 
Freaking Freak

Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children's books by Jon Jacks

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things – The Last Train

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess

Text copyright© 2014 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

Text copyright© 2014 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Thank you for your support.

'The finest gloves, the softest leather;

a second skin – a most _sensuous_ experience.'

_NonPareil_ _Haute Couture._ A _veritable_ delight for the senses

*

# Chapter 1

So – I've finally plucked up the courage to come here, to stand here; right on the very edge of the bridge.

Where it only takes one slip and–

Well, that's what I'm here for though, isn't it?

Wondering if I should put an end to this unbearable sense of emptiness.

This sense that I'm just a shell. That the person I used to be has been carved out and simply tossed away.

So, the question is – should I jump or not?

*

Just looking down makes me feel all creepy and queasy.

It's only when you're at the very edge, staring down towards the rocks and river far below, that you realise just how high the bridge is.

There's a part of me screaming that I should step back away from the edge – another part screaming even louder that I should go ahead, get it over with. Even if it's just by letting myself slowly tip forward, rather than madly leaping out into space.

Didn't I read somewhere that it's a common sensation, this urge to step out into empty air whenever you're standing on the edge of a high drop? That's why we always feel a little dizzy, a little bit frightened.

What's nature playing at, giving us an instinct like that?

Like there's a little bit of lemming in every one of us.

Glancing down at the rocks beneath me, it's crazy, I know, but I can't help thinking – is it all over quickly, in an instant, like all the lights suddenly going out? Or is it all agonisingly slow? You know, time slowing down for you, and all that sort of thing?

That doesn't sound good at all, does it?

Perhaps I haven't exactly chosen the best way to die. Not that, I suppose, there really is a _best_ way.

For another thing, my body's going to look one heck of a mess, don't you think?

Laid out in my coffin with the lid closed. Otherwise they'll be handing round the sick bags in the church.

Not exactly Snow White, is it? You know, with all the distraught, weeping dwarves surrounding her in her beautiful glass coffin.

And all I'd be doing is leaving the ground open for some other girl to move in on Jase.

I mean, it isn't as if I've even _really_ tried to win him back yet, have I?

This new girl, this Fiona, it's probably all just an infatuation. One Jase will soon grow out of.

So maybe I should jus–

'Jump, damn you! Jump!' someone suddenly screams.

And it makes me jump.

*

# Chapter 2

Not that I'd _intended_ – not at _this_ point, anyway – to jump.

Originally, I'd just 'jumped' in the way you're startled by someone screaming at you.

I started to turn around, to see who's shouting at me. And what do you know? – it's Fiona. Fiona, the stealer of my beloved Jase.

Even when angry, with her face contorted in fury, I've got to admit she somehow still manages to look beautiful. All that thick, flowing, incredibly witch-black hair – it always helps, doesn't it?

But the way I'd jumped, combined with the sudden whirling around – all on the edge of a dangerous fall? It's not advisable, is it?

One of my feet slips on a mix of loose pebbles and dried soil. The foot shoots out into empty air.

I try to regain my balance. Try to support all my weight on the leg still standing on solid ground.

It doesn't work.

I flail out with my arms, reaching out in the hope of finding something, anything, I can grab hold of.

Nothing.

There's nothing within reach that I can grasp to stop myself toppling backwards.

Backwards over the edge of the precipitous drop of Kingstown Bridge.

I'm falling.

Falling towards the rocks lying far below.

*

I'm taking all this surprisingly calmly, you might think.

That's because, somehow, strangely, I can't believe this is _really_ happening.

You know; like when something really terrible's happening to you, but thankfully there's a part of you telling you, Hey, don't worry – it's all so crazy, it just _has_ to be a dream! Hasn't it?

In a while, you'll wake up, thinking, Wow, what a nightmare _that_ was!

Unfortunately, there's another part of me that's absolutely _petrified_. The part that knows this really _is_ happening.

Fortunately, before this part of me can kick in, I pass out.

*

# Chapter 3

As I begin to come round, I groan in agony.

_Everywhere_ hurts!

My head. My arms. My body. My legs. My intestines. My lungs.

Wow, you have _no_ idea what pain is until you jump off Kingstown Bridge!

And, weirdest thing is, it's not just the sort of _totally_ agonising pain you'd expect after hitting the ground hard after a long fall. There are God knows how many sharper points of pain; like someone who _really_ hates me is going to work on me with a heated needle.

Even weirder, it feels like my skin is being stretched, pulled. Like some other person in serious need of care is having a rare old time treating my skin as if it's a piece of exquisite cloth. And she's decided to transform it all into a magical dress for Cinderella.

I force my eyes to flicker open. Everything's blurred. Yet the light is still painfully bright.

I hurriedly shut my eyes again.

I'm still dazed, but I'm beginning to sense a hurried, urgent movement going on around me.

I can feel the air move as people draw close, move aside, retreat. As they move towards me, I can feel hands grasping and lifting my arms. Or twisting a leg. Or pressing and tugging hard on my chest, my hips, my ribs.

It's not a tender care, either. It's rushed, almost panicked. And at times quite brutal.

There's also a buzz of voices, with not even a word of it making any sense to me. Almost as if the surgeons and nurses are deliberately conversing in some alien language, so as not to alarm me.

Because, sure, I get it now.

I'm being _operated_ on.

I'm being _saved_.

I _survived_.

I survived falling off Kingstown Bridge!

But...in just what sort of condition am I going to be in?

*

Just _what_ am I doing here?

I...I really really _don't_ know.

Sure, I've taken it bad, all this being dumped thing.

And suddenly, I just feel like I'm nothing special after all. Like I'm a nobody.

But...to think of _ending_ it all?

That's _crazy_ , isn't it?

I mean, it's not as if it's _really_ the end of the world, is it?

A boy breaking up with me.

A boy I never even knew until just a few weeks back.

It's not as if I still haven't got so much to live for, after all.

Sure my mum and dad aren't exactly the most attentive parents around. And my friends have all deserted me.

(Well, since Jackie turned up, anyway.)

But my looks; I've still got my looks. Haven't I?

I mean, hospitals these days; they can perform miracles, can't they?

And I'll look even better in a few years, when Mum and Dad finally get around to letting me have a bit more work tidying up my chin.

Sure, they say I'm not ready for it, that I should put it off, 'until you feel more comfortable about yourself.'

This from parents who could regularly fly out to the Caribbean and back if their plastic surgeons and trichologists handed out air miles.

Okay, so I admit they've allowed me to have a _little_ bit of help too. Just the _tiniest_ tweaking of the nose. A fifteenth birthday present from Mum.

But just who _doesn't_ have that sort of enhancement these days?

So look – just get _over_ it, girl!

It's happened to other girls before.

It'll happen to other girls again too.

It's not even like I am just some _other_ girl, is it?

I'm Jill Paxton, one of the most beautiful girls in school. One that any other boy would give anything to go out with.

And as for Jase? Is he _really_ so great?

Jason Withers, the boy who...who...

Who used to hold me closely in his arms.

Who used to gently kiss me on my neck. The edges of my chin. My cheek – then, at last, finally move towards my lips.

Who used to tell me how wonderful I was. How he couldn't live without me.

Oh, it's no good!

I can't think of _anything_ bad about him! No matter how _hard_ I try!

He's beautiful! Gorgeous!

He has hair a Californian surfer would give up his last surfboard for.

The kind of body I've only ever seen before in illustrations of young, Greek gods.

A smile that either instantly melts your heart. Or reminds you you really should be visiting your dentist more often.

In fact, there's only _one_ thing bad about Jase Withers.

He broke up with me.

*

Dragging my eyes open once again is much more difficult than I'd imagined it would be. I slightly twist my head, briefly look about me.

Boy, am _I_ pumped up to bursting point with drugs!

Either that, or I'm being treated in Freaksville Hospital's emergency department.

To call these guys elves or goblins would be too kind to them. They're full blown _freaks_! Dr Frankenstein's earlier, less successful efforts; all pieced together from bits and pieces of the human equivalent of a reclamation yard. Just as an extra, whimsical touch, he's even thrown in a few animal parts too.

The way they work, it's more like they're patching up a boat rather than repairing a body; all meat hooks, saws and huge darning needles, rather than the delicate finesse of expertly wielded surgical tools. The strands they're sewing me up with are as thick as rope, as lively as snakes, writhing in protest as they're violently threaded into my skin.

And whaddya know, in my spaced-out haze I even get to kid myself I can see them bringing out the reclaimed body parts. They're passing what looks like severed limbs through what could be an old fashioned washing mangle.

'How's she coming along?' a voice I can actually understand asks concernedly.

Jase leans over me.

He smiles.

He backs away.

'Good, good,' he says in reply to some garbled comment. 'She's far too useful to go to waste!'

Yeah, as I suspected; I'm like _totally_ drugged up to the eyeballs, aren't I?

*

# Chapter 4

What an _idiot_!

What a stupid thing to do!

Just how on earth was trying to kill myself going to solve anything?

Wait; I _had_ tried to walk away from the bridge edge, hadn't I?

I'd already worked out that killing myself was just going to leave Jase in Fiona's arms and–

_Fiona_!

She was there, at the bridge – wasn't she?

Or – am I just imagining it?

I'm still too dazed, too confused, to be sure.

Did she push me?

No, I don't think she did. Not _physically_ , anyway. But mentally?

Sure, she'd pushed me towards Kingstown Bridge, because she'd so effortlessly taken Jase off me.

But...but...am I _really_ so weak, so _pathetic_ , that I'd want to commit suicide over that?

No, no; it was the _gloves_!

Somehow, I'm sure, it was those damned, amazing _gloves_ that had made me do it!

*

I'd never seen gloves like these before.

Never felt leather that was so soft, so supple, so cool to the touch.

Even just holding them in my hand, I sensed that they were special, unique.

'Oh my gawd; they must've cost a fortune,' I breathed excitedly to Jacqueline.

'They probably did,' Jackie agreed surprisingly calmly. 'They were my grandma's; she was a famous actress. Well, a Hollywood starlet, anyway; Helen "Hezzy" Heston. Back in the heydays of the movie business.'

'Your grandma's?' I tried to keep the scepticism out of my voice. 'They look like they were only made _yesterday_.'

It was true, not an exaggeration.

Despite the leather being _ridiculously_ , _impractically_ thin, there was absolutely no sign of wear that I could see.

I mean, if anyone had worn gloves this thin regularly, the fingertips at the very least would have been worn down to a ghostly transparency. Or, more likely still, ragged holes.

All the stitching was also remarkably intact. There wasn't a single loose thread, despite the stitching being the finest, most delicate I had ever seen. The seams were almost invisible.

The leather itself was still perfectly white, and hardly creased, as if the gloves had been kept in their case since the day they'd been purchased. Works of art to be admired but never worn.

'Well, like me, I think Gran sorta _dabbled_ ,' Jackie said, attempting to explain the gloves' remarkable condition. 'You know, in spells, witchcraft. That kinda thing.'

I couldn't help raising an eyebrow in disbelief, but held back any temptation to scoff. Jackie takes her _dabbling_ seriously, appreciating the air of mystery it gives her.

No one believes she's got any _real_ powers, of course. Even so, just to be on the safe side, even the very worst girls at school leave her alone with a dismissive, 'Ahh, forget it – she's not even worth bothering with, is she?'

Besides, there was another reason why I didn't laugh.

I was intrigued.

I wanted what she was saying to be true.

I _wanted_ the gloves to be somehow magical. It seemed fitting, natural, that such an amazingly beautiful pair of gloves possessed otherworld qualities.

I slipped the glove onto my hands.

They were long gloves. Just pulling them on, smoothing them up my arms, flexing my fingers so they eased into the gloves' deliciously soft, surprisingly warm embrace, was a delightfully sensuous experience in its own right.

Admiring them on my hands, I immediately felt more sophisticated, refined – and so _incredibly_ beautiful, as if all the beauty and agelessness of the gloves were somehow being transferred to me.

All this from a pair of gloves?

Haven't you got one of those dresses that, almost magically, just makes you feel so much better about yourself? You know; it flatters you, makes the most of your best features, somehow hides or pulls in the worst bits?

Suddenly, voila – you're Jennifer Lawrence on the red carpet, or maybe even Holly Golightly in _Breakfast at Tiffany's_. (Well, that's _my_ idea of sophistication, anyway.)

And these gloves; well, let's face it, they're something beyond, something superior, to even that magical little dress.

I didn't have to admire myself in a mirror, to preen and prance and pose, to just _know_ that I was wildly, impossibly gorgeous.

My whole body was screaming out to me that I was a goddess! That I was desirable. Seductive. _Irresistible_!

I ran my gloved hands lightly across my cheeks. Passed them delicately across my lips, my chin. I crossed my arms as I caressed my neck, lifting my head high as I did so.

My hands ran tenderly across my shoulders, my breastbones, my breasts.

They dropped lower, embracing my waist, spreading as they took in the rising of my hips.

I gasped, moaned with surprise and delight, as if they were a lover's hands, not mine. Hands exploring and appreciating the indents, the curves, the areas of suppleness, of malleability, of hardness. Yet they _were_ also my hands, my fingers. Hands sensing my lover's – _lovers'!_ – bodies.

I felt as if I had been kissed thousands of times, in a thousand places. As if I had also kissed a thousand times, exploring and experiencing so many sensations with my own mouth, my own lips, my tongue.

It was every experience of a young, exuberant Hollywood starlet. Experiences that had somehow been retained within the gloves. Experiences that I was now reliving, all for myself.

Impossible?

Of course it is.

I knew that.

But I also, suddenly, knew things that no girl my age would normally know.

*

# Chapter 5

I wake up again.

I blink. The light shining into my eyes is bright and slightly painful.

I look about me, wondering if the operation's over. I can't hear any of the excitable sounds that had surrounded me earlier.

There isn't anyone there.

There isn't any operating theatre either.

I'm lying surprisingly comfortably between two large rocks.

And, looking up, I realise I'm lying amongst the rocks at the base of Kingstown Bridge.

*

So all that weird operation was – what?

A bizarre dream?

A delusion, caused by the fall?

I tentatively glance down across my body – being careful not to move my head too much, in case my back's broken – dreading what I'm going to see.

I can't feel any pain. And, strangely, my body, at first glance, _looks_ okay.

I move an arm. It moves as I want it to move. It doesn't even ache, not even slightly.

When I bring my hand and forearm up to my eyes, I'm amazed to see that it isn't cut or grazed. There isn't any sign of bruising either. There isn't any sign of _any_ damage that I can see.

My other arm's exactly the same; it moves easily. There isn't any obvious injury. I can feel my legs rise and lower, see them come into the lower edges of my view.

When I raise my head, I'm still expecting a sharp surge of pain, a warning that my back had taken all the impact of the fall – but once again, there's nothing. No pain, no strain on my movement.

I push myself up onto my feet.

I dust myself down.

That's it; that's all I'd suffered from the fall. A light smattering of dust covering parts of my clothes.

There aren't any rips in my clothes. They're just a little creased. Mainly, it seemed, from the awkward way I'd been lying between the rocks.

I glance back at the looming Kingstown Bridge, looking up towards the road where I'd fallen from.

How could I survive a fall like that?

Had I simply imagined it all?

Had I just come down here for a sleep, and dreamt absolutely everything?

*

# Chapter 6

No, I _hadn't_ just gone to sleep down there in King's River valley.

I realised that when, after struggling my way up through a tangle of bushes and brambles, and slipping back a number of times on loose shale, I emerged from the valley with more bruises, cuts and tears in my clothes than I'd suffered from the fall.

There was _no_ way I would have made my way through this miniature jungle just to have a nap between two large, uncomfortable rocks.

No way that I was _that_ mad.

Mad enough to think of jumping off Kingstown Bridge? – Maybe, what with the way Jase has been treating me lately.

Mad enough to fight my way through brambles and tear myself to shreds so that I'd look a complete mess when I got to school? – No siree!

I shouldn't complain, I suppose, seeing as how, by rights, by any understanding of how physics works – namely, when you drop something off a high bridge, it isn't going to come out of it very well, is it? – I should be at best a mangled, barely-alive mess. But know what? – I _am_ complaining, because I'm suffering the nearest equivalent to death by a thousand cuts!

'Jill! What...what are _you_ doing here?'

Jackie says it like she'd be less surprised to see her Grandma Hezzy walking towards her. She's all gawping mouth and wide, disbelieving eyes. Then again, I _do_ look a _complete_ mess.

'Same as you Jackie,' I reply miserably. 'Turning up late for school. What are _you_ doing here, come to that?'

'I...I hadn't seen you, so I'd sorta hung around, waiting for you.'

Her mouth's still hanging wide, like she can't work out how I could have possibly ended up looking like I've had an argument with a bear.

'You know; on account of how you haven't been yourself lately?' she continues. 'I was worried for you.'

Yeah, you and absolutely no one else it seems, Jackie, I want to say to her.

No one else is hanging around outside the school gates, worried for me, wondering why I hadn't turned up twenty minutes before the bell goes, like I normally do.

Obviously, all my so called friends hadn't really cottoned on to the fact that I was really really _really_ depressed that Jase had fallen out with me!

Well, all of them apart from Jackie, of course.

(Course, my ex-friends would point out that Jackie's the reason they haven't been hanging out with me. 'You don't call on _us_ anymore, remember Jill?' Cath would remind me, as she does every time I've complained that they're all avoiding me.)

'What _happened_ to you?' Jackie asks, looking me up and down, taking in the dishevelled hair, the cuts, the ripped clothes.

'Don't ask,' I grumble. 'Let's just say, don't _ever_ take a short cut through the brambles in King's River valley.'

'King's River valley? What on earth would you be doing down there?'

'Oh, I sort of, you know – fell into it.'

_'Fell_ into it? How do you _fall_ into King's River valley?'

Damn! Just great! Now I've gone and made myself sound like I can't even keep steady on my feet. As if it's all just an everyday occurrence for me to go tumbling into a valley full of brambles.

'I mean, I didn't fall, so much as – well, it was _Fiona_ , if you _must_ know!' I blurt out defensively.

'Fiona? Fiona _pushed_ you into the valley?'

Jackie's appalled, her mouth once again gaping in shock.

'Why would she do that?' Jackie adds suspiciously. 'I mean, no offence and all that Jill – but she, well, let's face it, she...'

'Spit it out, Jackie!' I say resignedly, even though I've got a good idea where this is going.

'Well, sorry Jill, but you know – I could understand if _you_ pushed _Fiona_ into the brambles, but...'

'But Fiona's already humiliated me enough, right?'

Jackie at least has the decency to look embarrassed for pointing out this undisputable fact. Then again, it's not really _that_ easy to tell how she's feeling from her facial expressions, seeing as how she's plastered it with white and purple makeup, like she's been in permanent mourning since around eighteen hundred and eighty.

'Sorry, Jill, but...well, that _is_ true isn't it?'

'So you don't believe that Fiona made me fall into King's River valley?'

'I was, well, just _asking_ , that's all.' She makes an attempt at a conciliatory smile. 'Look, do you want to head to the toilets and start cleaning yourself up a bit while I head on to class and make an excuse for us both?'

'Such as?'

'Such as we _both_ fell into King's River valley? And you got the worst of it helping me out?'

She gives me another weak smile as I glance down disapprovingly at Jackie's long black dress.

'They might want to know how you've come out of a row of brambles without a single tear to your dress.'

'You're right!' Jackie agrees, bending and taking a handful of pleats in her hands in readiness to rip the material apart.

'No, no, don't be silly Jackie!'

I quickly place my hands on hers, just in time to stop her pulling them apart and tearing her dress.

Her dress is all black and layers of frills and lace, just one of a whole wardrobe of similar dresses she's bought from junk and second-hand shops.

Does any of it come anywhere near what school rules allow?

No way.

Rumour has it, her parents have informed our headmistress that Jackie's a manic depressive. Stopping her from dressing how she wants might tip her over the edge _again_.

Me, I've got my own theory on why Miss Hedges lets Jackie get away with it.

I reckon Jackie lets Miss try on the gloves every now and again. That would account for how sour-faced Miss Hedges no longer stalks the corridors looking like she's always snacking on lemons. Now, rather, she floats around with the blissful smile of someone in the very first stages of a glorious love affair.

Yeah, _that's_ what the gloves can do for you, as unbelievable as it sounds.

'Thanks,' I say to Jackie as she lets the folds of her dress go and looks up at me. 'Thanks for trying to make sure I don't enter class looking like a complete freak.'

Jackie grins, a grin that once again looks odd on her mournful face.

'Hey, no problem,' she says. 'I mean, it's not as if I want you taking over _my_ role as class freak, right?'

*

# Chapter 7

Yeah, today, I _am_ running pretty close to looking even freakier than Jackie.

Even her hair – frizzed up and tangled like it's been like that eons before anyone came up with the idea of conditioners – has nothing on the way mine looks at the moment.

It's almost impossible to run my fingers through it. A comb just becomes some dainty, colourful decoration stuck amongst the maze of intertwined strands.

Great, huh?

Looking at myself in the bathroom mirror, I could cry; and I mean like _really_ cry!

Is this what I've become?

Some pathetic, suicidal freak, who looks like she's been modelling herself on every ugly Goth she's seen.

I'm even tempted to head on home, but I've had enough humiliation for today, thank you very much.

Who would I catch coming out of the bedroom, demanding to know what I'm doing home from school so early?

Mum again, trying to make out her pilates coach is just there to help her practise her breathing exercises?

Or Dad and whoever his Personal Assistant happens to be at the moment, someone who's bound to be not much older than I am? (As the delicately divine little Miss we-could-be-friends-maybe-even-like-sisters Flowers always points out.)

Thing is, would little Miss Flowers think Dad was 'really quite dashing' if she'd seen him before his last and most successful hair transplant? Or, for that matter, would Enrique continue to see Mum as 'all woman' if he realised just how much of her is nothing but surgical enhancements?

Anyway, fine welcome I'd get.

Nope, no matter how terrible I look, I'm going to have to attend class.

*

As soon as I turn up in class, I recognise the kind of looks I'm getting; pitying at best, barely controlled sniggering at just about the worst.

I say 'just about the worst' because the worst is undoubtedly the disbelieving stare I'm getting from Jase.

Like he really can't work out how I've managed to sink so low in just a matter of days.

Like he really really really can't fathom how he ever thought I was attractive enough for him to go out with.

Cath even briefly glances up from hypnotically staring at her mobile's screen. That's a rare enough occurrence at the best of times, but even more so when she's trying to call up the last few pages before she's told to put the phone away as class starts.

Her eyes widen in surprise as she sees me, a look that says she wishes she hadn't looked up after all. Like she's wondering just what the heck is happening to the girl she used to call her best friend, her 'soul girl'.

As I sit down next to Jackie, I think I pick up another kind of look from Jase.

One that says, 'Well, if you're gonna hang out with a freak, you're gonna end up looking like one, aren't you?'

*

The day Jackie had first arrived in class, she'd received more or less the very same kind of looks from the rest of the class that I'm suffering.

Pity. Barely hidden amusement. Disbelief.

And yeah, I'd been one of those recoiling with distaste. Recognising straight away that hanging around with a girl like _that_ was a sure way to end up just as freaky and unpopular.

Look, I was a _different_ person then, okay?

Popular, extremely pretty, lots-of-fun Jill. As opposed to the abandoned, raggedly dishevelled, near-suicidal girl you see before you now.

_Sighhhhh_.

It's not Jackie's fault, understand? It's all _my_ fault, no doubt about it.

