All That She Can See(62)

Peter had been kept in solitary confinement for most of his time in the Guild so it turned out that he didn’t know what the rest of it looked like outside the section he’d been kept in. He didn’t even know how big the Guild was. What he did know was that it was in Cornwall, somewhere called Warleggan, and that it was all underground.

‘I was planning on finding part-time jobs here and there, and working my way up the country and then flying abroad. I didn’t bargain on finding you on my first stop,’ he said while he mapped out what he knew of the Guild with charcoal on the floorboards.

‘You mean, you had no idea I was here?’ Cherry asked, kneeling next to him to look at his work.

‘Nope. There’s no way I could’ve known, is there?’

‘Wow. If anything’s going to make you believe in fate it’s something like that, eh?’

‘I guess. Now, Happy is the worst,’ Peter said, getting back to the matter at hand. He drew a smiley face on the floor.

‘What about Grumpy?’ Cherry smirked.

‘Who’s that?’ Peter asked. ‘I’ve not met them.’ He scratched his head.

‘No it’s… come on! Snow White?’

‘Who’s she?’ Peter asked.

‘Forget it. Remind me later to make you watch that movie. OK, so Happy is the worst. Who else?’

‘For the most part, no one else will be too concerned with you but you’ll definitely be on Lonely’s radar because that Meddlum has been buzzing around you like a fly since we were kids.’ Peter pointed towards the thumping sound coming from the patio doors. Loneliness was sat with his back against them and was banging his head over and over.

‘Happy and Lonely. Got it.’

‘Conveniently, everyone who works for the Guild wears specific colours, depending on their roles. The white lab coats are, obviously, the doctors. They carry out all the experiments. Most are completely brainwashed but a few of them only pretend to have had treatments. If you can find one of the normal ones, you might be able to get them on your side.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘There was a nurse,’ Peter said softly. ‘She was kind to me. She never carried out the treatments on me when she was supposed to. She’d turn the machine on without me connected to it and I’d scream for a while so no one got suspicious, and then we’d just talk. She helped me. She stayed at the Guild so she could help people like me.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Cherry nudged Peter’s arm and his face flickered for a moment, like his heart was remembering something, something that made him look like he’d missed the bottom step in a flight of stairs and fallen further than he thought. And as quickly as it was there, it was gone again.

‘The blue suits are the guards and the henchmen,’ Peter went on and Cherry didn’t probe him any further. ‘They do all the heavy lifting and all the dirty work but it’s everyone in yellow you really need to watch out for. They’re the Feelers. It’s their job to watch everyone. You sneeze, you wipe your arse, you dump your feelings in someone else’s cake, they’ll know about it.’

‘Yes,’ Cherry said, ‘I’m starting to realise exactly how much Feelers can see.’

‘If you don’t get caught, you probably won’t see any of the Gelders,’ Peter said.

‘Gelders?’

‘The Guild Elders. They’re the ones in charge.’

Cherry blew out her cheeks in frustration.

‘What’s wrong?’ Peter asked.

‘It’s just all a bit… mad, isn’t it? White coats. Blue suits. Feelers in yellow. And now bloody Gelders. It’s a lot to get my head around.’

‘Things do go mad when you’ve got a bunch of people who want to control something as uncontrollable as feelings. They’re never going to get that control because it’s impossible. The more they try, the madder it gets, and they fail all over again. What started out as a quest for knowledge about something potentially incredible and life-changing and good has turned into a lust for power fed by the fear of something they can’t understand. For people like my mother, that cycle will never end and so it just keeps going on and on and on.’

Cherry let Peter’s words sink in. This was so much bigger than she’d anticipated. ‘Something potentially incredible?’ she asked. ‘Do you like seeing Meddlums?’

‘I did, before they put these lenses on me. You can pinpoint exactly how someone’s feeling without even talking to them, without knowing a single thing about them. Then imagine the possibilities once you do get to know them. You could unravel their most complex issues and thoughts within minutes.’

‘You sound like you’d make an excellent therapist,’ Cherry said.

‘That’s the plan. These lenses might mean I don’t see Meddlums anymore but I still want to help people. Like you do.’

‘Just be careful it doesn’t backfire on you like it did for me.’

‘You could always… come with me?’ Peter neatened the outline of the smiley face with his finger, avoiding her gaze.

‘What do you mean?’ Cherry asked, also avoiding his gaze.

‘It’s easier to hide from the Guild when you know they’re watching. We could change our names, dye our hair, keep moving around so they can’t find us…’