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Her sister was destined to be a part of this vivacious bilge. Hope sighed.
Squinting she eyed each of the girl’s faces. She counted five blondes, six brunettes, a red head - girl thirteen had dark braids and the other Hope couldn’t really tell the colour of from this distance – it looked like lots of rinses of colour. “Like seaweed?” she muttered to herself. Trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible, she bent down further, peering over the front row. Her attention settled on the blondes - the captain and the other four in the row behind her. Throwing her arms in the air in frustration; and spouting an overly dramatic “STOP!” the captain killed the music mid cheer. “Well that was crap! What are we doing? We know this! We’ve got this! Let’s do it again! I need to see hips!”
The music started and the team went through the routine again. They finished. “Okay, two minutes, take a break,” she said. She looked to one of her blonde girls, “Parker, come here a minute, we need a cheer-chat.”
Hope froze.
Parker.
The captain led her away from the group by the arm. The two began speaking in hushed tones. Parker looked down at the ground. The captain was angry. Parker was being served. Hope studied Parker’s face. She did recognize her. She’d had an altercation with her just yesterday. ‘Freak-zone’ was the word used. Hope darkened at the memory.
Was it Parker from Sombre, though? There might be a resemblance? It was very dark in The Hills, and Halliday had been in a rush.
The two girls turned suddenly.
Cover blown - she had been spotted.
“Hey! Pervert! What’re you looking at?” Hands on hips the captain paced toward Hope, with Parker following behind.
Hope got up to leave.
Hands on her hips, the captain scowled at her, she spoke quickly, her tone venomous. “Please, don’t get up. You’ve come out to get some sun, you poor pale thing! Nothing like getting out in the daylight is there! I haven’t seen you around. You’re an import - you must be. What’s your name?”
“She is an import,” Parker confirmed studying Hope’s face.
“Uh, sorry … ah, I need to go,” Hope said clearing her throat. Her stomach tight, she felt sick, she burped chicken sandwich.
“She’s a rude little ghost, isn’t she Parker,” the captain said smiling.
Parker didn’t answer. Her expression had changed to consternation; face rigid with anger, and if Hope didn’t know better - fear?
“We are not used to strange imports like you leering at us. Can you please refrain from doing so? It is unnerving. Piss off! Get out of here! Or you’ll get my cheer-foot in your ass!” the captain’s eyes widened.
She meant it. Hope didn’t know where to look. Parker kept watching her. What was she looking at?
The captain turned and left, “Parker, come on! You’ve been awful at best today. We need to practice.”
Then Hope saw it.
A yellow shadow crept over Parker’s face.
The same yellow she had seen in the mirror just this morning.
Had it been on her own again as well?
She couldn’t breathe.
Suddenly, Parker the cheerleader looked like she was about to cry, “Uh!” she gasped.
Drawing her eyes away from Hope, she turned and paced toward her captain - rubbing her face and shaking her head. The rest of the Sparks were waiting, standing ready in formation.
Hope ran back up the steps, she grabbed her bag and dropped her lunch – she left it for the birds. Her body felt like it was made of ice. What just happened?
CHAPTER 9
Brave Hope
The rest of the day had been a write off for Hope.
English, her last period, was turning into a self-induced farce. She still hadn’t read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Every class was going to be about the damned book as well. She was sure Miss Sparrows knew she hadn’t read it. Each time she would ask the class a question about the text, she would look to Hope threateningly for the answer, then move on to someone else.
Hope hadn’t even been able to get past the first chapter without the words sliding sideways and her dozing off. She would have to bring herself to read it somehow. She’d watched the film – but the questions related to the prose and word usage.
Although, the looming book report paled in comparison to what happened at lunch.
A clash of worlds.
Parker existed.
Now something had to happen.
But how would she approach her? The girl was a year older, and at least six tiers above her on the social scale. She recalled how haunted the cheerleader looked at the field. It was the sickly yellow. Parker had seen it on Hope’s face too, she was sure of it. How could it have been anything else?