Jackie didn't mind being a loner.

She relished it, really.

She didn't come seeking me out as a friend

Far from it; I used to catch her looking at me with as much distaste as I felt for her.

I could see it in her eyes, feel it in her glare.

She thought I was vain, preoccupied with my looks, the way I dressed. She despised the way I flirted with boys, how I'd giggle at everything slightly funny that they said.

She was far too serious for all that, her scornful expressions told me.

Yeah, like _I_ cared. She was just jealous. That's what I told myself.

Who'd ever go out with _her_ , huh?

Sure, she might have been a reasonably okay looking girl underneath all that caked on makeup for all I could tell. But she obviously had no idea how to make the most of it.

She gave these airs like she didn't care about the way she looked, that she wasn't interested in boys. But I knew better. I knew _plenty_ of other girls like that; and as soon as you ever offered to help them make a little bit more of how they looked, they always jumped at the chance.

Fact is, she creeped me out.

She creeped out _everybody_!

The way she'd stare right at you. Sort of wide-eyed, yet glaring at you from under frowning eyebrows, all at one and the same time. All combined with a knowing smirk, like she could see right into your mind. Like she was reading your thoughts, your innermost secrets, no matter how hard you were trying to hide them.

Course, behind her back, we'd all giggle at the way she was always hinting that she could read the Tarot. That she dabbled in witchcraft.

But, you know, they were always _nervous_ giggles.

Like none of us were _completely_ sure that she wasn't telling the truth.

Best avoided, that's what we all said.

Just ignore her.

And I did – until, one day, she'd whispered to me, 'Jason _could_ be yours, you know?'

*

# Chapter 8

Through every class, every break, I feel that everyone's staring.

Staring at the new school freak.

The girl turned down by Jason Withers.

The girl who didn't come up to his standards.

The girl walking around looking like she's been rolling around in the woods. Like she's finally lost it. Finally gone crazy.

(Which, of course, for a horrid moment early this morning, was actually true.)

When lunchtime at last comes around, I decide that's it – I'm heading on home to get tidied up. No matter the consequences of coming across either Mum or Dad 'entertaining a friend', I can't hang around school looking like this a moment longer.

Better still, before that, as a real confidence booster – I'm going to ask Jackie to let me try on the gloves once again. If only for a few minutes.

'Jackie, please, can we call in at your house? If I could just try on the gloves, just for a moment?'

Jackie isn't listening. Her attention's elsewhere.

Following her angry, puzzled gaze, I realise she's watching Jase sloping off.

'Fiona,' I say miserably. 'He's probably got a lunch date with the impossibly gorgeous Fiona.'

'What?'

Jackie whirls on me like all her anger is now all suddenly directed my way. Which is all a bit odd, really, when she's obviously angry with Jase for humiliating me.

'How _could_ he be–'

She stops halfway through her irate outburst, at last seeing the shock on my face.

'Sorry; I mean, well, you know – I mean how could he be going off to see her, when he knows how much it hurts you?'

I shrug.

'I don't _own_ him,' I point out, trying to be as mature and reasonable about all this as I can be. 'He's allowed to do what he wants, I suppose.'

Jackie turns back to watching Jase, glaring at his back as he continues his unhurried, nonchalant stroll down one of the smaller streets leading away from the school.

'He's not going her way; to Fiona's school, I mean,' Jackie says surprisingly irately. 'Or wherever it is she lives.'

'We don't know _where_ she lives, Jackie!' I surprise myself by actually managing to say this with a hint of a laugh.

'Well it's not _that_ way, _that's_ for sure!' Jackie snaps.

'Jackie, please; it's no use getting upset with Jase on my behalf. It's over between us, I've got to accept that.'

I sigh, pursing my lips as I pluck up the courage to finally admit that Fiona's in a different league to me.

'Fiona – well, she's unbeatable, isn't she? Even with the help of the gloves, I can't compete against Fiona!'

As Jackie turns back to face me, I catch the suggestion of what could be an oddly satisfied smile.

'Yeah, yeah, Jill; I suppose she is _impossibly_ gorgeous!'

Immediately relenting her thoughtlessness, she reaches out to consolingly touch my hand.

'Sure, come back and try on the gloves, Jill – but they won't do you any good now, you know?'

*

The gloves are kept in a wooden box. The box is a wondrous work of art in its own right, all inlays of mother of pearl and finely crafted metallic ornamentation.

Unlike the gloves, however, the box's condition has gradually deteriorated a little over the years, even though I suspect that it's received nothing but the most tender and cosseted treatment. Jackie almost reverently produces it after carefully retrieving it from beneath a covering of soft linens within her drawer.

The wood's varnish is scuffed, the mother of pearl tainted, the metal darkened and even tinted a filthy olive in places. The upholstered interior of dark blue satin is, here and there, worn down to a blacker, threadbare base. It's particularly damaged in those areas grazed by the hands and fingers of people eagerly reaching for the gloves.

Neatly draped across this worn satin in such a precious yet aged box, the gloves shine out as something new, vibrant – alive.

I reach for them – eagerly.

*

# Chapter 9

As I'd come to expect of Jackie in the little time I've known her, she'd first presented the gloves to me with a suitable air of mystery.

'We all like to think we possess special, hidden powers don't we, Jill?' she'd said, looking back at me as she stepped over to the unevenly painted set of drawers placed against her bedroom wall.

'Powers? What sort of powers?' I'd asked, intrigued enough to turn away from the photographs of Jackie at her previous school, which had drawn my attention on first entering the room.

The photographs showed a Jackie I didn't know. A dazzlingly pretty, popular, laughing Jackie. The Jackie she must have been before she moved here.

She wasn't a freak because she was looking for a way of hiding the fact that – underneath all that heavy makeup and those ancient, ungainly clothes – she wasn't ever going to have much luck with the boys anyway. She was a freak by choice.

She'd deliberately replaced the pretty, fun-loving Jackie with a Jackie full of mystery and surprises.

Who knows – perhaps it's her way of compensating for parents who, like mine, didn't seem to see a role for her in their lives. Like she'd been an 'accident' they were spending the rest of their lives attempting to put behind them, generally by ignoring the consequences as best they could.

Then again, perhaps I was just reading my own experiences onto the fact that, according to Jackie, her parents were hardly ever around. They left her to get on with whatever she wanted to do, provided it didn't intrude on their own chosen lifestyles.

This common link between us reassured me that I'd been right to befriend her, despite the warnings of what remained of my friends that it was embarrassing to be seen with someone who 'hangs around with freaks'.

'Powers over boys, maybe?' Jackie said in reply to my question, opening the drawer and taking out a beautiful if aged box.

With that comment, she had me, she knew.

What had originally drawn me to Jackie but that enigmatically whispered, 'Jason _could_ be yours'?

How could she have known that I was so deeply, madly, foolishly in love with the new boy, Jason Withers?

I hadn't told even my closest friends. Not even Cath, and she's my closest _closest_ friend.

Normally, of course, we'd all share our secret longings for certain boys who'd caught our eye. Giggling together, coming up with little schemes that would draw boy and girl together. Seeing ourselves as matchmakers with a surprisingly high success rate.

But when it came to Jason – well, I did everything I could to hide my love for him.

I was _ever_ so careful not to stare, quickly averting my eyes whenever he was around.

If he drew closer to our group, I would avoid him, leaving as soon as I could. Making some excuse why I couldn't stay any longer.

I treated him as if he hardly existed. The only time I spoke to him, it would be to scornfully cut him short, ridiculing him for thinking he was amusing us.

It always went down ever so well with my friends, the way I could humiliate him like that.

Only, he wasn't ever _really_ humiliated, was he?

He'd just grin, like it was all a huge joke to him.

Like he knew that, deep down inside, I was acting so ridiculously, so childishly, so petulantly whenever he was around because, like just about all the other girls in school, I couldn't believe just how gorgeous Jason Withers was.

The difference between me and the other girls was that, whereas they'd all resigned themselves to fruitlessly sighing and moping over Jase, I was pretty enough to flatter myself that he might, just might, find me attractive enough to go out with me.

And so I lived in hope that, one day, someday soon, he'd have no choice but to finally declare his undying love for me.

It was a day that never came. A day that seemed to be ever more unlikely the more I tried to make fun of him – to bring him down to a level where he _must_ , surely, realise that I _was_ good enough for him! – and the more he laughed at my attempts.

He was so confident. So knowing.

And me? I was naïve. _Very_ naïve. Though I hid it well, I think.

Of course, I was frightened of being found out. And I didn't want _him_ knowing that I was so naïve, naturally.

Then came that day when Jackie, with the magical words, 'Power over boys,' opened this old, gorgeous box that she'd produced from her drawer.

And, for the very first time, she showed me the gloves.

*

When Jackie had produced the gloves, I should have laughed, of course.

What on earth could the connection be between an old pair of gloves and having power over boys?

But then, just as now, I found it impossible not to gasp in admiration at their almost ethereal beauty.

They feel so _incredibly_ smooth. As if made from a mystical mix of silk and water. They're also virtually weightless.

And when you slip them on – they could be a second skin, so perfect is the fit.

I have to hold back from moaning in pleasure. _That's_ how good it feels to be wearing the gloves once more.

It's ridiculous, I know. But the sensations of being in love, of making love, of being made love to, flood through you as if you're experiencing it all for yourself, there and then.

The touches you're _making_. The touches you're _feeling_.

Even the sights. The tastes. The sounds.

The explosions of pleasure that erupt inside you.

It should be embarrassing, experiencing all this while standing in Jackie's room. Standing right in front of Jackie.

But she's not there.

_I'm_ not there.

I'm in Hollywood.

Hollywood in its heyday.

*

# Chapter 10

On first wearing the gloves, I'd gone from girl to woman in a matter of minutes.

My naivety, my lack of _knowing_ , had disappeared.

Even when I'd ever so reluctantly removed the gloves, that knowledge had stayed with me.

I understood, at last, my allure as a woman. The nervousness, the insecurity of the girl, had gone.

Do you know the difference between a pleasant smile and a _knowing_ , _inviting_ smile?

_I_ hadn't known – but _now_ I did.

The eyes are the windows of the soul they say; and, believe me, they can transmit the _power_ of that soul.

Charming.

Enchanting.

Bewitching.

Haven't you ever wondered why a beautiful woman's effect on a man is expressed in terms associated with witchcraft?

Because it's the _irresistible_ power of a woman over a man.

And boy, girls, what _power_ we have!

*

So, you must be thinking; what went wrong?

How could the world's most entrancing, _bewitching_ girl possibly fail?

If you had all this charming, _irresistible_ power, how could you possibly lose Jase?

Well, it had all worked beautifully at first, of course.

Just over an hour after wearing the gloves, I came across Jase as he was heading on home after an evening's athletic practice at school.

His hair was still a little wet from the shower, still a little tousled. His skin shone with the afterglow of exertion and the exhilaration of reaching personal bests.

He smelt fresh, new, reborn. Even, somehow, vulnerable.

He was beautiful. And I wanted him.

I felt no shyness. No embarrassment.

I felt only incredibly desirable, as if I were seeing myself though his eyes. Recognising at last that – to him – I was every bit as unattainably beautiful as he appeared to me.

I smiled.

That's all I did – I smiled.

Smiled knowingly. My head slightly lowered. My eyes confidently looking up into his.

It was a look that said everything I needed to say.

And after that, it was all just so incredibly easy.

He'd asked me out, said he'd been trying to pluck up the courage for ages. But he'd been scared I'd turn him down.

Ironic, right? If he was telling the truth, that is. Which I doubted, as I'd heard he'd said that to girls before, only to callously dump them a couple of weeks later.

Still, going out with Jase was everything I'd imagined it would be.

Nights at the movies or in coffee bars. Days hanging out together in the mall, or just out on the streets. Getting together on school breaks. Making eyes at each other in the classes we shared.

We were the school's golden couple. Everyone wanted to hang around with us. Even those friends from my original circle who had deserted me.

Of course, they all thought that now I was going out with Jase I'd finally see sense and ditch Jackie as a friend.

Jase even got a little angry about it at times.

'Why'd you let freaksville tag along? She looks like something out of the medieval dead. Like she's got the plague or something.'

But I wasn't going to leave Jackie.

How could I?

See, the effect of the gloves, it turns out, wasn't permanent.

And so, every now and again, I'd feel my confidence waning.

'You okay, Ji?' Jase would ask innocently (he called me Ji rather than Jill). He'd look at me closely, as if he'd noticed something odd about me. 'You don't seem your self today; seem a bit, I don't know – distant?'

It was true. I wasn't as at ease with myself anymore; wasn't as at ease with Jase, in fact.

Of course, Jase had got used to me setting the agenda, whether it was the way I'd be the one pulling us together in a fierce embrace, or urgently drawing him towards me for a long, lingering kiss.

I normally enjoyed feeling his arms wrapped around me, relished the way every contour of our bodies seemed to naturally complement and meld together. We were the perfect couple, made for each other, fated to be one with the other.

Then, gradually, I'd begin feeling a little more insecure, a little less worthy of being Jase's girlfriend.

I'd be edgy, worried that he'd discover my nervousness, my sense of inferiority, and be appalled by it.

I'd shrug off his touch, his caresses.

(Crazy, I know; but my confidence was shot to hell once again. This was a guy who'd originally managed to ignore me for what felt like _eons_ , remember?)

His laughter cut through me, like it was directed right at me.

Then, I knew, I needed the gloves once more.

Problem was, each time I asked Jackie if I could wear the gloves, she seemed to take an increasingly perverse delight in coming up with excuses for why I couldn't have them 'just yet', or 'this week'.

'Mum's got them for a while; they're really hers, after all.'

'Dad gets angry if he finds out I'm always letting my friends wear them. He says they're worth a lot of money, and we should sell them.'

'They _look_ ageless, Jill, but they _are_ ancient; they're much more delicate than you seem to realise!'

Yeah, she'd really put me through the ringer before finally giving way and bringing the gloves out for me.

I'd gratefully slip them on; then I was fine again.

I was the Jill that Jase had come to know and love once more.

I was ridiculously confident. I was truly gorgeous. I was simply irresistible.

Everything was just right.

What could go wrong?

And that, of course, was _your_ question, wasn't it?

What went wrong, naturally, was Fiona.

Because, unlike me, she didn't need any gloves.

Fiona was _naturally_ irresistible.

*

What made it all so much worse was that Fiona turned up just as my own self-belief was rapidly waning.

I needed the gloves – desperately.

But Jackie's excuses for keeping them from me were more strident than ever.

'They've disappeared; they're not in my drawer. Mum must have loaned them out!'

'A friend from my old school _insisted_ on borrowing them for a while! You're not the only one who appreciates them, you know!'

And even:

'Look Jill, you're just imagining that they're helping you! There's no _real_ magic there; I was only ever joking!'

I begged, I pleaded.

I was growing frantic.

Innately sensuous, instinctively seductive, Fiona was working her own breed of magic on Jase. She was effortlessly drawing him out of my arms and into hers.

By the time I'd finally persuaded Jackie to let me have the gloves, I knew it was too late.

Jase was spellbound. (See? Yet another term associated with witchcraft.)

I'd never get him back now.

He was entranced.

And my own particular spell over him had been broken.

*

# Chapter 11

Now, as I once again wear the gloves, I'm filled with regret – and yes, quite a lot of anger to be honest – that Jackie hadn't let me use the gloves earlier.

If she had, I might, just might, have been able to save Jase from the captivating Fiona.

As it was, I didn't, of course. And so that wonderful life I'd imagined me and Jase sharing together isn't to be, either.

Instead, that wonderful life is going to be lived by someone else. Not me.

I'm on my own.

He's happy. She's happy.

Me, I'm miserable. Abandoned.

The happier they are, the more miserable I am.

And why? Why am I suffering like this?

Was her love for Jase really as strong as mine?

Would she really feel, like I feel, that I can't live without him?

That I can no _longer_ live without him?

Is that the only way to make him realise what he's missing? To show him what he's so callously cast aside?

A love for him that's so strong that I'm prepared to let him enjoy his happiness with her.

There's only one way to end all this agony, I feel.

I need to end it all.

To end my life.

*

This is odd.

I'm struggling to understand what's happening here.

I'm so immersed in my own bitter thoughts that I'm not letting the gloves work their magic on me.

I'm just letting my morbid imaginings cloud the experience.

Wearing the gloves has never worked like this before, where there's a confusing mingling of Hezzy's life and mine.

No, wait! That's _not_ true.

The _last_ time I wore the gloves...yes, I _remember_ now!

Then, too, I was letting Hezzy's experiences become confused with my own ridiculously resentful thoughts.

They weren't as obvious then; but they _were_ there. I realise that now.

He'd realise, too late, that he couldn't live without me.

Yes, yes; _that's_ what I'd been thinking.

And now I'm thinking it again, only plainer, and more obvious this time.

He'd be heartbroken. He'd hold himself responsible. He'd cry over my coffin, my lifeless corpse inside.

Yes, yes! You'll regret leaving me!

You're to blame that I took my life Gary!

Gary?

What?

What _is_ going on?

*

I'm struggling once again, struggling to pull myself free of the intense emotions I've been wallowing in.

Now they seem cloying, entangling, as if I'm attempting to regain consciousness from a terrifying nightmare. A nightmare that's confused me so much I no longer know where any grounding in reality lies.

But I need to ask Jackie a question.

It's an important question.

It bursts out of me, as if I'm gasping for air after being immersed in a deep pool.

'Why did your grandma die so young?'

'What do you think?' Jackie answers nonchalantly. 'A man, Gary somebody or other; you can't trust them, ever.'

And, like the final breaking of a dam, Hezzy's suicidal bitterness floods through me.

*

# Chapter 12

I urgently wench off the gloves, no longer worried about tearing them.

'The gloves! The _gloves_ made me suicidal!'

Jackie stares at me like I'm crazy.

'The _gloves_? You can't blame them for _that_!'

She grins, but it's a weird, strangely lopsided grin. Like one half of her face is drooping.

'You okay?' she asks curiously, noticing that I'm suddenly gawping at her in horror.

'Yeah, yeah,' I croak nervously, 'but...your face! It's–'

'What?'

Her eyes wide with terror, she raises her hands to her face, urgently feeling the contours.

'No, no, no!' she wails, her eyes wider with fear than ever. 'You have to go! _Now_!'

Lowering a hand, she begins to almost push me towards the door in her urgency to make me leave. She's hiding her face from me, dipping her head and shaking her hair forward like a frizzy curtain.

'What's happening Jackie? What's going on?' I demand anxiously.

As she rushes me towards the door, something drops away from her covered face.

It lands on the floor.

It's flesh.

It's a finger.

'My God, Jackie! Have... have you got _leprosy_ or something?'

I'm so shocked, I stop to stare down at the finger lying on the floor.

Seeing the finger, Jackie begins to wail miserably once again. She pulls her hand away from her face, stares at it in disbelief – and another finger topples free. Dropping to the floor, it lands almost alongside the first one.

Jackie glowers at me with eyes full of hate.

'You fool, you fool! You've ruined _everything_!'

*

By the time I get home, I realise I need that shower more than ever.

I want to wash away any memories of what I've just gone through, what I've just seen.

Jackie, she couldn't get me out of her door quick enough.

'I've still got all my fingers, idiot,' she'd screamed when I'd protested that she needed to get to hospital. 'No one just loses fingers like that!'

But she'd kept her hand hidden as she'd pushed me out onto the street.

I slam the door to my own home behind me, making as much noise as possible.

It serves as a warning to either Mum or Dad that I'm home.

The last thing I need right now is to catch either one of them scrabbling to get dressed, to get their lover out of the way.

'Mum? Dad?' I cry out a few times, shouting up the stairs in particular.

There's no reply.

With a sigh of relief, I head up to my room. And as soon as I enter, I see them.

They're neatly laid out across my dressing table.

Next to their opened box.

The gloves.

The gloves are on my dressing table.

*

# Chapter 13

'Jackie, I'm really sorry, I honestly don't know how it happened – but your gloves have somehow ended up on my dressing table.'

When I'd called Jackie on the phone, it had rung for ages before she'd bothered answering with a harshly snapped, 'Yes?'

'My gloves?' she says, like she's no idea what I'm talking about. 'They're not _my_ gloves anymore! They're _yours_ now, obviously!'

'Mine? But I don't understand. I didn't want to keep them, wh–'

'You don't understand?' Jackie screams back at me. 'Of _course_ you don't understand!'

'But I–'

'You don't understand _anything_ , do you?' she finally shrieks, slamming the phone down.

*

Just how odd is all this?

I hang up the phone, placing it on my bedside cupboard.

Did I _really_ see Jackie's fingers fall off her hand? Or did I imagine it?

She certainly doesn't seem to be in any rush to get to hospital.

And now, almost as strange, she's insisting that the gloves – the gloves aren't lying on the dresser anymore!

While I've been talking on the phone, they've vanished. Only the empty box is still there.

I rush over to my dresser, quickly checking that the gloves haven't fallen to the floor. Checking that, somehow, they haven't ended up back in their box.

'Looking for these?' a voice behind me asks.

I whirl around.

A man is half leaning against the door frame. He grins. He's holding and lovingly caressing the gloves.

'Who are you?' I demand, backing farther away from him. 'What are you doing here? Are you with Mum? If you are, you shouldn't be in my room!'

'Hah! That's a _fine_ welcome, isn't it Jill? And after all I've done for you too!'

'Done for me? What do you mean? I've never met you before. You've never done _anything_ for me!'

Come to think of it, he doesn't look like the type of man Mum goes for. Her type's all young and athletic, with hair that looks like it's just been coiffured at the hairdressers. This guy, though, looks like he takes all his style tips from Tim Burton or the Cure. There's probably a bit of Willy Wonka or Mad Hatter thrown in for good measure.

It's that weird air of freakiness that Jackie always manages to exude.

'Jackie's father?' I ask edgily, nodding towards the gloves he's holding. 'Are you Jackie's father? You've come for your gloves?'

'Jackie's father?' he chuckles. ' _My_ gloves?' he chuckles again. 'I suppose that, yes, come to think of it, in some ways you could say that, yes, yes, that I _am_ Jackie's father in a way, couldn't you? Yes, yes; I _like_ that, I _really_ do!'

He says it like he's pondering all this for the very first time, all eyes staring at the ceiling, a puzzled frown, a hand on his chin.

'Though not, of course, in the way that _you_ mean – her _natural_ father. Oh no no! I'm far from being her _natural_ father!'

At last, he looks directly at me once again. He holds out the gloves towards me, as if expecting me to take them from him.

'As for the gloves; as Jackie _correctly_ informed you, Jill – the gloves are _yours_ , not _mine_!'

I still hang back, even though I'm bizarrely tempted to take the gloves, despite everything I've now learned about them.

'So,' I say sternly, frustrated and irate that he's refusing to give me a clear answer to my questions, 'who _are_ you?'

He grins again, waving a hand around in front of his face as if he's about to give me an exaggerated, theatrical bow.

He doesn't bow. Rather, he stands up straighter, taking on a proud and imperious air.

'I'm the Freak King,' he declares. 'Freak King Freak.'

*

'The Freak King?' I ask, puzzled. 'And...what? Your _name_ is also Freak? Freak King _Freak_?'

'That's right!'

He smiles, like he's said enough and doesn't see any reason to elaborate.

I laugh.

Am I dreaming? Why aren't I kicking this man out of my room? Why aren't I calling the police?

