Publishing Fund

Hi,

My names Amy and I just really want to be an author. 
That's not to say I want be a famous writer, no. I would just like to get the stories in my head out to people who may, for whatever reason, be interested in reading them. 

Now if I were fabulously clever or in fact mildly literate, then this would be easy. I could simply publish my novel online now, ready for whoever might find it compelling to read. 
Unfortunately I am horrifically dyslexic, grammar blind and punctuation deaf. 

In actuality the only reason that this particular blurb makes any kind of sense, is because it has been put though word processor and you should have seen the state of it and all the red squiggly lines that came up, before I right clicked everything. But even now I’m sure people who have English degrees or even those who can use the English language properly, can see ten or more spelling, grammar and sentence structure problems within it. And here, you see, is where you come in.

Under my blurb I have posted the prologue and first chapter of my novel. I saved up and had this section professionally edited so I had an entirely polished sample to present to you.

The problem is, professional editing is not expensive for the work that goes into it, however my novel is rather long 324,296 words to be exact and that does cost a bit to edit in its entirety.

However, I do promise that should you pledge a little bit at a time and help me get to my goal, that upon the finished edit I shall publish the whole novel online for you to download and read, completely free. It’s only fair as you will essentially have helped to pay for the completion of the book.

So, read my little sample below, if you like it pledge a couple of pounds to help me get the editing it so desperately needs. I warn you though, it's no Harry potter, nor is it Fifty Shades of Grey. It isn't safe or tame, but it isn't entirely fanciful and undeletable and detestable. 
I don't think it's for anyone under the age of fifteen and I have my doubts about it appealing to anyone over the age of fifty. If you hate it then forget about it, move on with your lives, buy a tiny cake that’s basically 50% icing or maybe the Star Wars Christmas jumper you’ve had your eye on and never think about it again.

P.S

Everyone who donates will get a thank you at the end of the book when I publish online.

People who donate £20 or more, will get their names mentioned in this book or the sequel I am currently writing.

People who donate £100 or more, will get their own small character within this book or the sequels I am currently working on.

Thank you :)

Amy. x
  

Scars

Prologue

 

“Are you ready to die, Lu-lu?” Crunch! I hear each step of Adrian’s immaculately polished shoes as he treads on the shards of glass and crushes them like sugar crystals beneath the soles of his feet. “Have you made peace with some erroneous god, Lu-lu?” Crunch!

Make it stop, let it all end, end it now!

“Have you confessed your sins, Lu-lu?” Crunch!

Please make the pain go away. I am finished, I am fading.

“Have you done all that you dreamed, Lu-lu?” Crunch!

Oh god, bring her back to me. Keep me and send her back.

“Have you felt all there is to feel, Lu-lu?” Crunch!

Why did it have to be her, anyone but her? The piano, the piano wire!

“I know you have loved, Lu-lu,” he says with a wrenched smile in his voice and that accursed blackness in his soul. Crunch! “I know you have lost, Lu-lu?” he hisses with sadistic amusement. Crunch! “But have you lived, Lu-lu?” Crunch!

What has he done to her!?

“Because you’re going to die now, Lu-lu.” Crunch! It’s all I can see, the image of her burned into my retina. “But everybody dies, Lu-lu,” he muses airily. Crunch! “Everybody, Lu-lu.” Crunch!

He ends each sentence with Lu-lu, her nickname for me. He annunciates both syllables harshly and pungently. He does this because he knows that it disgusts me. He does this because every Lu-lu that leaves his lips is like spraying corrosive acid all over my tissue paper skin and it burns away in lacy patterns, to leave the raw flesh underneath to the mercy of the cold air that emanates from his being.

“Your brain will refuse to accept it, Lu-lu; it will stop you from thinking about it, Lu-lu. Everyone who has ever lived lives in total denial, Lu-lu. Smokers, drinkers, fat people, healthy people, Lu-lu.” Crunch! “Do you know what kind of people I envy, Lu-lu?” Crunch! “People who commit suicide, Lu-lu.” Crunch! “People who commit suicide are the most fascinating people on earth, Lu-lu.” Crunch! His shiny black balmorals and trouser hems are the only things I can see with my cheek pressed against the cold concrete floor. “They get to a place within themselves where death becomes acceptable. Where it isn’t a curse word, where it isn’t a taboo. Death becomes the preferable option, Lu-lu.” Crunch! Blood seeps seedily from the corner of my mouth. It slides across the floor like a fat, bloodied leech and pools on the ground next to my head as I lie naked and broken, watching Adrian’s feet as he slowly circles me. Like a pacing tiger. Like a circling shark. “Put aside the insane, who think it’s all rainbows, clouds and flying babies. The religious types who think you go to heaven or who think they’re going to be reunited with their loved ones. Those kind of people don’t see it as suicide, they see it as moving on or moving up. That’s just the cheating, crazy, cheating fools, Lu-lu,” he growls in that voice so low, so velvet smooth for a moment it lulls me into unconsciousness, but only for a moment.

