Blemished, The (4 page)

E
lena rubbed her forehead, glowering at me like an angry panther. Her group huddled closer, checking her face for bruises and cooing. I almost laughed and when Angela turned to me with a knowing smile on her lips. I let out a tiny snort.

“You did that!” Elena said pointing a shaking finger at me.

“What you talking ‘bout babe?” said the curvaceous blonde girl. “She was nowhere near it.” The girl flicked her hair back and pouted.

“I’m sorry about your face,” I said innocently. “Would you like your mashed potato now?” I took a scoop and lifted it up, ready to place on her food tray.

“You Blemished bitch! I know you did that!” Elena grabbed the scoop from my hand and flung the potato at my face. It slapped me cold and wet on the cheek. “I know you did it but I don’t know how!”

I scraped off the
potato and slopped it onto the counter. The starchy smell turned my stomach. Angela passed me a towel. All I could see were faces staring at me. Gawping. Even the Blemished stared. I’d never wanted the floor to swallow me up so badly before.

“Hey! You can’t do that to her!” A GEM boy pushed through the queue and my eyes widened when I saw that it was Sebastian.

I rubbed the towel over my face, hoping that Sebastian wouldn’t notice my blushed cheeks. He was every bit as attractive as I remembered and a part of me resented how my legs wobbled and heartbeat quickened. My gaze trailed from his easy smile to the well-fitting sweater and back to his dark eyes.

“It’s Elena isn’t it?” he said.

“What do you want, new-boy?” she replied.

“I just think you should leave her alone.”

“Since when did GEMs stick up for Blems?” Elena spat.

I watched with dread as the serving area filled with spectators. I only needed Mrs Murgatroyd to walk in to make this day even worse.

“When you bully them for no reason,” Sebastian said. He held his hands out in a pleading and nonchalant way that seemed to actually calm Elena down. There was an ease or naturalness about him, something which made people trust him.

“Whatever, new-guy,” Elena said, picking up her tray. She scowled at me and moved on, getting Billie to serve her the vegetarian option and a des
sert.

“Thank you, Sebastian,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, with a bright smile.

“I think he likes you,” Angela whispered in my ear.

I watched him walk away with a shrug. “It’s impossible, I’m Blemished.”

*

After school I walked with Angela. She wanted to introduce me to her mum and I needed to ask Dad first. I spotted a GEM with his Plan-It, tapping away on the tiny piece of plastic. They all carried them. A device through which they were all connected. Of course the Blemished weren’t allowed Plan-Its. We had to organise our social life face to face.

Dad loved Angela as I knew he would. When we left he beamed proudly at me as though he had never expected me to make a friend, and that was what made up my mind for me. Angela had been silent about what happened the day before but I knew that she was waiting for me to explain in my own time. And so I decided to tell her about my gift, and then, when the time was right, I’d tell my dad that she knew and that we could trust her. Then I didn’t need to keep secrets from two people in my life. Secrets made me tired.

On the way to her house I told her all about our escape from Area 10, how we disappeared on the night bus. I told her about Christina, my one and only friend and how she figured everything out and then treated me like I had a disease. She threatened to tell the authorities and then we had to leave. Each word lifted a tiny weight from my body – but it was a short journey and I only had time for half the story. I missed out the part where Mum left us for the Resistance and how I would never see her again. But just as I was thinking of it we entered Angela’s tiny terraced house and the moment was over.  

“Mina, would you
like some mint tea?” Angela’s mum asked.

We sat in Angela’s kitchen, a room small enough to be cosy but large enough for a round table and four chairs. I liked Angela’s house because it exuded the same approachable warmth as her personality.
Everything chintzed and clashed; the table cloth was worn and patterned with birds, the chairs and sofa covered in tatty doilies. But it had a charm. I felt welcome and comfortable.  

“That would be nice, Mrs Dixon,” I replied.

“Oh, please, call me Theresa.” She smiled warmly and busied herself in the kitchen.

“Angela?” Theresa asked as she mashed up mint leaves.

“Yes, Mum, I’ll have one.”

I watched Theresa grind the mint leaves with a pestle and mortar. “Do you grow the mint?”