Because he _sounds_ serious. And so many frankly incredibly freaky things have happened to me recently that...well, someone announcing himself as King of the Freaks doesn't come close to what I've been through.

Surviving a fall that should have killed me. Wearing gloves that let me relive someone else's life. Seeing my best friend's fingers drop off.

'Okay,' I say. 'Joke's over; so what's your _real_ name?'

He observes me curiously, like he's surprised or even a little bit annoyed that I'm still failing to get on board with whatever it is he's trying to get across to me.

'Freak; the name's Freak, as I've just told you. It's still the same as it was then. It hasn't changed. Not one bit of it has changed.'

'So you're the Freak King and just coincidently happen to be called Freak too?' I say doubtfully.

'That's right!' he says cheerfully, like I've finally got it and, once again, he's going to stay schtum, with no attempt at any further explanation.

'Right about me being called Freak, anyway,' he suddenly adds. 'Though, there's nothing _coincidental_ about it, of course! My people were named after me. They became Freaks because I was their King and I was called Freak!'

'Oh _sure_ ,' I scoff.

'What about the Elizabethans, the Georgians, the Victorians? And the Franks – surely there must have been a King Frank, don't you think?'

He says it all with a twinkle in his eyes, like he's knows he's still avoiding answering my questions.

'I mean,' I say, 'that freaks have been around for gawd knows how many years; whereas you, right, you must be forty, tops, I guess.'

I've actually deliberately been a bit harsh on him. He could be in his early thirties for all I know. With all that garish gothic makeup, the electrified hair, it's not really easy to tell.

He clasps his hands gaily. I'm almost expecting him to burst into a happy little jig.

'Jill, Jill; how absolutely _delightful_ of you! I can see we _are_ going to get on well, after all! Despite my previous doubts! I made a good choice after all!'

'Choice?' Wow, this guy keeps on throwing the bizarre statements at me, doesn't he? 'What's this choice you've made?'

He almost steps back in astonishment. I get the curious look from him once more, like all this should be making perfect sense to me by now.

'Why, _you_ of course, Jill!' he announces joyfully. 'I've chosen _you_ to be one of my subjects!'

*

# Chapter 14

As soon as I'm back at school in the afternoon, I'm looking for Jackie.

I'm hoping she can begin to explain all the things the Freak King failed to explain.

Which is just about everything.

'What? You can't just go choosing who's going to be one of your subjects!' I'd protested when he'd so imperiously declared that I was now a freak.

He'd ginned, nodded in agreement.

'That _would_ be madness, wouldn't it?' he'd chuckled. 'But then again, if the chosen effectively _agrees_ to the choice I've made? Well, then of course, everything's _perfectly_ legitimate, don't you think?'

He'd suddenly tossed the gloves towards me, aiming them towards my face. I'd caught them; and by the time I'd dropped my hands away from my face, he'd vanished.

I'd rushed to the door of my bedroom. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Jackie, on the other hand, is a lot easier to find than I'd expected.

I was worried that she might not even be here, that she might, instead, have finally decided to head off to hospital to have her hand looked at.

But she strides across the school yard towards me, smiling, calling out, 'Jill, Jill!' – and waving her hand up in the air, like she's deliberately drawing my attention to the fact that all her fingers are securely back in place.

*

'Sorry Jill!' Jackie breathes urgently, like she wants to get her piece in before I get around to saying anything. 'I mean, for the joke I played earlier.'

Joke?

I'm not quite sure what she means, but my hopes begin to rise that all this thing with the gloves, with the Freak King, is all some elaborate joke Jackie has somehow managed to organise.

'It was all a bit sick I suppose, wasn't it?' she adds with a grin.

The grin's not quite right. It's still a little bit lopsided, if not as much as it was at lunchtime. Her skin's also caked with a ridiculous amount of makeup, even more than usual. Her hair's still oddly draped over one side of her face.

As for my own face, the doubts I'm feeling must be perfectly apparent because Jackie decides that she's just going to have to keep on talking.

'With the fingers, I mean!' She wriggles her fingers right in front of my nose. 'It was a trick, using fake fingers. Well, the ones that dropped to the floor, anyway! _They_ were fake!'

Her hand does look normal once again. Then again, she's wearing so many rings that her fingers could be being held in place by them alone. That wouldn't account for the way she can move them though, would it?

I realise there's not really any point in challenging her claim that it was all just some sick joke. She's obviously determined to give the impression that everything's fine. That she never, ever lost any fingers, like I quite clearly saw.

Besides, I really can't work out how she's standing in front of me with all her fingers back in place.

'The gloves,' I blurt out instead, a little more desperately than I intended. 'I've got your gloves. They're yours, and you can have them back as soon as you want.'

I figure that as the gloves are somehow connected with the Freak King, getting rid of them means I also get rid of him.

Jackie grins hugely, the unevenness of her face more apparent than ever. Shades of the Joker and that other guy from Batman with the split face. She waves an admonishing finger.

'Ah ah ah! No can do. They're _yours_ now. But let me guess why you suddenly don't want "those magical gloves".'

She says the last bit in an ecstatically high pitched screech, mocking the way I would excitedly reach for the gloves. I grimace at the memory.

'I can see it in your eyes, Jill,' Jackie continues triumphantly. 'The shock, the bewilderment – the _fear_! The Freak King's been to visit, hasn't he?'

'So you _do_ know him! I thought you must, what with the gloves, and you been a...a...'

Jackie laughs, relishing this moment.

'Go on; say it, Jill! _Freak_.'

She leans towards me like we have a secret to share.

'It takes one to know one, doesn't it Jill?'

*

# Chapter 15

'Is he mad?' I frantically ask Jackie. 'Who _is_ he? Is he dangerous? He's crazy, isn't he?'

'Ha, you wish! No, he's real enough I'm afraid!' Jackie chortles, savouring my anguish once more. 'And he's told you, yeah, that you're now a freak, right?'

'Yes, yes; but he _is_ crazy, surely? He _can't_ just tell me I'm one of his subjects – a _freak_!'

'Oh no, of _course_ he can't!'

Hey eyes blaze with amusement as she watches the relief flash across my face.

'Yet _here_ you are,' she adds bluntly. 'Which means that, yep, you're now a freak; whether you want to be or not.'

'What? How does me being here make me a freak?'

'Not _here_ , as in here at school, idiot! I mean _here_ – back in the world of the living!'

She waves her arms and raises her head, like she's drawing my attention to the whole world surrounding us, to life in general.

She smiles benignly at me – then instantly transforms the smile into an angry snarl.

'Because we both know you _shouldn't_ be _here_!'

I'm completely taken aback by her fury.

'Why shouldn't I be here?' I retort with as much confidence as I can.

She can't know about my suicide attempt, can she? Unless Fiona _was_ there, and she's told Jackie.

'Oh come on, Jill!' Jackie sneers. 'Don't go giving _me_ any more of all this bull that you _fell_ into some bushes. You _jumped_ – jumped off Kingstown Bridge. Which means you'd be dead, if the Freak King hadn't saved you.'

'No one saved me!' I snap back. 'I just somehow survived, that's all! I don't know how but–'

'"I just somehow survived!"' Jackie repeats in a sarcastically squeaky voice. ' _No_ _one_ survives a fall like that – even a _coroner_ wouldn't have found much of you to cut into!'

Reaching out, she brusquely grabs me by my cheek, turning my head up and to one side so she can peer intently at my neck.

'Now the _Freak King's_ operation, _that's_ in a _different_ world all together!' she says, swiftly running a finger along my neck as if she's trying to feel something there.

The operation!

I'd thought it had all been a weird dream! What with all the mangles, the ropes, the body parts – the _freaks_!

'It really happened? The operation _really_ happened?' I squeal in horror, instinctively bringing my own hand up towards my throat to see if I can feel any traces of the treatment I'd received.

Oh _no_!

I can feel a slight rise beneath my skin, like a long-healed scar.

Like my head has been sewn back on to my body.

Like Frankenstein's monster.

Observing the growing terror in my widening eyes, Jackie smiles in satisfaction.

'Has he asked you for payment yet?'

'Payment?

'You _owe_ him your _life_ , Jill! An operation like _that_ – it doesn't come _cheap_.'

'How much?' I gulp. 'I haven't got much mone–'

'Money?' Jackie chuckles wickedly.

She turns to leave, looking back over her shoulder with a triumphant sneer.

'If only, eh Jill? But I'm afraid your King will be wanting far more than _money_!'

*

# Chapter 16

As I approach my home, I see that a number of lights are already on.

I groan.

Not because it means that either my mum or dad are home. Which is the usual reason why I'd groan.

No, these are just the lights set to automatically come on to give the impression that someone's in.

Which means Mum and Dad are still out.

Which means I'll be in the house on my own once more.

'Mum? Dad?' I shout hopefully as I enter the hall.

No answer.

Please, please, please, if _they're_ not home, _please_ let the house be _completely_ empty!

Please, please, please don't let the Freak King be here, waiting for me!

I rush up the stairs two at a time in my hurry to get to my room. As soon as I've checked that there's no one waiting for me in there, I slam the door shut behind me, locking it with a relieved sigh.

I look at the gloves, still hanging over the edge of my dresser where I'd left them earlier.

The cause of all my troubles.

They're part of the 'deal', aren't they?

They're mine because I'm now a freak.

And I'm a freak because I'd worn them, enjoying the sensations they were giving me.

Not realising suicidal tendencies were all part of the package.

Rushing across to the dresser, I pick up the gloves and angrily throw them to the floor. I frenziedly stamp on them, rub my feet on them, trying to destroy them

I pick them up again, vigorously pull on them, trying to tear them, to rip them to shreds.

I can't. I can't damage them in anyway.

They're ridiculously strong. Perhaps even indestructible!

I crumple to the floor, weeping in frustration.

I can't get rid of them. And, even if I did, would that really get rid of the Freak King too?

Probably not. Let's face it, getting out of whatever deal I've got myself into here isn't going to be that easy, is it?

I hold up the gloves, studying them.

Know what? What's the betting they're not really Jackie's grandma's?

Yeah, I've been a little slow on the uptake on that one, haven't I?

I mean, would she really let them go so easily if they really were some precious family heirloom?

She's probably glad to see the back of them. As I would be.

She's a freak too, right? So, she probably had them given to her by the Freak King. As part of her own 'deal'.

That explains the earlier pictures of her when she was at the other school.

When she was pretty.

When she was fun to be with.

When she had friends.

All _before_ she was a freak.

Had she also been 'rescued' by Freak?

Had she also had the 'operation'?

Her fingers!

Had they fallen off because the operation had gone wrong?

I urgently reach up to feel the scar running around my neck.

Is it okay?

Was my operation more successful?

Could my _head_ fall off?

Surely, surely not!

That's _crazy_ , right?

Yeah, but _everything's_ crazy, isn't it?

I stare at the gloves I'm still holding in my hand.

What do _you_ know about all this Hezzy Heston?

Are there any questions that you can answer for me?

Like, were you _really_ Hezzy Heston? Or was that just another lie I've been told?

I smooth out the gloves.

And I slip them on once more.

*

I'm at a party.

The sort of party that would have Mum tearing her hair out with worry if she knew I was really there. She'd also be tearing her hair out that she hadn't been invited.

Because this is one of those parties where anything goes. Big house. Sweeping staircases. Action going on on every floor. Drinks flowing like Dad's organised it all, and he's been told go for it; someone else is picking up the tab.

Everyone's laughing and acting like they started drinking at least half a day ago. They could easily be mistaken for a crowd of totally crazed people if it weren't for the fact that they're all expensively and elegantly dressed.

It's dress from another era, naturally.

This is Hezzy's time, after all.

Hezzy's life.

Hezzy's emotions.

Hezzy's anguish.

I'm weeping. Almost choking, left short of breath every time my chest is painfully racked by the uncontrollable heaviness of my sobbing.

I'm not good enough for him. He's made that plain. He doesn't want to see me again.

I feel strangely empty, like I'm just a shell, not really living. Like I'm not really _here_ anymore. Like I no longer exist in this world flowing around me.

I can't touch that world, relate to it, be a part of it. And it can't touch me.

I don't _want_ to be a part of it anymore. It doesn't want me to be part of it either.

No one acts as if I'm here. I'm invisible to them all.

Even as I barge my way through them, they don't register that I'm the one at fault. They drunkenly swerve, right themselves once more. Continue their drunken conversations and raucous chortling.

My insides feel like they're being relentlessly crushed by the gigantic hand of a god. Squeezing and squeezing and squeezing, as if he were toying with nothing more than a voodoo doll made of clay.

Harder and harder. Tighter and tighter.

There's no mercy given.

And as the unbearable pressure builds, deep inside I feel as if I'm liquefying, becoming a tangle of fluids that churn and churn and churn.

I can't live with this agony any longer – I really really can't.

I reach into my handbag, scrabbling around until I feel the cold yet strangely reassuring hardness of the metal of my car keys.

Tonight, tonight I'm going to end all this misery once and for all!

*

Oh no no no!

I can't go on with this!

I can't be Hezzy as she kills herself!

For a moment, I feel – ironically – like I'm drowning as I struggle through Hezzy's intense, overpowering emotions. Trying to reach out for the surface. To become Jill Paxton once more.

Jill Paxton! Jill Paxton! That's who I _really_ am! Not Hezzy Heston!

With a shudder, I finally rise clear of Hezzy's hopelessness, as if I'm shrugging off an ever thickening, ever hardening coating of ice.

She's still there, of course. I'm still wearing the gloves after all.

But _I'm_ not being overwhelmed by _her_ sense of hopelessness anymore. It was too incredibly painful. Too frightening.

Hezzy's heading down the winding stairs as fast as she can. But even here she has to push her way through people crowding the steps, as if they're just another, more uneven floor.

At the bottom, the large oak doors are thrown wide open, the clouds of cigarette smoke swirling and eddying in a light breeze blowing in from outside. There's a tang of the sea in the air. It mingles with the whispering scents of the floodlit eucalyptus trees lining the driveway beyond the doors.

It's balmy, quite refreshing. I'm hoping it's enough to bring Hezzy round, to waken her from her dazed sense of anguish and alienation.

Instead, like the laughter surrounding her, it only adds to her idea that she's now permanently separated from the rest of the world. As if anything good, enjoyable, can no longer be hers.

Suddenly, through a sea of brilliantined hair and peacock-feathered hats, I catch a glimpse of Hezzy reflected back at me from one of the enormous, gilded mirrors gracing the walls.

She's beautiful. Despite her misery, the tear-stained makeup, her delicate features and large eyes grant her an enviable elfin quality.

With looks like that, surely, I think, she could have any man she wanted?

But obviously not. Not the one man she _does_ want, anyway.

I want her to stop and take a longer, closer look at herself. Not only so I can get a better idea of what she looks like, but also so that I can persuade her to reconsider the stupidity, the uselessness, of what she's so set on doing.

But I can't, of course. I can't control her.

The fact is, everything I'm seeing, sensing and feeling here is already truly amazing.

See, I _shouldn't_ be experiencing all this as if I'm really _here_!

Even while wearing the gloves, all of my experiences have revolved around _intimate_ sensations and emotions. The passions we feel when we're up close with someone we love.

And I was still _me_. Still Jill Paxton.

Sure, it was Hezzy's experiences I was sharing – but it was always as if the emotions were mine and mine alone, a part of me, not someone else.

Apart from these sensations, which I'd been fooled into thinking were actually mine, I'd never even been aware of Hezzy's presence in any way.

It was like an all-enveloping, incredibly realistic dream, where the emotions flared up with an incredible physicality; yet the harder you tried to focus on any visual detail, the farther it uncontrollably drifted away from you.

I'd never, ever even _seen_ Hezzy.

Now I was not only seeing her, but I also felt as if I actually _was_ her!

Even so, I still can't control her.

After all, all this has already happened,

It's unchangeable. It's history.

As she continues weaving through the crowd on her way towards the open doors, she naturally turns away from her own reflected image in the mirror.

And it's as she turns away that I briefly see his reflection.

He's smiling. He's looking our way.

I'm sure he's both conscious of and amused by Hezzy's desolation.

I'd know him anywhere now.

It's the Freak King.

*

# Chapter 17

I'd been thinking of taking off the gloves.

Thinking, of course, that I really really couldn't continue watching Hezzy head off into the night.

But now that I've seen the Freak King – well, I want to know what he's doing there!

This party took place almost a century ago, yet Freak looks no different than he does today. (Well, apart from his clothes of course; like every other man here, he's dressed in an elegant evening suit rather than the weird jacket and trousers I'd first seen him in.)

He hasn't aged. Even though, if he'd really been at this party, it took place so long ago that he should now be dead.

I want Hezzy to look back, to see if I can see Freak again.

To see what he's doing.

To see if he's following.

But, naturally, I _can't_ get her to look back.

Hezzy's eyes are now intently focused on the open doors.

She heads out into the night air, her pace, her urgency, her _determination_ , increasing with every step.

The cars parked around the edges of the large, oval drive sparkle in the lights illuminating the trees. They're massive beasts, all huge engines and sweeping wheel arches.

Hezzy's car is an open top, a two seater, yet still ridiculously over-sized by modern standards. Tearful and bleary eyed, she angrily twists the key in the ignition. In a daze, as if drunk by her sense of worthlessness, she carelessly crunches through the gears.

Reversing out from between the other cars, Hezzy accelerates too quickly, tries to turn too sharply. The car fights for a hold on the loose gravel, but thankfully comes to a halt in the middle of the drive.

'Stop, Hezzy, stop!'

Someone's shouting out to her from the open doorway. Hezzy turns to look, her heart, her head, suddenly overflowing with hope.

'Gary?'

A man's rushing towards her across the gravel.

'Don't do this, Hezzy!' the man pleads. 'Not like this, not yet!'

Suddenly, Hezzy feels more crushed than ever. It's not Gary.

It's Freak.

And the most confusing thing for me is that I realise she doesn't know him.

*

I'd thought that, surely, Hezzy had to know Freak.

That's the connection between us, surely?

Freak and the gloves?

Hezzy drives off, wondering who this ridiculous man was, rushing out towards her in the night, telling her to stop.

Who's he to tell her to stop?

Who _is_ he anyway?

She's angrier than ever. Angry that that stupid man had briefly given her hope that Gary wanted her back.

She doesn't look back. She sets off so quickly, Freak's cries are drowned out in the roaring of the gigantic engine, the shriek of tyres throwing up a wake of heavily clattering gravel.

Almost like an afterthought, she switches on the car's lights. Projecting out ahead of us, the light illuminates tangled trees and bushes that rush past us like wailing wraiths. The mansion's gateposts, ever so briefly lit up in a ghostly white, momentarily loom over us as if already welcoming us into the otherworld.

Hezzy's driving so fast, I could swear she's trying to catch up with the light. Faster and faster. No matter how much the road weaves. No matter how unexpectedly things hurtle towards us out of the darkness.

She doesn't care. This is meant to be her last ride, after all.

Freak knew that. That's why he was trying to stop her.

But he couldn't. And, obviously, I can't either.

It's pointless me staying any longer to watch this.

It's finally time to remove the gloves.

I'd read once, I think, that the spirits inhabiting a haunted house are like the images recorded on a computer's hard disc; a highly emotional event that's somehow ended up indelibly ingrained on the building's structure. And what more intense emotion could there be than an unrequited love that drives someone to end their life?

In Hezzy's case, all her incredible suffering has become an integral part of her gloves.

Through her tear-filled eyes, through a windscreen whipped by the onrushing air, I look out in horror at the meandering road being swiftly eaten up by her speeding car. Every curve, every corner, seems as if it will be her last, only for her to instinctively swing the large driving wheel aside – and we once again precariously weave around the bend.

Her bared hands grip the wheel fiercely, her skin stretched white across her knuckles.

Her skin!

Her bared hands!

Hezzy isn't wearing any gloves!

*

I begin to tear the gloves off in a crazed frenzy.

My God, my God, no, no, no!

I'm horrified. I'm close to being sick. Revolted by even having touched them, let alone worn them.

As soon as I'm finally free of the gloves, I quickly toss them aside in disgust.

I've finally realised what the gloves are made of.

Human skin.

_Hezzy's_ skin.

*

# Chapter 18

At school, I'm perfectly sure that I've got to be the cleanest girl here. Yet I still feel dirty, soiled.

I'd spent most of last night showering. Scrubbing my hands and arms in particular until they were red, almost raw.

But I couldn't wash off the sense that I'd been scrabbling around in someone's grave.

Poor poor Hezzy!

How could I have worn those gloves, shared all her experiences, without realising that...that...well, it's just _too_ horrible to even think about!

_That's_ why I'd never considered that they could have been made of something as horrifying as human – as _her_ – skin!

Who could _do_ such a thing?

Who could skin a person, and then turn her skin into gloves?

Freak!

Obviously.

And yet – _he_ was the one trying to stop Hezzy killing herself.

I need to find Jackie to get some answers. Surely she _must_ have known the gloves' secret.

I need her to take the gloves back too.

Of course, I'd wanted to destroy the gloves as soon as I'd realised what they were made of.

But how could I? I mean, they were a part of Hezzy.

How could I just throw them away?

Burning them seemed an even worse solution. And as for shredding them, dissolving them in acid, or just leaving them outside for some animal to carry off or someone else to find – well, they all struck me as being even worse!

Even burying them didn't seem right. If they were buried, they should be placed alongside Hezzy at the very least, surely?

No, Jackie would have to have them back. And I'd insist that, somehow, they should be reunited with Hezzy.

Before I see Jackie, though, I see Jase.

And boy, does he look miserable.

His head hanging low. His walk slow and shuffling.

His eyes, when he bothers to look up, to lift them from blankly staring at the ground, look lifeless, almost hollow.

He doesn't seem to have any interest at all in the world flowing about him. Like he's retreated into his own sad little world.

Having experienced it myself, I would say that he looks heartbroken.

*

Has Jase had an argument with the gorgeous Fiona?

Has she dumped him?

If she has, I should be glad, I suppose.

This should be a moment I should relish. Seeing him suffering the same agonies he'd put me through.

But having seen for myself what poor Hezzy suffered, it seems childishly petty to delight in Jase's misery.

Then again, it might make him realise just how much he hurt me.

Maybe, even, he might be sorry for what he did. Sorry for breaking up with me.

Would I have him back?

Hah!

Knowing, deep down, that I'm second best? Knowing that, if Fiona showed up again, he'd drop me just like _that_?

Why would I risk putting myself through all _that_ again?

Jase languidly shuffles up the stone steps leading up towards the double doors of the main building, ignoring everyone crowding around him. For anyone attempting to greet him, he can only manage a wan smile and a dismissive wave of a hand.

Where the steps level off just before the doors, he stops, slumping against the parapet. As he leans back on the low wall, he puts his head in his hands, no longer caring that everyone can see that he's distraught, hurt – humiliated.

Wow, he's _really_ got it _bad_!

People walk past him as quickly as they can, glancing at him in disdain. Distaste creases their faces, like they're embarrassed, even annoyed, by his weakness.

Amongst the crowd, though, there's an exception.

Jackie.

Jackie's staring at him as if she's suffering more agony than he is.

Does that make _any_ sense?

Why would Jackie be hurt by Jase's misery?

Has she, all along, been secretly carrying a candle for Jase?

Poor girl.

If she did, if we're being honest, she never had a chance, did she?

'Jackie!' I cry out.

She whirls around, her eyes wide with panic, like my cry's woken her up from some kind of deep trance.