Dust flies away from my mouth as I pant in quick bursts, my body’s last attempt to cope with the pain, so beyond the point of screaming, so far past the will to fight.

“It’s the people who know there’s just darkness. The people who know that there is nothing more, that there’s just an ending, the big full stop. Those people are magnificent, Lu-lu.” It isn’t fair that one so dark inside should have a voice so hypnotic. He’s a male siren, luring the weak to their deaths with his song. It’s one of the reasons people fall in love with him so easily. His passion, his charm, his features carved in marble like Michelangelo's David. They are fooled by his glamour, his irresistible lure. He looks like a dove, olive branch clenched in his beak, but he isn’t, he’s a snake, fangs full of poisonous hatred, a burning evil that the devil himself must have sent to here.

He’s deceived everyone, my mother, my father, my whole family, but not me, no. Because I was never interested in his handsome façade, so I saw right through him and his rapidly dissolving mask of purity. But I did not know the extent of the monstrous being behind the mask. Who could have known? I don’t blame my farther for his ignorance. Gabriel plays an impenetrable character. But I blame him for the hasty sacrifice of his daughter into a marriage that deep down he knew went against her natural and moral fibre. But that, I know now, here at the end, is really why my father did it. And that in itself, knowing that your daughter is different but spiting it for want of normality, which is a more sickening motivation than arranging a marriage for money or for power.

“The moment between life and death. When all hope is lost and all reprieve is gone and all that’s left is peace. The moment before you jump, slit your wrists, stick your head in the oven, in that moment is total and utter acceptance, complete serenity. That’s what I search for, Lu-lu. These experiments are my search for that serenity, that truth. Death is freedom and I set people free, Lu-lu.”

I am dying, cut to ribbons, beaten within an inch of my life. I lie here in an island of bare concrete, surrounded by a sea of broken glass. My husband, my torturer has brought me to the edge of the end and he dangles me over, taunting me, teasing me.

He’s a serial killer, I know this now. Obsessed with death, obsessed with bringing death.

“I’m going to kill you now, Lucy; your life is over. So please tell me, how does it feel? Describe it to me, Lucy. Are you at peace? Do you feel it? Are you free yet? Are you free, Lucy? Tell me what total serenity feels like.” He sounds almost desperate for an answer, using my proper name to appease me and crouches down by my head so he can hear any words I may utter in these last moments.

He strokes my hair back gently, trailing the blood from my face through my short matted ebony curls, for a moment faking humanity to get his so-desired answer.

Then I see her. She lies down behind Adrian, a mirror image of how I lie. Her long beautiful copper hair fans out on the floor around her as she rests on the broken glass that cannot mark her now.

She wears the green velvet dress with the square neckline, she wears this dress because she knows it’s my favourite. She looks into my eyes with her serene grey ones and reaches out a hand to me.

“Well, Lucy darling, are you at peace?” he demands.

I look into the eyes of the angel who calls to me and breathe the word, “Yes.” Because I am ready, I am ready to go with her.

“How does it feel, child?” he whispers excitedly.

“Like coming home,” I reply.

“How very dull,” he sighs with contemptuous disappointment.

Adrian stands and walks around me. I hear him pick something heavy up and drag it across the floor with excruciating slowness. I sense him standing above me now, but all my attention is on the angel. I reach my hand out to her, sliding my palm across the dusty floor; our outstretched fingertips can almost touch. She smiles softly at me and I am not afraid any more. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not a . . . .

 

 

Chapter One: Burnt Orange

Scarlett Wolf: Wednesday 26th September 2004 2:43 a.m.

“AAAHHH!” I scream and wake violently, flailing and sweating and weeping, pawing at my clothes, checking that there are no deep gashes anywhere on my body, checking that I am whole, trying to grasp who I am.

I clutch my knees to my chest and rock myself back and forth in my bed. “I am Scarlett,” I tell myself. “Scarlett, not Lucy, not Lucy Denver, Lucy Denver doesn’t exist. I am Scarlett. I am Scarlett. I am Scarlett Wolf.”

I am surrounded by people in the adjoining rooms, orderlies in the corridors, doctors in the offices, security guards at the doors, but no one comes. No one runs to the source of the blood-curdling scream, because they know it’s me. It’s just Scarlett dreaming again. My screams have become as commonplace a noise here as the dawn chorus.

I chant my name over and over again like a mantra and rock myself for who knows how long, before I am calm.

As my ragged breathing slows, I place my face in my hands and desperately wipe away the cold sweat, trying to wipe away the dream.

I look around frantically searching for Rupert. Why didn’t he wake me? But then I remember Rupert isn’t here; he isn’t allowed to sleep here anymore because he isn’t crazy like me.

I drop my hands, putting my arms out straight, elbows resting on my knees and bow my head and breathe deeply. The dreams are the worst; they’re so vivid, emotions seem so raw, so tangible.