She turned and smiled. “Yes, we do. We have a small patch in the garden. Have you just moved into your house, Mina? You must need seeds and cuttings.” She turned back to her work, the pestle moving rhythmically in her fingers. “It’s March in a few weeks and you can start planting things out. We have lettuce, mint and rosemary seeds.”

“That’s very kind, thank you.” It was a genero
us offer. The Ministry restricted sales of anything the Blemished could grow – they liked to control our food.

“You know, you seem like just a lovely girl, Mina. I’m glad Angela has finally found a friend,” she said with a wide goofy grin like her daughter
’s.

“Mum!” Angela said aghast. “Don’t embarrass me!”

Theresa laughed. “Oh, darling. Don’t be silly.”

I was taken aback by Theresa’s kind words. It had been a long time since I’d heard praise like that. My cheeks warmed at the surprise.

“How are you settling into the school?” she asked as she pulled another handful of mint from the kitchen plant and tossed it into the small marble bowl. She poured a little water into the bowl and continued to grind.

“A few teething problems but not so––” I began.

“I used to make this tea for Paul,” Theresa said, interrupting me. “He really liked it.” She stopped mashing and placed down the pestle. For a moment she looked confused and her eyes glazed over like she was lost in a memory. “Where is Paul? He’s late home from work.”

“Mum, are you okay?” Angela asked in a testing voice. She stood up and walked over to her mother. “I’ll finish that up, Mum. Why don’t you go and have a rest?”

Angela manoeuvred her mother in practised style. It was as though a completely different person had invaded her body.

“Will you make one for Paul?” Theresa said to her daughter. “He’s sure to be home soon.”

“Of course I will.” Angela led her mum through the kitchen. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said to me as they left.

“Sure.” I tried to smile but it felt false. I busied myself by getting up and pouring the tea. When Angela came back she looked older.

“I don’t know what’s happening to her,” she said. I handed her a tea-cup and we sat down at the kitchen table like two old friends meeting for a chat. “That’s the second time she’s forgotten things. You never know what is going to trigger it.” She smiled thinly. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“None of our parents are perfect,” I replied. I sipped my tea. The tea-cups matched the Dixon’s style, delicately patterned with cherry blossom trees. I wanted to do something consoling, like Angela would for me, but I didn’t feel like I had her easy way with gestures or words. “Is Paul someone important to your mum?”

“He’s my dad. He went away a few years ago to work in Area 9 as a miner, and we haven’t heard from him since.” Angela sipped her tea, her eyes staying deliberately steely.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “My mum left too.”

“Where did she go?”

I looked around the room as though afraid of spies in the shadows. Could I really tell a girl I’d known for just a few days all about what happened?

“She went to London to join the Resistance.” I paused, a lump in my throat. “We think she’s dead.”

“How do you know?”

I swallowed.

Angela reached across the table and took my hand. “You can trust me, Mina.”

I believed her. “We received notes, every few months. They were always in code and delivered by a member of the Resistance. Well, they stopped, six months ago. We’ve heard nothing since then.”

“She might not be dead,” Angela suggested. “She could be captured, or in hiding.”

I laughed dryly. “Maybe. But until I know otherwise, she’s dead. It’s easier that way.”

Angela nodded. “I understand. That way you don’t get disappointed. But there’s one reason why I believe my dad is still alive.”

“What’s that?”

“Hope,” she said. “If we don’t have hope what’s the point in all this?” She gestured around her. “We have a crappy time of it. They call us Blemished, order us around, tell us our genes are worthless. They make us wear those stupid headscarves and GEMs treat us like second class citizens. They make us undergo
surgery
when we’re sixteen and mess with our heads like with Mum.”

I laughed. “What’s the point in this? You’re depressing me even more!”

“The point is that I believe it’s going to get
better
.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

The complete sincerity in her voice made me laugh again. She really meant what she said. “But how?”

“You.”

I fingered the tea cup trying to ignore the sudden chill in my veins. “What do you mean?”

“You can move objects with your
mind
.”

My throat went dry and I croaked through my next sentence. “No one can know about that.”

She ignored me and continued. “That’s power that the Ministry don’t have. And if you have this kind of power that means there are others out there with the same powers.”

Everything felt wrong. I’d underestimated this girl. She had a hidden agenda. Maybe she was going to make me sign up to the Resistance
– or worse. Why else would she believe I could make a difference in this world?

