Chapter 39
Viper
We’ve been sitting in class for hours, doing math and then reading from old books with cracked leather spines, when the bell finally rings and we’re dismissed to go out into the yard for a break.
I hate reading aloud because I mess up the words. Father says my accent is improving, but that I need to be conscious of how fast I talk, to slow down, so I enunciate the words clearly, and don’t say the words wrong.
It’s hard to change the way you do things when you’ve been doing them your whole life. And I’m only seven. The other boys in the school, the ones older than me struggle more, but Fallon seems to focus on me the most. Reaper and Hunter too.
At first, it made me feel special. Until I noticed the other boys didn’t like it too much.
My brothers. They don’t feel like brothers. None of them do. They feel like classmates who give me strange looks when we stand in formation, right before we run laps in the yard. Like how the other boys at Saint Theresa stared at me. Like I was odd.
I don’t think I’m weird-looking. Though Headmistress Isla always said I had a nice boy’s face that deceived people into thinking I was a good boy, when really I was foul and dark inside.
Maybe that’s why Reaper looks at me so strangely.
He can see my soul since he’s named Reaper and must have an in with the devil.
I don’t know if I like Reaper. He’s not talkative.
He’s always off to the side watching people, and Hunter will talk for him sometimes, but Reaper doesn’t object when he does, so I guess he doesn’t mind.
They seem to have a bond that most people don’t, but then again that’s not surprising, considering.
But I don’t trust him. Hunter either. I don’t trust anyone with black eyes like Headmistress Isla.
“We’re getting a new brother in a few days,” my brother with dark brown hair and large eyes says from next to me. He has yet to be named, although we’ve both been here about a year. Father says I’ll get my name soon. Once he sees my skills.
Funny that I have to wait for a name when I already have one. When I told Father I had a name, he slapped me and said I was never to speak it again.
So I haven’t.
Not out loud, anyway. I whisper it to myself sometimes at night, thinking about my mum, wondering if my real name shows my skills like my new name will.
My soldier name, once Father picks it.
He doesn’t know my skills are dark and gross. Though that never stopped Headmistress from using them. Makes me wonder if he’ll be disappointed, or worse, want to use them too.
“Wonder where he came from,” Brother says, looking at my belt? Zipper? I glance down to make sure it’s closed. “Maybe Cook will like him too.”
I don’t like this Brother that much either. And he’s always around. Looking. He told me he was thirteen-years-old one day when we were in line for lunch. Not sure why. I didn’t care then, and I still don’t. His eyes are off, and I don’t like how he just looks at me.
It reminds me of Sister Isla. He reminds me of Cook as well, and I don’t like Cook too much either, even though he slips me extra bread and sometimes those candies he gets from the village.
“Did you go in there?” Brother asks me. “That room?”
“I heard Father say the new boy was put in there,” Seeker says from my other side. “Preparing him for learning.”
The Room. My lips tug into a frown, remembering.
“I wonder if he’s going to be as pretty as you,” Hunter says, poking something sharp into my belly. I grip the end and rip it from his hand, annoyed that he’s once again poking fun at me. Hunter isn’t very nice sometimes, and it brings out the mean streak I inherited from my father.
I look down at the metal in my hand. It’s the shiny letter opener Teacher keeps on his desk.
I flip it over and over in my palm, eyeing Hunter.
This one looks different from the last one he stole off Teacher’s desk.
It’s long and thin, with a snake coiled around the top, its tail wrapped around the handle.
Hunter holds his hand out for me to give it back, but I shove it in my back pocket and shoot him my middle finger.
“I hope our new brother isn’t as ugly as you or Reaper,” I say, my accent coming through with each rushed word. “All scarred up with devil eyes.”
Hunter laughs, and it’s so loud it echoes off the walls of the yard. “You’re mean,” he says, but he seems to like that I am, which makes me smile.
“Come on,” my brother says, motioning for me to follow him. “I want to show you the book I found in Cook’s room.”
I shoot Hunter a mean look and my middle finger once again, before following Brother into the building.
He said this morning that he’d found a secret book in Cook’s room and he wanted to show me, but before I could ask why he was in Cook’s quarters, the morning bell rang and the hallway crowded with our brothers and then we had to go to class.