I reach around behind me, under my pillow and pull out a pack of cigarettes, then I whip the bed covers off and spin my legs out of bed. I rest there for a moment, hands by my sides, head down, before summoning the energy to stand.

I plunge my hand deep under my mattress and pull out a small bottle of vodka. I smoothly spin the cap off and take a swig. It burns, burns all the way down but eases some of the tension within me.

I shuffle to the balcony doors and open them, stepping out in to the cool night air. I take a lighter from the pocket of my grubby grey pyjamas and place a cigarette in my mouth. Lighting it, I inhale deeply and exhale the smoke and with it some of the fear clinging to my chest. Instantly I feel better. I know these crude coping mechanisms are nothing but a flimsy bandage I use to hold back the flood, but anything, anything to ease the crazy, anything to ground myself and push out the delusions.

I lean my elbows on the balcony railing and take another swig of the icy liquid.

Staring out into the night and across the endless countryside, I repeat my mantra: “It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s just a dream. You are Scarlett, you are Scarlett Wolf.”

I close my eyes, trying to keep hold of who I am, trying to make myself solid again. Pull the pieces back together, Scarlett, make the vapour condense.

Through my cloud of smoke and vodka I become suddenly aware of another presence beside me. I am not alarmed; I am not even certain I care, but I open my eyes and look anyway. Slowly I turn my head to the left, to the ledge that juts out a foot and a half from the face of the building. The ledge is at my shoulder height so, my eyes start at her tiny delicate toes, then jump to the hem of her pale blue pyjama bottoms, then move up her legs to her matching t-shirt until I reach her gaunt pale face with huge, deep set green eyes that stare down at me, wide with despair. Tears spill silently from them and are blown away in the breeze.

She’s bald; someone has completely shaved her head leaving just half a centimetre of fuzzy copper hair. Her aura shines out of her like the setting sun. It’s a kind of burnt orange colour. I’ve seen it before; it’s just like Lucy’s. How curious, I think. Why has my brain chosen to give her this colour? Maybe I’ve just run out of colours.

I slowly twist myself to look up at her now, leaning one elbow against the railing, my face impassive as I look up into the emeralds that are her eyes. I take a languid drag from my cigarette before reaching into my left pocket and pulling out my mobile phone. I press down until I reach Rue’s number. My phone says it’s three in the morning but I know he will be up and even if he isn’t he will still answer.

I press call and hold the phone to my ear, not taking my eyes from the would-be jumper’s and casually smoke my cigarette. She stands paralysed, obviously shocked that I’ve caught her out here, but she doesn’t speak, not a word. She just stands there, her tiny frame flat against the wall staring at me with wide eyes.

The phone rings three times before it’s answered. “Scars?” he says with concern. He wasn’t asleep; I can always tell if I’ve woken him.

“You will not believe the shit I’m looking at, Rue,” I say calmly and quietly not taking my eyes from the girl’s as she stares back at me desperately.

“Did they give you the psychotropic drugs again, baby? Seeing the pink elephants or something are we?” he says dryly.

“Nope,” I reply.

“What a shame,” he says.

“I strolled out onto the balcony of my penthouse suite for a cigarette and what do I encounter? A girl, Rue, a girl.”

“You can order those with room service now?” he drawls.

“No, no, she’s just standing on the ledge next to me,” I say as if I’ve rung him to inform him about a particularly interesting pigeon.

“Seriously?” he says with as much interest as Rue can muster in what is to us a reasonably mundane situation.

“Yep. She’s a skinny bald girl. I think she’s going jump,” I say.

The girl looks like she can’t quite believe that I’m having a casual phone conversation while her life hangs in the balance. She’s wondering why I’m not shouting for the orderlies or trying to talk her down.

“Why is she bald?” Rupert yawns.

“Ha! There’s a suicidal girl next to my balcony and you want to know why she’s bald?” I tilt my head to one side assessing her with what I know is a cold expression. I can rarely contort my face into any other appearance.

“You’re in a mental institution, baby. Every other person in there is suicidal; it gets old. Ask her why she’s bald,” Rue orders. I do as I am asked. Partly because I am curious myself, but mainly because I always do as Rue asks.

“Hey girl, why are you bald?” I call to her. She doesn’t answer; she just continues to stare at me pleading with those big green eyes.

“She won’t talk,” I tell him.

“How old is she?”

“She looks about our age, fifteen. Maybe thirteen.” She’s so small and fragile looking. Like a little bunny caught in headlights.

“Is she insane?” he asks.

“I think that’s a safe assumption, Rue. Firstly because she’s in the institution and secondly because she’s standing on the ledge of a building. But hang on, I’ll ask her. Hey girl, are you crazy?” I yell. She doesn’t answer; she just stays rooted to the spot, staring at me like I’m spitting blood and venom. “She’s not much of a talker, Rue.” I raise one eyebrow at her like she’s being rude.

“Cherry says you should let her jump. One less psycho in the gene pool.” He sounds darkly amused.

“Cherry’s with you?” I enquire nonchalantly.