Soon as she sees me rushing over towards her, her eyes widen all the more. The closer I get to her, the more I think her face looks oddly contorted, like a wax doll that's been left too close to a fire.

She turns away, trying to push her way through the people crowding towards the steps, to get away from me.

'The gloves!' I scream out, desperately reaching out and making a grab for her. 'I need to talk to you about the gloves!'

Jackie just as desperately tries to shrug me off when my hand at last latches onto and fiercely grips her shoulder.

'Not the bloody gloves again!' she resentfully spits back at me. 'They're _yours_ ; you've won, right?'

Now that she's turned to face me, not even her fury can hide the haggardness of her once regular features. It's like being confronted by a witch, a harpy, her ragged hair, her snarling mouth, all adding to the disconcerting effect.

I'm briefly tempted to step back, to let her get away from me and merge into the crowd.

'Won?' I'm confused. 'I don't _want_ the gloves! They're the most horrible things I've ever seen!'

'Horrible?'

She studies me curiously, her eyes glistening with bemusement. Then she shrieks with laughter.

'You _used_ to think they were _wonderful_!'

'Not _now_! Not now that I know what they're _made_ of!'

Her eyes widen once more, this time in complete shock.

'You know?' she asks suspiciously. 'How? How do you – _Freak_! Freak's _already_ told you?'

'Of course Freak didn't tell me! I figured it out for myself. I saw Hezzy committing suicide!'

Jackie's eyes widen even farther with surprise, adding to the weird, mask-like effect of her face.

'Wait, wait!' she suddenly blurts out, raising her hands like she's wanting everything to slow down, wanting time to work out what's going on here. 'You mean you _felt_ how suicidal she was, yeah? Like you did when I was there, right? You don't mean you actually _saw_ it?'

'I mean I _saw_ it! I _saw_ her crash her car!'

She screws up her face in puzzlement. (Wow, _does_ she screw up her face! It's like it's made of rubber!) She shakes her head, like she's hoping to get her brain back into gear and make sense of what she's hearing.

'You can't _see_ it, Jill!' she insists vehemently. 'The way you _sensed_ it was, like, incredibly _amazing_! But _seeing_ it? It's not _possible_. I mean, the whole point of this suicide thing is all that agony, all that suffering, but–'

She's distracted as, out of the corner of her eye, she spots Jase finally making a move. Her eyes full of pain, she watches his every slow step as he disappears through the open doors into the building.

As Jase vanishes from view, Jackie whirls on me.

'And now _I'm_ the one suffering, thanks to _you_!'

'Me? What have I made you suffer? Suffer what?'

For a brief moment, she stares at me like she's trying to work out if I'm lying or playing the fool.

'Hah! You _really_ don't know, do you?' she snorts with disgust. She pulls delicately at the ends of her hair, a clump of strands easily coming away in her tightening fingers. ' _Look_ at me, you stuck up cow!'

'What's _happening_ to you Jackie?' I'm too appalled to take offence at her insult. 'I don't understand what's going on!'

'You _never_ understand, do you Jill?' she sneers. 'As long as you're okay, what's it matter how much anyone else suffers, eh? You must be feeling _really_ good now you've finally got rid of Fiona, eh?'

She turns to leave but, grabbing hold of her shoulder, I drag her back and force her to face me once more.

'Got _rid_ of Fiona?' I'm more confused than ever. 'Sure, I'm glad if she's gone! But it wasn't anything to do with me! I didn't get rid of her!'

Jackie smirks maliciously.

'Yes you _did_ , Jill,' she jeers, turning and striding away from me. 'And I hate you for it!'

*

# Chapter 19

Everyone's passing by me now, heading off into class. But I'm rooted to the spot, unable to make even the slightest bit of sense of what Jackie has just said to me.

Why – _how_ – does she think I got rid of Fiona? Why does she think I'm the one making her suffer? (And just what _is_ going on with the way she looks worse every time I see her, like she's just about falling apart?)

I'd hoped she'd be able to tell me about whatever it is that's going on with the gloves. With Freak. With my 'operation'. But instead she's just ended up giving me even more questions I need answers to!

'Hi, stranger; long time no see.'

Cath nonchalantly sidles up to me, her eyes only fleetingly coming up from staring at her mobile's screen to give me a welcoming smile.

'Hi Cath,' I say, perhaps sounding a little distracted but hopefully managing to hide it from her.

'I couldn't help but notice,' she says, her eyes locked onto her screen, her thumb expertly changing the sites she's flicking through, 'that you and the freak have issues.'

She looks up, smiles warmly at me. A smile that says she's not gloating but accepting me back as a friend.

She goes back to staring at her mobile's screen. That's why some people call her Scatty; her mind's always on the gossip, fashion and beauty sites she endlessly flicks through, rather than the world going on around her.

'Jase is _so_ miserable too,' she says. 'He deserves it, I reckon, for what he did to you.'

She gives me another quick, gracious smile.

'You could look more pleased that's he's been dumped, you know!' she grins. 'The Germans have a word for it you know; Schwarzenegger!'

'I think you mean sauce-en-fraud or something, or whatever it is,' I chuckle. 'Schwarzenegger's the actor.'

'That's right, that's what I meant,' she says, briefly giving her voice a gruffer, accented edge as she adds, '"I'll be back", right? Meaning he always gets his own back, yeah?'

'Well, I don't think Jase being miserable is getting my own back...'

_'Sure_ you don't, Jill.'

Cath gives me a sly look. She thinks I'm kidding when I say I'm not enjoying Jase's misery. Then again, just a few days back, I probably would have been kidding.

'We've missed you, you know?' she says. ' _I've_ missed you; you know, talking about things like hair, clothes, makeup – _available_ boys.'

She glances up at me.

'Friends again, right babe?'

'Sure; friends!'

Reaching out, I give her a warm, joyous hug; being careful not to dislodge her hold on her mobile, of course!

She holds up her phone right in front of our faces, pointing the camera at us as she quickly snaps a picture. She smiles happily as she looks at our closely touching, grinning faces as they come up on her screen.

'Aw, we look sweet; and _gorgeous_ too, natch! Heartbreakers united again, right?'

'Right,' I answer, trying to sound positive.

She links her arm through mine, gently pulling me with her towards the steps.

'Let's go in,' she says. 'And if you're _really_ serious about not smirking at Jase throughout class, I _insist_ you let _me_ do it for you, okay?'

*

For a moment, I'm tempted to just let Cath lead me meekly up the stairs, through the doors, and into class. Where I'll just submissively take my seat, and try and forget everything that's happened to me recently.

It would be _so_ wonderful to be surrounded by my friends once more.

I could even put up with Jackie glowering at me throughout the lesson, I reckon.

I could even ignore Jase, if he's just going to sit there feeling sorry for himself, keeping quiet and remaining uninvolved in anything that's going on around him.

What I can't get out of my mind, though, are images of the _gloves_!

Of Hezzy. And Hezzy's hands on the car's steering wheel.

I only came here in the hope that I could persuade Jackie to take the gloves back. But as I haven't managed that, I need some other way of getting rid of them.

_Freak_.

I need to _somehow_ find Freak, and return them to him. To _insist_ he takes them back. To insist any deal he thinks we have between us is off; no matter the consequences.

I hadn't _asked_ for the operation, after all.

And you can't demand payment from somebody for something they never even asked for. Something they had _forced_ upon them.

'Cath, sorry and all that,' I say, pulling a suitably miserable face as I add, 'but I'm not feeling well; I think I need to head on home.'

I hate lying to her, especially as we've only just made up and become friends once more. But in my defence, it's _half_ true. I can honestly say I'm not exactly feeling wonderful at the moment!

Cath turns, lowers her head slightly, looks me over with wide, concerned eyes.

'Oh, I suppose you _do_ look a _bit_ peeky, babe,' she says with a fretful pout.

I grin bravely. (Peeky? Just how _bad_ do I look?)

'Another picture, right babe?' Cath adds gaily as, drawing me close again, she snaps another photo.

'Could you let Miss know, make an excuse for me?'

'Course, course; ohh, you don't look at _all_ well, babe!' Cath says, studying my face on her screen. 'Miss has _got_ to believe me when she sees _this_!'

*

# Chapter 20

Oh joy! I was only _pretending_ to be ill, yet according to Cath I look like I'm knocking on death's door!

Then again, who _wouldn't_ look like that knowing they've got gloves made from human skin hanging around on their dresser top?

As soon as Cath's disappeared through the school doors, I head off home, breaking into a run whenever I believe I can manage it without drawing too much attention to myself. Last thing I need is someone reporting me for playing hooky from school.

When I finally get to the house, it looks quiet, seemingly empty.

Sure, I've thought that plenty of times, only to surprise Mum or Dad rollicking around the place just about naked with someone hardly older than me.

(It just _isn't_ a great life I lead, I can tell you! Although, of course, I always tell my friends and everyone else at school that I _do_ live an enviable life! Well, what else am I supposed to say, right?)

Today, I'm hoping even more than ever that they're not home. Quite bizarrely, I'm hoping Freak's there, like he was before; waiting for me, thinking he's going to surprise me.

Then he can take his bloody gloves back and take a hike!

*

Inside the house, there's no sign of life.

Unless, of course, you count the gloves!

I shout out, just in case; 'Mum? Dad?'

No reply, thank God!

I dash up the stairs, rush into my room.

No Freak; damn!

The gloves are there, though.

Hanging over the edge of the opened box, which is itself hanging over the edge of my dresser top.

The _opened_ box!

Didn't I close it before I left?

And wasn't it farther back on the dresser?

Perhaps no; perhaps I'm just scaring myself. Imagining things.

Even so I creep towards the box, like it's going to suddenly leap at me and snap my head off.

Crazy huh?

There's something small and white poking out from the box's velvet lining that I've never noticed before. Like the edge of a business card peeping out from a specially constructed pocket.

I reach out for it cautiously, like I'm still bizarrely expecting the box lid to snap down hard on my hand.

I retrieve the card without the lid biting my hand off. After all my worrying, it's just the kind of card you get with any glamorous purchase; a little promotional blurb they include in the hope you'll be back for more.

'The finest gloves, the softest leather; a second skin – a most _sensuous_ experience. _NonPareil_ _Haute Couture._ A _veritable_ delight for the senses.'

Wow, they've sure got _that_ right about the second skin and the sensual experience.

On the back, there's an address for the shop; and wouldn't you know it, it's in my town, but down in the sort of district you'd normally only go shopping in with an SAS and SEAL squad in attendance. Then again, when these gloves were made back in the early twentieth century, it may well have been _the_ place to be.

Of course, it may also be that the box and card originally contained some other gloves. And Freak or whoever first put these gloves together just put them in this expensive box to give them an extra bit of cachet.

Thing is, even if I take the gloves back to the shop, what happens then?

Do I seriously ask them if they accept returns? Tell them I'm not expecting my money back?

'These gloves weren't quite what I was expecting.'

'That's right; never worn.'

Or do I just come straight out with it and tell them if they _don't_ take them back, I'm calling in that ginger haired guy from CIS?

Sure, great idea Jill; and end up as their _newest_ pair of gloves, right?

Just like Hezzy's gloves, they could even have a nice little card with them:

'A most sensuous experience – discover the agony suffered when your boyfriend runs off with a far more beautiful girl!'

Nope, I've got to think of another way of getting rid of – aaarrrggggghhhhhh!

My God, no, no!

I've just caught sight of myself in my dressing table mirror.

And just like Jackie's face, half of mine is beginning to start hanging off me like a slab of butcher's meat!

*

# Chapter 21

No wonder Cath had looked so shocked when she'd last seen me.

Or have I just got worse and worse since leaving her, just as Jackie seems to be deteriorating more each time I see her?

I'm feeling my skin, trying to push it back up into place. It's not _quite_ as bad as I'd first thought, when I'd first caught that glimpse of myself in the mirror; but what's happening to me is still absolutely horrifying. It's like one side of my face has decided the only expression it's capable of is frowning miserably!

I can't go out looking like this!

Is it all down to Freak's operation on me? Has it started to go wrong? Is he the only one who can fix me up right again?

I could ring the doctor's, the hospital; but I somehow instinctively know that they're not going to be able to help me.

Freak's the only one who can set all this right once more.

Which means I'm going to have to visit that shop, whether I want to or not.

*

Like Jackie, I've taken to draping my hair over one side of my face. It got me by on the bus getting here, with no one really staring, or thinking I was acting a little oddly.

The shop's a lot quainter looking than I'd imagined it to be; all wonky Tudor timbering and overhangs, with a sharply angled slate roof, only coming half way up the other shops it's attached to. Everywhere else, its kebabs, tattoo parlours and iron-grilled pawn shops. Freak's shop is like something snatched out of the most carefully preserved area of London's Mayfair.

There are mannequins in the window wearing the kind of dresses Audrey Hepburn would consider expensive. I'm no expert on these things, but they seem to be dresses from different eras. Periods when you got glamour in spades, providing you were prepared to pay for it.

They're not even regular mannequins either, each one being individually unique, and incredibly lifelike. The way they're posed and dressed, they could all be Vogue cover shots.

Why this shop hasn't been ram-raided, I've got no idea.

Then again, perhaps I have.

Because now I see them, laid out on elegant tables and chairs as part of the window display.

Gloves.

Lots of them.

And all promising 'a most _sensuous_ experience'.

*

There are also scarves, purses and soft leather slippers in the window.

I dread to think what – or rather _who_ – they might originally have been.

Like the gloves, they're available in white, black, brown, red and yellow. And, surprisingly, blue and green, so I'm presuming dyes are involved here.

Of course, it could well be that every single item in this shop is perfectly normal. It could well be that it's only the gloves I've brought here with me that have been 'specially' made, no doubt with the help of Freak.

Certainly, stepping into the shop doesn't, as I'd expected, make my fresh creep.

The effect's entirely the opposite, for the dresses I'd seen in the window are obviously only a very small selection of the stock the shop has to offer. For a start, the shop extends much farther back than I'd expected. Despite having a ridiculously low, light-oak beamed ceiling, it's also much lighter than I would have believed possible.

Although there are the usual rails of dresses you'd tend to expect in such a shop, many of the dresses are once again displayed on elegantly posed mannequins. It's like I've been transported to an exclusive White House or Buckingham Palace garden party.

I almost miss the assistant standing behind the small counter, mainly because instead of being one of those weird little creatures who'd operated on me, and whom I'd been kind of expecting to be here, she's every bit as gorgeous and expensively dressed as the mannequins. She could be a top model, earning about one hundred times more than what I suspect she's earning here. Then again, going by the quality of items on sale, if she's getting ten-percent commission she's probably earning whatever a top model expects anyway.

She smiles at me, one of those smiles assistants in expensive shops give you when they've instantly figured out that you couldn't afford a pair of their cheapest socks in the New Year's Day sale. Then she spots that I'm holding one of their glove boxes.

The smile instantly changes, like she's suddenly recognised me as being a fellow member of an ultra-select club.

'I'd like to return these gloves, please.'

The smile immediately changes back again.

'Return them?' She says it like it's the craziest thing she's ever heard.

I'm opening up the glove box on the counter anyway, the way you do when you're about to point out that whatever you've bought has a hole, or is coming apart at the seams.

What I can say about a pair of faultless gloves, I'm not so sure. Oh yeah, wait, I remember;

'These are made of _human_ skin!'

The girl looks at the gloves admiringly, enviously.

'No finer material around, madam,' she says, like we're talking about merino wool. 'What seems to be the problem?'

She quickly casts her expert eye over the gloves, her puzzled frown unmistakably spelling out to me that she knows they're perfect. Then, before I can answer her question, she glances up at my face, trying to peer behind the veil I've made of my hair on one side.

'Shouldn't you be _using_ the gloves?' she asks curiously. 'I mean, if you don't want things to get worse.'

She indicates the veiled side of my face with a slight nod of her head.

'Get worse?' I'm both horrified and furious. 'What do you know–'

'Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to return a gift?'

Freak appears from a door leading into a back room. At least, I know it's Freak because I recognise his voice. He's dressed so much differently today, wearing the elegant suit that you'd expect of a proprietor of a shop like this. His hair, too, is expertly coiffured.

You know what they're made off,' I insist as firmly as I can manage. I think my voice might be quivering a little, due to the strange situation I've found myself in. 'I want you to take them back; now!'

'Would you like to step into the back?' he says, in the manner a normal shop owner would ask someone if they wanted to discuss favourable financial terms.

'The back!' I shake my head. 'No way am I stepping in _there_ with _you_!'

The girl next to me sighs, giving me the disparaging look a department store assistant gives an over-reacting, completely unpleasable customer.

'Are you sure about that?' Freak gently touches the side of his own face. 'Isn't there some more important matter to discuss other than the return of a pair of gloves?'

'I...I sort of hoped returning the gloves would, you know, tend to make everything else all right.'

Both Freak and the girl have the same kind of smile, smiles usually reserved for tolerating a child's amusing naivety.

Freak opens the door to his back room.

'It's perfectly safe,' he assures me. He turns to the girl. 'Has any woman I've invited into my back room ever come to any harm, Miss Dorent?'

The girl, of course, shakes her head.

'No sir; quite the contrary, I would say.'

She says it with an oddly dreamy expression.

'On the contrary? What's that supposed to mean?' I ask suspiciously.

'I mean they always come out _incredibly_ happy.'

'Er, _that_ sounds even _weirder_.'

'I simply help them understand how _truly_ beautiful they are,' Freak says with a touch of exasperation. 'Or, rather, how beautiful they _could_ be, under my direction and with my help.'

He gently touches the side of his face again, making me unconsciously reach for the disfigured side of my own face.

'You – you caused this?'

'Oh no no; _you_ did. If I may explain?'

Once again, he invites me to step through the door.

What choice do I have? It's not as if I'm much safer out here anyway, as this Miss Dorent's obviously an accomplice.

*

# Chapter 22

Stepping through the doorway into the back of Freak's shop isn't the massive change of atmosphere I was expecting it to be.

Far from being a back room, this room's every bit as large and brightly illuminated as the room we've just left behind.

It's still full of gracefully posed mannequins too, although the dresses being worn here stretch farther back in time than the ones out front. Otherwise, the mannequins are all just as impossibly beautiful, just as incredibly detailed and realistic. There are even a few men here, wearing everything from slick modern suits to the type of costume Shakespeare would have felt at home wearing.

'Is it the operation?' I ask, stroking my face worriedly once more. 'Or is what's happening to me the same thing that's happening to Jackie?'

'Yes, yes to both your questions; although really, it all comes down to you both suffering my displeasure.'

'Displeasure? Why, what have I done? I didn't _ask_ to be operated on!'

'As we both realise, Miss Paxton, if you hadn't had the operation, you'd be in a far worse state than you're in now. What's more, at the time you were hardly in a fit state to be _asked_ permission, or to refuse. The operation was a _complete_ success, with absolutely no complications.'

'No complications! Look at me!'

I pull the veil of hair away from the disfigured side of my face.

'As I say, the operation – which was not by _any_ means a _normal_ operation – was a _complete_ success. An essential element of the operation is that it allows you a certain degree of control over how you look.'

'I can change it back?' I ask hopefully. 'I can go back to how I looked before?'

'Ah, that _depends_ , of course...'

'Depends on what?' I think I'm slowly beginning to work out what he means. 'Depends on ensuring I don't earn your displeasure?'

He nods, smiles.

'And how hard is that, Jill? All I want you to do is to keep the gloves; they're a _gift_! A _fabulous_ gift, as I'm sure you're aware.'

'But they're _disgusting_! They're made of _human_ skin! Poor _Hezzy's_ skin!'

Freak shakes his head sadly.

'Jackie told you? That girl _certainly_ knows how to earn my displeasure, doesn't she?'

'It wasn't Jackie; I _saw_ Hezzy committing suicide.'

Freak's eyes open wide, but not just with surprise; there's also a wild sparkle of delight.

'I saw you there too,' I continue, feeling that at last I have the upper hand; I'm the one surprising _him_. 'You tried to stop her – and that's the _only_ reason why I still have some small residue of trust in you, I suppose. I don't know what the hell's going on around here, or how you managed to be there about a hundred years ago; but if you tried to stop her, there must be _some_ good in you!'

For a moment, he looks a little ashamed, perhaps even bashful.

'Yes, yes; she drove off – I was too late.'

'So – can you explain the gloves? How they come to be made out of Hezzy's skin? You might have been too late to save her, but you didn't seem to mind mutilating her just to get a nice pair of gloves out of her hands!'

He looks up once more, his face creased in shock as if hurt by my comment.

'But don't you see? She lives on through those gloves! Just as you live on because I had the chance of rescuing you. I would have rescued Hezzy in the same way too, if I could; but even I couldn't perform the miracle required to piece her together after that crash.'

Now his eyes are pleading for understanding.

'You've seen how the gloves work, Jill; she's still _alive_ in those gloves. All her emotions and sensations, all there for you and anybody else to experience and learn from.'

'I tried to commit _suicide_ , just like she did!' I protest.

'Only _you_ Jill; you were the _only_ one to see her suicide, to even _know_ she committed suicide. And that's because there's something special about you, something I sort of recognised earlier. Which is why I knew I _had_ to save you. And Hezzy, she was special too, but in a different way; she had this wealth of experience that so many other less confident women can learn from, can experience for themselves. For all these other women, Jill, the gloves are what they were for you the first time you wore them – a means of bringing out their own inner beauty and seductive powers.'

'Oh and a lot of good these seductive powers did Hezzy, right? This boyfriend of hers dumped her just like Jase dumped me.'

'But Jill, there will always be one man, one woman, who remains immune to our allure. Both you and Hezzy were just incredibly unfortunate, that's all.'

With a casual wave of his hand, he indicates the room of mannequins surrounding us.

'Look at my business, Jill; an incredibly _thriving_ business. Do you think everyone who comes through here ends up suicidal?'

With a nod of his head, he next draws my attention to a wall full of framed pictures, old photographs and drawings of the shop in earlier periods. Its exterior still looks much the same as it does now, with only the adjacent buildings being different. The interiors of the shop change, the types of lighting – gas lamps, candles set against mirrors – being different for one thing, the dresses adorning the ranged mannequins being another. The styles go back through the ages, but many are dressed in the fashion of the period; Edwardian, Victorian, and, I think, even Georgian.

'You heard Miss Dorent,' Freak continues proudly, 'they leave here _ecstatic_! And they come back time and time again for more and more. In every other case but yours, my gloves are an _astounding_ success!'

_'Gloves_? Plural? So there are many more gloves like Hezzy's?'

He nods, but unapologetically.

'Of course! As I say, in some cases they're all that's retrievable after the sad loss of some great and ravishing beauty in our past; someone whose early passing would be a great and tragic loss to the world of experience and sensuality! Is it _really_ right that all those wonderful experiences they've accumulated over their short lives should be lost to us all forever? How much would we mourn the loss, say, of the great thinkers, if they weren't able to put their thoughts down in books?'

'Books and gloves made of their skin are a _completely_ different thing!'

'But what if we _didn't_ have books? Would we really suffer the loss of their accumulated thoughts, if we had the opportunity to recover their discoveries in, say, sections of their DNA, or their cells, of their brains, which we could somehow store and read?'

He draws my attention to my shoes.