When we’re inside, we creep down the hall lined with our rooms and move past the east wing, where the library and Father’s office are, and into the long dark hall where our oldest brothers sleep.
We rarely see them, but hear them training while we’re in class.
There are only a few of them, three or four, and there are rumors they’ll be leaving for the wilderness soon to complete their training.
We all go there. When we’re older, I’ve been told. Makes me wonder what it is. I picture the green hills, and distant mountains like around Saint Theresa. But maybe it’s more like the thin woods hiding the village from the school.
Or maybe it’s the other way around.
Maybe we are hidden.
“Come on,” my brother says. “We have to hurry before Cook finishes lunch.”
Teacher, Cook, and the rest of the staff sleep in the last hall of the block.
There’s the man that cleans the school we call Janitor and the large, ugly man that tends to the weapons us younger brothers have yet to touch.
Only the oldest ones can train with weapons, and Fallon said that Reaper and Hunter and the rest of the older boys will begin weapons training next week.
I can’t wait until I do. I like the idea of holding a weapon. Having it close by in case.
“Here,” Brother says, stopping in front of a rusted metal door.
It looks like the doors along our hall, but instead of a slot that’s barely big enough for a tray there’s an actual window covered by a dirty, cracked blind.
Brother grips the doorknob and twists, and I expect it to be locked, but it turns in his hand, and he shoots me a lopsided grin as he says, “Wait here.”
While I wait, I pull out the letter opener, inspecting it closer. I like the thin blade and clean look. How the light gleams on the metal when I tilt it just right. It looks mean even though it’s small.
After a few minutes, Brother appears and closes the door, a floppy magazine clutched to his chest. Then he grabs my hand and pulls me forward. We run down the hall and head back the way we came, only stopping when we reach the bathrooms.
My heart does the strange thing that it always does when I enter the room, though I know there’s no cleansing tubs, just shower stalls. I eye the magazine as we enter the bathroom, and catch a man’s face with blonde hair and words across the top I can’t read.
“I thought you said it was a book,” I say, pointing to the magazine as he closes the door.
Brother makes a strange face and looks down. “Who cares?” he says. “Cook showed it to me last week.”
I grumble, already bored, and twirl the letter opener, waiting for Brother to show me what’s inside the magazine.
“Look,” he says, whispering as he moves in closer.
I grip the paperknife in a fist and lean in, glancing down at the glossy page with worn edges.
When I see the first image, I stumble back, my heart beating in my chest, and I’m back there.
Bile and panic and salty sweat fill my mouth.
The smell of wax and the pungent odor of incense invade my nose.
The sour scent of body odor. Prayers and moans whisper in my ear.
Pain, and that other feeling I liked but hated that I liked it because it felt wrong, tingle along my spine.
“—says we can do this too,” Brother is saying, but all I can hear is her.
Let me see. I will help you.
Brother nudges my arm. “Do you think it will hurt?”
Yes.
“Just hold still. I’ll cleanse you of the dark matter inside you.”
It’s like when Commander Maxy announces lights out and everything goes dark. When the room is just bluish light streaming in through the windows and dark shadows. My visions too blurry to see because all I can see is the purging room. Shades of blue and flesh and sin.
Feel hands.
Touching.
Touching now.
“We can do it now,” I hear brother say, but I can’t see his face. He’s just a blob of pale skin and dark holes for eyes.
Eyes like hers.
“In secret.”
I feel a hand on my belt, but it’s not mine. Tugging it open. Doing things I don’t want. My fingers curl around the paperknife in my hand. I lift my arm. Grip the handle, right over the snake.
Aim.
Strike.
A scream fills the room, echoing on the walls, crashing into my ears.
“No,” I say, letting go of the metal handle as I take a step back.
Her words flood my thoughts.
Filthy, filthy, sinful boy.
The scream continues, and my focus shifts to Brother before me, my eyes clearing, the past fading. Red smears my vision, but it expands, shifts. Then it’s dripping down and searing across his cheeks. He stops screaming and falls to his knees.
The screaming stops.
