The Devil's Smile

Chapter 5

“Charmaine!” A strange pretty girl just skidded into the house and her eyes widened at the sight of me, a shriek in the form of my name leaving her mouth.

That was a strange name. I…did not know that name…who was that? Who was Charmaine?

It's nothing I managed to jumping away from her before she could grab me.

“You are bleeding i***t!”

Who was this girl and why was she calling me and i***t? This was not acceptable under any circumstances.

“Since when does bleeding make a person an i***t? We all do it. It's totally natural.”

She rolled her beautiful brown eyes at me in making another grab for me. I have giving up my hand. I wasn't actually bleeding but the burn on my hand was all red and angry so it had probably appeared that I was breathing at. She dropped my hand and spun to the stove tossing a pot of water over the licking planes that I had beneath the cooking cupboard. And steam filled the room she started rummaging around in the drawers of my mother's tiny kitchen. The first 3 drawers that she opened contains small medical packs made of cloth but they had been depleted.

“Over there.” I decided to help her out jerking my head in the direction of the bed in the corner of the room. It was the only proper bed this cottage had. I could not realise what I was doing here but I was here for a reason and still it was elusive to me.

“Ummm…” I started saying something but I was immediately silenced by the glare of the other girl. She was so pretty with her long auburn locks and beautiful big brown eyes. This girl found the 4th medical pack tugged beneath the bed and brought it over to me making quick work of bandaging my hand.

I told you not to use the stove anymore she just tied up frown furrowing beneath her brows.

That’s why I cook enough to last 4the week if you keep it properly.

I wasn't cooking I swear. I would never. Not even you if you forced me.

Why was the stove hot?

There was something inside it. If I made it hot I thought it would just crawl out.

With the door shut?

Oops.

she laughed finishing up my hand and spinning to face the stove it was made of stone a long bulky structure reminiscent of a fireplace with an area to light a fire below a stone cupboard with a cast iron door which filtered the chimney. She raped her hand in a cloth and popped opened the door. That was what I had done wrong not wrapping my hand before trying to touch the hot metal

The girl winced and then closed the stove door again. “Yes we are having rat for dinner.”

I inspected my hand totally impressed with her bandaging skills.

Then I asked something that I have been meaning to ask since she had come inside the house.

“Who are you?”

The girl looked up at me and then said, “you have done a lot of things all these years and I have not said one word. I am the only person who has tolerated your crazy like anything. I am the only person who thinks that you are the best sister I could ever get. And now you are asking me who I am? Is this because that there is a chance that I might be going to the Academy? Do you want me to be here so badly that you are playing this part where you have gone completely off the rocker?

I stared at her carefully for a while to understand if she was actually telling the truth and when I found that she was actually I told her,” I don't remember anything at all. I don't know who you are. I don't know who I am. And what the hell I am doing here.”

“You were perfectly fine when I went out of the house for foraging and now you are telling me that you don't remember anything at all?”

“That is exactly what I am trying to tell. I don't know where I am. I don't know what I am doing here. I don't know what is my name.”

“Please tell me that you haven't had anything from the bottle that your mother has kept hidden from us?” she asked with a pointed stare.

I again don’t understand what she was talking about and I shook my head saying no. Then I thought that at the least I should know how I look like, isn’t it? So I asked her,” Do we have a mirror?”

“What is that?”

“The thing where we see ourselves…I mean reflections?” I asked. What world was this? And all of a sudden I winced…I was a different realm altogether.. they had sent me here with no memory…who had?

“Yes..that is a looking glass…what is a mirror though?” this girl asked and then said,” are you really not being able to recognise me?”

I shook my head as she stood up and then brought back a mirror for me to look and I stared at myself. I had blue hair. How in the world did I come to have blue hair? I had a button like cute and sharp nose and had equally blue eyes which almost were close to aubergine rather than blue. And I had a roundish type face with chubby cheeks. And on the first glance I looked really good. But my hair was a mess and a crow’s nest. It had all shades of blue…was this natural? Or did they have boxed dye here as well?

All of a sudden I remembered that I was being called Blue.

“What is my name?”

“Charmaine. Your name is Charmaine and I call you Charm.”

“What is my full name?”

