The Blemished by Meredith Bond
“There’s something I have to tell you. But I’m scared that she will be watching me.” I paused for a moment wondering if I was really going to do this. It broke all of my good intentions and went against everything my dad had just said. “Can you meet me here at night?”
*
Later that night I paced my bedroom. What the hell, was I doing? Why did I keep seeking out danger?
Deep down I knew why. It all started the night of the Slums. No matter how grim and frightening the experience had been, as soon as we sneaked out of Angela’s house I realised that I would never be the same again. I didn’t want to follow the rules anymore.
I found myself comparing Sebastian to Daniel. I had a connection with Daniel, I couldn’t deny that. He understood me. He was complex and drawn to danger. When I thought of him the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
But then I thought of Angela and the way she lit up as he walked into a room and the hurt expression on her face when Daniel held my hand after his vision. When Dad told me I couldn’t see Daniel anymore I was relieved. That way I would be forced to stop my feelings for him and I wouldn’t ruin my friendship with Angela. She was the only real friend I had.
And then there was Sebastian, who I should not even speak to. But I felt so relaxed around him that I just to get to know him. He made me feel safe and special. And yet at the same time there was this secret about his father. Why couldn’t he tell me everything? That was why I had to meet him and tell him my secret. It gave him an opportunity to tell me the truth, for us both to come clean.
Dad took my arrival home as acceptance of his terms and I didn’t contradict him. When I walked through the door he sat at the kitchen table waiting for me. His eyes were red. We hadn’t said a word to each other since the fight. But I knew my dad and I knew he would hit the bottle hard tonight, passing out in the sofa, if not disappearing altogether. He also wouldn’t expect me to defy him, not after everything that happened and everything that was said. It was my best opportunity.
When the house went quiet and I heard the TV screen change to its night-time programming – a series of short films where different GEM women sang lullabies – I opened my bedroom window. Under the sheets of my bed I had placed my cushions to form a human shape and turned the lights off, hoping that if my dad did wake he would simply glance in the room and think me asleep. I had tied my hair back into a bun and I wore black trousers and trainers. I eased myself carefully through the window frame, clutching onto the drain pipe for support. Tentatively I climbed down the pipe, using the brackets as foot and hand-holds, trying not to look down until it was a safe distance to jump.
I landed with a soft thump and glanced around, checking for spies in the dark. I waited a few heartbeats, listening intently to the house, hoping not to hear my dad angrily stomping through the kitchen. It was silent. I turned and ran into the darkness, keeping my footsteps light.
*
The first thing I noticed about the field was that it smelled different in the dark. Everything intensified. The soil was danker, the weeds more sickly and the bitter residue of the nearby animals hung in the air. My breath exhaled in short, sharp bursts. It was a cloudy night with very little moonlight. I struggled to see in the dark and cursed myself for not bringing a torch.
“Sebastian?” I whispered into the night.
“I’m here,” he whispered back.
I sighed with relief. “I can’t see a thing.” I searched the darkness for his shape, finally finding his outline against the wall. I had to move very close to him in order to see his face. When I approached he smiled so wide that I found myself smiling too.
“It’s good to see you,” he said and then laughed. “Even though I saw you less than five hours ago.” He reached forward and tucked a loose hair behind my ear.
For a moment I was caught in his gaze and the gentle touch of his hand. I tried to snap myself out of it.
“There is something I need to tell you and I’m not sure you are going to believe me,” I said, keeping my tone as serious as I could to show that I would not be joking. “And after I have told you I want you to tell me everything you know about your dad. I want you to know that what I’m about to tell you is something so important that it could put my life in jeopardy if you tell anyone. It’s the reason why we left Area 10. If the Ministry find out they will definitely take me away, maybe run tests on me, kill me – I don’t know.”
“What is it, Mina?” he said urgently. “You can trust me. You can tell me anything, I promise.” He took my hands in his and looked deeply into my eyes.
“Have you ever heard of telekinesis?” I said.
He nodded. “Yes, I think so. It means the ability to move things with your mind. Mrs Cook, our psychology teacher, is always muttering about it being a load of psychic mumbo-jumbo.” He laughed again.
“It’s not mumbo-jumbo,” I said. “Watch.”
I picked a stone on top of the wall, one which I would struggle to lift in the conventional way. Concentrating on my anger, always just slightly away from the surface, I lifted it into the air. Sebastian jumped when the stone moved, turning to stare at it, dumbfounded.
“Are you… you’re… you’re really doing that?”
“Yes,” I said. Concentrating hard I slowly lowered the stone, placing it gently back onto the wall. “I know. I’m a freak. I’d understand if you wanted nothing to do with me. It’s a lot to take in.”
He was silent for a moment, still staring at the stone. “It is a lot to take in. Did I really see that?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Then you are even more special than I ever imagined.”
He took my face in his hands and for a moment I thought he might kiss me. I panicked and my heart quickened. But then his hands dropped and the moment was over.
