Hey look, something I wrote! And I'm sharing!
So, this is part of the first chapter of the novel I'm working on. I recently decided to add to the end of it and I'll be working to finish that in time to post next week. I'm including a little into with the hope of providing some helpful context for the premise. I won't be posting all chapters in the future but I think I will post some excerpts for your enjoyment and to keep myself on track, haha. So yeah, I hope you enjoy it! [And please forgive any formatting issues as I'm posting this from my phone.]
Intro
People are born with their destiny in their skin, marks like black tattoos that aren't visible at birth. The marks reveal themselves after the onset of puberty but the exact timing, their position on the body, and their order are completely unpredictable. Each person has two marks, one that indicates a primary talent or skill and a second that divulges a person's defining character attribute. Children grow up knowing about these marks that will define them, show them the path their lives will take and illuminate to them their own character. As they learn about the different marks, all recorded in the Mark Index, they scrutinize their arms and legs, lifting shirts to carefully examine smooth stomachs and wonder what marks will paint that canvas in time. They chatter about the marks they'd most like to have, dreaming about the potential sleeping in their skin that they may not fully understand until years after their marks have manifested and been recorded in the public record. Citizens are required to record all marks in the public record for census purposes but this procedure also functions as a means of identifying and tracking those that manifest marks that indicate them to be a threat to others and the community at large. In a proactive effort to ensure the safety of the community, individuals with such marks, called Malmarks, are banished as soon as their threatening mark is known regardless of age or situation. Marks are part of each person and yet foreign because they foretell their future. How they will play out over the course of the person's life and how constant their influence will be is not always clear, but these uncertainties aren't ones the authorities care to gamble with. Not all marks are good but all of them come true.
Chapter 1
The excitement that had flashed across her skin moments before was gone and Mona felt suddenly cold in its absence. She stared at the black figure, nestled next to the freckle on the inside of her left wrist. She had been waiting for a mark to manifest for seven months, since her New Growth started but she had never imagined that it would be one like this. Her breathing hitched and it felt like her throat was closing up. She had waited eagerly to see the first glimpse of her future, to join others her age in the thrill of knowing more about the person she would become. She had never considered that she might manifest a malmark.
Mona could feel the mark, a small symbol like a black tattoo, being etched into her eyes but she had stopped seeing it.
Don't panic.
Breathe in.
Where had all the air gone?
Don't panic.
"Mona. Mona, are you done yet?" Lauren called from the hallway, banging on the door and making Mona jump. She choked back a scream and instinctively clasped her right hand over her wrist. The door handle jiggled back and forth and she exhaled, relieved that she had locked it. She was so tightly wound that the breath came out in a strangled squeak .
Don't panic.
"Other people need to wash too, you know!"
Mona could hear Lauren's foot tapping on the other side of the door, impatient as always. She scrambled to pull her shirt and tunic back over her head with hands made clumsy by shock. The cloth pulled at her wet hair and scraped against her neck. "I'm coming!" She cringed at the tremble in her voice and almost reached out a hand as if to catch it back but her older sister had sharp ears.
"Are you okay?" Lauren's voice had taken on a concerned tone that sounded unusual coming from a mouth more accustomed to scorn and sarcasm. Mona wished she had kept yelling. She grabbed her damp towel off of the floor and tossed it in the wash basket before turning to the door. She didn't want to leave the bathroom, to risk anyone seeing the mark branded on her wrist, but it would be worse if Lauren burst in and saw the panic that painted her face. In her hurry to open the door and escape to her room she knocked into Lauren, standing as she was a breath away from the door.
"Sorry," Mona said as she pushed past her, keeping her eyes on the floor so all she saw was the bottom edge of her sister's blue tunic and her bare feet. She tugged her sleeves down to her fingertips and willed her voice to be clear and unwavering. "I’m fine. Bathroom's all yours."
She hurried down the hall before Lauren could respond. The slap of her own bare feet on the wood floor echoed back from the walls and water from her hair dripped down her back. She had forgotten to dry it in the bathroom and the towel was in the wash basket. She couldn't go back for it now.
Mona forced herself to close the door to her room slowly. Lauren slammed doors routinely but Mona was the quiet one and she didn't want anyone else to suspect that today was not a normal day.