'Leather, right? Have you any idea of the processing that goes into transforming a _living_ animal into those gay little shoes of yours? And how about those quaint little purses you see made of calves' leather – or, even worse, _unborn_ calves? All that, too, for nothing more than some pretty adornment you're going to tire of one day and throw away. My gloves, on the other hand – what pleasure, what incredible _knowledge_ and _help_ , do they bring with them? Who's going to tire of _them_ and throw them away?'

Before I can avoid it, he reaches out and gently touches my face. His touch creates a slight tingle, as if a small electric charge has just coursed through us. I feel my skin tighten, the sensation you get when you've used a strongly astringent cream.

I pull my hair back and glance at myself in one of the many large mirrors set around the room.

My face! Everything's back to how it should be!

The angrily frozen side's now just like the other side of my face. When I smile, my whole mouth, my whole face, smiles once more.

'How'd you...'

Freak interrupts my question with a modest grin, a slightly raised hand.

'Was it me? Or was it you? Because we both know now, I presume, that you're not going to throw those remarkable gloves away. Think about it; wasn't one of the very reasons you didn't want to dispose of them because you know that they're still an indelible part of Hezzy and her life? Through them, she still lives; and destroying them is like destroying the very last of her. _You_ become the one who _finally_ kills her.'

'Well, yes, I suppose...'

I'm still not quite sure what to think. Am I really on the point of accepting back a pair of gloves made of Hezzy's skin?

Then again, if he's not going to take them back anyway, and if my refusal to keep them means I end up looking more and more like poor Jackie...

'Those gloves can help your friends, just like they originally helped you,' Freak confidently declares, as if he's actually read the doubt on my face. 'What about your friend Cath? Isn't there someone she's longing to be asked out by? Wouldn't you like to see her be as happy as you were?'

'Hah, until someone like Fiona comes along again, and spoils everything!'

'What's the chances of that?' Freak shrugs, like we're talking a million to one chance here. 'Besides, I have it on good authority that Fiona at least is no longer around.'

'You do?'

He nods, smiles.

'Would you have Jase back though, now you know how he's treated you?'

I shake my head.

'No way would I have him back! I'd only ever feel like I was second best; like he was just making do with me till another Fiona came along.'

'See?' he says proudly. 'You've picked up some of Hezzy's fighting spirit along the way!'

'What was she like? The real Hezzy, I mean? You knew her well, right?'

'Very well!' His face takes on an almost dreamy expression, as if he's thinking back to how she used to be. 'Some of the things she got up to! You'd be amazed, impressed!'

He comes out of his semi-dream state, looks back towards me.

'But that was _then_ ; a time I'll tell you about some other time! _Now_ we're talking about letting Hezzy help your friend Cath. And if I know Hezzy, I know she'd be excited about _that_!'

I chuckle.

'Cath? Cath doesn't need any help to feel good about herself! Or to get boyfriends; she can get just about who she wants with a smile and a flip of her fingers.'

_'Just about_ who she wants? Boyfriend _-s_? But what about _the_ boyfriend she really wants? The boy who doesn't come under the "just about" range? Come on, Jill; you know what I'm talking about! Wouldn't Cath have said exactly the same about you a few months back? That you could get just about who you wanted? But there's always somebody _special_ who seems _just_ out of our reach, doesn't there? Making them all the more irresistible and desirable for that?'

Damn him! Isn't there anything this bloody Freak _doesn't_ know?

'Well, okay, you're right; there is _one_ guy. Someone she wouldn't even tell me about – but I sort of _guessed_ anyway, recognising the longing looks she was always giving him. The way she'd talk about him, too.'

'Well there you are then! You can help Cath win the boyfriend of her dreams!'

'Hmn, it's just a little more complicated than that...'

'Oh, Hezzy's expertise will help her overcome any complications,' he says with an airily dismissive wave of his hands.

'But there were _particular_ reasons why Cath wouldn't tell me. She was embarrassed. She didn't want to hurt me.'

'Oh oh; let me guess. She was in love with _your_ boyfriend? With _Jase_?'

I nod.

He frowns thoughtfully.

'Ah, yes; that _is_ a complication.'

He looks at me like, for once, he's expecting me to arrive at an answer.

'I'm _over_ Jase; there no complication really,' I say resolutely.

Am I over Jase? No, probably not. But I can't accept being second best.

'It's agreed then!' Freak pronounces triumphantly. 'You're going to help your friend Cath get the boyfriend of her dreams – Jase Withers!'

*

# Chapter 23

God, am I stupid, or what?

So after all that, I end up leaving with the bloody gloves – made of _human_ skin! – after all!

I mean, it wasn't even as if I'd had the sense to at least ask Freak why he was doing this. I mean, why is he wanting to help Cath?

It's not as if he exactly strikes me as having any socially-aware tendencies!

He's obviously making a _fortune_ out of his gloves and what-have-you. So why hand out freebies to people like me and Cath?

A marketing ploy? Is that all it is?

You know, showing off to his wealthy customers that his company's all signed up to the better-world agenda, helping the less fortunate in society. Or maybe it's a way of showing that even dumb, hormone-raging teens can benefit from the use of his products.

Whatever it is, it seems to be working.

As I'd left the shop, I'd noticed that Miss Dorent had managed to sell one of those if-you-have–to-ask-you-can't-afford-it dresses in the short time I'd been talking to Freak. Where an Elizabeth Taylor lookalike mannequin had been wearing a flouncy, fifties' style dress, there was now a bare, regular mannequin in the same pose, raising an arm as if haling a cab or calling out to someone. I'd thought it odd that Miss Dorent had also removed the lookalike mannequin, but then again, going by how realistic these things are, I'm not sure a naked version wouldn't be breaking any number of laws, if you get where I'm coming from here.

'Jill!'

The shout jolts me out of the little maze of thoughts and problems I've made for myself. Turning around, I see someone running across our front lawn, heading my way. I can't tell who it is as they've got the hood of their jacket up.

'I've been waiting ages for you!'

It's Jackie's voice. She snaps it out like I've let her down, turning up unexpectedly late for an appointment we'd made earlier. I'm tempted to snap angrily back at her, seeing as how she's the one who's got me into all this trouble.

Then I see her face.

If I ever wanted to try and guess what Medusa must have looked like, I don't have to do any guessing anymore. Because here she is, the only difference being she hasn't got hair made of serpents, she's got hair that simply _looks_ like a mass of writhing snakes. Otherwise, the face is as haggard and warped as I'd ever imagined a Gorgon could look like.

'Are you going to...'

Her eyes fall on the boxed gloves in my hand. Something that's supposed to be a smile seems to cross her face.

'Good, good, yes you are!' she says joyfully.

'Yes, I am; but wait a minute, Jackie! What's going on? You've got a lot of explaining to do!'

I can't help but stare at her ravaged face. She reaches up, touches her face with a trembling hand. The hand is every bit as wasted as her face, with shreds of skin hanging off like a used paper tissue.

'This you mean?' Again, she gives me what passes for a resigned smile. 'Look, all you've got to do–'

'I know why you look like that, Jackie; I mean what the heck did you think you were doing dragging me into all this?'

_'Dragging_ you?' She laughs bitterly. 'I can't remember any _dragging_ going on! You were the one asking to use the gloves again and again! I was trying to stop you; or have you conveniently forgotten that?'

She's right; I _had_ forgotten that! Even so, she was the one who introduced me to the gloves in the first place.

'But you _knew_ what the gloves do to you!'

'Sure, Jill; they give you what you were dying to know! How to seduce the gorgeous, irresistible Jase! How was I supposed to know you'd react to them the way you did? Okay, I admit it that I _should've_ stopped you using the gloves so much. But _look_ at me, Jill! Do I deserve _this_?'

She throws her hood back, turns her head back and forth, all so I can get a good luck at how terrifying she looks. It's especially frightening to see her like this as I can't help but wonder how close I came to looking like that myself. Could this be what I'd be looking like now if I'd refused to do what Freak wants?

'I'm like this because Freak thinks I mishandled you. I'm being punished for everything that happened to you! So in a way, you're responsible!'

'He told me, yeah. I'm sorry – I thought, to be honest, that you'd be okay now.'

'Because you've agreed to use the gloves, right?'

She says it gleefully, like it's the best news anybody could ever hear. She reaches out, grabs me joyfully by the waist, and for a moment I'm seriously worried she's going to whirl me around in some sort of ecstatic, waltzing dance.

'Which means he _will_ forgive me, I'm sure! Eventually, if not pretty soon! And you see, Jill – there are the most amazing advantages to giving Freak what he wants. This is just the _worst_ of it–' once again, she twirls her head slightly, but this time in the way a fashion model let's everyone see how beautiful she is – 'but the _best_ more than makes up for it!'

No matter how hard I try, I can't think of _anything_ that would make up for looking like this.

'Look, Jackie; wouldn't it be easier if we just went to the police?'

'The police? Of course! Why didn't _I_ think of that? _Duh_!'

Yeah, you guessed; she says it so it's just absolutely dripping with sarcasm. She even gives herself a theatrical slap on her forehead.

'Because, Einstein, I'd end up looking like _this_ forever!' she snarls, pointing back at her own face.

She looks horrified. On a face that's already horrifying, that's some mean trick.

'Sure, going to the police wouldn't earn Freak's displeasure at _all_ , would it? He'd be frankly _overjoyed_ , wouldn't he? So you'd keep your pretty little face just the way it is, and you could just sit through the entire court case charming everyone with your pert little nose and twinkly eyes!'

'But doctors, the hospital, they could–'

'Look at us and throw their hands up in horror! You were _dead_ , remember?'

'Well, perhaps not _dead_ , but–'

'But _better_ _off_ dead! There wouldn't have been enough of you working to fill a wheelchair in an iron lung, Jill! Freak's operations aren't normal operations, ones that can just be tidied up a bit by a few of those ever-so-caring jerks from ER! We do what Freak wants, or we end up envying the Elephant Man for his ravishing looks!'

'Then...then there's nothing we can do?'

She shakes her head. But that weird smile begins to show itself on her face once again.

'But didn't you hear me when I said the _best_ more than makes up for it? There are _advantages_ to this; things like you'd never, ever believe were possible!'

She touches the glove box in my hands like it's the most precious relic she's ever seen.

'So you'll do it, right?' Her eyes sparkle excitedly. 'You'll help your friend, like he's asked?'

I nod.

'Why not? If it helps her – and _us_ – yeah, why not?'

She grabs me again like we're about to go waltzing round the garden. Worst of all, for a split moment I even fear she's going to kiss me.

'Jill, you're _wonderful_! Oh, and believe me, you _won't_ regret it! You _really_ won't!'

*

# Chapter 24

Jackie's rant about the police and hospitals had only confirmed what I'd already been thinking myself; that they wouldn't be any help.

She'd also more or less confirmed what Freak had told me; that the only reason I'd ended up suicidal was all down to a mix of my own special abilities and Fiona just showing up like that. Which meant it would be perfectly safe for Cath to use the gloves.

So, what problem was there in simply doing what Freak was asking? And if I went along with what he wanted, there was no need for the police or any new operation anyway.

And I might even get to see what all these other 'advantages' Jackie had mentioned were.

First thing, of course, I need to check that Cath herself is on for it. Tell her up front – no lies this time, nothing being hidden from her, as Jackie had hidden things from me – what the gloves can do for her.

Then if she still wants to go ahead with trying out the gloves, why should I deny her the chances I had?

*

Getting Cath on her mobile is the easiest thing in the world.

It never leaves her hand. (Okay, maybe when she's in the bathroom.)

Even as I approach her in the street where we'd arranged to meet, she's gawping at her mobile, despite the facts she's supposed to be taking her shiatsu Gabby out for a walk.

'Hi babe,' she says, with only a fleeting glance up from the screen. 'What's all this mystery then? All this "I'll tell you when I get there"?'

Suddenly, her eyes open wide in shock.

'Babe! You look _gorgeous_ again!'

With a click, she takes a picture of me. She immediately whirls her camera around so I can see the screen.

Yeah, I've got to admit I _do_ look pretty good.

'You looked _terrible_ before! What was it? Mumps? All that _awful_ swelling!'

She smiles, curls an arm around me, gives me a quick hug. Letting me know she's pleased that I'm back to my old self.

'Just some allergy, I reckon.' I give her a warm hug in return. 'But look, that's not why I'm here, Cath.'

'Ohh, the mystery, right? But wait, wait, Jill.'

Spinning around, she takes a quick snap of Gabby. She instantly brings her phone back up between us so we can both see the picture.

'Ahhh,' Cath sighs. 'Isn't she just _so_ cute?'

'Gorgeous,' I say brightly enough to satisfy Cath that I mean it.

'So, what's all this mystery then, babe?'

'A secret, Cath; I'm sorry, but I've been keeping something from you.'

Cath's so surprised she actually slips her phone into a pocket in her jeans.

'Babe! Friends should _never_ have secrets!'

'Cath, we _both_ know that you've been holding a secret back from _me_ too!'

'A secret? No, no, Jill; I've never kept a secret from you – you should _know_ that.'

'Cath, I don't mind; in fact, in this case I think it shows just how good a friend you are. Because you didn't want to hurt me.'

'Babe, babe, you're worrying me now! Why do you think I'd keep a secret from you that might hurt you?'

'No, no; I mean you didn't want me to know, because you thought knowing would hurt me. But I knew anyway, Cath; I could tell that when I was going out with Jase, you fancied him too.'

She turns her head away in embarrassment.

'Jill! What are you saying? I never–'

I reach out and give her a reassuring hug.

'Cath, I'm _not_ upset! We can't help who we fall for, can we? And I think that the way you tried to hide it so you wouldn't hurt me was absolutely _wonderful_ of you!'

She gives me a wan smile.

'Well, sorry babe; but he is _gorgeous_ , isn't he?'

Her eyes open wide in horror as it dawns on her that Jase just broke up with me.

'Oh, sorry babe! I didn't mean–'

'That's okay, that's okay,' I laugh. 'I'm over him now, don't worry! _So_ over him! But Cath; if _you_ still want to go out with him, then I'm not only fine with that, but I might – I _know_ – I can help you get him out on a date!'

Cath pouts miserably.

'Babe, let's face it; Jase is even out of _my_ league.'

'Ah, but that's where I come to _my_ secret, Cath; I'm going to tell you how _I_ worked out how I could get Jase to go out with me.'

*

# Chapter 25

When I look at myself in my dressing table mirror the next morning, I'm feeling _very_ pleased with myself

Naturally, Cath had looked at me like I was just a little crazy when I'd told her about the gloves.

'Trust me,' I'd insisted, 'I don't know _how_ they work; I just know they _do_!'

As a sort of explanation for how they might work, I'd told her they must have somehow recorded the emotions of people who had previously worn them; 'You know, like a house somehow records a highly emotional event like a betrayal or a killing, making us think we're seeing a ghost!'

I couldn't tell her that the gloves were made of human skin, or of Hezzy's unfortunate history. Well, it would all just gross her out, wouldn't it?

So I told her that I'd inherited them from some long-lost relative.

How easy lies can just start tripping off the tongue, right? And once you're in, once you've started telling them, it's hard to back out.

Okay, so she's a friend, and I shouldn't be telling her these things. But if I told her the truth, she'd be missing out on the experience – the _experiences_ – of a lifetime, wouldn't she?

As soon as she'd seen the gloves, Cath had realised they were special. You could just see it in her eyes that she thought they were just so amazingly beautiful.

When she'd picked them up, she'd almost purred with delight when she'd felt how incredibly soft and light they were.

'They're sort of warm, too,' she'd said in thrilled surprise. 'Even before you put them on, you can feel this wonderful warmth in their leather!'

Even when she'd just slipped one glove on, I could tell that she was already beginning to believe that everything I'd said about the gloves was true. Her pupils were dilated with pleasure. She was pouting, grinning wildly.

Her eyes closed as soon as she slipped her hand into the second glove.

What can I say?

I don't want to go into much detail, as it was actually more than a little embarrassing for me, standing next to my friend as she seemed to more or less go through the throes of ecstasy.

Even more embarrassing, however, is that I'm now wondering what the heck I looked like to Jackie when I was the one wearing the gloves, and she was the one standing alongside.

Little Gabby, sitting on the floor next to me, simpered worriedly.

The thing is, when you're experiencing all those amazing things that the gloves can offer you, the real world outside of you simply ceases to exist. You're suddenly in a whole new, more exciting world, where you're a goddess and everyone worships you.

When Cath finally took the gloves off, her face was covered in a light sheen of sweat. She appeared exhausted, yet desirously happy.

She couldn't thank me enough for letting her wear the gloves.

'I didn't...just didn't know... _anything_ could be like that!'

As she left my house, I noticed that her phone was still in her pocket. She was paying more attention to her dear little Gabby too, while managing to walk out with the hint of a confident sway to her body that would have had a catwalk model gaping in admiration.

'Come on Gabby dearest; Mummy's got something she needs to do.'

That's what the gloves can do to you; bring out a ridiculously high level of self-assurance that you never believed you had inside you.

I almost fondly tap the gloves lying alongside me on my dresser top.

'Thanks Hezzy,' I say, 'we've all got so much we can all learn from you!'

*

I glance back at myself in the mirror. I smile contentedly at what I see.

Wow, I've _never_ looked better!

In fact – are those _really_ my eyebrows?

No! They're the eyebrows I've desperately wanted since about a year ago. That's when I first saw the latest outcrop of young models and starlets flourishing these wonderfully angular brows that could make _anybody_ look hot!

I'd begged Mum and Dad to let me have them. To let me have just one more nip and tuck they could've got their favourite surgeons to do as a favour, they spend so much down there. But did they let me have them? No _way_ did they!

They'd told me to wait, told me to make sure that that's what I really wanted before I went ahead with it. Hah, _that's_ rich, coming from those two, with more plastic than Barbie and Ken.

But now I've got the eyebrows I wanted anyway.

The _perfect_ eyebrows. Shaped like I've paid gazillions for them!

So, this is the sort of extra advantage Jackie was talking about, is it?

If it is, I _like_ it! Yes, I like it very very much!

And if I'm starting to earn Freak's approval; do these advantages stretch to getting to wear one of those fabulous dresses he has in his shop?

*

# Chapter 26

This time Miss Dorent greets me warmly.

'Mr King will be with you in a moment, Jill,' she says after she's finished showing a middle-aged, expensively dressed woman into the back room.

'Mr King? Oh, yes, yes; of course! Mr _King_!'

I glance around the shop, noticing straight away that the Elizabeth Taylor mannequin's back in its place. She's wearing the same dress she was last time, so either it's a copy, or the woman who'd taken it away last time had either hired it, or decided not to buy it.

Farther down the shop, there's a newly bared, regular mannequin. I can't remember which one of the more realistic mannequins had originally been in its position.

An excited tittering comes from the doorway leading into the back of the shop. A truly glamorous and gorgeous woman appears there, huskily shouting back her thanks to 'Mr King' over an elegant shoulder.

She whisks past us, I think giving me a pitying look, then heads out of the shop doorway. A limousine is waiting outside, one that must have quietly drawn up while I've been looking around the mannequins. A chauffer holds the car's rear door open, and the woman gracefully slips into its luxuriously upholstered seats.

'Mr King will see you now,' Miss Dorent cheerfully informs me as the car drives off, indicating with a fluid wave of an arm that I can step into the back.

I'm surprised. The older woman must still be back there with him, unless she's being attended to by some other assistant I haven't met yet. Which, of course, isn't inconceivable.

Stepping through into the back, I'm greeted by a beaming Freak. There's no sign of the woman, though there are plenty of doors towards the back that she could have slipped through.

As in the front of the shop, there's now a bared, regular mannequin in here, replacing one that had been wearing the green evening dress I've just seen the gorgeous woman leaving in.

'I wasn't expecting you back so soon!' Freak declares happily. 'Oh, I just _love_ the eyebrows! Very very _you_!'

'Oh, you _noticed_!' Of course he did, idiot! But what I mean is, I'm pleased he did.

'It's hard not to notice,' he says. 'On you, they're _particularly_ beautiful!'

I nod appreciatively.

As he's obviously in an extra-special good mood, I decide, what the heck, let's just get what's on my mind out in the open straight away!

'I was wondering, _Mr_ _King_.' I say it with a slight chuckle that seems to amuse him. 'Would there be any chance of me _borrowing_ one of your amazing dresses? Or perhaps even _buying_ one? On special terms that won't leave me bankrupt before I'm anywhere near twenty?'

'Borrow one?'

He says 'borrow' like he's horrified by the thought alone. Then he smiles, like it's all just been a joke all along.

'I'm sure, yes, that we can work _something_ out that you'll feel happy with.'

I'm thrilled. I look about me, wondering which dress would suit me best.

Any one of them would make me look like a celebrity, a catwalk queen, a Hollywood actress.

'None of these, I think,' Freak says dismissively, noticing my interest in the dresses surrounding us. 'For you, I think you'd appreciate something far far more special.'

With a waved arm, he indicates that I should step towards one of the doors towards the back of the room. The door silently opens by itself.

I hesitate; a back room of a back room?

'Still don't _entirely_ trust me, right?'

He laughs. He doesn't look offended. Rather, he looks like he understands my hesitation.

He claps his hands towards the doorway, saying, 'That's okay; we'll bring it out here.'

Inside the darkened room, I can hear a sudden, urgent scuffling. It's as if someone or something had been lying in wait for me in there. I'm relieved I refused to enter, though now also just a little nervous about what might be going on in there.

A few seconds later, a few of the weird little men and women who I vaguely remember operating on me step out from the room. I almost leap back in shock, having almost forgotten their involvement in everything that's happened to me recently.

They're all tugging on ropes. Behind them, I see something on a wheeled trolley being slowly revealed as it moves from the room's darkness into the light.

It's another dress, another mannequin. But yes, as Freak promised this is incredibly special.

It could be a Tudor queen walking towards me, especially as the trolley makes no sound, while most of it is hidden by the huge expanse of dress. Her movement is gracefully smooth too, the carefully sanded floor offering no obstacles to give her any sudden jolt or judder.

The dress alone must be worth a fortune, a mix of red and green silk layering that really shouldn't work, but here gives the impression that _every_ dress should be like this. As well as being heavily embroidered, pearls and rubies have been sewn into the swirling design, such that it glitters as if illuminated by its own light.

More beautiful than ever, however, is the wearer of the dress. Her auburn hair alone could set a new fashion, with everyone wanting to copy the way it drapes down across her shoulders in fabulously elongated curls. Her complexion is flawless, bar a light smattering of freckles that somehow draw your attention to her ridiculously bright hazel eyes. Her mouth would make the reddest tulip turn green with envy, while her neck would draw a similar reaction from even Nefertiti.

Who wouldn't want to be this girl, or at least share a fraction of her incredible beauty? It's hard to believe she's just a mannequin after all; she looks so incredibly real, so amazingly alive. It's the first time I've been up close to one of these amazing mannequins, and I didn't realise just how incredibly detailed they are. She must have cost a fortune to make.

Wait!

Just how stupid have I been?

How incredibly naive?

'Absolutely beautiful, isn't she?'

Freak interrupts my thoughts. The weird little pixies or elves or whatever they are are all silently and patiently standing to one side.

'Is...is she what I _think_ she is?'

My mind's a whirl. My stomach feels suddenly empty.

I want to get out of here.

'Come come, Jill; you're fully aware of the material I work with.'

I'm still hoping I'm imagining all this. I stand closer to the girl, reach out, touch her face.

I jerk my hand back in horror.

Skin! _Real_ skin.

*

'Oh God no!' I wail miserably, snapping my hand back from the dead girl's beautiful face.