The night before, Parker had been rescued by Halliday Knight. It’s not like Hope looked anything like Halliday. She snorted to herself at this,’ ha!’ Whatever the yellow was, what it meant, it seemed to just be for Hope, and now, Parker.
Mercifully the bell rang. As always, Hope waited for everyone to shuffle past her. Her teacher didn’t seem to want to talk to her today. As early as it was in her first year at Centurion, maybe Miss Sparrows had given her new, partially blind student up for a lost cause? Hope gathered her books and left.
Entering the hall, she was mostly alone. No one hung around on Friday. Friday was like a prison break.
Shuffling along, she was in no rush. Her body was still Sombre-sore. “Halliday’s a painful bitch,” she said under her breath and laughed.
Afternoon light splayed through the windows that ran the length of the hall. She gazed toward her locker in the far corner and faltered. Parker the cheerleader was leaning on it. Bag draped over her shoulder; arms folded, the older girl was dressed in a short skirt and loose-fitting top, her long, strawberry blond locks were out, ensconcing her front - like a teenage lioness.
Hope looked down at the ground and walked toward the girl. The tapping sound of her footsteps seemed to be everywhere in the empty hall – just her, Parker the cheerleader and an echo.
“So? What is it? I woke up with it.” Parker said.
What’s what?” Hope answered with her head down, struggling to meet the girl’s eyes. “How did you find my locker?” She was genuinely curious.
Parker wasn’t about to indulge her. “Don’t play fucking dumb with me, ghost! Your face has a yellow shadow thing. So’s mine!” The taller girl took a step toward Hope. “What is it? Tell me! Is it a disease?”
Meeting the older girls tense glare with a meek one of her own, Hope answered, “No. I don’t think so.” She then blurted, “I saw you in Sombre!”
There.
She said it. It was brave, probably a bit stupid as well. How on earth could she know how Parker would react? She regretted it instantly. Fidgeting with her glasses, she looked down at the ground again.
Pushing off from the locker door, Parker took a step toward her, “Stop looking at the ground! You-you cagey thing! What did you just call it?”
“Sombre,” Hope said looking straight into Parker’s eyes.
Parker’s hands made fists. She gave Hope a look filled with venom. “This shit better stop! That’s all I know! I’m not like you, ghost!”
“Hope,” Hope said her voice breaking.
“Yeah, whatever,” she said and walked away. Holding her breath, Hope faced her locker and waited until she heard Parker force the exit door open, swear something terrible, and leave.
S
“Profits are up but can still be improved on. I think we’ll be in Pento for the foreseeable future,” Devan Kelley announced at dinner as if he were addressing a table full of shareholders. Hope’s father had a handsome face, a strong square jaw. A Californian fit guy – embodying the Health&Co brand and ethos to a tee.
“That’s nice dear,” Evelyn Kelley said swallowing a mouthful of beef curry, “profits are always good.” She took a sip of her wine. “So, how were your day’s girls? Are we both on top of our homework?�
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“Haven’t got any,” Kate said picking at her bowl of curry with disinterest. “When are we going to have something nice for dinner?”
“Whatever do you mean my child? This is from our ‘Elite Eat’ range,” Devan said wiping his mouth on a napkin.
“She means fries and greasy chicken,” Hope said. She wasn’t particularly enjoying hers either. She swore she could taste the plastic packaging the meal came in.
Evelyn shook her head and shrugged. “None of that type of food until your sisters face clears up, Kate.”
Hope shut her eyes and swallowed. She didn’t love having it pointed out, but there was nothing she could say in her defence, really. Her face was bad at the moment. She opened her eyes and took another mouthful of the plastic tasting curry.
“Wonder if we can get some hormone drugs from the doctors?” Evelyn thought aloud and added, “I think I might have been on them for a time when I was mid-teen and a hormonal mess.”
“Is Hope a hormonal mess?” Kate snorted, “Ha!”