Eyes squeezed shut, she tried to calm herself as she leaned against the wall. This couldn't be happening to her. It had to be a mistake. She wasn't a Malmark. She often didn't feel like she knew who she was, but she had been sure of that one thing. She wasn't a Malmark.
A quick glance at her left wrist told her that conviction was now a lie. Her breath caught in her throat and she clapped her right hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. She scanned the room for a more permanent method of concealment than her loose sleeves. She couldn't risk anyone seeing the mark, not yet. She would check the Index of Marks later when no one else was home, there was a chance she was mistaken about the mark's meaning. Something told her she wasn't.
Mona was grateful now more than ever that her parents did not inspect their children personally every day after the New Growth began like some of her friends' parents did. The moment of First Mark was supposed to be a happy one, she thought desperately as she rummaged through her drawers for a scarf, a strip of cloth, anything. First Mark was the moment everyone waited for as kids, the day when the first of your two Life Marks appeared and gave you a look into your future, your fate. It was an important moment that marked the real beginning of your life in the community, an event that was often celebrated with parties and gifts. Half of the kids her age had already manifested their first mark. Mona's parents had taken to asking her each morning, in various ways, if her first mark had come yet. They weren't trying to pry, they were just eager for the opportunity to show her off the way they had Lauren three years ago and Gareth two years before that. How disappointed they would be, Mona thought, as she seized a length of leather cord and began wrapping it around her wrist, if they knew their second daughter hadn't been Marked with something as nice as Teacher or as noble as Defender.
Her vision blurred as she tightened the knot, adjusting the strips to make sure they completely covered the mark. Her thin mattress rustled as she sank onto it, taking shaky breaths and wiping the tears out of her eyes. Even when she closed them, Mona could still see the mark glowing against the inside of her eyelids. Rebel. No. She shook her head. She had to have it wrong. That wasn't her. It couldn't be. She had never done anything purposefully wrong or the least bit rebellious in her life.
"Mona?" Her mother's tap on the door was much softer than Lauren's pounding had been but Mona jumped all the same. "Breakfast is ready. You best get some before Gareth eats it all."
"Yes, mother." She held her breath as her mother's soft footsteps faded down the hallway. She stood and pulled her sleeves down again with violent yanks before opening the door to follow her to the kitchen. She glanced back into her room before closing the door behind her. It looked much like her siblings' bedrooms but there were her books for school piled neatly on the desk and small craft projects on top of her dresser, a ceramic bowl and a woven basket, that identified the room as hers. If she was right about the mark, how long could she keep it hidden? How long should she? If she was right, then wasn't she a danger? She should report herself instead of waiting for someone to see it. A lump rose in Mona's throat when she realized that this might be the last time she saw this room.
Gareth and her father sat in the kitchen at the smooth wooden table having some sort of philosophical argument that her father seemed to be winning primarily because Gareth kept taking another mouthful of flour cakes between sentences. Anyone who saw her father and brother together could see that they were family with their shared prominent jawlines and tousled brown hair. Lauren and Mona had inherited their mother's darker coloring and sharp cheekbones. Mona sat across from her brother, making sure to keep her hands under the table.
"Ah, Mona, here you are." her father smiled.
"You haven't seen your sister, have you?" Her mother asked from the stove where she was flipping more cakes.
"Good morning, papa." Mona hoped he wouldn't notice the weakness of her grin as she responded. "Lauren is in the bathroom, mother."
"I am not." Lauren sailed into the room and dropped into the chair next to Gareth. Their father chuckled.
"We were beginning to wonder if you'd drowned," Gareth somehow managed to say around another mouthful of breakfast.
Lauren glared at him and opened her mouth to retort.
"We're very glad you didn't." Mother interrupted the brewing battle, reaching between the two to place fresh plates of hot food on the table. Mona generally disliked Lauren and Gareth’s bickering as much as her parents did but for once she wished her mother hadn’t intervened. An argument between her older siblings would have kept any attention away from her.
Wisps of steam rose from the plates of flour cakes and eggs that sat next to the pitchers of milk and juice. The food smelled amazing, as always, but Mona didn't have the stomach for it this morning. A voice in her head told her to eat as much as she could because who knew if she'd ever eat her mother's cooking again, but the thought of food in her mouth made her nauseous.