“Of course,” he replies.

“Cherry’s a heartless bitch,” I retort.

“Scars says you’re a heatless bitch, Cherry,” I hear him convey to her.

“Cherry say’s you’re a whore,” he repeats Cherry’s message.

“Well at least I’m not the Worringdon school bicycle.” I smile to myself, knowing I’ve won. Which happens so rarely with Cherry.

“She says you’re a cunt.” That’s Cherry’s go to word when she’s been defeated.

I’m silent for a moment continuing to stare up at the girl who still can’t quite believe that I’m joking around with my friends while her life is seconds away from being over.

As I look at those green lamplights too big for her face and swollen from crying, something within them calls to something within me and something within me switches on. One of the women in me who isn’t entirely cold hearted tries to emerge. I have the tendency to do stupidly compassionate things when one of the ladies takes over and I don’t do compassion very well, but Lucy and Ellie do.

“I should probably try and talk her down, Rue. Remember that emotional detachment thing the Doc was talking about. Well, now would be a prime situation to work on it,” I say.

“Is that Scarlett talking? Or one of the others?” he asks. He can always sense when my personalities have switched.

“I think you know the answer to that question, Rue,” I sigh.

“Alright, call me back if she Jackson Pollocks all over the pavement,” he says maniacally.

“Will do, baby.” I end the call and look away from her, turning completely so I’m now staring into my room, my back against the railing. I take another drag from my cigarette and stub it out before saying . . .

“If you’re lucky, it will kill you, but only if you’re lucky. We’re just three stories up, you know? It’s more likely you’ll end up paralysed or something. Trust me, you’ll be a lot easier to rape if you’re paralysed.” Her eyes become wide with horror and, finally, she speaks.

“How?” she breathes quietly; I only just hear it before the word is snatched off by the breeze.

I look her up and down. How indeed? How can I assess people so quickly and easily? How do I always know what’s wrong with them and never what’s wrong with me?

“You did that to yourself, didn’t you?” I gesture to her shaven head. “It’s obvious. They do a lot of strange things to you here but shaving our heads isn’t one of them.” She’s speechless. “And there’s only one reason a pretty girl like you does that to herself and that’s to make herself less attractive. Please stop me if I’m wrong.” I pause and look to her for confirmation; I get it by way of her silence, so I continue. “The only reason you’d want to make yourself look less attractive is because you’re getting unwanted attention. And in my opinion, the only attention bad enough to shave your head and to step out on to a ledge of a building for, is sexual abuse, right?” I look to her again; she doesn’t look away. She just stares at me open mouthed like I’m reading her diary to a church congregation.

“You shaved your head, so they stuck you in here, huh? Who was it, your mum? Your mum put you in here? Let me guess: she doesn’t know you’re being abused; she thinks you’re just run of the mill unstable? You’ve probably done harmful things to yourself before, right? Hurt yourself? Cut yourself?

“So if she doesn’t know, that must mean it’s a family member abusing you. Maybe an uncle?” I look deep into her eyes and I know I’m wrong. “A father?” My mouth curves up at the corners in triumph. Maybe one day I’ll meet someone who’s difficult to read and I will revel in the challenge. But this girl is transparent; she’s an open book and her story is one of violence and despair.

“He’s not my father!” she growls through gritted teeth.

I shake my head in disappointment at not scoring ten out of ten. “A stepfather,” I say, finally fitting the missing piece into place.

“Please go back inside, just let me do this, I have to do this,” she begs me, tears spilling from those big beautiful eyes.

“No, you don’t” I say firmly. “And also, you won’t. People who really commit suicide just do it. They don’t discuss it, they don’t string it out, they just do it. If you were really going to jump, you would have done it by now. Trust me, I know a thing or two about suicide; I’ve seen enough victims of it,” I tell her.

“I can’t go on like this. I can’t live with myself, with the things he’s done to me. I’m dirty and disgusting and unclean. My skin crawls and I can’t, I can’t be alone with myself, it’s unbearable, but I know if I end it, if I kill myself, god will never forgive me; he will condemn me to hell but then how different is hell from the reality I’m living now?” She weeps, clutching to the wall for stability. “What have I done to be punished like this? Why doesn’t god save me? Why doesn’t he come?”

With her words a burst of humourless laughter erupts from my mouth before I can stop it. Not the response the girl expected as she looks at me like I’ve just slapped her in the face. “Sorry,” I gasp, on the verge of hysterics. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh but god!?” I splutter. “God!”

I compose myself and shake my head at the girl. “What’s your name, sugar?” I ask warmly.

“C . . . Cassie. Cassie Clay,” she stammers, partly from nerves and partly from the cold.

“Well, C . . . Cassie Clay,” I mimic, “look around you. God isn’t here, he’s not going to save you, and he doesn’t care. But I’m here. I can save you. I care.”

“You can’t help me; how can you help? No one can help me now. No one can stop him and no one can make me feel right again.” She sobs and shuffles a little closer to the edge. I make no move to stop her.