“It’s nothing to be laughed at, Kate. Your sister is going through all sorts of changes – and she’s at the peak of that hill at the moment. It helps if she eats right,” Devan said, “drinks a lot of water. It might help with her obvious tiredness and energy levels as well.”
“Is everyone done talking about me?!” Hope said throwing her fork down. “I feel like a test subject! None of you guys know what I’m going through!”
“We do, Hope. Well, I do,” her mother said smugly, sipping her wine. “Breathe, dear… I think maybe we look into some strong contact lenses for you. Pretty you up a bit. You look puffier than you need to in those glasses. You were such a beautiful toddler.”
“She needs to meet a boy. Everyone her age has a boyfriend. She needs to wear makeup and cover up the pimples. That’s what Angie’s sister does – she has a boyfriend, he plays basketball,” Kate said pushing her fork around in her meal, scowling at the curry as if the meal held the answer to everything that was wrong with the world.
“Heavy makeup’s no good for the complexion, blocks the pores. That will just cause more – she definitely doesn’t need more,” Hope’s mother frowned and added, “and let’s not worry about a boyfriend at the moment. Just a friend or two would be a good start.”
“I think we should all stop talking about my first born now,” said Devan scrolling through endless emails on his phone. “This is only a stage for her.”
“What, dad? My ugly stage? Have you all had enough of a go at me now! Jesus!” Hope said and pushed herself out from the table. “I don’t sleep well! I’m tired all the time! Don’t you think that has something to do with my obvious ugliness?”
“Hormones,” her mother said calmly, “can affect your sleep.”
“Do we take her to see someone?” said her father.
“Yes, the optometrist for some contacts. A psychologist for everything else,” said her mother. “Please don’t call yourself ugly, Hope. You are not. We are only concerned for you.”
“The glasses suck sister.”
Hope had heard enough. “Can I be excused please? … I’m just going to be excused.”
“I’ll book some appointments in the morning. We’ll make it all better, darling,” Evelyn Kelly said taking another mouthful of wine.
“Love you, beautiful,” her father called out after her as she left the dining room.
“Don’t call me that, dad. You don’t mean it.”
S
It was a typically dead Friday night for Hope Kelley … a shower, a bar of Toblerone and a movie. ‘Christine,’ from her beloved Stephen King collection played on her little flat screen. She had worshipped every book and movie the horror god had made since she was eight. No one else in the family liked scary films, which delighted her to no end. She watched on intently as Arnie the bespectacled skinny geek, creepily caressed and whispered to the duco of the ’58 Plymouth.
The nastily pretty face of Parker the cheerleader appeared in her thoughts. They would never be friends. She was fairly sure that Sombre’s new strange, joint-gift of a yellow facial shadow, wouldn’t make a bit of difference. And Parker seemed truly awful anyway. If Hope had an actual ‘type’ of friend, Parker the stuck-up cheerleader wouldn’t be it. Why was Sombre giving them both this link to each other? Did she really want to share Sombre? She had wished it would leave her so many times. Sombre was messed up. It was a bad place. It hurt. For all she knew, it could kill her in her sleep!
But it was hers. For some, probably perversely dark, self-hating reason, she wanted the nightmare world just for herself. Being Hope’s Halliday gave her some sort of identity. She didn’t have a whole lot of anything else. Why should she share it? She knew she wasn’t meant to, but she felt real sympathy for Arnie – Christine was his Sombre – she was no good for him, but she was his.
Yawning, blinking her heavy eyelids, Hope watched until the credits rolled.
She switched the TV off and fell asleep.
CHAPTER 10
Colonel. Em Contusion
Like always, sleep brought everything flooding back, playing on like a serial.
The nightmare, Hope’s rite of passage into Sombre, picked up right where it had left off. Now she was crawling commando-style on her front across the carpet of the empty wedding chapel. She sobbed uncontrollably. Her pain was excruciating. The knife cuts in her gut; the cuts her own mother had dealt her, pulled and ripped with each movement. She was making her way to the foyer, toward the voices. They were getting louder.