A crash behind me thunders through the room.
I hear Fallon’s question forming, coming out only as half a word, then he’s in front of me gripping my shoulders, forcing me to look at him.
“What happened, syn?”
I want to tell him his accent is coming through, but think better of it when I see his face. It’s all contorted and twisted. He’s pretty, the way men shouldn’t be. Black hair. Long nose. Eyes like a cold sky. But all that prettiness looks distorted and crumbled now.
“He tried to cleanse me, but I did nothing wrong,” I tell Fallon, and his face flattens. Turns hard.
“Explain.”
I don’t want to explain. So I keep my mouth shut.
“What the fuck?” Cook shouts from behind me. I glance over my shoulder and find him staring down at Brother and the blood pooling on the magazine under his thin shoulders.
Cook’s eyes meet mine.
I press my mouth closed tighter.
“Get Maxim,” Father says to Cook as he grips my hand. His gaze falls to Brother, and when he sees the magazine, he turns hard, mean-looking. He leans over and grabs the end of the little knife and pulls it from Brother’s eye.
Blood gushes and squirts out, like from a ketchup bottle.
Brother doesn’t make a sound.
“Tell me why you were in here with him,” Father asks, his eyes darting in every direction before landing on my belt. He lets out a garbled sound and swipes the blade clean across his chest, leaving a trail of red. “Did your brother bring you in here?”
I nod, too scared to speak, but know I need to say something so I don’t get in more trouble. I point to the magazine. “He said we could do that.”
Father’s jaw pops, and he glares at Brother, who still hasn’t moved.
I think I hurt him really badly.
“He tried…” Father doesn’t finish the question, and I’m glad. I don’t want to explain that my vision got strange and all I could see was the purging room. “Has someone—” He seems to forget how to speak for a second, then points to the magazine. “Has someone done that to you before?”
I look away, not liking how his eyes have gone from cold and hard to soft. I know when someone is feeling sorry for me. Sister Blair used to look at me that way every time she led me away from the room after my cleansing.
Guess she didn’t feel bad enough because she would always lead me back the next week. Maybe she was scared of Headmistress Isla too.
“Yes,” I tell him. “The first time it was because I touched the altar and knocked over the saint. Then I had to do a cleansing.”
I place my hand on my belt to show him. Father’s hand clasps over mine.
His eyes move to brother, then to the magazine.
Father’s shoulders lift as he takes in a deep breath, making the buttons on his vest pull.
I think for a minute they may pop off, but he exhales.
He glances over at Brother, who still hasn’t moved, and my skin grows hot.
“Cleansing?” Father asks. “Who—” He clears his throat. Licks his lips. I’ve never seen Father so upset before, and it makes me feel all squirmy inside. Like maybe I did something bad. But if I did something bad, he’d be taking me to my room or solitary, not messing up his words.
“Headmistress Isla,” I say. “She said I needed it weekly. That my soul was corrupt.” I point to the places that were cleansed. Father frowns. Then I say, “I had to cleanse her too.”
Father’s face goes white. He stands up quickly and grabs my hand, pulling me from the room. I realize Cook is gone, and I forgot to tell Father that’s where Brother got the idea, but I figure it’s best to keep my mouth shut.
Father leads me to his office, and he shuts the door, sitting me in a chair then crouches before me. His eyes look strange, sort of like a wild animal.
“No one will ever do that to you again,” Father says. “I will make sure of it. Sister Isla will never touch another child again.”
I’m not sure if I believe him, but I like he said it, anyway. I always worried she cleansed the others, but never asked. I didn’t want anyone to know I had to be cleansed so often. That I was so full of sin.
He holds up the letter opener. “You were smart. Quick to defend yourself.” He glances down at the blade. “Do you like this?”
I point to the snake curled around the handle. “I like that.”
“Do you know what type of snake this is?” he asks, pointing to the metal serpent.
I stare at the handle, then say, “Is it the one who gave Eve that apple?”
He chuckles, placing it in my hand. “It’s a viper. A highly venomous snake. They are fast and mean and will kill anything that threatens them.” He smiles, and my insides grow warm. “Just like you.”