“We both know you’re not going to jump, Cassie, and we both know you can’t go on living the way you are. That only leaves one option. Take my hand and step down here.” I reach out my hand to her but she shakes her head. “If you take my hand I swear to you I will make this all go away. I will make you feel clean again. I swear this to you, Cassie Clay.”

“Excuse me if I don’t believe the word of a girl in an insane asylum who keeps a bottle of vodka in her pyjama pocket,” she scoffs.

“Actually, you’re taking the word of three girls in an asylum who keep a bottle of vodka in their pyjama pocket,” I correct and she frowns at me with confusion. “Dissociative identity disorder, or multiple personalities if you’d prefer, but don’t worry; at least one of my personalities is a sane and responsible adult and fortunately that’s the personality you’re partly dealing with now.

 “So, Cassie, back to your choices: jump, or take my hand? We both know you’re not going to jump. So why don’t we just hurry this along because I sense it’s cold out here and with that bald head of yours you’re bound to catch a cold,” I say impatiently, stretching my hand towards her.

She looks from my hand to my face to the ground below us. I can see defeat creeping into her features and slumping her shoulders; she knows I’m right.

Slowly and nervously she shuffles towards me and takes the hand I hold out to her. She hops cat-like off the ledge, onto the balcony and into my arms.

Now that she’s standing in front of me I can see how petite she really is. She’s a good three inches shorter than me, just skin and bones and with her shaven head it makes her look rather alien-like. But her pale, lightly freckled skin glows like the surface of a pearl in the moonlight and her eyes are so big and deep, like liquid jade. I become hypnotised by them and forget myself, quite literally in fact, because Lucy Denver is steering the ship. It’s Lucy Denver who talked her down and it’s Lucy Denver who murmurs, “Such a pretty face,” and runs the knuckle of my index finger down Cassie’s cheek. “What a shame it would have been to spread it all over the patio.”

She’s looking up at me with fear and wonder. She doesn’t step back or try to pull herself away from me. We are quite still as we stand staring into one another’s eyes. Both of us contemplating if we’ve made the right decision.

The trance is broken by Cassie’s shiver and the Eleanor Smith personality takes over my brain. Kind and caring, motherly Eleanor Smith. “Come on,” I say, tearing my gaze from hers. “You’re freezing; come inside.” I turn and lead her into my room shutting the balcony doors behind me.

My room is a small en suite; very few people in this wing of the “Hospital” are allowed a private bathroom. Too easy to commit suicide in a bathroom. Same with the balcony. In fact I’ve no idea how Cassie managed to get onto that ledge, but I don’t think that’s the biggest issue to be concentrating on right now.

I have a single bed up against the left-hand wall; it’s quite uncomfortable but at least I’ve been allowed to bring my own bed covers, plush purple ones Rue bought for me.

A small, tatty-looking desk is on the opposite side of the room next to the bathroom door. On it is the school work my mother and friends bring in for me to do but I rarely touch. English, maths and science aren’t really my thing, and my father doesn’t seem to think school is important either. He has me involved in far more useful extra-curricular activities. He’s teaching me to fight, because knowing how to defend yourself is very important to him. There are a lot of bad people out there; I’ve seen their victims. And my mum, well, she’s more concerned about my health than my education

“Why are you allowed a balcony and a bathroom? I thought this was a staff room when I saw it from the outside,” Cassie says curiously as her eyes tour my room.

“Well . . .” I say, putting my hands in my pockets and watching her, feeling oddly self-conscious as she examines what few possessions I have here. “Firstly I’m not a suicide risk and I’m a frequent flyer.”

“Frequent flyer?” she repeats, looking at me inquisitively.

“That’s what I call people who are in and out of this place a lot,” I explain.

“You’re in and out a lot?” she asks, perching on the edge of my bed and looking up at me with her puffy, tired eyes. Her curiosity seems to be distracting her from the despair I saw in her only moments ago.

“I’ve been in and out of this place since I was about nine. That’s when the dreams started happening.” I begin to pace around my room like a jungle cat feeling suddenly uncomfortable. Whenever I tell this story to anyone at school I tend to get teased and when I get teased the other kids come down with these mysterious cases of getting the shit kicked out of them.

“Dreams?” she says.

Oh the dreams, how I hate describing the dreams. But the doctors in this place make me do it over and over and over again.

“The dreams are like memories, memories that aren’t mine, memories from the lives of my other personalities. Disturbing memories.” I stare down at the floor as I recall the most recent. The dream of being naked and lacerated on that warehouse floor; it’s one of my more frequent nightmares. “Dreams that a nine-year-old child shouldn’t have been having.” I pull the chair out from under my desk and turn it to face the bed so I can sit opposite Cassie.

“Teachers thought that my parents were letting me watch horror films or something. My parents thought I was getting it from school. Doctors thought it was night terrors. Then I started to remember things while I was awake. Bits from the lives of adults: marriage, sex, work, death. Soon those memories became as real as my own. Soon I was acting far beyond my years of maturity and that’s when the personalities started to clearly manifest themselves,” I say, cracking my knuckles loudly, absentmindedly, a nervous habit of mine.