“She’s unclean, unclean! We cleanse the unclean! Hope, the unclean!”
The dark foyer beckoned. She had to see who they were. Why was she so unclean? This infuriated her - even in her current abhorrent state.
She stopped. Suddenly there were hands at her back; she felt spidery fingers run up and down, searching underneath the material of her dress, nails clawing her flesh. She shuddered bodily and rolled over and over, smashing into the pews to her left and right. The fingers stopped. The pain was unbearable. She couldn’t move – could only lay there with her nose pressing the carpet. Her back felt wet, really wet. With horror she realized she was soaking the carpet with her own blood. Her back had been torn apart.
“You’re so unclean.” It was her mother’s voice, hate filled. Close. She looked up.
The pointy toe of a white stiletto kicked her in the eye.
S
Halliday sat aboard Wilder, Parker the cheerleader at her back, clutching her waist. The great machanihorse walked them toward the double wooden doors of The Office of The Menders. “The Funneling has taken you down a peg or two, hasn’t it.” Halliday said with a knowing smirk.
“Huh!” Parker let go of Halliday straight away and sat up. “You suck, woman. I want out of here … and off this smelly nag, now!”
“Ah, again with the attitude, you are an affected one, aren’t you, Parker the cheerleader. I think they’ll mend you very darkly, child. In just a few seconds you will have precisely half of what you are asking for.”
Wilder pushed through the doors and the trio entered.
Sombre’s one and only mending station was in a state of citizen overflow. Every bit of bench space taken. Bodies lined the walls, some on trolleys, others were slumped on the hard-wooden floor, bleeding under white sheets.
“The Office’ is quite the raw meat market at the moment,” Halliday observed and jumped down from Wilder.
An awestruck Parker followed, “My god! What is this place? This is a horror movie!”
“A horror movie? Oh, no, that is where you are wrong! This is a place of healing. It is a little unsavoury at first glance, I’ll grant you that,” Halliday said, “and busier than usual.” She spotted the chief Mender with his hands wrist deep in the chest cavity of a scarlet coloured beast, “You-Hoo there, Hamish! Look what I have for you!” She grabbed Parker’s wrist and pulled her arm up in the air.
“Ow! Let go of me, bitch!” Parker pulled her hand awa
y. “Touch me again and you’ll get a slap!”
“She’s a foul-mouthed creature, Hamish! But in one piece!” Halliday announced and added triumphantly, “Job done!”
Wiping his bare hands on a wet towel, Hamish walked toward Halliday and Parker. Halliday recoiled. “Don’t you wear gloves, Hamish?”
“No,” was the short reply. He was smiling. “The work is too intricate. Gloves slip.”
“Oh, right,” Halliday said staring at the Mender’s hands, “that’s quite unpleasant.”
“It can be …” he agreed. His attention went straight to Parker. “So, Parker Wright, welcome to Sombre. Halliday has brought you to me in one piece. Good.”
“W-What are you going to do with me?” the tall cheerleader said. “How do you know my name?”
“I was told.”
“By who? This is all a nightmare isn’t it? A fucking bad one…” she said looking around the Office.
“She’s a terrible swearer, Hamish,” Halliday interjected shaking her head.
Hamish smiled, “It is sort of a nightmare. You’ll see soon enough, Parker.”
He turned to Halliday. “Guess what, Halliday?”
“What?”
“You’re going to watch Parker’s transformation.”
Halliday had no interest in this.
“Ungrateful swine-child, no-” she looked Parker up and down, then turned to Hamish. “Actually, no, I’m off to have a drink at The Ruptured Spleen, Hamish … not to mention a bit of a brag. I brought you a whole one, after all.” She peered down at her front, “I could do with a new dress and a dab on the stabs … I will be off after that, though. Thanking you for the very unappealing offer all the same.”
Hamish gave her a look she had never seen from him before. Was it dread?