The Tearsmith: A Novel

Our movements, like the planets, are governed

By invisible laws.

Billie helped me settle in.

It was a big school, and there was a lot going on. She showed me the classrooms for all the different subjects and took me from one lesson to the next, introducing me to all the teachers. I tried not to be too clingy and weigh her down, but she said that she was actually happy to keep me company. My heart soared like never before. Billie was kind and generous, two qualities you didn’t often come across where I came from.

When the bell rang to mark the end of class, we left the classroom together and she looped a long, leather strap around her neck, then shook her curly hair loose.

‘Is that a camera?’ Curious, I inspected the object that was now dangling from her neck, and her face lit up.

‘It’s a Polaroid! Haven’t you seen one before? My folks gave me this one ages ago. I love photography, my bedroom’s covered in photos! Grandma says that I’ve got to stop cluttering the walls, but every time I find her whistling while dusting them…and she ends up forgetting what she said.’

I was trying to keep up with her chattering and, at the same time, trying not to bump into other people. I wasn’t used to such bustling crowds, but Billie seemed oblivious – she kept rattling on, bumping into people all over the place.

‘I like taking photos of people, it’s interesting to see their facial expressions immortalised on film. Miki always hides her face when I try to take her photo. She’s so pretty, it’s a shame, but she doesn’t like it. Oh, look, there she is! Over there!’ She waved euphorically. ‘Miki!’

I tried to catch a glimpse of this mysterious friend who she’d been telling me about all morning, but I didn’t have time before she started dragging me through the crowd by the strap of my backpack.

‘Come, Nica! Come and meet her!’

I awkwardly tried to follow her, but just ended up getting under her feet.

‘Oh, you’ll really like her, just you wait!’ she declared excitedly. ‘Miki is really so sweet, and so sensitive! Have I already said she’s my best friend?’

I tried to nod, but Billie gave me another yank to get me to move. After we’d finally barged most of the way through the crowd to her friend, she ran the final stretch and did a little leap in front of her.

‘Hey there!’ she trilled. ‘How was class? Did you have gym? This is Nica!’

She pushed me forward, and I almost ended up slamming my nose into an open locker.

A hand appeared on the metal and pushed it away.

Sweet, Billie had said. I prepared a smile.

In front of me was a girl with an attractive, slightly pointy, heavily made-up face and thick black hair. She was wearing a baggy hoodie and had a piercing on her left eyebrow. She was chewing gum.

Miki looked me up and down indifferently, then hitched up the strap of her backpack and slammed the locker shut, making me jump. She turned her back on us and headed down the corridor.

‘Oh, don’t worry, she’s always like this,’ Billie chirped, as I stood rooted to the spot and staring. ‘Making new friends isn’t her strong suit. But deep down she’s a big softie!’

Deep down…How deep?!

I looked at her, slightly scared, but she dismissed my concerns, encouraging me to carry on. We headed through the chaos of students, and when we got to the exit, Miki was there watching the shadows of clouds dancing on the asphalt yard, smoking a cigarette and looking deep in thought.

‘What a beautiful day!’ Billie sighed gleefully, drumming her fingers on her camera. ‘Where do you live, Nica? My grandma can give you a lift home, if you want. She’s making meatballs for dinner tonight, and Miki’s coming over.’ She turned to face her. ‘You are coming over, right?’

She nodded unenthusiastically, taking a drag of her cigarette, and Billie smiled happily.

‘So? Are you coming with –’

She was interrupted by someone running into her.

‘Hey!’ Billie protested, rubbing her shoulder. ‘What sort of manners are those? Ow!’

Other students were rushing past us, and Billie shrank towards Miki.

‘What’s going on?’

Something wasn’t right. Students were running back inside, some with their phones out, some with a terrifying fervour in their eyes. There was an excited atmosphere, and I flattened myself to the wall, frightened by the frenzied crowd.

‘Hey!’ Miki shouted to a boy who was buzzing with excitement. ‘What the hell’s happening?’

‘There’s a fight!’ he yelled, pulling out his phone. ‘Over by the lockers!’

‘A fight? Between who?’

‘Phelps and the new boy! God, he’s really beating the shit out of him! Out of Phelps!’ he squawked. ‘I gotta film it!’

He leapt away like a grasshopper and I found myself against the wall, arms stiff, eyes staring into the void.

The new boy?

Billie squeezed Miki like a stress ball.

‘No! Not violence, please! I don’t want to watch. Who would be crazy enough to go for Phelps? Only a moron…hey!’ Her eyes opened wide in alarm. ‘Nica! Where are you going?’

But her voice got lost in the flood of students. I overtook people, barging past shoulders and backs, like a butterfly in a labyrinth of plant stalks. There was something crackling, almost suffocating, in the atmosphere. I heard the distinct sound of thumping, the clanging of metal and then something hitting the ground.

