SIXTY-ONE
“SAY SOMETHING,” Kate says to me. Her hand is clammy, and I can smell her nervous sweat. I can tell she is terrified by the move she has made but is sticking with it, such is the strength of her conviction.
“What?”
“You should say something, address the people.”
“Yes, do it.” Mona overhears and lets go of my hand. She shoves me gently out of line.
I’m standing alone, the broken link in the chain.
“No,” I protest, my stomach filling with butterflies and my throat tightening at the very thought. I try to step back in line, but they push me forward again. “I don’t know what to say.”
I think back to weeks ago in Alpha and Professor Lambert’s house, when Alpha invited me up to the stage to speak. All the eager faces looking at me expectantly, hoping for something great to come out of my mouth after their rapturous applause. I had their complete attention, they were on my side, and I couldn’t think of one thing to say. The Whistleblowers, ironically, saved me that day by breaking up the event.
“Go on,” Mona says, shoving me forward again.
I try to get back in line, but Kate and Mona are holding hands. I feel the television cameras on us and don’t want to make a scene. It looks like I’ve been pushed out of the crowd.
I hear somebody say, “It’s Celestine.”
I have one of those names that’s easy to hear when others mention it, even behind my back, or quietly, thinking I can’t hear. With its s sounds, I hear it move like a wave over the crowd until finally the whistling is more like hissing, and then there’s silence.
I take a few steps more and face them. “My name is Celestine,” I say, and my voice is so quiet Lennox starts shouting.
“Can’t hear you, Celestine. Get up on the stage.”
I throw him an angry look but everyone else backs him up. I expect the Whistleblowers to stop me but they’re unsure what to do at this point and nobody seems to be in control, considering some of their own people have just joined ours and their leader has retreated to the castle. They just watch as I climb up to the podium. I clear my throat.
It feels like a nightmare: my facing thousands of people, wearing nothing but a tight slip—my body, my shape, all my flaws revealed. It should be demeaning, but it’s not. What’s that thing they tell people who are afraid of public speaking to do? Imagine that everybody is naked, or in their underwear. Well, they are. Everybody’s flaws are revealed. Nobody before me is Perfect. I don’t feel judged. If anything, I feel so empowered looking at these humans who are all so self-aware that the panic disappears immediately.
“My name is Celestine North,” I say loudly, my voice traveling over the vast crowd.
What follows is a huge cheer that surprises me. It surprises the Whistleblowers, too, and they straighten their backs and ready themselves for whatever will come.
“I watched Judge Crevan’s interview last night, and we’ve all heard what he had to say, now I hope he hears me. Now it’s my turn.”
A Whistleblower steps forward to stop me. “My right to freedom of speech has not been removed,” I say. He looks to his superior, who gives him a nod, so he steps down.
I don’t know where it comes from, but everything I felt while watching Crevan on TV last night slowly bubbles to the surface.
“Arrogance, greed, impatience, stubbornness, martyrdom, self-deprecation, self-destruction. These are the seven character flaws Judge Crevan placed on us. But Judge Crevan, there are two sides to every story. When you tell me that I have greed, I call it desire. Desire for a fair and equal society. When you call me arrogant, I call it pride, because my beliefs make me stand above those who oppress me.
“When you say I am impatient, I say that I am daring to question your judgments, which are not law but mere morality courts. You call me stubborn; I say I’m determined. You say I want to make myself a martyr; I say I’m showing selflessness. Self-deprecation? Humility. Self-destruction? What I did for Clayton Byrne on the bus was not a deliberate act to ruin my life but a decision based on the belief that what was happening was inhumane. What you see as flaws, Judge Crevan, I see as strengths.
“Mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of. Mistakes teach us to take responsibility. They teach us what works and what doesn’t. We learn what we would do differently the next time, how we will be different, better, and wiser in the future. We are not just walking mistakes, we are human.” My voice cracks and the crowd erupts into joyous applause.
“To err is human. You learn from your mistakes,” I say to the hushed crowd. “The rest of the world uses these phrases. If this is true, and Judge Crevan and our current leaders have never made mistakes, then it is us who can teach them a thing or two, because I stand before you the most branded, the most Flawed person in the world. Today we drift away from the shadow of the Guild, this morality court, and we emerge as the leaders of the future.”
Mona punches the air and lets out a roar, and the rest of the crowd quickly follows. I see Professor Lambert clapping his hands proudly. Lorcan and Fergus are high-fiving others.
It was worth it. It really was. Despite what happens next.
SIXTY-TWO
I DON’T FEEL any fear as the Whistleblowers take me away. Right now, I’m on a high after my speech. I don’t know where the words came from, they all just came tumbling out when I needed them most. I just hope that my family heard them, and Carrick, wherever he is.
The Whistleblowers aren’t gentle with me, either. As soon as we’re out of the TV cameras’ views, the Whistleblowers tighten their grips on my arms, pull me along as they quicken their pace. This isn’t Tina anymore. I’m not some misunderstood seventeen-year-old, but that’s okay—I don’t feel like the same girl who passed through these halls five weeks ago, terrified, clinging to my relationship with Crevan as my way of getting out of here. Every sound scared me, the guards scared me; I was always looking around, always afraid.
I’m not afraid anymore. This time I know that I am right and they are wrong.
I’m taken through the castle, down the elevator to the basement. I’m processed through reception, and each guard who sees me lets me know what they think of me. When we enter the holding cells, the first person I see in a cell of his own is Raphael Angelo. He’s sitting on a chair, feet up, crossed at the ankles, watching Flawed TV, his back to me.