Flawed / Perfect. Cecelia Ahern

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.”

      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