I got to the front of the crowd, the shouting and screaming pounding in my temples. I ducked under somebody’s arm and, finally, could see what was happening.

The two students were wrestling on the ground in a blind fury. It was difficult to make out who was who in their frenzy, but I didn’t need to see their faces. That unmistakable black hair stuck out like a blot of ink.

There was Rigel, the other guy’s shirt gripped fiercely in his fist, his knuckles pink and raw as he thrashed the body underneath him. There was a mad glint in his eyes that made my bones tremble and my blood run cold. He dealt brutal, fast punches in a frightening rage. The other boy tried furiously to hit him back, but there was no mercy in Rigel’s eyes. I heard the crunch of cartilage as screams filled the air, clamouring, chanting…

Then, suddenly, everything stopped.

Teachers parted the crowd, and literally threw themselves on the fighting boys. They managed to pull them off each other, and one of them tackled Rigel and tore him away by the collar, while the others swooped down upon the boy on the ground, who was now looking at him with wild eyes.

My eyes froze on him. It was only then that I recognised who he was – the boy from that morning. The one I’d bumped into in the doorway, the one with the books.

‘Phelps, suspended again!’ a teacher shouted. ‘This is your third fight, you’ve gone too far!’

‘It was him!’ the boy cried, beside himself. ‘I didn’t do anything! He punched me for no reason!’

The teacher shoved Rigel aside, and I saw him looking down, his hair dishevelled and a sneer cutting across his face.

‘It was him! Look at him!’

‘Enough!’ the teacher shouted. ‘Straight to the principal! Both of you!’

The teachers pushed them by the shoulders, and I saw Rigel letting himself be escorted away, utterly compliant. He turned his face and casually spat into a water fountain, while the other boy hobbled behind him in the teacher’s grasp.

‘And the rest of you, get out!’ they screamed. ‘And put those phones away! O’Connor, you’ll be expelled if you don’t get out of here this instant! You lot too, go on! There’s nothing to see here!’

The students shuffled off, listlessly dispersing towards the exits. The rabble quickly thinned out, but I stayed put, feeling soft and vulnerable, the shadow of him still in my eyes, relentlessly punching, punching, punching…

‘Nica!’

Billie ran up, dragging Miki by her backpack strap behind her.

‘Heavens, you scared me! Are you all right?’ She looked at me with wide, distressed eyes. ‘I can’t believe it, your brother!’

I felt a strange shudder. I stared at her speechless and dismayed, almost as if she’d slapped me. Bewildered, I realised that she was referring to Rigel.

Of course…Billie didn’t know. She wasn’t aware that we had different surnames, she only knew what the principal had told her. Basically, from her perspective, we were from the same family, but the way she referred to him felt like nails scraping down a blackboard.

‘He…he’s not…’

‘You should go to reception,’ she interrupted me, agitated. ‘To wait for him! Heavens, a fight with Phelps on your first day…he’ll be in a bad way!’

I was pretty sure it wasn’t Rigel who would be in a bad way. I thought of the other boy’s swollen face when they had torn Rigel’s fists off him.

But Billie pushed me forward anxiously. ‘Let’s go!’ And they both came with me to the school entrance. I found myself wringing my hands. How could I pretend to be just a little worried, when I was completely disturbed by what I’d just witnessed? I remembered the rage in his eyes with glaring clarity. The situation was absurd.

Raised voices were coming through the door.

The boy who was being accused was shouting like a madman, trying to make his own side heard, and the teacher was shouting even louder than him. There was a hysterical exasperation in Phelps’s voice, probably because he had got into yet another fight. But what caught my attention most was the shocked, incredulous way that the principal was speaking to Rigel. He was so well behaved, so perfect, he wasn’t the sort to do this kind of thing. He would never have started anything ‘as serious as this’. The other boy protested even louder, swearing he didn’t do anything to provoke him, but Rigel’s silent indifference screamed innocence.

After half an hour, the door opened, and Phelps came out into the corridor.

His lip was split and his face was blotchy. He glanced at me distractedly, taking no notice, but the next moment he turned back, as if he’d suddenly just realised who I was. I didn’t have time to interpret his distressed expression before the teacher dragged him away.

‘I think they’ll expel him this time,’ Billie murmured as he disappeared at the end of the corridor.

‘About time,’ Miki retorted. ‘After the incident with those freshman girls he should have been thrown in a pigsty.’

The door handle turned again.

Billie and Miki fell quiet as Rigel came through the door. His veins were bulging in his wrists and his presence was so magnetic that everyone fell silent. Everything about him made him difficult to ignore.

It was only then that he noticed us.

Well, no. Not us.

‘What are you doing here?’

The surprise in his voice didn’t escape me. I felt him looking at me and realised I didn’t know how to reply. I didn’t even know what I was doing there, waiting for him as if I genuinely was worried about him.