I spin around, expecting Freak to be already advancing on me with a knife and cleaver.

Instead, he's beaming at me like he's just given me the world's most amazing Christmas present.

'Surely we don't have to go through all this again, Jill? All this false squeamishness? Think about it; what you felt through the gloves, anyone can experience through my most special creations!'

'You _skinned_ her?'

'Jill, this poor girl was _dead_. What would have happened to this incredibly beautiful body of hers? It would have rotted, become a disgusting mess. But this way, her incredible beauty is preserved for ever! Would we destroy a preciously beautiful vase, simply because its owner has passed on and has no further use for it? Why shouldn't less fortunate women have a chance to share in her God-given gift of beauty?'

As he talks, I don't have time to run out of the room, like I wanted to.

His freaks, his pixies or elves or whatever you want to call them, are all suddenly clambering all over me, taking off my clothes swiftly and effortlessly.

They're all over the poor girl too, somehow opening her up at the back, dress and all.

And with a swift, flowing movement, they whip her skin off the now bared and regular mannequin lying beneath.

Oh God!

Am I going to end up replacing her on that mannequin?

*

# Chapter 27

'Please, please! I'll do anything you want! _Anything_!'

Sure I'm begging! Wouldn't you?

The little freaks are now pulling the girl's skin towards me. In a swift, practised move, they begin to slip her over my own now naked body. They lift me up off the floor, holding my legs and feet out so that the girl's legs hidden beneath her dress slide smoothly onto mine.

At least Freak's had the decency to look away.

The skin had seemed to expand slightly as the freaks had taken it off the mannequin. Now, as it touches my own skin in the right areas – fingers against fingers, toes against toes – it begins to shrink and tighten once more.

I think I'm going to be sick. But then, strangely, I begin to pick up on the girl's thoughts; calming thoughts, reassuring me, telling me not to worry. She's fine with all of this, she's telling me, so why shouldn't I be?

I thought the touch of her skin against mine would be clammy, disgusting. But it isn't; it's like silk, smooth and welcoming. And, as more and more of it binds itself to my own skin, it becomes just one more part of me.

Or, rather, I become part it.

And suddenly, I'm Anne Morrow, Tudor courtesan.

*

It shouldn't be possible, I know, but I'm now the possessor of what must be the world's most supremely elegant neck.

Just running my hands up my own, wonderfully long neck is a priceless sensation in its own right. How many times has this neck been kissed, stroked, envied?

I mean, I _know_ ; but I just can't _count_ the number of times!

I catch a view of myself in one of the shop's many mirrors – and my eyes blaze with satisfaction.

God, I'm beautiful!

Even with all these freaks still clambering over my back, stitching me up with all that snake-like twine they'd used in my operation, I look as elegant as a Vogue model, as regally poised as an empress.

The freaks and the shop reflected back at me in the mirror fade from my vision. In their place, there's a richly decorated court room, a throng of expensively attired men and women.

And the most god-awful smell!

I've been in better smelling stables. The stench of drains, mixed with unwashed bodies. Of course, everyone's tried to hide the smell with heavy perfumes, but they're all so powerful they're almost as bad as the problem.

I try to hold my breath but, naturally, it's impossible.

Looking about me, I'm instantly struck by how the visual splendour is so completely at odds with what my sense of smell is telling me. Shut my eyes, and I'd swear I was in the poorest district in town. Open, they find it hard to take in all at once all this vibrancy of colour, this vain display of wealth. Dresses, even male costumes, are heavily adorned with silk and velvet trappings, with gold and silver thread, a whole hoard of precious gems.

Anne is neither impressed nor bothered by either the opulence or the horrendous stench. She neither sees nor smells anything unusual.

Of course, everyone's dressed in the Tudor style, with puffed up, layered sleeves. For the women, it's widely splaying dresses, for the men, tights and an almost semi-spherical flouncing of material around the hip and upper thighs. A few wear what could be dark, elongated coats.

Although we're crowded into a large room, we're all standing to either side of a clear, wide space. Glancing over everyone's heads, I can just make out what could be the top of a high throne at one end of the room. There's someone talking up there, voices with a hint of either anger or fear.

Moving around a little, I get a clearer view of the throne. A small group of people are cluttered in front of it. These are the people I can hear talking.

As they move slightly, I at last get to see who's sitting on the throne.

I'm disappointed. I was expecting to see Henry the Eighth. But it's a young boy.

Edward. Henry's son Edward is now king.

'...it's well known, it all has to be done on the morrow.'

It's only a whisper from somewhere amongst the crowd not far from me. Yet I hear it as if it's directed at me. Muted sniggers follow. When I turn around to see who's responsible, I catch a small group of handsome men looking my way.

I glare back at them scornfully. They all sheepishly look away.

Looking about me now, I realise that any of the men who can see me are fleetingly glancing in my direction whenever they can. I can detect an unmistakable lust in even the briefest of those glances; a hardness to their stares that I've become used to.

They don't seem to realise it, but it's like the entire soul of each and every one of them is on view to me, simply because I've become so skilled at interpreting every inflection of their eyes, every move of their hands, head or body.

The expression on the faces of the women is the complete opposite of what I see written across the faces of the men; loathing, envy, a sense that they wish I would just be removed immediately from the face of the earth.

But no; it's not _all_ of the women. Some of them, women hanging around in small clusters, are emanating a whole barrage of other emotions in their stares and moves. These women are expectant, impatient. They're with older men who, similarly, seem unaware of my beauty yet, oddly, are perhaps the ones staring hardest and most unashamedly at me.

They're wanting me to do something. They're disappointed in me; so far, I haven't done as much as they expected of me. They want more of me.

And then I realise who all these people glaring at me are.

They're my family. My extended family. My uncles, aunts. Even my grandparents.

They have high hopes in me. They want me to use my beauty to cement their power in court. To open up new contacts for them, forge new alliances. Ensure an increase in their wealth, honours and land holdings.

To them, I'm a pawn.

But they want me to make my moves and become a queen.

*

# Chapter 28

Snapping out of my experience of being Anne Morrow is harder than when I've just been wearing the gloves.

The horrendous smell instantly vanishes, its replacement being the lavender of the shop. There's more white light here too, less glittering of colour.

But a young, handsome Tudor man is standing right in front of me.

He grins cheekily.

'Are you all right? Jill? You still look a little dazed.'

I recognise the voice. It's Freak.

'I got dressed while you were enjoying being Anne,' he explains with a sort of swift curtsy, noting the confused look I'm still giving him.

'Enjoying?' I snap. 'With all those...dreadful people!'

'People? Which people?'

'The uncles! The aunts! All expecting that poor girl to do whatever she has to, just to see their own wealth and power increasing!'

'Oh yes; and to make sure they _survive_ , you mean?' Freak says casually. 'This is the _Tudor_ court, Jill; if your family doesn't keep one step ahead of another family, it's not just power that you lose but your life.'

'This is sick, Freak, I mean _really_ sick! I mean, the gloves were bad enough, but–'

I'm trying to pull off the skin, but it's like pulling at my own skin. Nothing's moving, apart from the way your skin naturally moves when you tug at it.

Freak smiles, while giving me an impressed frown.

'You know, it usually takes someone ages to really get used to becoming another person; you've pulled it off – sorry, no pun intended – first time!'

'Freak! I want _out_ of this horrendous skin _now_!'

'Skin? That's such an _awful_ term, Jill! How can you describe poor Anne as a _skin_? Didn't you just live a part of her life? Isn't she wonderful? Isn't that amazing?'

'It was awful, _awful_ Freak!'

I'm still trying to find some way of shedding Anne. And yes, when I think of it in those terms, it _does_ sound terrible. Like I'm thinking of poor Anne as being some sort of disease, or pestilence.

'Didn't you hear me say that her own family are betraying her? I felt so bad for her, poor girl! How can people come here to experience something like that?'

'Well, they don't; the more distasteful aspects of my creations are shielded from their wearers. Only the good, most wonderful experiences are made accessible. Once again, you've managed to tap into the full life of a person – which makes me realise that you're already ready for the best part of the experience!'

Before I can protest, he reaches out, takes my hand. I can feel his hand just as if neither of us were wearing his 'creations'.

'No, no, Freak! I've had enough! I–'

The scents around me have changed again. The heavy perfume of lavender is still there, but there's also a very weak hint of the drains I'd smelled earlier.

The shop is different too. The bright glare of the spotlights has vanished, so that now we're suffused in the flickering amber glow of lanterns. The floors are no longer sanded smooth, but are made of relatively new boards.

The carefully posed mannequins are still here, but they're all from a different age. They stretch back in time to early medieval, even Roman and Greek. There's not one I can see that seems to be wearing anything later than Tudor period dress.

We've travelled back in time.

We're in the shop as it would have appeared to Anne Morrow, if she'd ever stepped in here.

*

Freak's here as well.

No, I don't mean the Freak I left our time with, dressed as a handsome young man. He's here with me too, of course.

But there's another Freak here. One who looks more like the Freak I'm used to, only wearing Tudor dress.

I suppose he's Freak as he was when he was running this shop, way back in the sixteenth century.

He doesn't bat a hair when he sees us suddenly appear in the back of his shop. He comes over to us with a smile on his face that he probably reserves for his most favoured customers.

'Good to see you,' he says with a twinkle of amusement.

Greeting yourself must be a _bit_ odd, of course.

'And you're here from?'

'The twenty first century,' the Freak I came with answers.

The earlier version of Freak seems impressed. He looks me over with appreciative eyes.

'And you've brought someone with you too!'

'Yes, yes; someone _very_ special.' Freak gives me an admiring grin before facing his earlier self once more. 'Someone special who we _almost_ lost; so take care of her!'

He wags an admonishing finger at himself.

'I can see she's special; not many can actually make the trip back in time. As I can't actually see her, may I ask her name?'

'Jill Paxton.' Freak turns to me, obviously believing I might need or deserve some explanation. 'When we – me and my earlier self – meet like this, we're surprisingly careful what we tell each other.'

'It can lead to all sorts of complications,' his other self agrees. 'In trying to change any future event, we often end up creating the very thing we feared might happen.'

'Of course, anyone from your future can only warn you of what has already happened to them; in which case it's too late to do anything about it, as it's already happened.'

'Ironically, your future self has to guess what _might_ go wrong, if he's going to give you any chance of addressing it.'

'It all becomes so very complicated.'

'Mind boggling.'

'Ah, but _this_ is how you knew I was special?' I ask, looking at them both.

They both nod.

'I know _now_ to look out for you Jill,' the earlier one adds.

'May I?' his other self asks him, suggesting by a smooth curve of an arm that he wants to take me out to the front of the shop.

'By all means; but, remember, we're expecting her majesty Princess Elizabeth any moment.'

'How could I forget?'

*

# Chapter 29

In the front of the shop, there aren't any mannequins, only tailor's dress dummies.

Of course, mannequins as we know them didn't exist in the time of the Tudors.

It looks more like a combination of a dressmakers and a gentleman's tailors. There are materials on huge rolls stacked on the shelves. Partially finished dresses and men's bodices and jackets adorn the dummies.

Outside the windows, it's a chaotic scene of heavily lumbering carts, nervously shying or trotting horses, and men and women in the kind of costumes I've only ever seen before in movies or museums.

'It's a time when people are terrified of witchcraft,' Freak whispers, leaning closer towards me. 'Fortunately, we have a lot of people in _very_ high places who can protect us.'

I realise he's whispering because an assistant is helping an over-elaborately dressed woman chose materials for a new dress. The assistant, like Miss Dorent, is ridiculously beautiful. She gives us a fleetingly confused look, until Freak makes some sort of odd, reassuring signal with a twirl of a hand and a twitch of his fingers.

The woman doesn't look quite so reassured. She's gives me a sour glare. I'm not sure if it's envy of my beauty, or if she recognises me and is appalled that I'm here.

'Do you know what pixilated means?' Freak asks me strangely as he directs me to start browsing through the materials, as if we're just a regular couple of customers.

'Sure; it's when all the pictures on your screen break up into little squares.'

'Originally, it meant being abducted by pixies; it's surprising how humans took it into their hearts that fairies and what have you only exist to steal you away to underground kingdoms.'

The door opens and an old couple step into the shop. They look about themselves nervously, quickly taking us in, then glancing over towards the assistant. The assistant seems to recognise them.

'I'll be with you in a moment, Lord and Lady Crendon,' she exclaims brightly.

The woman she's with instantly looks even more anxious than the newcomers. She looks unsure whether to quickly bring her browsing to a close, or to risk upsetting her social betters by keeping them waiting.

'If I may be of help?' Freak says, sprightly stepping towards the Lord and Lady with a half-hearted bow.

The Lord and Lady look once more towards the assistant. She nods her approval.

'Yes, yes, if you could, that would be–'

'This way,' Freak confidently interrupts the man's nervous bluster, showing them towards the door leading to the back rooms.

The couple instantly appear relieved that they don't have to explain why they're here.

The woman stares my way, observing me with the intensity of someone trying to determine if I'm everything I appear to be; if I'm real, or if I'm someone like her, wearing one of Freak's creations.

As she heads off towards the door with her husband and Freak, I seriously wonder if she's making a note to ask why she's never been offered the opportunity to be this ravishing beauty.

As Freak returns from showing them into the back room, the assistant escorts her customer to the front door, waving her goodbye and assuring her that everything will be ready for her within two weeks.

'Do you always end up here, in the shop, when you come back in time?' I whisper to Freak.

'It's the easiest and safest way.'

He's no longer bothering to whisper now we've been left alone with the assistant, who's already busying herself tiding up the materials she'd laid out for the woman to observe.

'If you can tap into a highly emotional point in their lives, you can turn up somewhere close by them at that exact moment; but you're running the risk of them seeing you. Which is going to cause no end of complications.'

He smiles, like he's imagining the shock of someone suddenly being confronted by their identical twin.

'Talking of complications, Lord and Lady Crendon, who you just saw going in there? – well, they keep it a secret from each other of course, but they frequently come in separately. Lady Crendon so that she can be a lady of the night for a weekend. Lord Crendon so that he can be transformed into a young rake. And they've become lovers, without realising who they're really with!'

It looks like Freak is on the point of bursting into raucous laughter, but manages to stifle it just in time, as Lord and Lady Crendon exit from the back room. At least, I presume it's Lord and Lady Crendon, as they're the only couple I saw heading in there. But the couple who've come out look nothing like them anymore of course; rather, they're now a gorgeous young couple, only just out of their teens.

The other Freak is with them, smiling happily, the contented shopkeeper showing his most favoured customers out of his shop after they've made another expensive purchase.

'Actually, they're not at _all_ what they seem,' Freak whispers to me mysteriously, making an odd twirling of his hands. 'They've – how shall I put it? – added to the frisson of excitement by changing _roles_.'

'Ah,' I reply, briefly wondering how that works out for them before deciding I really really don't want to think about it anymore.

'And the _condition_ they bring them back in!' He shakes his head in disgust. 'You wouldn't _believe_ the extent of the repairs we have to make!'

As Lord and Lady Crendon leave, a handsome young boy slips in through the open door behind them. As soon as he's inside the shop, shutting the door behind him, both Freaks and the assistant bow down so low before him that they're all basically kneeling on the floor. Their heads hang down, as if they daren't look at him.

'Bow!' Freak hisses at me, grabbing at me to pull me down alongside him.

There's a part of Anne Morrow that doesn't want to bow. No matter how important this prince or whoever he is happens to be, Anne seems to think she's in a powerful enough position to snub him.

Then again, like me, she might just be wondering who he is.

Playing it safe, I bow as low as I saw the assistant bow.

'Your Majesty!' they all intone.

Through a corner of my lowered eyes, I can see the Prince observing me closely, as if he'd noticed my reticence to show subservience. He steps forward, cups my chin in his hand. He makes me raise my face to look up at him.

'Morrow, isn't it? Anne Morrow; I've seen you at my brother's court.'

My _brother's_ court? He's Edward's brother? Now history isn't one of my very few strong points, but even I'm sure Edward didn't have any brother. Isn't that why Edward's sister became queen?

'You need to watch yourself, girl!' the Prince continues. 'I know of many courtly beauties who get above themselves and come to a bad end; and their beauty is never enough to save them from that! See that you're not one of them!'

'Yes, yes, of course Your Majesty. Thank you, Your Majesty!'

The Prince nods and smiles, like he's satisfied that he's said enough to either help me or warn me off for my brief rebellion.

He's still holding my chin. We're all still kneeling on the floor. Everyone else still have their heads bowed.

The Prince twists my head back and forth slowly.

'Then again, you would make an exquisite costume my dear.' He turns towards the earlier version of Freak. 'Mr King, if she ever becomes available, please be sure to inform me _immediately_!'

He stares appreciatively at me again.

'It would be such a loss to the world to lose such beauty! And a particular loss to me as well, of course!'

He smiles, like this is a wonderfully pleasant joke and I should be grinning along with him.

'Up, up; you can all get up now!' he commands, impatiently waving his hands. 'Mr King, I need a touch of truly regal glamour for my appointment tonight! I trust that, as I ordered, you've kept Helen purely for my use?'

'Of course, Your Majesty. She's as untouched and unblemished as she was for your last assignment.'

The Prince confidently strides towards the door, with Mr King uncharacteristically quickly following on behind.

'I note that your own costume is suffering a little from wear and tear, Your Majesty!' he breathes. 'Should we go ahead with the usual reconditioning while you leave it with is?'

I don't hear the Prince's reply as the door closes to behind them.

I turn towards Freak.

'Not _another_ change of roles?'

'No, no; didn't you hear? She's not _really_ the boy you've just seen. That's a costume she purchased just to help her get around without being noticed. She's Princess Elizabeth, the future queen; as, of course, our Mr King is _fully_ aware!'

'I thought you said your future selves didn't bother telling your earlier selves everything?'

'It would be foolish not to keep ourselves informed of the future importance of _some_ people! Didn't I also say we needed protection?'

'And this Helen she wants to be is...?'

'Helen of Troy, of course!'

'No! That's impossible! What sort of condition must she be in?'

'Immaculate, of course! Despite being one of Elizabeth's favourites. And later, as Elizabeth ages, she'll make even more use of poor Helen and the other beautiful women I can help her transform into. At her height, she'll own a whole walk-in wardrobe of my creations! Simply to keep her younger lovers satisfied!'

Yet again, the door to the back room swings open. The woman who exits in front of a subserviently cringing Mr King is a vision of beauty, though not what I was expecting. She's in a cumbersome Tudor dress, rather than the simpler white one I've always imagined Helen wearing.

'...and remember that Paris should be kept aside; I've someone in mind who I wish to make use of it.'

'As you wish, Your Majesty!'

This time, Mr King doesn't just see his customer to the door but helps her board a waiting carriage.

Freak watches himself, wryly smiling at his own cloying, deferential actions.

'I'm afraid our young Princess doesn't quite pull off the transformation as well as she could. She still thinks too much of herself, of her own importance, to fully immerse herself in her new character.'

He turns to me, now smiling proudly. He takes my hands in his.

'Unlike you, Anne Morrow! You, Jill, _you_ could be Helen better than anyone I know!'

'Me?' I laugh, even though I'm flattered. 'Why me?'

Now he's the one who laughs.

'Because you don't realise it, do you? – but you look so much like her!'

Ah, so it _is_ just flattery.

'I've just _seen_ her, remember? I don't look like _that_!'

'And have you already forgotten that I said Elizabeth still let's too much of herself come through? With you, that wouldn't matter so much anyway; because if you'd had the wealth and privileges offered Helen, you'd be surprised how much you'd naturally look like her!'

I don't believe a word of it, of course – but I'd like to! I'm enjoying being compared to Helen of Troy, even if I know Freak's probably got some hidden motive behind all his flattery.

I know; I'll challenge him by putting him on the spot.

'Okay, so when we get back, show me Helen; and let's see how _I_ look as her!'

He shakes his head sadly.

'She no longer exists in our time; she was stolen!'

'Stolen? Who'd do such a thing?'

Strange, isn't it, how I'm no longer fazed by the way Freak has turned all these unfortunate girls into haute couture for his clients, yet I'm shocked that someone might steal one?

'Well, I've been reliably informed _how_ it was done,' Freak says, 'but I can only take an informed guess at _who_ I think did it.'

'I think it's awful that, even though you know it's going to happen, you can't prevent it.' I shiver uncomfortably. 'It's awful knowing we can't change anything, that everything's all sort of written down for us somewhere, saying what's going to happen to us!'

He grins.

'Now, I didn't say _that_ at all. _You_ can determine whatever you want to do, as can anyone else. It's just that in _my_ case, I can _know_ about things that have already happened to my future self. And somewhere, too, there's a future lying ahead of my future self that even _he_ doesn't know anything about.'

'It's all a bit complica–'

'Anne, Anne Morrow!'

Whirling around, I see that Mr King has rushed back into his shop.

'The _real_ Anne Morrow!' he adds frantically shooing us back towards the rear room.

Freak takes my hand.

'Ready to go back?' he asks.

'Ready,' I answer. 'But Anne; she shops here too?'

'Naturally,' Freak says as we begin to travel back to our own time. 'What sort of accomplished lover would she be if she'd never worn a pair of our gloves?'

*

# Chapter 30

You can certainly tell that Cath now frequently wears a pair of Freak's gloves.

'Scatty' has gone forever. So, for the most part, apart from when she's taking calls or text from Jase, has her phone.

Whenever I catch them hanging out together in the school yard, or making eyes at each other throughout class, I can't help but feel a twinge of jealously, of regret. Even worse, though, is when I come across them walking hand in hand down a street, making each other laugh, stopping now and again for a cuddle, a kiss.

Damn! I didn't know it was going to hurt _this_ much!

And Cath, of course, is the lucky one. Unlike the way it happened to me, there isn't going to be a gorgeous Fiona who suddenly turns up to steal Jase away from her and break her heart.

Of course, I should be glad for her. And, in most ways, I am. I'm the one helping her, aren't I, with the gloves and everything? The way I'm standing aside to give her a clear run at Jase?

Who knows, though – if I let Jase know I was interested again, would he...?

He might, don't you think?'

Well, you never know, do you?

We _did_ have something good going between us.

I'm sure that, sometimes, when he catches me looking at them together, there's a hint of regret in his expression.

Like he wishes we could go back to how it used to be.

If it was anyone else but Cath...

But I can't put Cath through what I went through.

Can I?

*

Strangely, there's no sign of Jackie anymore.

We've been told at school that she won't be in for a while. That she's had to take a great deal of time off, as she's very ill.

Every time I pass her house, it looks like there's no one home. Perhaps the whole family has gone off somewhere.

'What's happened to Jackie,' I ask Freak when I call in his shop one day.

'I've no idea,' he replies, like it's an odd question to ask him.

He's busy delicately and fussily readjusting the frills, the laces, on his 'costumes'.

'She seems to have just _disappeared_ ; along with her parents. Is that possible?'

I ask this because, as far as Freak's concerned, I believe it's _highly_ possible.

'I wouldn't think so; would you?' he says casually.

'You've forgiven her, right?'

'What's to forgive?'

I'm getting nowhere fast here, am I? Perhaps I should just leave it for now.

'You know,' I say, 'I was thinking; about Jase and Cath.'

'It's going well, isn't it?'

At last he looks my way, like I've finally touched on something that interests him.

'Yes, yes,' I say a touch more miserably than I'd intended, 'but, I was thinking, you know; what would happen to Cath if, well, if Jase went off with someone new?'

