Cecelia Ahern - Flawed / Perfect

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.