Cecelia Ahern - Flawed / Perfect

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.”