I did a drawing of my hand holding a long, slender dagger a few weeks ago. I thought Celia was going to faint, she was holding her breath so long. I scrunched the paper up, saying it was “rubbish” and threw it on the fire before she could stop me. I’ve not done it again; it wasn’t that funny.
My landscapes really are rubbish. I can’t get them right at all, and my buildings are boringly bad. I’ve drawn the cage, though. I captured that. I caught its sucked-out blackness, a holding-something-down-ness. I know that cage so well. It was my best piece. I told Celia we should show it to the Council. She didn’t say anything and I’ve not seen the picture since. I guess she burned it.
“They’ll be here late morning,” she says as I draw. “I’ll weigh you, photograph you before they get here.”
“Nervous?”
She doesn’t reply, and I lean away, anticipating a slap, but she doesn’t take the bait.
“I won’t mess up. Don’t worry. I’ll be a good boy and answer all their questions nicely. And I won’t spit at them until the end.”
Celia sighs.
We’re quiet again, me trying to draw her hair. I think it’s thinning; perhaps it’s worry.
“Will you be in the room when they do the assessment?”
“What do you think?”
“Probably not . . . Definitely not.”
“Then why ask?”
“Just making conversation.”
“Then make it better.”
I draw her mouth at that point. She has a great sneer that somehow makes her big lips seem less ugly and more interesting. I’d like to draw her standing to attention outside my cage, holding the key, with the look she sometimes has on her face, the look that’s almost pity. The reason she does this job, I think.
“Well?” she asks.
“Well what?”
“I know you want to ask something.”
How can she tell that?
“Umm. Well. I was wondering . . . How come you got the job of being my jailer?”
“Teacher and guardian.”
“There weren’t many applicants, I guess.” I’m finishing off her mouth now, but the downward curve of the original has softened.
She turns to me, disturbing the position she’s been holding.
“I believe I was their first choice for the post.”
“Their only choice, you mean.”
I wait, but she’s giving nothing away.
“And your life is so empty that sitting in the middle of nowhere acting as jailer for an innocent child must seem pretty rewarding.”
She’s actually beginning to smile at this.
“And I bet the pay isn’t that great.”
She nods a little.
“Imprisoning, beating, physically and mentally scarring a boy who isn’t yet sixteen years old . . . a boy who has never done anything wrong . . . they’re all the plus points of the job.”
“Yes,” she says. “They are all plus points.”
The smile has gone, but the sneer hasn’t returned. She resumes her previous pose and doesn’t look at me as she says, “Marcus killed my sister.”
Her sister must be on the list. I don’t know Celia’s surname. I’ve asked before but apparently it’s not relevant.
“What Gift did she have?”
“Potion-making.”
I nod. “Can Marcus do your thing . . . your Gift . . . with the noise?”
“Is it on the list?”
“You should watch out. I’d bet he’d like it to be.”
We are silent again.
I had sort of guessed that Celia had an issue with me, or rather with me being the son of you-know-who. It wasn’t a wild guess. Let’s face it, she was bound to know or be related to someone on the list.
I say, “I’m not Marcus.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t kill your sister.”
“It’s unfair, isn’t it? But I think that there is a chance, admittedly a small one, that he does care about you and that it irks him that his son is here.”
“Does he know I’m here?”
“No, I don’t mean here. This place is well hidden, even from his abilities.” She stretches her neck and arms. “I mean that he will know that we have you. And will assume you aren’t in any state of luxury. I’d hate to disappoint on that level.”
“Why not leave me in the cage all day, then? You can’t seriously think I’d ever be able to kill him? This training is stupid.”
She gets up and walks around the room. This is usually a sign that she doesn’t want to answer the question.
“Perhaps, but leaving you in a cage all day would be cruel.”
I’m so amazed that I don’t start laughing for a second or two. When I’ve managed to calm myself I say, “You beat me. I wear a choker that can kill me. You shackle me up at night in a cage.”
“You’re well fed. You’re sitting here drawing.”
“And I’m supposed to be grateful?”
“No. You’re supposed to sit there with a full stomach and draw.”
“I’ve finished it,” I say and push it across to her.
She picks the paper up and turns it round to study it. After a minute she rolls it up and puts it onto the fire.
I pick up the pencil again and begin another. This time I draw myself, my face as I saw it in the mirror but even older, how I imagine Marcus looks. I can tell Celia is watching closely. She is hardly breathing. I’ve never done this before. I do the depths of his eyes like mine, exactly like mine. I can’t imagine them blacker.
When I’m finished I’m not that pleased. He looks too handsome, too nice. “Burn it,” I say. “It’s not right.”
Celia reaches over to take it and studies it longer than she studied her own portrait. Then she takes it out of the room.
“It doesn’t mean he looks like that,” I call after her.
She doesn’t reply.
I pack up the pencils, eraser, and sharpener in the old tin. The lid pushes on and that’s that. Celia comes back to sit opposite me again.
“Has anyone ever come close to catching him?” I ask.
“Who knows how close they get? No one succeeds. He’s very good. Very careful.”
“Do you think they will get him one day?”
“He’ll make a mistake—it only takes one—and he’ll get caught or killed.”
“Are they using me as bait to get him?”
She sounds pleased as she says, “I should imagine they are.”
“But you don’t know how? In what way, I mean?”
“My job is to act as your guardian and teacher. That’s all.”
“Until when?”
“Until they tell me to stop.”
“What will happen to me if they catch him?”
She sticks her lower lip out. It’s huge and flat. Slowly she draws it back in, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Will they kill me?”
The lip goes out again but comes in quickly this time and she says, “Maybe.”
“Even though I’ve done nothing wrong.”
She shrugs.
“Better safe than sorry, hey?”
She doesn’t respond.
“What would you do if they told you to kill me? If they said, ‘Put a bullet in the Half Code’s brain.’” I mime a gun, pointing a finger to the side of my head, and make a shooting sound.
She gets up and walks around behind me, pushes a finger hard against the back of my skull, and makes the same sound.
I don’t sleep well. It’s not cold. There’s no wind, not a breath. The clouds are still. There’s no rain.
I’m nervous about seeing the Council. My hands are shaky. Nerves, just nerves.
I can still feel Celia’s finger on the back of my skull. I know they can kill me at any time. Who would do it and how is irrelevant; the end result is the same. But still the thought of it being Celia has got to me. I know she’d do it. She’d have to, or someone would do it to her.