'Oh, don't worry about _that_!' He returns to the fussy preening of his creations, as if my worries are of little concern. 'She's worn the gloves; no one, but no one, could steal him away from her!'

'Fiona stole him away from _me_!' I snap bitterly.

Far from being intimidated by my anger, Freak remains undistracted from his task.

'Oh, but Jill! Fiona's on an entirely _different_ level! And, believe me, Fiona won't be turning up _this_ time! I _assure_ you!'

'How can you be so sure? Like Jackie, she just seems to have disappeared.'

He looks my way again at last. He touches his nose.

'I know she won't be turning up, unless you _want_ her to!'

'Me?'

I giggle nervously. What _is_ he on about?

'How's Fiona turning up or not got anything to do with _me_?'

'Tell me,' he says, finally giving me his full attention, 'didn't you ever wonder how wonderful it must be to be a goddess like Fiona?'

'When she was stealing Jase from me, I would have given _anything_ to look like her,' I admit sourly.

'You _could_ be Fiona, you know?'

Oh oh; here comes all that wild flattery again, like he swamped me in when he was telling me I could be Helen. What's he after? What's he wanting me to do now?

'No matter how I dress, no matter _what_ I do with my hair, I could _never_ be Fiona!'

I realise I've been gradually following him down towards the end of the back room as I've watched him tidying up his costumes. He steps towards one of the doors that leads off to further rooms, inviting me to follow.

Inside, it's dark. He switches on the spotlights.

In the sharp brightness of the lights, I can't mistake her.

It's Fiona.

*

# Chapter 31

'You've _killed_ her?'

I'm stepping back, back into the light of the larger room.

'You've killed _Fiona_?'

'Of course I haven't killed Fiona!' he declares, obviously affronted. 'She died almost a hundred and fifty years ago!'

'But...but I saw her!' I insist. 'She took Jase from me!'

'Just like you saw Helen of Troy step from my back room! Just like you helped Anne Morrow finally gather enough sense to bow to her future queen!'

'But if she's _here_ ; then you sent her to take Jase off me?'

'No, not me! I didn't know she'd been borrowed to do that! Why do you think I've been so angry with Jackie?'

'Jackie? Jackie dressed as her? Dressed as Fiona? To take him off me?'

'She was in love with him too! How was I supposed to know _that_? This was the only way she could win him off you!'

Despite being perfectly still, Fiona seems to blaze with life. It's the incredible lustre of her hair, the brightly glittering confidence of her eyes. (How do they do that? How do they keep the eyes sparkling? How do they blend into your own face?) No one would guess she was almost a hundred and fifty years old.

'Wait; you say she died a hundred and fifty years ago? But she's not wearing Victorian dress. This is wholly modern; the sort of stuff I wish I could afford.'

'Of course; because most of my clients aren't really interested in experiencing past, historical lives. They want to be young and beautiful now, in the present. Just as Princess Elizabeth and Lord and Lady Crendon wanted to be able to go out and about in their own town, their own time, possessing a beauty that could never be theirs in reality.'

While he's talked, a number of his freaks have quietly entered the room and set about swiftly removing the unfortunate Fiona from her supporting mannequin.

They hold her out towards me, inviting me to try her on.

It's gross, totally totally gross!

But Fiona; she's just so _alluringly_ beautiful!

*

Just walking down the street is a revelation.

Fiona gets the type of furious, envious glares from women you think only exist in the imaginations of movie directors.

But no; when you look like this, you get them _everywhere_ you go!

As for the men, the boys – they're all just so incredibly _pathetic_.

They stop what they're doing to stare.

Some are quite open about it, mainly because they seem to be caught in some kind of daze. Well, bewitchment is probably a more apt term.

Other boys – I can't be bothered thinking of them as _men_ anymore – they try and act like they're not watching me, glancing up out of the corner of an eye. But I can _feel_ their gaze on me, _sense_ their longing.

Fiona's used to this. She knows all the tricks. She knows that any man who'd like to think he's not enamoured by her beauty is lying to himself, pure and simple.

And no, she's not being immodest. That's just the truth of the matter.

But...there _is_ a lie floating around in all this.

Fiona; _Fiona_ itself is a lie.

She's not called Fiona.

She's Mary. Mary Coulson.

Now, why would Freak call her Fiona?

Ah, of course; because Mary's history isn't important to Freak's clients. It's been deliberately closed off to them.

Chances are, no one but me has ever worked out her real name.

So, I wonder; can I tap deeper into _Mary's_ history?

*

# Chapter 32

It's a huge dance, a ball.

The most resplendent dresses, every colour imaginable, with layer upon layer of lace and silk, spreading out wide from delicately thin waists.

Most of the men are wearing colourful uniforms, mainly red. But there are blues, greens and yellows too. Despite the expense and immaculate tailoring of the dark evening dress worn by some of the men, they seem dull by comparison.

The room is lit by the most amazing chandeliers, glittering like a shower of diamonds high above us. Huge mirrors, with elaborate gold leaf frames, reflect the light, enhancing it, multiplying it.

A small orchestra is supplying the music. Elegantly dressed footmen are expertly handing around tall flutes of champagne from silver trays.

Despite the spectacle, most of the people there, even the women, only have eyes for Mary.

I can see in their hard glares that the women resent her. They're envious of her beauty, of the way she so effortlessly attracts the attention they themselves desire.

With the men, it's a mix of hard and soft, dazed stares. Those who flatter themselves they have a hope of conquest. Those who recognise their own complete submission to her charms.

Mary ignores them all. She can't deal with all this hate, all this unasked-for love for her.

Only one person in this whole room matters to her. He's with his parents, the owners of this grand house, and organisers of this ball.

They want him to meet another girl. Someone of an equivalent station in life. There are so so many girls who would be overjoyed to have him as a husband.

He's hardly danced with any of them. He's shown little if no enthusiasm when he has. Yet he's danced with Mary countless times, scandalising everyone they know. Particularly as he's left no one in any doubt that he's overjoyed to be with her.

They're arguing again about her. His mother is close to tears. His father is red with rage behind his vast expanse of white whiskers.

The sense of hate hangs across the room, as tangible to Mary as the cloud of cigar and pipe smoke. It's not just his parents that loathe her, that wishes she would just disappear from their lives.

The older couples simply fume silently, wondering what the world is coming to, unable to comprehend the fall in standards that has held them all in such good stead.

The women, they know how she's achieved it, they whisper amongst themselves. Any of us could do it, of course, if we were only prepared to lose ourselves and commit the unthinkable.

For the men, it's that confusing mix of emotions again, this time the mix of love and hate; she thinks she's too good for me, does she?

Mary doesn't have one single friend in the room.

And yet she's happy.

Because she has _him_.

*

I'm abruptly brought back to reality by a ferocious scream.

'Fiona? No, it's _you_! It's _you_ , isn't it?'

Jackie is a whirlwind of massed hair and scratching talons as she throws herself at me.

'I know it's you, I know it's you!' she shrieks.

I'm backing off and defending myself as best as I can, worried I'm going to be returning Freak's masterpiece with shredded skin and torn stitches.

'Jackie, Jackie! Stop, stop!'

There's not much point in making out she's crazy, that I've never met her. Jackie knows all about Fiona.

The best I can hope for is that I can persuade her that it's not actually _me_ in here. But I can't see her believing a word I say.

'Yes, it's me!' I shout back, fending off a few more attempted scratches at my eyes. 'And why do you know that, Jackie? Because _you_ used Fiona to steal Jase off me!'

Admitting that it's me seems to surprise her a little, as if she were expecting more of a fight. She pulls back a little like an exhausted wrestler, using the opportunity to gulp down lungfuls of air.

'Look at me Jill! You've _seen_ what's been happening to me! Why shouldn't I take the chance to be beautiful again?'

She doesn't have to order me to look at her. I can't help staring.

Her hair's a mass of clumps tied together, like it's all going to start falling out unless it's held in place with lace, string and clips. Her face is warped, heavily lined, with deeply set eyes. She's wearing a heavy duffle coat with a large hood that, when she pulls it up, leaves her face in heavy shadow, making her look all the more like she's some hideously deformed creature from Greek mythology.

I'm not angry with her anymore.

'I don't understand,' I say quietly. 'I thought you were my friend.'

'You saw the photos of how I used to look, at my house. I used to be pretty, didn't I? Had friends, boyfriends too, just like you! I just wanted to feel _beautiful_ again! And Jase; well, he was just a boy wasn't he? He couldn't resist Fiona. And yes, I couldn't resist either, once I'd remembered how nice it was to be _wanted_ once again!'

'There were other boys. Why not them? As Fiona, you could have had anybody! It didn't have to be Jase! You saw how good we were together!'

'Good together?' She chuckles, but her face simply grimaces. 'Oh come _on_ , Jill! I _saw_ you with him, remember? Always bickering, finding things to argue about! You weren't _really_ happy with him! And you weren't making _him_ happy!'

That's not true – or at least, that's what I'm just about to furiously declare when I start thinking – is it? I can't _think_ of anything like that happening between me and Jase; but am I just remembering the good times, forgetting the bad? I mean, we _might_ have had a few _trivial_ arguments – who doesn't, right, no matter how much they're in love?

'But why do you still look like _this_?' I quickly say, changing the subject a little. 'I don't understand; I'm helping Freak, I'm doing what he wants me to do!'

I'm desperate for an explanation not just because I'm worried for Jackie, but because I also want to make sure anything like this doesn't start happening to me. Freak can be pleased with you one moment, highly displeased the next. And I'm not always sure why.

'Because you're not doing _everything_ that he wants, idiot!' Jackie fumes. 'You've only just started!'

Wow, Jackie _really_ knows how to go out of her way to turn you against her, even when you're feeling sorry for the way she looks. You know what? I'm tempted to tell her I could save myself a lot of bother and let her just stay like this.

'Hah!' she says, with a cackling guffaw. 'Even though you're Fiona, Jill, I can tell what you're thinking; that peeved little expression of yours, where you're mouth pouts, and you frown as if you've just caught the whiff of a bad smell.'

'Okay, so you tell me,' I snap. 'What _am_ I thinking, eh?'

'You're still kidding yourself that you can avoid this, aren't you little miss pretty?' She waves her hand in front of her face, like she's a magician who's going to instantly restore her beauty. 'And you can; but only if you do _exactly_ what Freak wants!'

*

# Chapter 33

When I slip back into the shop, a grinning Freak is waiting for me.

'So, how'd it go? Being Fiona's an experience no woman should miss, right?'

'Yes, yes, it's certainly way beyond anything I'd imagined,' I admit, wondering how much I should tell him about the way I'd managed to tap into the real Mary lying beneath Fiona's beautiful façade.

The freaks are already rushing everywhere about me, helping me shed my garment. They could give a Formula One team lessons in how to coordinate their actions so that everything happens quickly, smoothly and without fuss. Once again, Freak has the decency to turn away for the brief moment that I'm naked.

'And you didn't see Jase?' he asks, like he already knows the answer.

'No, he wasn't around; and I didn't go looking for him.'

I feel a slight twinge, a tightening of skin, on the right side of my face. Glancing in a mirror, I'm horrified to see that it's once again taken on all the aspects of a botched plastic surgery operation.

'But...I was just getting used to being her,' I say hurriedly, realising that I've somehow earned Freak's displeasure, that it's somehow connected with Jase. 'I'd...I'd be interested in seeing how he reacts to seeing her again.'

Suddenly, my face is fine once again, such that I'm even beginning to doubt that it was really partially deformed. Had I just caught myself reflected in an aged and slightly warped mirror?

'You're too kind, you realise that?' He smiles. 'How many girls wouldn't relish the chance of getting their own back on a boy who's hurt them badly?'

'There's Cath to consider,' I point out. 'She's a friend, and she might end up getting hurt.'

I look back towards the mirror, dreading the return of the deformity to my face. Fortunately, nothing happens. I look fine, and I once again wonder if I hadn't been imagining it all along.

Freak chuckles, like toying with people's emotions is a game, a huge joke.

'Oh come come, Jill! Are you telling me that your friend Cath is such a delicate thing she can't face off a little bit of competition?'

'Competition? Fiona's an all-out assault of ravishing beauty; _I_ couldn't compete against her, remember?'

'So you're saying that just because it happened to you, it would also happen to Cath? I'm sure she wouldn't exactly be overjoyed by your lack of confidence in her looks and abilities!'

'Still, Fiona's a force to be reckoned with, we both know that.'

'You were just unlucky. Jackie – dressed as Fiona, of course – probably just happened to catch your boyfriend at a point when your relationship was at a particularly weak point. It happens. You might have had a slight argument you've forgotten about now, but at the time it just gave Jase enough of a push to kid himself he was just trying to teach you a lesson. Or perhaps he was a little miffed that you weren't showing him enough attention, with the same results.'

Once again, I find myself thinking back, going over the silly little tiffs I'd had with Jase. Perhaps, come to think of it, there were the odd, brief fall outs. Times when neither of us would give way, and obviously over something ridiculously petty, as I've now forgotten what any of the disagreements were all about.

'I bet you he's learnt his lesson,' Freak continues. 'So Cath's relationship is perfectly safe; you just don't want to admit that you played it all a bit wrong with him. Just think; if he gets sight of a disinterested Fiona once again – who makes it _plain_ she's not the slightest bit interested, of course – he'll know for sure that she's never coming back to him, rather than living in hope that they'll get back together. If he's still longing after her, what sort of harm do you think _that's_ doing to Cath's relationship with him, right?'

'I'd be doing her a favour, you're saying?'

'Well, you're the one saying that; but yes, I've got to admit it sounds reasonable enough.'

He grins amiably.

'So, if you enjoyed being Fiona; are you going to want a try being her again?'

I nod.

'Yes, definitely!'

He beams, his whole face sparkling with pleasure. He obviously thinks he's persuaded me to do what he wants.

Me, I'm not quite so sure about using Fiona in the way he wants, whether it's for Cath's benefit, or me getting my own back on Jase.

But I _definitely_ want to find out more about Mary.

*

# Chapter 34

When I turn up at Freak's shop early next day – it's a Saturday – he rewards me with the highly-pleased, beaming grin he'd given me when I said I'd enjoyed and was looking forward to being Fiona once again.

'Love the hair,' he says, reaching out to touch my hair like he's the campest hairdresser in town.

I'm puzzled, as I didn't bother doing much with my hair this morning, just letting it hang loose over my shoulders. Hey, if I'm going to be the glamour-puss Fiona, what's the point, right?

As he caresses my locks, Freak expertly uses the flowing movement of his hand to turn my head slightly, ensuring I catch a glimpse of myself in a nearby mirror.

At first, I'm not even sure it's me; all that glowing hair, reflecting the light as if I'm the star of a shampoo commercial. Thick, lustrous, curling in waves in all the right places – all the things a shampoo ad assures you could be yours, while somehow never quite living up to its promise.

Now, though, I've got it all.

I can't hide my look of surprise, or my delight.

Freak look's every bit as pleased as I do.

'Amazing, isn't it, how a little bit of extra confidence can make us shine like a brand new person?'

'It's incredible!' I admit. 'I've never, ever been able to do anything like this with my hair before!'

I wonder – should I just try...

'You know,' I say, exaggeratedly admiring my tumbling tresses in the mirror, 'perhaps I don't need to be Fiona today after all!'

Alongside my reflected image, I see Freak frown – and the lustre in my hair instantly dims. I smile knowingly, and both he and my hair abruptly brighten once more.

'Hah! A joke, yes?' he chuckles. 'Good to see you're in such a good mood this morning!'

So, if I really needed any confirmation, earning his good intentions towards me really is dependent upon me being Fiona.

What else is he wanting, though? It's seems like it's connected to Jase, obviously.

He wants me to make him jealous? But why? Why would he take any pleasure in that?

It doesn't make any sense – does it?

*

Walking out as Fiona, it's a similar experience to yesterday – all leering, love-struck gawping, or envious, hate-filled glares.

I head to a secluded corner of the park, where I know hardly anyone ever goes. I sit down on the grass – and I wonder what it was like to be Mary.

It's a time earlier than the ball; quite a time earlier.

I'm in the same house, though I only know that because I'm Mary – there's absolutely no similarity to the grand ballroom and the small, damp rooms I'm presently making my way through.

The walls are painted, a faded blue at best or, more often, a dingy light brown. Rather than grand halls and staircases, these are low, incredibly narrow corridors, or steps tightly winding up through spaces as tightly confined as a large chimney.

It's all backstairs, or downstairs; Mary's a maid.

Far from the rich, velvet and lace ball gown she was wearing in my earlier vision of her, she's now dressed in simple, black and white garb, her hair tied up under a demure cap.

She's trying to hide her beauty. An odd thing, you'd think, but she's clever, she's fully aware what happens to attractive maids who catch the eye of any man from upstairs. An unwanted pregnancy, swiftly followed by an irate dismissal, as if they're the only ones who've done anything wrong.

Unfortunately, it's a beauty that can't be hidden.

That sharply elegant nose. Those sparkling eyes, with irises like exploding suns. The smoothly curved chin, suspended above a gloriously white neck.

Fortunately, it's a beauty that doesn't just engender lust, but also love. A beauty that stimulates the kind of desire that must always and forever be fulfilled, for life would seem shallow without it. It's a beauty that must always be close to hand to be admired and treasured, its absence intolerable and ultimately disheartening.

Joshua, the eldest son, falls in love. Every time he sees her, whether she's serving at meal times, moving through the corridors with fresh linen, or cleaning a room, he feels the most incredible surges of pleasure rushing through him.

The way she moves so smoothly, so quietly, almost delicately. The way her face catches the light, such that the light seems to be coming from her, as if she's partly angelic. The way she laughs, tinkling and happy, despite her lowly station.

She's like no woman he's ever seen before. No one can compare to her.

He wants to be near her, at every opportunity he can manage. He conjures up excuses to be in a room she'll be attending to, even, at times, heading downstairs beneath the grand home; bringing up some trivial matter, or making the kind of request or order the butler would normally pass on.

It's obvious to everyone what's going on. He thinks he's hiding it; but any fool can see how his eyes constantly follow Mary.

'You be careful my girl; you're playing with fire!' the cook warns Mary, believing without a shadow of a doubt that she's the one at fault.

'I hope you realise that your behaviour is unacceptable to everyone in this entire household?' the butler similarly warns her.

The other maids begin to avoid her. They're jealous of her power over the handsome Joshua. Unlike his brothers, unlike the master, he no longer flatters and flirts with them anymore.

He's in love with a maid; and that could be dangerous for all of them. As soon as his Lordship and her Ladyship begin to realise what's happening, they'll take their fury out on anyone close to hand.

Mary doesn't know what to do. She can't help it; she can't help that Joshua has fallen in love with her.

She thinks about leaving. But there's nowhere else to go. No matter where she applied for a job, they would want to know why she no longer wished to work in such a grand house.

One day, in her incredibly small bedroom, she finds an expensively wrapped gift waiting for her beneath her pillow. She's anxious, yet also curious.

She unwraps the present carefully, making sure she doesn't tear the paper, intending to rewrap and return it as soon as possible.

Inside, there's a gorgeously constructed box. Its marble and enamel inlays make it a work of art in its own right.

Inside the box, she finds the most amazingly beautiful gloves she's ever seen; pristinely white, and of the smoothest, softest leather.

They're even more beautiful than the innumerable pairs of gloves she's seen carelessly draped over the dressers in the bedrooms of her Ladyship and her daughters, or their visiting guests.

She can't resist trying them on.

Later that night, she boldly makes her way up the grand staircases. She heads towards the floor containing the main bedrooms.

Quietly, she steals into Joshua's room.

Joshua wakes as he hears the door click back into place.

In the dim light coming in through the window, he sees that it's Mary.

Mary smiles.

'I came to thank you; for your gift.'

*

# Chapter 35

'Fiona!'

The shout brings me back into the real world.

Not again! I don't want Jackie having a go at me again!

I whirl around, this time prepared to let her know I've had it with her following me around. Had it with her telling me what I should and shouldn't be doing.

But it isn't Jackie; it's Jase.

He's sprinting across the grass towards me.

'Where've you been?' he cries out. 'I'd thought you'd left!'

I quickly look about me, wondering if I can get away; but no, I can't. I've chosen a spot where no one passes, haven't I? And no one passes here because the bushes and trees almost completely encircle you, leaving just one entrance and exit.

'I asked about you at your school!' Jase exclaims breathlessly as he draws up in front of me, obviously unperturbed by the fact I've hardly looked his way yet, let alone spoken. 'But everyone I'd asked hadn't heard of you!'

He chuckles, like he thinks he was just unlucky that he'd chosen to ask people who didn't know me.

'Yeah, it's a pretty big school,' I say at last, realising I'm going to have to talk my way out of this.

At least, I _hope_ it's a big school; I've no idea which school Fiona was supposed to be attending.

'Not everyone knows everyone in a place that size,' I add.

Yeah, sure; trust me, no matter its size, _everyone_ would know someone like Fiona.

Still, he buys it; it's a good excuse for him to accept that he wasn't making a complete idiot of himself asking after a girl who's dumped him.

He reaches out for me, like he's kidding himself it's all just been a dreadful mistake – I'd gone away on a long holiday, forgetting to tell him, or I'd ended up in a hospital for a while, something like that – and now I'm back.

I deftly step back, his arms closing in on the empty space where I'd been standing only a split second before.

'But you're with Cath now, Jase,' I say, offering him an explanation for my behaviour.

Then I realise – knowing Cath by name, it makes me sound like I've been keeping an envious eye on him, checking out what he's up to.

'Cath Gregson, or somebody, isn't it?' I quickly add, deliberately getting her name wrong.

'Goodslin,' he corrects me, saying it with all the brightness of someone who thinks they're helping you out by pointing out your mistake. 'But so what, Fi? That didn't stop you when I was going out with Jill!'

Can you believe this guy?

And I used to think he was oh _so_ wonderful!

I used to _trust_ him! Cath _still_ trusts him!

He's lower than a _snake_!

'But this is _different_.'

I manage to blurt it out without furiously lashing out at him, which is what I really want to do.

'Different? What's different?' he asks, looking a little bewildered by my indifference towards him.

'It's _different_ ; that's all!' I repeat, unable to explain any further.

It's more different, of course, than he could ever possibly realise.

'They're nobodies to me, you know that!' he insists with a heartless guffaw. 'Just a few silly girls I'm playing around with; you're the one I really want, Fi!'

Once again, he reaches out for me. Once again I neatly step back.

I can see it in his eyes; he can't help it.

Bewitched. Charmed. Enchanted. Use whatever word you want, but he's as besotted as if he's under the influence of history's most powerful love potion.

It's the same helpless desire I saw in Joshua's eyes. It's consuming him. He can't resist Fiona, no matter what she says to him. She could insult him, belittle him, but he'd simply tell himself that she still loved him. He can't face life if he can't believe the lies he's telling himself.

Perhaps I should use Fiona's power over him after all, if only to finally destroy any last lingering hope that there's any future between him and her.

How, I'm not sure. But if I can achieve it, then perhaps there is a chance of a future between him and Cath.

Is that what Freak wants? Does he want a final break between Fiona and Jase?

'Jase!'

I can't believe it! _Another_ yell!

This time, both Jase and I whirl around to see who's crying out.

It's Cath.

Wide eyed. Tearful. Shocked.

'How could you?' she wails. 'And with _her_ again!'

She doesn't wait for an answer.

She turns and runs.

