EXCERPT
The
library is one of the bigger rooms in the house, converted from what used to be
the upstairs parlor. The Professor looks out a window that overlooks the back
lawn. Shelves, sagging with dusty books, cover every inch of the light blue,
fifteen-foot walls. The morning sunlight still lingers around the front of the
house, making this space dim, but motes of dust twirl and waltz like members of
a royal court on the pale, reaching beams.
All
at once, happiness floods my bloodstream, as though someone smacks good cheer
into my chest cavity through my shoulder blades. The strange desire to burst
into song hums along my nerve endings, as though I’m a Disney princess
summoning her bird and varmint attendants at the window. It takes serious
concentration to bite back the urge.
The
abrupt change in mood announces another Cavy’s presence, but as hard as I try
to glare at Pollyanna, my mouth refuses to cooperate. Her mutation, a reverse
empath alternation that allows her disposition to affect the moods of people in
close proximity, is more...invasive than most. Losing control of my own mind
never fails to make me feel icky.
And
given her insistence on cynicism and anger, she's not aptly named. Not at all.
“Feeling
good, Gyspy?” She shakes out her long, blond hair and pins me with china-blue
eyes. The faux-happy shroud crawling from her to me dissolves and my smile
finally falls away. Polly nods. “That's better. You look weird when you smile.”
“Pollyanna,
we have spoken at length about the perils of using your gifts on your fellow
Cavies.” The Professor's patient, tired voice reprimands the youngest of his
students, if only by several months.
The
Philosopher, who runs Darley, took us in before we were three months old, and
we all arrived between sixteen and seventeen years ago.
“Sorry,
sir.”
She's
not sorry, but his chastisement and her apology are part of our daily routine.
Of all the kids here, Pollyanna is my least favorite. She's everyone's least
favorite, and even though she knows it she doesn't change. I guess she doesn't
care.
“Sorry
for what? Fucking with people again?” The voice bleeds out of thin air before
Haint shimmers into view around it, face first. She leans against one of the
bookcases once her shoulder appears, examining her nails as she waits for her
daily reprimand.
The
Professor doesn't disappoint. “Language, dear.”
He
says nothing to me, not even hello, nor does he issue a warning to Haint about
using her ability to go invisible. It’s not dangerous. Pollyanna could make any
one of us walk straight off a cliff if she felt particularly suicidal that day.
The
twins Athena and Goose arrive together, a tornado of rough-housing elbows and
flashes of reddish hair, loosing half a shelf of books onto the floor and
toppling an end table before getting themselves under control. The Professor
ignores them, having long ago resigned himself to their antics.
We're
all here now, at least those who are expected. Mole is still enduring his
weekly brain prodding and so is Reaper. They’re our lethal Cavies, and are kept
for testing more often and for longer than the rest of us. We're categorized
according to our level of usefulness, the details of our mutations and
abilities listed in records the Philosopher hopes might convince the government
we could be potential assets as opposed to threats.
Three
Operationals, two Substantials, one Developmental, three Unstables, and one
Inconsequential. That’s me. The one who will never be an asset to anyone but
can't be locked away and forgotten like an Unstable, either. They don't know
what to do with me, so I shuffle along with the group.
“Everyone
sit down, please.”
The
Professor's command sounds more like a genteel request, and we drop into a
circle of cross-legged teenagers on the oval Oriental rug that smothers the
center of the room. He paces behind us, passing binder-clipped pages into our
waiting hands.
I
grab mine, excited as the title filters through my eyes and into my brain. It's
a thesis, written by the Scientist back in the 1960s: Genetic Mutation and
the Human Brain.
He
died before any of us were born but his thoughts and experiments, his studies,
help the scientists at Darley Hall figure out what might have caused the
mutations that resulted in our “gifts.” Maybe one day they'll figure out how to
switch off those screwy genes and I can touch another person without at least
one layer in between us. Without the protection, touching someone means seeing
a number in my mind.
The
age the other person is going to die.
My
“talent” is creepy at best, totally useless at worst, and being able to get rid
of it has been a hidden desire for the whole of my life.
About
the Author
Trisha
Leigh is a product of the Midwest, which means it’s pop, not soda, garage
sales, not tag sales, and you guys as opposed to y’all. Most of the time. She’s
been writing seriously for five years now, and has published 4 young adult
novels and 4 new adult novels (under her pen name Lyla Payne). Her favorite things,
in no particular order, include: reading, Game of Thrones, Hershey’s kisses,
reading, her dogs (Yoda and Jilly), summer, movies, reading, Jude Law,
coffee, and rewatching WB series from the 90’s-00’s.
