Pucker by Melanie Gideon

years old. I should have no cares other than what I’m going to do on Saturday night. But that is not my life. That has never been my life.
    I step into the light. I think of our apartment. Its worn couches, its blender and coffeemaker. The electricity, the invisible current of energy that warms us and keeps our rooms lit. The portal begins to tug on me. I stagger backward and grab the hedgerow with two hands. I can’t stop thinking of my mother. What’s happening to her now? Are the visions coming so quickly and in such a torrent that she’s no longer even conscious?
    â€œTake care of her, Huguette,” I whisper as I thrust myself back into the tunnel. It’s like climbing down into a manhole, dank and musty, and I’m flooded with despair.
    I run back to Dash’s house. I shouldn’t have wasted this night. I should have gone straight to the Ministry to begin my search for my mother’s skin. Why didn’t I do that? It’s that girl’s fault. That beautiful girl with the strange name.
    I want—I want so many things.

TWENTY-TWO
    W HEN I WAKE, I REMEMBER that this is the day I’ll be Changed. The first thing I do is vomit because I’m so nervous.
    During the years after the fire I took comfort in imagining that I wasn’t alone—that there was a whole tribe of people like me who were whole before they were not. Who were these others? I romanticized them. A painter who knew the precise shade of alizarin crimson before he went blind, a violinist who mastered Paganini’s 24 Caprices before she went deaf. We were a different species than those who were born disfigured because we remembered a time when it wasn’t so. Whether the ability to remember would eventually drive us mad, I didn’t know.
    Suddenly I remember my Barker’s, which I hid in the outhouse. I ask permission to go to the bathroom and Dash looks at me like I’m crazy. Now that it’s daylight, he doesn’t seem to be keeping such a close eye on me.
    I’m relieved to find the book is still buried in the bucket of lime. After a few minutes of deliberation (and after realizing that my new Isaurian pants have no pockets), I decide it’s best to leave it there. When I come into the kitchen, Dash hands me a cup of hot tea. It’s a small house; obviously he heard me throwing up. We eat our breakfast in silence.
    It’s raining when Nigel pulls up to the house. I go to the window; the wagon’s been covered with a mottled gray canvas.
    â€œI’ll be here when you return,” says Dash, placing his mug in the sink.
    I nod. I feel sick again.
    â€œIt doesn’t hurt,” he says.
    â€œWhatever.” I don’t believe him.
    â€œI’m telling you the truth.”
    â€œOkay, okay.” Now he’s irritating me. I just want to go and get it over with.
    I’m the last to be picked up. Nobody says a word as I climb aboard the wagon. Once we get going again, Emma scoots next to me. She presses a photograph into my hand: it’s of her parents sitting in a rowboat. Of course, Emma is nowhere in sight, because the photo was taken in the daytime. She must have been in the lodge. Or perhaps they went on vacation without her, left her in a house with tinted windows that filtered out ultraviolet light. The photograph sickens me. I’m in a terrible mood this morning.
    â€œYou shouldn’t have brought this. They’ll take it away if they find it,” I tell her.
    She ignores me. “That’s Jewel Lake. My father told me there were jewels at the bottom of it. He brought me back one.” She smirks. “He said he dove down to the bottom and found it. A blue topaz, my birthstone. He made it into a ring. But I couldn’t bring it with me. The Recruiter said no jewelry.”
    I don’t know what to say to her. All I want is to tune out.
    Emma takes the picture back, holds it up to her face, and examines it. “There,