Pucker by Melanie Gideon Page B

answers first.”
    â€œAnything,” she says.
    â€œWell . . . won’t they be expecting me? I mean, they can see the future; they’ll know I’m coming.”
    â€œI don’t think so. They’d have to be touching you to read your future. Plus Otak is related to us by blood, so he won’t be able to forecast anything about you, and he’s one of the few Seers I know of who would be strong enough to see something like this.” She frowns. “But there’s no way to know for certain until you get there.”
    I pause, absorbing this, and something else nags at me. “How do you know your Seerskin is still there?” I ask.
    â€œOf course it’s there,” she whispers, looking stricken. “Seerskins are valuable. The Ministry would never destroy it.”
    â€œBut how do you know?” I press her. “How can you be so sure?”
    She shakes her head. “I just am.”
    Her eyes flitter away from me. The light from the lamp shines through her ears and for a moment I see the girl that she once was.
    â€œYou know because you can sense it?” I ask her gently.
    She nods. “ Yes. That’s it. It’s like it’s out there, a piece of me, and it’s been waiting all these years for someone to rescue it and bring it home.”
    Tears spring suddenly to my eyes and I turn away, not wanting her to see them. I see myself moments before the fire, my arms wrapped around my knees, rocking.
    â€œAll right,” I say briskly, trying to ward off this image. “How do I get there?”
    She exhales loudly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be recruited.”
    â€œRecruited? Like the Changed?” I ask.
    â€œLike the Changed,” she repeats.
    I stare at her incredulously. “But what about the portal? I’ll just go back there. I’ll sneak through,” I say.
    She shakes her head. “It’s not there anymore. I had Huguette check.”
    â€œYou told Huguette? About us ?”
    My mother looks at me defiantly. Two bright circles of red stain her cheeks. “I had to. Who’s going to help me when you’re gone? You can’t expect me to manage on my own.”
    â€œYou swore,” I say. “ We swore not to tell anyone.”
    â€œThat was before I foresaw my death.” My mother gives me a weak smile. “Bet your Barker’s had nothing about this in it.”
    â€œI haven’t seen my Barker’s in years,” I snap.
    She leans over and opens her bedside table drawer. “Here,” she says, handing me the brown book. Nostalgia threads through me at the sight of it, not altogether unpleasant, but the book also makes me feel strangely claustrophobic, as if someone has just locked me in a tiny room. I push it away. She places it on the bed between us.
    â€œThere’s a map of the Ministry in there. It’ll help you remember,” she says.
    â€œRemember what?” I say, irritated. As if I need any help remembering.
    My mother hesitates. “How it was,” she says. “It wasn’t all bad. We were happy there once.”
    The last thing I want to hear is that we were happy in Isaura. I get up from the bed and glare at her. “So there’s no portal.”
    â€œThere’s a portal. You just need somebody to take you there. Thomas, believe me, I’ve thought this through. The only way for you to get back to Isaura is to go back as one of the Changed. And to do that you must convince a Recruiter that you’re a qualified candidate. That means you have to pretend you’re suicidal. That things are so bad you want out.”
    I have a sudden vision of a storefront with a poster in the front window. We want you. And a long line of freaks from the circus: hollow man, seal girl, and me.
    â€œThe Recruiters are here in Peacedale?”
    I fight down my nausea. The thought sickens me. Now that we live on Earth, the Recruiters seem like