Mother sat at the end of the table on Mona’s right and her family took turns scooping breakfast onto their plates. Gareth's work required him to leave earlier in the morning than the rest of them so he had already finished eating, not that that stopped him from grabbing another flour cake as he stood to leave. He had just turned to take his dishes to the sink when Father noticed that Mona hadn't put any food on her plate.
"What, not hungry, Mona?" He was looking at her over a fork full of eggs, his eyes narrowed in concern. Gareth paused in rinsing his plate. A member of the family feeling unwell was worrisome for any of them but Gareth had always been protective of her.
Mona twisted in her seat before she could stop herself. She couldn’t tell her father that she didn't want to eat because then he'd ask why and she definitely didn't want to answer that question or those that would come from the rest of her family. So she smiled. And she lied. Was that how all Malmarks started out, she wondered. Little lies to the people they loved?
"Oh, I guess my mind was just elsewhere. Those flour cakes do smell good."
He smiled and set his fork down. "Here, I'll put some on your plate for you."
He picked up her plate and began filling it with flour cakes that she knew would sit like sand in her stomach, if she could swallow them at all. As she watched him she noticed the fine lines around his eyes and mouth that came from the frequent smiles and quiet laughter that her father was known for. Anxiety swelled in her chest, squeezing her heart until it hurt at the thought of being banished. The idea terrified her, but she was more afraid of how he would react to seeing what the malmark said she was, or would be. She couldn't imagine whether it would be fear, anger, hurt, or embarrassment in his eyes but she didn't want to find out.
She blinked and forced herself to smile again to mask the distress she felt when he looked up and held the plate, now heavy with food, out for her to take. "Thank you." Mona automatically extended her left hand, the closest to him, to take the plate. Her sleeve pulled back just enough to reveal the wound leather at her wrist, the ends dangling in midair. The meal would probably have continued uninterrupted if Lauren had been absent but unlike the rest of her family, her attention to details was acute and she knew that Mona wasn't one for wearing bracelets.
Before she could set the plate down and hide her wrist again under the table, Lauren's hand shot out and caught her arm just below the leather thong. The movement was so sudden that Mona almost dropped her plate.
“What are you wearing?"
"Lauren!" Mona’s mother said with an admonishing tone, but her sister didn’t release her grip.
Sweat broke out on Mona’s skin at Lauren’s touch and it felt like the mark was going to burn through the leather around her wrist. It was all she could do to not jerk her wrist out of Lauren's grasp but that would only make the situation more noteworthy.
“What?” Lauren asked, glancing at their mother. “Mona never wears anything she doesn’t have to. I just want to know why,” she reached out her other hand and tugged at one loose end of the cord and Mona flinched, “she’s wearing this today.”
“Lauren, let go of her.” Gareth said at the same time that Mona lied for the second time.
“I just felt like doing something different today.”
Lauren ignored their Gareth and grinned at Mona. “No, no. You were acting weird earlier. There’s something you don’t want us to know.” She tugged at the ends of the leather again and the knot Mona had tied in her panic began to loosen. Mona, eyes wide, gave a small shake of her head, silently trying to plead with her sister to, just this once, let it go. But Lauren had never known how to let something go. It was a mystery to everyone how she would ever turn out to be a teacher.
By now, both Mona’s parents and Gareth were reproaching Lauren for her rude behavior but she was ignoring them the way she ignored most criticism. Her eyes held Mona’s as she pulled the knot completely loose and quickly unwound the length of the leather cord before Gareth’s outstretched hand could pull hers away.
Mona felt like she had frozen solid in the eternal seconds it took Lauren to remove the binding, like she had been hollowed out. She couldn’t make herself move after the length of leather had settled onto the table, her left hand, still holding her plate, extended over the table, wrist up. A small part of her brain knew the malmark was in plain sight and registered the abrupt hush in the room. The quiet was more than surprise, it held the weight of law and confirmed Mona's fear. Malmarks were not to be spoken to.
Lauren’s eyes had dropped to see the mark, triumph plain on her face, but they met Mona’s again and she could see the recognition in her eyes. But now neither of them could look away. Mona watched, feeling like a stranger looking through her own eyes, as Lauren’s expression bled from victory, to confusion, to understanding, to horror, to fear, and then, to Mona’s surprise, to anguish.
“I’m sorry.” Lauren’s voice echoed in Mona’s mind as if she had actually spoken the words. The only sincere apology Mona had ever heard her sister give and it would never be said out loud.
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