and feel him place a jelly bean on my tongue. I close my lips and self-consciously chew. I don’t taste anything, unsurprisingly. I feel the texture, though I don’t think I would have known it was a jelly bean had he not told me.

“Take a sip of water.”

I suck through a straw.

“So now, smell.” He holds the bag up to my nose and I breathe in the crushed jelly bean.

“Strawberry,” I say easily. Nothing wrong with my sense of smell at least.

“Now taste.” He places the jelly bean on my tongue.