After I caught my breath I said, “So, now I’ve told you my secret. I want you to tell me about your dad.”
24
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything about my dad. But first I need to tell you about my sister, Eve.” He took a deep breath and began.
“Eve was full of fun. She was really pretty and bubbly and she had this wayward streak about her. I guess that’s why she was always getting in trouble, and why her and Mum fought a lot.
“I was young at the time and I didn’t know what was going on. Apparently Eve stayed out late at night, getting in with the wrong crowd. She hated what we were – Children of the GEM – and tried to rebel against it. According to Dad she was this close to joining the Resistance and leaving us.” He mimed an inch with his fingers.
“We lived in London at the time and my dad worked in the Ministry. He had a really good job. I mean, he was one of the bigwigs. The film stars and the beauty contests – they were mainly my dad’s idea. He realised that Britain could be put on the map by the beautiful women in our country. He was one of the first to see the potential to make everyone beautiful. Eve hated what Dad did. She used to say that she didn’t want to be shallow like the rest, she wanted to be somebody.
“And then she got involved with this guy. I never met him or really knew much about it but sometimes she’d wander into my room with her eyes wide and dreamy. She wore these slogan t-shirts and ripped jeans – her hair messy and make-up smeared on like she’d put it on her fingertips and just dragged them across her face. One time, she stared into my mirror smudging this black stuff onto her eyes and asking me how she looked – telling me how she wanted to look good for Johnny. I was scared of her that night. She was hiding out from my dad and acting weird, staggering around like she couldn’t stand up properly. I guess she was drunk… or something. Anyway I said she looked okay, although obviously she looked beautiful. I guess they all do… we all do.
“She started disappearing for months at a time, coming back for money and then leaving again. It killed my mum. She’s a good mum, she only ever wants us to be safe and whenever Eve wasn’t with us she worried. I grew up with this patt
He took a deep breath. All the time he talked he kept his gaze on the wall; I imagined his eyes glazed in the darkness, reliving past memories and past pain.
“Then one day she came back, not long ago, only a few months, and she brought something with her. A bump. She was pregnant. She was pregnant with the child of a Resister.” He laughed without humour. “Pregnancy is taboo for GEMs too, you know. We’re meant to take a pill every day to stop us from conceiving. We donate our sperm and eggs to a bank and they save it for when we want children. Then they take the genes and enhance them into whatever it is you want in your child and grow it for you.
“Eve was pregnant and the low-life responsible left her. She ran back to us. There was a huge fight between her and my dad and the neighbours called the Enforcers.” Sebastian’s voice cracked. “They took her away. My dad lost his job and they banished us from London. That’s when we moved here.”
I placed my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. He finally turned to me, his eyes glassy with tears.
“But I don’t understand. You said your dad was a supporter?” I said gently.
“He is now. I think watching his daughter be dragged away like that turned him. He hates the Ministry now. There is a farm house, around five miles out of the town centre; no one knows it exists because it is tucked away on the moors. We’re going to move there. Right now all he’s doing is pretending to act the part of a responsible citizen while we set everything up… food… electricity. He’s even buying some animals.”
“Animals?” I asked, shocked. The Ministry controlled the intake of produce like milk and cheese. We only saw them on market stalls or in GEM shops. “What kind of animals?”
“A couple of cows, a goat and some hens. Maybe a horse to pull a plough.”
I grinned. “That sounds amazing. To have control over everything like that and live your own life.” My smile faded. “So one of these days you’re just going to… disappear?”
He chuckled into the darkness and then gently stroked my face with the back of his hand. “I will always find a way to contact you, Mina, no matter where you are.”
I swallowed dryly, as I thought about not having Sebastian in my life. Part of me didn’t like it one bit. Before Area 14 I didn’t even have friends to be dependent on, and now I was growing more and more attached to the people here: Sebastian, Daniel and Angela.
“But if you’re ever in trouble,” he leaned in closer to me, his eyes boring into mine, “find the farm. You will be safe there.”
I left Sebastian feeling almost as though some sort of intimate ceremony had been cast between us. When I climbed into bed I still felt his presence with me, his words in my ear and his touch to my face. We had arranged to meet the next night and I found myself up and ready for school early, wanting the day to go as quickly as possible. I left before my dad woke up with a hangover and chewed toast on the way.
At school, Angela told me that Daniel was much better and I instantly felt guilty, partly for not worrying about his headache and partly because in some way I felt as though I was betraying him by meeting Sebastian. I didn’t tell Angela about meeting Sebastian, but I did tell her about the fight with my dad and him stopping me from seeing her outside school. She looked heartbroken and I wished I could share that heartbreak but I was still too excited about meeting Sebastian in secret.
We met at the same place. At first we weren’t sure what to say to each other, but then Sebastian began to tell me all about London.
“It’s loud,” he said, “and very brash. In your face. There are TV screens everywhere and they talk to you––”
“What? Directly?”