“I shouldn’t have told you. You work for someone. You’re going to tell people,” I said, moving away from the table. I backed towards the kitchen door. I had to get out of the house.

“What? No. I didn’t mean that I think you
should
do anything. I was just thinking aloud. Mina, listen to me. I’m not going to tell anyone. I promise.” Angela’s eyes pleaded with me to stay. “You’re safe here. When you meet Daniel you’ll understand everything.”

“She’ll understand what?”

The door was open and a boy stepped into the kitchen. He looked from me to Angela and back to me. He was a skinny thing with messy blond hair and piercing eyes the colour of the sea.

“You,” he said to me. “I know you.”

T
he boy held my gaze, his intensity never fading, and the hairs on my arms lifted, giving me goose-bumps. I wanted to break away from his eyes, but I couldn’t, and instead my pulse quickened, blood thudding in my ears. Embarrassed – I blushed. 

“I’ve never met you before in my life,” I said, forcing myself to speak.

“Where’s your mum?” Daniel said to Angela.

“She’s upstairs sleeping. It’s okay.”

Daniel nodded once and then dashed from the room. I heard his footsteps loud and clumsy on the stairs.

“What’s going on?” I said, glancing towards the open door. Outside the sun was beginning to set and everything had been cast into a twilight gloom. I knew that I should get home before dark and part of me itched to leave. I knew that I
should
leave. I couldn’t trust these people. Angela’s friendship could be a ruse to kidnap me and harness my power or hand me over to the authorities. But another part of me didn’t believe that and I was intrigued. I still tingled from the intensity of Daniel’s eyes.

Angela grabbed my arm, sensing my intentions. “No. Don’t go yet. Look I know this is weird.” She hesitated. “Have you ever thought that things happen for a reason? That people are brought together for a purpose?”

I pulled away, fearful. Daniel burst through the door holding a leather bound notebook which he slammed down on the table. The binding creaked as he opened it.

“Look at these,” he commanded.

I moved towards the notebook and watched as he flipped the pages. Each one had been filled with intricate pencil diagrams of a girl. First she was young, often sat very primly, serious expressions in her eyes. I saw my mum in her face.

“These are the pictures I drew years ago,” Daniel said. He kept on flicking the pages over and the girl grew up. Her hair grew and her features developed into a young woman. I gasped. My fingers trembled and I felt hot all over.

“If this is some kind of joke it isn’t funny,” I said. The kitchen door rattled and my body flushed with heat. “Why do you have drawings of me? What are you? A stalker?” The table began to shake and the tea-cups shivered in their saucers. Stacks of plates trembled.

“Mina, calm down,” said Angela.

“Is that your name?” Daniel stared at me with fascination. “I’ve known your face for so long. But I never knew your name.”

His voice was breathy and excited but with an intense undertone. I didn’t want to admit it but he grabbed my attention instantly. Our eyes met. His were a darker shade of blue than I’d ever seen. Like the sky before a thunder storm. They made me feel strange, as though I somehow
knew
him. It was all too much. 

“No,” I said, hot tears threatening. This had to be some sort of sick joke. It didn’t make any sense. “This is all wrong. I don’t understand.”

The kitchen door slammed shut. It flapped open. I was out of control. Daniel and Angela glanced at each other nervously.

“Mina, you need to calm down or you’re going to break something,” Angela begged. “Look, just sit down and we’ll tell you everything.”

“It’s a really long story,” Daniel added. “I promise you that it isn’t creepy. I’m not a stalker. I know that we’ve never met.”

I looked at the two of them in turn, disconcerted by their sincerity. They seemed prepared
, as though they had been waiting for this moment.

“You know what it’s like to experience something difficult to explain,” said Angela. “Listen to what Daniel has to say. Please.”

I sighed and the table stopped shaking. “All right. Explain.”

I sat down in one of the four kitchen chairs and Angela and Daniel did the same. He drummed his fingers on the table and looked at Angela as though for inspiration and she smiled with encouragement. He had worker’s fingers – blisters and cracks in his skin.

“It started when I was just a kid. Mum didn’t know what the hell to do with me.” He laughed. “Think I must’ve driven her mad. That’s why she left.”

“Don’t say that,” Angela interrupted.