Rigel had told me to stay away from him, had snarled it at such close range that I could still feel his voice echoing in my head.

‘Nica wanted to make sure you were all right,’ Billie intervened, drawing attention to herself. She gave a crazy smile and lifted a hand. ‘Hi…’

He didn’t reply, and Billie seemed intimidated. Her cheeks reddened, embarrassed by the raw magnetism of his black eyes.

And Rigel noticed. Oh, he noticed all right.

He knew full well how attractive his mask was, how well he wore it, the reaction it sparked in others. He flaunted it arrogantly and provocatively. It gave him a sinister charm, a seductive, devious and one-of-a-kind appeal.

He sneered, bewitching and mean. It almost seemed as if Billie shrivelled.

‘You wanted to…make sure,’ he mocked, looking me up and down, ‘that I was…all right?’

‘Nica, won’t you introduce us to your brother?’ Billie chirped, and I looked away.

‘We’re not related.’ The words burst out of me, almost as if someone else had said them. ‘Me and Rigel are getting adopted.’

Billie and Miki turned to look at me, and I firmly, courageously held his gaze.

‘He’s not my brother.’

He was staring back at me with a thin smile, darkly amused by my efforts.

‘Oh, don’t put it like that Nica,’ he said sarcastically. ‘You sound like you’re relieved.’

I am, my eyes flashed at him, and Rigel looked down at me, scalding me with his dark irises.

Suddenly, someone’s phone started vibrating. Billie took hers out of her pocket and stared at the screen.

‘We’ve got to go, my grandma’s waiting for us outside. She’s already tried calling me…’

She looked up at me and I nodded.

‘So…see you tomorrow?’

She smiled at me, and I tried to do the same, but I could still feel Rigel’s eyes on me. It was only then that I realised Miki was staring at him from under the shadow of her hood. Her worried, attentive eyes were scrutinising him.

Then she turned around too, and they both headed off down the corridor.

When we were alone, his voice slid slowly and sinuously, like fingers over silk. ‘You’re right about one thing.’

I lowered my chin and dared a glance up at him.

He was staring at where the others had disappeared, but he wasn’t smiling any more. He turned his gaze on me, a hail of bullets.

I could have sworn that I felt his eyes drilling into my skin.

‘I am not your brother.’

—

That day, I decided to erase Rigel, his words and his violent glare, from my mind. I distracted myself by reading late into the night. The lamp on my nightstand emitted a soft and comforting light that drove my worries away.

Anna had been amazed when I asked if I could borrow their beautifully illustrated encyclopaedia. She had been surprised that I was interested, but I was fascinated by it.

As my eyes ran over the illustrations of the little antennae and the crystal-clear wings, I realised how much I liked to get lost in that bright, colourful world.

I knew other people thought it was unusual.

I knew I was different.

I cultivated my strangeness like a secret garden that only I had the keys to, because I knew that most people couldn’t understand me.

I traced the rounded shape of a ladybug with my index finger. I remembered how many wishes I had made as a little girl, watching them fly away from my open palms. I would watch them flying free in the sky, and found myself hopelessly wishing that I could do the same, that I could burst into a cloud of sparkles and fly away from The Grave…

A noise caught my attention. I turned towards the door. I thought that perhaps I had imagined it, but then I heard it again. It sounded like something scratching wood.

I carefully closed the encyclopaedia and got out from under the covers. I slowly walked towards the door, then turned the handle and stuck my head outside. I saw something moving in the darkness. A shadow was flitting on the ground, quickly and stealthily. It seemed to pause and wait for me, watching for what I would do. It disappeared down the stairs, and I gave in to my curiosity and followed it.

I thought I had glimpsed a fluffy tail, but I hadn’t been quick enough. I found myself on the ground floor, silent, totally alone and unable to see it anywhere. I sighed, ready to head back upstairs, but then I noticed that the light in the kitchen was on.

Was Anna still up? I approached to check, but soon wished I hadn’t. When I pushed the door open, I encountered a pair of eyes already fixed on mine.

Rigel’s.

It was him, sitting there. His elbows were perched on the table and his head was slightly lowered. His hair fell in long, precise brushstrokes over his eyes. He was holding something in his hands. It was ice, I realised, a few moments later.

Finding him there stopped me in my tracks.

I had to get used to this, to the constant possibility of running into him. We weren’t at The Grave any more, there wasn’t as much space as in the institute. This was a small house and we were living in it together.

And yet, the idea of getting used to him seemed impossible.

‘You shouldn’t be awake.’

His voice, amplified by the silence, sent a long shiver down my spine.

We were only seventeen, but there was something strange about him, something that was difficult to explain. A merciless beauty and a mind that could captivate anyone. It was absurd. Everyone made the mistake of letting themselves be manipulated by him. He was born for this – for bending people to his will. He scared me, because he wasn’t like other kids our age.