“At first there was an obvious switch in my personalities; one would completely take over. They’d tell my parents that they’d been trapped in the body of a child. Each one can tell you their entire life story in detail; sometimes my voice changes.

“When I was younger everyone thought I was playing make believe. But the screaming night terrors and complete belief in the back stories I was telling soon made my parents realise there was something more sinister going on.

“My father would have dealt with it himself if my mother would have allowed it, but she knew I needed help that he just wasn’t qualified to give me.”

Cassie looks slightly afraid as I tell my tale.

“Are you d– . . . dangerous?” she stammers.

“Ha!” I bark and sit back in my chair eyeing her with amusement.

I pause for a while, wondering whether or not I should lie to her, but truth be told, I’m not sure I can lie to a face as pretty as hers. “I am,” I say finally. “But not to you. Do you think I went to all the trouble of talking you down from that ledge just to finish you off myself?” I raise an eyebrow at her and she looks at me sheepishly.

“No, I guess not,” she admits. “So how many different personalities do you have?”

“Three,” I say, matter of factly.

“Who are they? Like, do they have names? Which one am I talking to now?” she asks with fascination.

“You’re talking to all of them and none of them. You are always talking to me, but they sit behind me in the background. I am the ruling personality, but occasionally I let them take over, when I need to use their character traits, traits that I don’t possess myself. Sometimes we have arguments, sometimes we even fall out.” I shake my head at the ridiculousness of my own words. “There’s me, the real me I mean, Scarlett Wolf or Scars for short.”

“Scars, that’s not very nice-sounding shortening,” she says, frowning.

“Yeah, well, Rue started calling me that when we were little and it just kinda stuck,” I say and shrug. “But you don’t have to call me that if you don’t want to; you can call me anything you like, doesn’t matter to me,” I say and smile.

“Cool,” she says and for the first time I see a smile creep across her face and just like the rest of her it’s beautiful.

No wonder she was reduced to making herself seem less attractive to her stepfather by shaving her head. Even without hair she’s a gorgeous little thing.

“So you’re Scarlett. Who are the other two?” she eggs me to continue.

“Well, there’s Lucy; she was born in the 1920s. She’s a little depressing, but she’s very sweet. Lucy was murdered by her husband when she was quite young so she’s not very mature and doesn’t think very highly of men.”

“Justifiably,” Lucy hisses in my head.

“Then there’s Eleanor,” I continue. “She was a healer in the late 1600s. Again, she wasn’t very old when she was burned as a witch but she’s very kind, very loving. She’s the responsible adult I was referring to earlier.”

Cassie stares at me open mouthed. “But those are such violent, horrible deaths; you’re telling me you can remember them?”

“Every second,” I say flatly. “Every cut, every lick of the flame. The agony, the feel of broken glass slicing into my skin, the smell of my own flesh burning, every second.”

“You feel pain in your dreams? Actual pain? Surely you just think you’re in pain; no one can dream pain?”

“I can,” I say, and a sinister smile tugs the corners of my mouth at the thought of what I’m about to show Cassie. “But that’s the only way I can feel pain, in dreams.

“The real reason I’m in and out of this place, the reason psychiatric and medical doctors from all corners of the globe come to gawk at me like a circus freak, is this . . . ” I take the lighter from my pocket and flick the flame into life between us, Cassie stares in anticipation as I take masochistic pleasure in this moment.

I hold the lighter in my right hand and bring my left slowly up to sit directly over the flame so it’s gently burning into my palm.

Cassie looks at me expecting me to flinch, cry out and pull my hand away but I don’t. I just stare calmly back at her, my expression serene as if my skin wasn’t beginning to scorch and blister from the heat.

At first she looks puzzled. I can see her trying to work out how I’m performing this grotesque parlour trick. But as the smell of burning flesh fills the air between us her expression changes from one of confusion to one of horror as she realises this is no trick. “What are you doing!” she squeals and knocks the lighter out of my hand, and it slides across the carpet. She grabs my arm and pulls me off my seat and into the bathroom, shoving my charred palm under the cold tap and turning it on.

I watch with amusement as she examines my hand with a look of revulsion. “What the heck did you do that for?” She looks up at me and sees that I am quite calm and in no pain whatsoever. “Why aren’t you screaming the place down?” She frowns with confusion as she surveys my amused expression.

“It’s called congenital analgesia,” I tell her. “I can’t feel physical pain,” I explain.

Her lips slowly part and she looks at me with astonishment. “You can’t feel pain? You mean you can’t feel this,” she says, staring back at my hand.

“I feel it in a way; it’s kind of just a tingling sensation, but no, it’s not painful.”

“So you can’t feel anything?” Cassie asks, a hint of pity in her voice.