Daniel raked his fingers through his hair and leaned back on the chair. He was probably older than me by maybe a year but his eyes seemed older still, as though they had seen too much. He found it difficult to sit still and I wasn’t sure if it was the shock at seeing me or a constant nervous energy rattling around him. It made me want to grab his hand and tell him to calm down.

“I get these headaches. Searing migraines that feel like something hot just got poked through my brain.” He pushed his fingers into his eye sockets and over his temples. “Sometimes I pass out. But when I come to I have this picture in my head and I draw it.” He pointed at the notebook. “I see you a lot. I don’t know why, but I see your face. Sometimes I see stuff that’s going to happen, bad things.”

“You mean you see the future?” I asked, incredulously.

“He gets a snapshot image,” Angela said. I noticed how she sat close to him, her arms leaning on the table top like a barrier between me and Daniel. “It’s usually something significant that happens in the near future. So yes, I guess you could say that Daniel can predict the future.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said.

“Really?” Angela raised an eyebrow. “After the way you just made the entire kitchen dance?”

I looked at them, trying to decide whether I truly believed them or not. “This is all way too crazy to make up,” I mumbled half to myself. “I’ve just… I’ve never met
anyone
else who can… who has…” I gave up, realising I was lost for words.

“There’s a reason why I keep seeing you.” Daniel spoke slowly and in a low, almost hypnotic
, voice. He was handsome, in a rough way, with dishevelled hair and dark circles under his eyes. There was a striking contrast between his looks and Sebastian’s chiselled features. He smiled and his mouth moved crookedly. “You’ve been haunting my dreams for years. Always your face. We were meant to find each other.”

“But why?”

Daniel looked at me as though he couldn’t believe I was really there, his eyes trailing my face, searching every crevice. His gaze was magnetic, drawing my attention.

“Mina, tell Daniel about your gift,” Angela said, interrupting the silence.

“There’s nothing much else to tell. You’ve seen it.” I tried to smile at Angela but found myself pulled to Daniel. “When I get upset or emotional the things around me start to move.”

“She flipped a tray and whacked Elena Darcey around the head with it yesterday,” Angela said with a large grin.

Daniel laughed. “I bet she deserved it.”

“She made me sniff mashed potato in front of the entire canteen,” I replied.

Daniel and Angela both laughed and I joined them which felt good. My muscles relaxed and I stopped expecting kidnappers to run through the open door.

“Did you have to move because of your gift?” Daniel asked.

I nodded. “I find it hard to control sometimes. When I was a kid it wasn’t as bad because it was easier to miss school then, before they introduced the Operation and the new system.” I noted how Angela’s eyes flashed, she felt the same way about the schooling system that I did. “But as a teenager I had to go. I tried to keep to myself and not speak to anyone. I tried
so
hard not to get angry or feel any emotions but…” I trailed off, feeling the same tingle in my fingertips even as I relived the memories.

“But you can’t stop being who you are,” Daniel finished for me.

I looked up, surprised. “Yes, that’s exactly it.”

“Do you think there are more of you?” Angela asked. “I mean more people with super-powers like you two.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “I thought I was the only person on the planet who could do anything weird like that. But then, there are two of us, so maybe.”

“So what are we? Genetic freaks?” Daniel said. “Do you think the Ministry know about people like us?”

“I really hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “My dad always tells me that he thinks it’s a higher stage in evolution. He thinks the GEM project is stopping us from evolving any further and that if they just left things alone we’d all be born with gifts like mine… ours.”

“That’s nice,” said Daniel. “My mum just thought I was the devil.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She was messed up from the Operation,” he said with a forced but breezy tone of voice. His facial expression clouded, showing his true feelings. “Whatever happened to us, I don’t think it’s natural.” He smiled thinly.

“What do you think it is?” I said.

“I think it’s the Ministry messing with us,” he said. “I think we’re just the same as them out there.” He meant the GEMs. “I think they did something to our genes.”

“Then why aren’t we in some lab?” I said.

“I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “Are you going to tell your dad about me?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“You know, I’m building a training room for him in your basement. He seems nice.”

“Yeah, I thought that might be you. Small world.” I fingered with the sleeve on my tunic.

“Maybe we’re going to save the world,” Daniel said with a laugh.

“Like a genetic freak uprising?” I replied.

“Stranger things have happened,” Angela added.