“Yup, they know your name and everything.” He mimicked a posh female voice. “Good morning Mr Sebastian Cole, would you be interested in today’s special rate? Touch the screen for amazing bargains! And then people touch the screen and order whatever they want.”
“And it appears?”
He laughed. “No! Of course not! You can’t reach into the screen and pull objects out.”
I blushed and was glad of the cover of the night sky.
“But they do deliver it to your house or work. You can even get products delivered to places like the restaurant you are eating in or the Café you’re drinking in. You can book events – I used to do that a lot – say if you wanted to go to the cinema or use the tube.”
“How do they know it’s you?”
“From our Plan-Its.” He removed the small, white rectangle from his pocket. “We all have one registered to our names and addresses. We use them to browse the web so they know the things we like. When you’re stood in a public place the adverts target you. Like, I drink a lot of coffee so the adverts would be for local Cafés. And the Ministry has records of your fingerprints so you just touch the screen for identification and it takes the payment out of your bank.” He shrugged as though it was all mundane.
“I’ve seen you use these.” I stroked the white plastic. “The words flash across your eyes.”
“We wear special contact lenses. It projects an image, a really tiny one, onto our retinas so that we don’t need a display. It makes everything more instant.”
I shook my head. “It’s like a whole new world.”
Sebastian laughed at my amazement. He paused. The mood turned more serious “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Are you in love with Daniel Gibson?”
25
“What?” I said.
“The boy from the carpenters,” Sebastian added.
My mouth flapped open and shut. “Why would you ask me that? How do you even know who Daniel is?”
“I’ve seen him around,” said Sebastian. His head hung lower, staring at his feet, as though embarrassed. “And I often see you with him.”
“Yes, and Angela, his adoptive sister,” I snapped. “He built our basement for us and Dad is teaching him to read.”
I thought I saw him smirk in the darkness and I didn’t like it. “He can’t read?”
“No,” I said bluntly. “But only because Blemished boys don’t go to school. They get apprenticeships when they are old enough instead. He isn’t stupid.”
“You never answered my question,” Sebastian prompted. “Are you in love with him?”
“No,” I said hesitantly, “he is my best friend’s brother… kind of. He’s just a friend.” I pulled my sleeves, wondering why Sebastian’s question bothered me so much.
“I’m sorry. It’s just I saw you with him a few times. And it’s just that… I don’t know anything about that part of your life.”
I moved forwards and put both hands on his arms. He turned to look at me; we were so close I could feel his breath on my face. “We are just friends. We could never be anything more anyway because Angela is so in love with him. I could never break her heart.”
Sebastian broke from my arms and turned around. “So that means you want to?”
“No!”
“Don’t lie to me,” he said bitterly.
“I’m not lying.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I didn’t answer.
“Just go, Mina,” he said.
“Wait, Sebastian––”
“Just go.”
“Will I see you here tomorrow?”
He paused. “Yes.”
*
At school the next day I moped. I moped and I thought about Sebastian’s questions. How was I supposed to know how I felt about Daniel? How was I supposed to know how I felt about Sebastian? I didn’t know about boys or feelings or any of that.
I hadn’t seen Daniel for days. All the time we were apart I’d been trying to ignore it, but Sebastian had torn everything open. I missed him. No, it was
During my days of being grounded Angela chatted incessantly at school. It was nice because it made the most of our time together. She had told me about how she was teaching Daniel to read and really enjoying it, that he was getting a lot better and that he seemed a little sad but she didn’t know why. But on this day Angela didn’t chat to me. She was uncharacteristically silent.
“Are you all right?” I asked whilst gardening. We were working in pairs to re-pot the seedlings inside the greenhouse. It was sweltering under the glass and the afternoon sun. I pulled my headscarf back a little to let some heat out.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You are not fine, Angela Dixon. Please tell me what is wrong. I know that my dad is being a total arse at the moment but I’ll help you, I swear.”
Her face scrunched up as though she was about to cry. I wanted to put my arm around her but didn’t want to draw attention to us. “Is it your mum?”
“Yes.” A tear escaped and she wiped it away quickly. “Yesterday she left the bath running and it flooded the bathroom. Then she ran out into the garden without her clothes. She’s losing her mind, Mina. It’s not just confusion and vagueness anymore. She’s just getting too difficult, I can’t––”
“That’s it. I’m asking my dad for help,” I said. Angela tried to interrupt but I put my hand up to stop her. “Angela you can’t cope with this on your own. You’re fourteen.”
She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Do you really think he’ll help?”
“Listen, no matter what is going on between me and Dad he would never let another human being suffer. He’ll think of something, I swear.”
Angela smiled and her back straightened. It was as though the weight of the world had just been lifted from her shoulders. I went back to the seedlings feeling lighter myself.
“Mina.”
I looked up. Billie had come over. “Hi, Billie.”
“It’s been nearly a month since…” she trailed off. “Will you come with me? I want to water the bulbs.”