“Oh no, I can feel things. There’s nothing wrong with my sense of touch and I can feel pleasure; it’s just pain I’m immune to. And I can’t really tell the difference between hot and cold.”

“But how?” she says, shutting off the cold tap and holding my palm closer to her face, checking that the severe burn is really there.

“I don’t know, my brain produces too much of something or not enough of something or something’s misfiring in the medulla ob-long-medical-explanation. They’re not really sure; a lot of them don’t even think it is congenital analgesia. People with the disease, this rare disease . . .” I reiterate just in case she wasn’t aware. “People who have it don’t know what pain is; they’ve never felt it, and they couldn’t describe it to you if they tried. It would be like sitting someone who’s been blind their whole life in front of a painting and asking them to describe it to you. They can tell you what other people say it’s like but have no idea themselves. But I do, from my dreams and the memories that aren’t my memories.

“They did a test once, a CT scan and asked me to recall the memories from my other personalities, expecting me to use the part of your brain that makes shit up, but according to the computer I was using the memory centre of the brain. That shut all the doctors up who thought I was just a boring old pathological liar. Then they took pictures of my brain whilst I was having one of my ‘sleep episodes’, a really nasty one and sure as anything the pain centres of my brain lit up like a Christmas tree,” I tell her as she stares at me with wonderment

“You’re just about the most fascinating person I’ve ever met,” she says.

I smile at her and gently pull my hand from hers. Opening the bathroom cabinet that’s filled to bursting with creams, plasters and pills, I take out some bandage, burn cream and a gel patch. “My mum gets pissed when I do shit like this,” I say and wave my burnt palm at Cassie. “Whenever I get cut or hurt I’ve gotta disinfect it and make sure it’s bandaged properly. Or it could get infected and unfortunately I’m invulnerable to pain, not disease. Well, at least I don’t think I am. I mean I’ve never had anything get infected or been sick as far as I can remember,” I muse pensively as I put on the cream and the gel patch.

I walk back into the bedroom and to my desk drawer where I pull out a pair of scissors and cut a strip of bandage.

“Here, I’ll do that,” Cassie says as she follows me.

She takes the strip of bandage from me and wraps it carefully around my hand as if she could hurt me. I smile warmly at the gentle creature that’s concentrating on tying the bandage neatly and she looks up and catches me staring. It’s a simple act but it’s oddly intimate and I look away quickly as a blush starts to flare in her pale cheeks.

She releases my hand and says, “It must be nice not to feel pain. Nobody can hurt you.” Her eyes fall to the floor and she looks very far away for a moment.

“It’s a pain in the arse, to be honest, having to check myself over every day for cuts, having to see doctors all the time so they can check me over too.

“When I was eleven I fell off the stage in drama class and thought nothing of it, nor did my teachers; it’s only four feet high for heaven’s sake. Anyway, turns out I had been walking around for a week on a broken leg by the time my mum noticed the bruising. When I had it x-rayed the doctor said it was already healing and it was hardly worth putting a cast on it but Mum insisted.

“I had to convince my mum not to sue the school and now the teachers all watch me like a hawk. If it wasn’t for Rue I probably wouldn’t be allowed outside.” I roll my eyes in frustration.

Rupert is the only person my mother trusts with me. As far as she’s concerned, Rupert Reed can do no wrong and I’m of the same opinion.

“Rue? That’s who you were talking to on the phone?” Cassie asks.

“Yeah, Rupert,” I reply and go to sit cross-legged at the end of my bed. Cassie mirrors my actions, sitting at the head of my bed facing me.

She’s quiet for a moment, looking at her hands, fiddling with the embroidery on my quilt. “Is . . . is Rupert your boyfriend?” she asks tentatively, not looking up at me.

“No,” I snigger and shake my head. “Nothing like that. He’s kind of like my soulmate I guess you’d call him,” I tell her. She raises her face to look at me with confusion.

“Rupert is my oldest friend, the centre of my universe. We’re joined at the hip; we spend all our time together. He treats me like a princess. His mother’s quite well off so he’s always buying me things and taking me places. He smuggles cigarettes and alcohol in here for me and gives me money to bribe the orderlies when I want special treatment. He takes care of me and I look out for him,” I explain.

“But he’s not your boyfriend?” she asks again. Clearly nothing I have told her has made her think Rupert can be anything but my boyfriend.

“No, and he never will be. We aren’t attracted to one another; it would ruin our friendship; he’s got terrible table manners. Oh, and I haven’t got a penis, which is apparently a must have with Rue.” I smirk at her but she doesn’t seem to comprehend what I’m saying. “He’s gay,” I reiterate and a look of realisation dawns on her.

“Ooooooh,” she breathes. “Do people know? Like people at school or his parents?” she asks.

“His mum knows,” I tell her. “But all the guys at school think he’s a legend. They think me and Cherry are his girlfriends,” I say and smile.

“Who’s Cherry?” she asks.