“Charmaine Nyx Archer.”

“I have a middle name which means darkness?” I could not help but interject.

She started saying something but I shook my head. Then I asked,” What is your name?”

“I know that you are doing something strange like you always do. But I will play your game. My name is Talulah. You call me Tale.”

‘I think I will call you Red from now on,” I smiled as I caught hold of a lock of her vivid and vibrant red hair and she smiled and said,” You have been calling me Red from the day we have met.”

“Then I think that you should call me Blue. Are we siblings? Do we have same parents? How is my hair blue? Is this normal? Did I dye my hair?”

“You are asking so many weird questions. I mean you do always ask questions but for the first time ever you are asking questions which is really making me think that you have hit your head too hard and you have stopped…rather forgotten everything..”

“You mean I have had an accident and then I am suffering from amnesia?”

“Charm you are speaking unknown words…what has happened to you? Why are you acting this way? Are you purposefully trying to stop me from going to the Academy by proving that you are sick and have gone crazy?” asked Red, Talulah actually asked me earnestly and I replied in an equally earnest manner.

“I don’t think that I belong here. I am here by mistake.”

“Then why were you trying to get rid of the rat and then burnt your hand?” she asked. And I really had no good explanation for that.

“Can't I keep you here? You are so handy. What am I going to do without you?”

“I might not get picked,” she reminded me her voice soft

She was afraid. I did not know why. Maybe she was afraid of leaving this place that she had known for all her life maybe she was afraid that she would get picked. But where was this academy?

But before I could ask this questiona form stumbled in through the doorway and we both turned to watch as a woman slowdown on the twin bed with an incoherent mumble.

‘Who is this??” I asked in a whisper and she mouthed at me,” Your mother.”

My mother was an incoherent alcoholic, was she? How was that possible? Mothers were not supposed to be like this, were they? I groused and went over to her and shook her trying to move her but she did not even budge and I wanted to wake her up but Red caught my hand and said,” Let her be. The selection ceremony is going to be held now. Let’s go. If we don’t leave now then we will be late.”

Red started to drag me out of the house but we both stopped on our way to the door looking down at the broken watch on the floor each of the household were permitted a single watch to share I recalled from somewhere at the back of my mind. I must have accidentally dropped this one after I had burned my hand. The glass cover was shattered and the 2 pointers were struggling to move. The longer thinner pointer for the minute was twitching back and forth over the same number. The shorter thicker pointer for the hour had broken off completely.

“Don’t worry about it,” Red said. “We can deal with it later.”

She finally succeeded in dragging me out of the house and we took off down the road our backpacks thumping against us with each step. Harsh words probably full of books and practical things mine had practical things in it too but practical things that would have been specifically practical for me full among those things where a fire blanket a pocket knife a general poisons antidote that I had basically traded my soul for at the travelling circus and by my soul I mean every single currency that I had saved up.

Was I making all these things up? Or was I remembering things from the memory of the girl who has always lived here? But I was not someone who took a gift horse in the mouth and I thought that I would take care of it later on

I also had another medical kit in my backpack and a banana. just in case I got hungry.

“Maybe they will choose you to go with me,” Red joked peeking at me sideways.

I huffed a little out of breath because she was so much faster than me. “They wouldn't ever do that. They would chain me up.”

“They did let you graduate though.”

“Yeah but why?”

“Because you broke into the records of his and meet yourself a star pupil. I still can't believe you did that.” She chuckled ,”you graduated above everyone else. Almost above me even and they couldn't do anything about it.”

“Yeah!” I let my lips smack together in satisfaction as I said the word. “Those documents are official. Binding.”

“They didn't want to admit that you had managed to break into their records office and tamper with everything. Corporal Thomas would have fired all of them.”

“Okay yeah. That is probably more likely explanation.”

We reached the school which was a collection of stone houses connected by dirt pathways and wove through the people towards the backfield where everyone was gathering. There was a stage setup and corporal Thomas himself was standing there a bunch of papers in his hands. Is not it pointing at him and red glanced in the direction indicated a smile breaking across her face. Corporal Thomas was always trying to look important. He had easily 10 pages of notes in front of him but he needed only to learn 2 names he had a whole team of village advisors behind him but he would only announce two names.