For a moment, I tried to imagine what he would be like as an adult, and before my eyes appeared a terrible, corrosively alluring man with eyes darker than the night…

‘Enjoying the view?’ he asked sarcastically, pressing the ice onto the bruise on his forehead. He seemed relaxed now, but with that air of absolute control that always made me want to run away.

Before I could come to my senses and get away from him, I opened my mouth to speak.

‘Why?’

Rigel raised an eyebrow. ‘Why what?’

‘Why did you let them choose you?’

His eyes stayed fixed on mine.

‘You think it was my decision?’ he asked slowly, watching me closely.

‘Yes,’ I replied cautiously. ‘You made it happen…You played the piano.’

His eyes burned with an almost annoying intensity, and I said, ‘You, you’ve always been the one that everyone wanted, but you never let anyone adopt you.’

Few families ever came to The Grave. They would look at the children, studying them like butterflies in a display case. The little ones were always cuter, more colourful, and more worthy of attention. But then they would see him, with his clean face and polite manners, and they would seem to forget all the others. They would watch this black butterfly, enchanted by the rare cut of his eyes, his beautiful velvety wings, how elegantly he flew above the others.

Rigel was unmatched, the prize of the collection. He wasn’t dull like the other orphans, but he cloaked himself in their greyness to make himself seem all the more enchanting.

And yet, every time someone expressed the desire to adopt him, he had seemed to do everything within his power to ruin it all. He would cause some disaster, disappear, misbehave. And eventually people would leave, unaware of the magic his hands could conjure on the perfect ivory teeth of the piano.

But that day had been different. He had played the piano. He had sought attention rather than spurned it.

Why?

‘You’d better get off to bed, little moth,’ he said coolly and derisively. ‘Tiredness is playing tricks on you.’

That’s what he did…He bit me with his words. He always did.

He would tease me and provoke me, then crush me with a smile, until I was full of doubt and unsure about everything.

I should have despised him. Despised his personality, his appearance, how he ruined everything. I should have, and yet…some part of me just couldn’t do it.

Because Rigel and I had grown up together. We had spent our lives behind the bars of the same prison. I’d known him since he was a little boy, and I’d seen him so many times that some part of my soul couldn’t be as coolly detached as I’d have liked. I was used to him, in a strange way. You sympathise with someone you’ve shared something with for so long.

I had never been good at hating. Not even when I had good reason for it.

Maybe, despite everything, I still hoped that this new life could be the fairy tale I so yearned for…

‘What happened with that boy today?’ I asked. ‘Why were you fighting?’

Rigel slowly tilted his head to one side, maybe wondering why I hadn’t left yet. I got the impression that he was weighing me up.

‘Differences of opinion. Nothing to do with you.’

He stared at me, urging me to leave, but I didn’t.

I didn’t want to.

For the first time ever…I wanted to take a step forward instead of back. To make him understand that, despite everything, I wanted us to move forward. To try. And when he pressed the ice to his forehead, so hard it must have hurt, I heard the memory of a distant voice inside me.

‘Tenderness, Nica. Tenderness, always…Remember that,’ the voice said softly.

I felt my legs carry me forward.

Rigel stared at me as I finally stepped into the kitchen. I went up to the sink, took a piece of paper towel and dampened it with cold water. I could feel his eyes drilling into my back.

Then I stepped towards him and looked at him candidly. I held out the paper towel.

‘The ice is too hard. Put this on the wound.’

He seemed almost surprised that I hadn’t run away. He examined the paper towel, unconvinced, as wary as a wild animal. When he didn’t take it, filled with a sudden compassion, I moved to put it on his forehead.

Before I managed to get close, his eyes opened wide and he jerked away. A lock of his jet-black hair fell over his forehead as he glowered at me.

‘Don’t,’ he warned me with a threatening look. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’

‘It won’t hurt…’ I shook my head and stretched my hand out further, but this time he pushed me away. I brought my hand to my chest and met his eyes with a jolt. He was glaring daggers at me, fury pulsing icily from his eyes.

‘Don’t just touch me like that – ever.’

I clenched my fists and held his punishing gaze. ‘Or what?’

A violent bang from the chair.

Rigel was abruptly towering over me, and I jumped, taken unawares. I made myself step backwards, a thousand alarm bells blaring under my skin. I tripped and knocked into the kitchen cupboard. I lifted my chin, my shaking hands gripping the marble countertop.

I felt his eyes pelting me like stones. The closeness of his body made me shudder. I was hardly breathing. I was utterly engulfed by his shadow.

Then…Rigel bent over me. He stooped his head closer, and his breath burned like venom in my ear.

‘Or…I won’t be able to stop myself.’

My hair fluttered as he shoved me out of the way.

I heard the thud of ice on the table and his footsteps disappearing as he left me there, immobile, petrified against the marble.

What had just happened?