“My other best friend,” I reply. “We’re kind of a trio, me, Rue and Cherry. We don’t really socialise with other people. They’re far too normal and boring. But we’ve got space for one more psycho in our gang.” I reach over and take her hand. She blasts me with that dazzling smile and blushes.

“I don’t have any friends,” she says and the smile disappears from her face. “Mum makes me home school, says other children will corrupt me and lead me astray.” With these words I make a noise somewhere between snorting and choking.

“Well she’s a fucking stupid bitch then, isn’t she?” I spit venomously. “She marries a disgusting cunt who abuses you and she’s worried about other children corrupting you.” Cassie winces when I swear unashamedly; it’s kind of cute.

“She doesn’t know,” she says in defense of her mother. “She can never know.” Her voice is becoming high pitched and distressed. “If she knew she’d never forgive herself or worse, she’d blame me.” Tears begin to pool in her eyes as she speaks.

“Blame you! Why on earth would she blame you?!” I exclaim.

“I don’t know, I’m just so scared she’ll hate me; she’ll look at me like I’m dirty. I am dirty,” she whimpers.

“You’re not dirty.” I shuffle forwards and pull her into my chest and squeeze her tightly. “He’s the dirty one, he’s depraved and he’s going pay. I’ll make him pay.”

“But how? How can you make him go away without everybody knowing what he’s done to me? No one can know, I don’t want anyone to know,” she sobs.

“I told you I’m dangerous, Cassie, very dangerous. You know how most people get put in this place because they’re a danger to themselves? Well, I’m one of the ones you hear the orderlies whisper about in the corridor. I’m one of the few who’s been put in here because I’m a danger to others,” I tell her, as I stroke her fuzzy head soothingly.

“But you don’t look dangerous.”

“Mmmm, no I don’t, do I? Sometimes I think that’s the point,” I muse.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Well, if I looked scary then people would expect me to be dangerous, but I don’t look scary, I look like a little girl; no one will see it coming, your stepdad will never see me coming.”

“What are you going to do to him?” she asks.

“Don’t worry about that, Cassie, I’ll deal with that. But first we both have to get out of this place. I’ll tell Dr Mathers that her new set of meds is stopping my sleep episodes, and she’ll let me out again. I’ll say I dreamed about some fluffy bunnies or running through a field of poppies. She loves it when I say shit like that.”

“I like Dr Mathers,” Cassie adds.

“Yeah, Del’s one of the good ones,” I agree.

“Del?” she questions.

“Yeah, Delta’s her first name,” I explain.

“You’re on first names terms with her?” she asks.

“I told you, Cassie, I’ve been in and out of here a lot.”

“Well how do I get out of here, Scarlett, and how are we going to explain me being in your room?” she asks.

“Please,” I scoff, “I got hold of all the keys to this place ages ago. Been collecting them from various members of the staff. I’ll just get my boy Ronnie out there,” I say thumbing towards the door, “to walk you back to your own room.”

“Won’t he tell?” she asks worriedly as she looks up at me with big green eyes.

“Not if he doesn’t want anyone to know about the joint we smoked off this very balcony a couple of hours ago,” I tell her.

“Oh,” she says, and smiles.

“Tomorrow I’ll meet you in the garden; we’ll pretend to make friends there. Keep your head down and at least pretend to take your meds. Feed the doc some bullshit about how you can’t take the pressures of looking good in a modern society; blame it on the magazines and the beautiful people. Then when she lets you out, I’ll be waiting; we’ll have a little sleep over and your problem will be gone.”

“But Scarlett, my stepdad’s so much bigger than you,” she tells me.

“That will only make him easier to hurt, Cassie; trust me.”

“But why would you do this for me? You barely know me.”

“I have this thing about helping people in bad situations; I don’t know, maybe it makes me feel a little less fucked up.

“I have to do violent things, Cassie; if I don’t do violent things my head spins and I feel like I’m burning up inside. So I guess if I’m doing violent things for good reasons it makes me feel a little better about them,” I explain. “And you kind of remind me of someone.”

“Who?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly, trying to think, trying to remember who she reminds me of.

“Thank you, Scarlett, for caring, I mean,” she says.

“Thank Lucy and Ellie, they’re the caring ones,” I reply.

She’s silent for a moment before saying, “I suppose my situation could be worse, you know.”

“Really, how?” I ask.

“There’s a lady in the room next to me, I think I heard Dr Mathers call her Lori; she never stops crying. All night long she cries. Something really terrible must have happened to her.”

 

Chapter Two: A-typical

Scarlett: Friday 14th January 2012 1:28 p.m.

“So that’s how you met Cassie?” The doctor is old but when he talks, when he moves, he moves like a younger man. He speaks with a soft American accent, but some words have English inflections.

He has a coarse, grey, well-kept beard but his hair is still mostly dark brown, short and curly. Square-shaped glasses that must have been made in the seventies perch on his mildly wrinkled face. He sits beside me in a white sterile room on a white sterile chair. He’s called Doctor Clark and they tell me he is going to help me. They keep telling me I need help. I don’t need help.