*

'Cath!' I cry out, setting off to run after her.

Jase grabs my arm, pulls me back.

'What's wrong with you, Fiona?' he asks, obviously puzzled by my concern for Cath.

Thing is, it won't just look odd to him; Cath would also wonder why Fiona's chasing her. She wouldn't think I was trying to help her.

I shrug off Jase's hand.

'She's hurt,' I say. 'Because she's seen us together.'

Again, Jase gives me that puzzled look.

'So? Besides, it's not _your_ fault, or mine. When I'd asked her to meet here, I wasn't expecting you to be around.'

'Here? Why here? _We_ never used to meet here!'

I thought I was the only one who knew of this secluded place. When I was going out with Jase, I never came here with him.

Jase looks more mystified than ever.

'Fiona; what's wrong with you? We used to come here all the time!'

'You arranged to meet Cath where you always used to meet Fi – where we used to meet? How cruel could you be, Jase?'

'I didn't mean to hurt you,' he insists, completely misreading my furious accusation. 'I just sort of hoped you might still be around, might even catch me and Cath together and be a little jealous; and let's face it, it's worked hasn't it?'

He grins like he thinks he's got the kind of smile that would make you forgive him for anything. And yep, at one time, I _did_ think that about Jase.

'No it _hasn't_ worked, Jase!' I storm, not wanting to go along with this any longer.

He reaches out for me, his smirk clearly telling me that he thinks I'm just a little upset, and playing hard to get to punish him just a little bit more.

I push him off.

'It's _over_ between us, Jase! Can't you _understand_ that? Just _go_ away; I don't want to see you ever again!'

And this time, I'm the one who turns and runs.

*

# Chapter 36

'Well, how'd it go?' Freak asks, greeting me with a wide grin when I return to his shop.

I grumpily sweep past him, heading as quickly as I can for the back room.

'Oh just great, just great,' I mumble irritably. 'If you think it's just great to break your best friend's heart!'

At least Freak has the decency to look both a little perplexed and concerned.

'Cath? How did you manage that?'

'Oh, much much easier than you'd think possible!' I unfairly snap back at him as he follows me through into the back.

'Look, Jill, no matter what's happened, I'm sure you'll be able to sort something out with her when you meet up with her again. Let me guess; Jase saw you out, and he's still, shall we say, a little _enamoured_ with Fiona, yes?'

'That's putting it mildly,' I grumble as the freaks descend on me and start helping me out of what I've quite quickly come to regard as a garment. 'And Cath saw us together too, didn't she?'

The garment slips off easily. I'd needed far less stitching than I'd required for my previous outing as Fiona, having realised that you can use the blending of your own skin to the garment to create your own secure binding.

Freak had been impressed by the swift advancement of my abilities, saying that I should soon find it possible to wear his creations without any help from stitching or his assistants.

At the moment, though, he's far from impressed with me.

'Tut tut!'

He shakes his head, like I might be responsible for only a _minor_ misdemeanour, but it's all down to my incredible foolishness.

'You should have known what Jase's reaction would be if he saw you out. Personally, I don't think it's the disaster you seem to think it is; but _you_ were the one who didn't want there to be any contact between you!'

'And in what way _isn't_ it a disaster?'

Fiona is back on her mannequin. I'm just about back in my own clothes.

'Because I'm sure you let him know you – or rather _Fiona_ – wasn't interested, right?'

Freak stares at me quizzically. I nod.

'And as for Cath; all she needs is another boost to her confidence,' he continues. 'Which is where _you_ , Jill, can help out, right? Because that's _precisely_ what your gloves are for!'

*

Cath's waiting outside my house when I get back, nervously wringing her hands, eye makeup running in black streaks down her face. Her hair's completely bedraggled, like she's been tearing at it in anguish.

From a distance, I'd mistaken her for Jackie.

Cath looking like a total freak; we both thought we'd never see the day.

'Where've you been?' she screams accusingly as she urgently rushes towards me. 'I've been waiting ages, ages! The gloves, I need the gloves!'

She's almost clawing at me in desperation.

I recognise the state she's in; I was exactly the same, when Jase betrayed me. Then I was the one begging Jackie to let me use the gloves. And when Jackie finally relented and let me wear them, what happened? Why, I became suicidal of course.

I know Freak thinks I should let Cath wear them again. But he's not here to see how badly she's been affected by what seems to be Fiona's return.

But, of course, Fiona hasn't returned at all. So surely the best thing to do is simply wait a while and let things calm down.

When it dawns on Jase that Fiona's not going to have him back, he'll come crawling back to Cath, won't he?

'Cath, I really don't think you should–'

'What have you done to your hair?' she snaps suspiciously, staring at me in amazement. 'And I've noticed your eyebrows before; you've had work on them too!'

'Cath, I don't see what–'

'Oh, don't you? Well let me tell you what _I_ see! I see someone who's been pretending to be my friend, supposedly helping me get off with her ex-boyfriend. But all the time you've been seething with jealously, haven't you?'

'That's not true! I was hurt a little, sometimes, yeah, but–'

'Yeah! I _thought_ so!' She pushes me in the chest. 'I _saw_ the looks you were giving us when we were together! And all the time, you've been prettying yourself up just so–'

'Cath! It isn't _me_ that's gone out with him, is it? It's Fiona, right?'

She glares at me, now more suspicious of me than ever.

'And how do you just happen to know that, eh?'

'Well, I, you know, I...'

'No, I _don't_ know, Jill!'

'With you being here, so upset, I mean,' I answer lamely. 'I know what he's like, remember?' I quickly add, seeing it as a possible lifeline to help me regain Cath's trust. 'He did it to me too, didn't he?'

'So now you're saying you set me up with a boy you knew couldn't be trusted?'

Oh damn. She's not going to let this one go, is she? I have to calm things down quickly.

'Cath, how was I supposed to know Fiona would show up again? I saw her, if you must know; that's how I knew she was back.'

Okay, so it's a lie. But just what else am I supposed to do? She's still irately glaring at me, her hands on her hips like she's not accepting my excuses.

I've no longer got any choice. I'll just have to let her have what she wants.

'But look, Cath, if you're sure that's what you want – then of _course_ you can try on the gloves again! Just – just be careful with them, all right?'

*

# Chapter 37

Cath isn't the _slightest_ bit careful with the gloves when I hand them to her.

She slips them on much like I'd expect a frenzied addict to dive into a fresh, long-awaited supply of pills. She's shaking at first then, as the gloves begin to take effect, she relaxes, sighs blissfully.

I'm keeping a close eye on her, watching out for any reactions she makes that might indicate she's tapping into Hezzy's more unfortunate suicidal tendencies.

Then again, with any luck, I could be worrying over nothing of course. No one's supposed to be able to access Hezzy's full range of experiences, of course. Least of all the period when she decided to end it all.

How many gloves would _NonPareil_ sell if just anyone could experience her suicide, right?

Cath's whimpering, smiling.

Ecstasy? Distress?

I really can't be sure.

Even when she looks weirdly unhappy – I say weirdly because she frowns while grinning, or stares wide-eyed and blankly while gawping in what could be horror – I can't tell if that's all down to her own highly emotional state, or something to do with Hezzy's life.

Finally, an exhausted Cath slips off the gloves without a word. She smiles knowingly as she drapes them over the edge of their box.

'Was everything all right?' I ask, trying to somehow use my eyes to let her know she can tell me about anything unusual or bad she experienced.

But does that ever work? It doesn't this time, that's for sure.

She doesn't offer me any thanks as she leaves.

'Cath, take care!' I cry out after her as she heads off down my garden path.

'Don't go doing anything stupid, right?' I add stupidly.

*

In the morning, I sit down at my dresser to apply a little bit of makeup.

But you know what? I don't need it.

I look absolutely wonderful. More amazing, in fact, than I've _ever_ looked.

Obviously, whatever I did last night, it's pleased Freak.

Yet I'm not the slightest bit pleased with myself. I'm worried for Cath. And worried that I'm responsible for what she's going through, what she's suffering.

I need Freak's advice on how I can be sure I'm helping her rather than making things worse.

Besides, I'd like to learn a little more about Mary. Only this time, I'm going to have to make sure I'm not going anywhere where Jase might accidently come across me once again.

Trouble is, I'm not even half way up my street when Jackie pounces.

I seem to have people waiting around for me these days no matter where I am, or whom I'm dressed as.

Jackie's still hiding her face beneath a heavy hood. As it's a sunny day, the hood makes her look bizarre anyway.

Then again, when I catch a glimpse of her face in the shadows of the hood, I have to admit she'd look even weirder if she revealed what she now looks like. I catch what could either be a smile or the grimace of a partially revealed skull.

Yeah, she's _that_ bad. Like some sort of living dead character.

'Good to see _you're_ looking so incredibly beautiful, Jill!' she sneers, finishing with a hoarse, guttural laugh as if she's struggling for breath.

'Hah don't look at me like _that_ , Jill!' She chuckles hoarsely again. 'I can read your face like it's a book, dear; that disgust, like you think I'm being sarcastic!'

'And aren't you, Jackie? If it's any consolation to you, I forgive you for everything you've done to me.'

It's true – I _do_ forgive her. Last night, I saw for myself how easy it is to unintentionally hurt a friend.

Sure, Jackie went a few steps too far, as she deliberately stole Jase off me. But I've seen how Jase, how Joshua, were almost literally bewitched by Mary's incredible beauty.

How was Jackie supposed to resist the chance to be suddenly so ridiculously attractive again, especially after suffering being a freak for so long?

'Forgive me? That's _so_ big of you, Jill!' she sniggers.

As I've said before, Jackie seems to have this incredible talent for winding you up no matter how understanding you're trying to be.

'The only forgiveness I need is Freak's, thanks!' she continues with another aggressive sneer. 'And _that's_ why I'm pleased for you, and the way you're looking now. Because it means you've got to be doing what he wants; which also means it's just got to be a matter of time before I begin to get my own looks back, right?'

There's a touch of doubt to her last comment, like she's nowhere near as confident as she's trying to make out.

'He's angry, I think, because you made me suicidal. But I've seen for myself how easy it is to upset a friend who–'

She's laughing.

'You still don't get it, do you, little Miss Goodie-Two-Shoes? How do you think he gets all that wonderful haute couture of his – all amazingly gorgeous, all ingrained with the most wonderfully emotional experiences? Oh, he's so grateful for all those silly little beauties who have their dream of the cosy cottage and the two kiddies suddenly snatched away from them!'

'That's ridiculous! Freak _saved_ me, remember? And I saw him _try_ to save Hezzy!'

'Hah, only because he was worried the car crash wasn't going to leave him anything salvageable! And after all his hard work driving her to the edge of suicide too! The _gloves_ , you idiot; they're _all_ from suicidal girls. That's how they work, how they manage to retain all that high emotion – how, eventually, they'll subtly persuade anyone who's constantly wearing them that suicide's the only answer! Brilliant, really; a self-replicating business model!'

'He _saved_ me!' I persist uncertainly, try to grasp at any fact I can to persuade myself that Jackie's lying again.

This time Jackie's laugh is bitter, mocking. She steps back a little, indicating the way I look with a graceful sweep of her hands.

'Just look at yourself, fool! You're gorgeous, but you don't really know it! He saved you to make you into a recruiter, salvaging what he could from a job gone wrong. Just like he had to satisfy himself with the pair of gloves he made from Hezzy, rather than the full costume he was really after!'

'You're saying that I...'

I don't want to say it.

'Do I really have to spell it out?' Jackie sneers. 'It wasn't that I made you _suicidal_ that bothered Freak; it's that you were going to end it all by jumping from a bridge. Leaving that glorious body of yours absolutely shattered and beyond any use for him!'

*

# Chapter 38

I don't go to Freak's shop.

I head back home.

Is Jackie telling the truth?

Was I supposed to end up as just another costume in Freak's shop? There to be worn by one of his wealthier clients, whenever she wanted to experience being young and beautiful again?

Jackie had said that had been the plan.

Freak had even shown this favoured customer of his pictures and videos of me. Giving her a taste of what could soon be hers. She'd already handed over a down payment, reserving me for her own personal use.

Oh God God God!

'And you...you were going to _help_ him do that to me?' I'd asked Jackie, aghast.

'Look at _me_!' she'd replied, drawing my attention back to how she looked with the same sweep of her hands she'd used to indicate my own looks. 'Do you really have _any_ idea what it's like to look like _this_? Like a _leper_? A _zombie_? You'll do _anything_ to stop yourself ending up looking like this, believe me! As you'll find out, unless you continue delivering Cath to him!'

So that was it; that was what Freak wanted.

As he couldn't have me as his latest costume, Cath would have to take my place.

*

Of course, I can't do it.

I can't hand Cath over to Freak.

How could I live with myself, knowing my best friend has become nothing more than a piece of fancy dress for a depraved yet incredibly rich woman to dress up in now and again?

Ironically, Cath now hates me. She rings me every single day, pleading with me to let her use the gloves. When I refuse, she hits me with every kind of insult she can think of before angrily hanging up on me.

For a while, we used to go through the same kind of arguments at school. Her accusing me of still being in love with Jase. Of keeping the magic of the gloves for myself so that I can win him back.

She'd avoid me for most of the day, then suddenly charge towards me, either lashing out angrily or, once again, just about getting on her hands and knees as she begged me to let her have the gloves.

One day, even through her anger, her anguish, she finally noticed what most other people had already spotted; that I was rapidly losing my looks.

My hair hung down across my face, greasy and lank, no matter how much I washed it.

My skin was dull, blemished, even breaking out in places in reddish patches beneath which you could see broken capillary veins.

And then, on one side, my whole face began to freeze oddly.

No amount of heavy makeup can hide that.

So now I don't see Cath at school. I don't go into school anymore.

I don't go _out_ anymore.

I stay in bed, in a darkened room.

I've told Mum and Dad I've caught some sort of virus.

They've had the doctor round, of course. But he admits he can't see what the problem is.

Poor diet, he says.

Low self-esteem.

Anxiety over school, friends, boyfriends.

Hormonal changes.

They all take their toll on a young girl's body, he says.

I'll get over it.

I just need to rest for a few days. Calm down a bit.

That seems to have satisfied Mum and Dad that there's nothing to worry about. They're getting on with their own lives once again, leaving me with the microwave meals piled up in the fridge. They say I can top them up with the vitamins and mineral pills they've left out for me on the kitchen top. Oh, and drink plenty of fresh water.

Yeah, great; that should have me looking fresh and peachy any day now.

Mum drops the biggest shock I've never had when she tells me – 'what with everything being brought to a head by your illness, dear, and all the extra worry we're having to deal with' – her and Dad are splitting up.

They're already talking to the divorce lawyers. Already drawing up the papers. Already deciding who gets to keep what.

Mum would have preferred me not to know until I was better, course; but I'm a big girl now, aren't I? I'm at an age when I should be able to deal with such things easy enough.

'Yeah, sure,' I say as casually as I can, so as not to upset Mum too much. 'So, are we staying here, or moving out, or...'

'Well, sweetie, that's _one_ of the things me and Ferdinand can't quite agree on just yet–'

'Ferdinand? Who's Ferdinand?'

'Look, see, sweetie? I _should_ have waited until you _were_ a little better, shouldn't I?'

Cath still rings. Still pleading for a use of the gloves. Still calling me names when I refuse.

Now, though, she's wailing down the phone at me that Fiona's back. And she's going out with Jase.

I tell her not to be crazy; that's impossible, I say. Trust me.

So she sends me a short video she's taken on her mobile.

It's Jase and Fiona, out together in the park.

*

# Chapter 39

'Ah, I _wondered_ when you'd be back,' Freak greets me with a pleased grin.

I'm surprised he can recognise me. I'm wearing a heavy, hooded coat, the hood tied tightly so that it completely covers my head and face.

'Fiona,' I say bluntly, 'you're letting Jackie go out as Fiona once again!'

He shakes his head, like he's disappointed by my accusation.

'Fiona is back there,' he says calmly, indicating that I should lead the way into the back of the shop. 'As she has been since the day you left her there, poor girl.'

I rush through into the back, continuing through into the room where I'd last left Fiona.

As Freak had insisted, she's still there. Beautiful. Smiling.

I'd come over here as soon as Cath had sent me the video. She'd only just taken it, she'd told me. No way could Jackie have beaten me back to the shop.

Despite the way I look, all deformed and freakish, Freak can obviously detect a hint of bewilderment on my face.

'How close were you? When you think you saw her, I mean?'

I already feel foolish enough without admitting that I've only seen a video of her. And on a mobile's small screen at that.

'Well, _reasonably_ close.'

He gives me a doubtful look.

'And you're sure it was her? You're sure it wasn't just someone who looks a bit like her? You know; maybe copied her style, her hair? Someone who admires her, and thought, Hey, you know what – _I_ could look like her?'

'Well, I...'

Yeah, it _is_ a possibility, isn't it?

He gives me an understanding, forgiving grin.

'We've all done it; we think we've seen someone we know from a distance. But when we get close, we realise we've made a mistake.'

'Yeah, yeah, that must be it,' I say, even though I still can't help being a little doubtful that that's what's really happened here.

'And so, as you're here...?'

He indicates the waiting Fiona with a nod of his head, an expectant pout of his mouth.

'Yes, yes; why not?' I say eagerly.

*

I slip into Fiona's skin with all the excitement of someone eager to shrug off their own ugliness and take on all the beauty and attractiveness of a truly gorgeous woman.

'I don't need the help of your freaks,' I say as soon as I see them heading my way.

As Freak looks their way to dismiss them, I use the distraction to slide my mobile phone out of my jeans and into one of the pockets in Fiona's dress.

'May I ask what made you change your mind?' Freak asks as he looks my way again.

'Hah! You've seen the way I look, Freak! You're the one responsible, after all.'

He puts on a pained expression, like I'm being a little unfair on him.

'And you know what I thought,' I continue, as I slip on more and more of Fiona, 'when I kept getting all these wailing, complaining calls and insults from Cath?'

Freak's hurt expression instantly changes into an impressed smile when he sees how readily the skin of my arms is blending with Fiona's, negating any need for the freaks' stitches and tightening.

'What the hell, I thought; _she's_ really the one who's guilty of everything she's accusing me of! _She's_ the one who was looking on enviously when I was going out with Jase! _She's_ the one who was bad-mouthing me behind my back, according to Jackie! So what the heck am _I_ doing, looking like I've just stepped out of a grave, when I could be beautiful once again?'

'Indeed you _could_ , Jill!'

He beams with immense satisfaction as, with a nod of his head, he directs me to look at myself in one of the surrounding mirrors before finally slipping on the last of Fiona.

I smile.

The real me, Jill Paxton, is beautiful once more.

*

# Chapter 40

This time, I need a truly secluded spot, one where Jase isn't going to accidently come across me.

As Mum and Dad are out yet again, each enjoying their fun-filled, separate lives while their daughter recuperates from her 'unfortunate hormonal changes', that means my own home.

I've just got to make sure no one sees Fiona slipping in though the side door, that's all.

See, there's only one way to find out if Jackie has – for once – been telling me the truth about Freak's way of harvesting the young girls he needs for his creations.

I need to find out what happens to Mary.

I mean, everything seems to be going pretty well for her. She's _so_ beautiful, no one but no one could turn up to displace her in the affections of her lover Joshua.

Sure, there's all that class thing, no doubt backed by a threat from Joshua's parents that he'll be disinherited – but believe me, he's _deeply_ in love with her. He'll put up even with that, I'm sure, just to be with her.

I've felt all this every time I've been Fiona, even when I'm not tapping into Mary's past life. It's like an emotional message running through every fibre of her being.

She doesn't seem the suicidal type. She doesn't seem to have any reason to be committing suicide.

Admittedly, she must have died young – but hey, way back then, that could be down to any number of reasons, right?

I lie down on my bed.

I relax.

And I'm Mary once more.

*

They're married.

Mary and Joshua have married!

They've moved into a small cottage, situated by a picturesque river, on the family's estate.

Joshua has been disinherited, as his father and mother had threatened if he continued his relationship with Mary. But he's still able to regularly draw money from some sort of trust fund that could easily provide them with an extremely comfortable life.

Mary couldn't be happier. Joshua couldn't be happier.

Even when Joshua's regiment calls him back into service to fight in one of Queen Victoria's many wars, it all seems rather glamorous rather than terrifying. They'll miss each other, naturally, but these things are usually over quite quickly. And as an officer, he'll be entitled to extended periods of leave he can use to return to Britain on a frequent basis.

Mary's out in the garden, hanging out the washing, when Joshua's father arrives in a pony trap.

He gets down from the trap, rigidly stern-faced behind his whiskers.

Mary smiles, even though she knows Joshua's father is one of the few men who won't respond positively to her smiles.

She wipes her hands on her apron.

'Could I make you some tea–'

'He's dead. Joshua's dead. Not even killed in a battle, either. Dead from some foul pestilence, caught on the damned ship taking him out there.'

He throws a sheaf of official looking papers down at Mary's feet. He spins around on his heels, head's back to his trap, crying out his last words to her over his shoulder.

'I want you out of the house by tomorrow morning.'

He can't even be bothered to look back at the weeping Mary as she crumples to the floor. He mounts his trap, turns it around, and heads back towards the grand house.

After a while, Mary finally manages to pick herself up off the ground. Leaving the papers to blow away in the wind, she heads back into the house.

She takes a sad look around the kitchen, remembering all the happy times they've had here. She opens a drawer, taking out an elaborately decorated box from inside.

Opening the box, she takes out the gloves; his very first present to her.

She brings the gloves to her face, breathing in the smell of him that still lingers on the soft leather.

It had been their first night together. Their first experience as lovers.

She slips on the gloves, remembering more of that night, of other nights. Of days walking out together, his hand in her expensively-gloved hand.

They look strange on her at the moment, these wonderful, incredibly expensive gloves, in conjunction with her crudely made smock.

She steps outside, back into the garden. The wind has already taken away the papers. It's also threatening to carry away a bed sheet she'd only managed to half-peg onto the line.

She strides past the angrily flapping sheet.

She walks across the short patch of thick grass lining the riverbank.

She steps into the cold, clear water of the river.

She lies down.

She lets herself relax.

And lets the flowing waters slowly close over her.

*

# Chapter 41

I leap up from my bed spluttering, gasping for air, gagging.

I really thought I was drowning!

I swear that, for a moment there, I even I felt the water dropping off me as I sat up on my bed.

Poor poor Mary!

Jackie was right – she _was_ telling the truth.

I have to stop Freak doing this! I have to destroy his shop!

I reach for my mobile, search for his shop on Google maps.

As I'd hoped, it has a small courtyard round the back. It's surrounded by a high wall. That's both a positive and a negative; positive in that it will hide me from any passer-by, negative in that I have to get over it.

I set my mobile so that whoever I'm calling won't recognise my number. I click on a speed dial number I should really have got rid of ages ago.

When he answers, Jase's grinning face comes up on my screen.

'Hi,' he says brightly, obviously highly pleased to see Fiona's smiling face on his own screen, 'can't get enough of me, eh?'

'Jase,' I say, fluttering my eyes a little, 'just how much do you love me?'

*

It's dark by the time we're standing just along the street from _NonPareil_.

No one's around. Even in this neighbourhood, this is what passes as the shopping district, so everyone's gone home.

Jase is carrying the heavy bag of tools I'd gathered together before meeting up with him. I'm carrying the birthday card.

I've looked up on the internet how to get back into a house you've accidently locked yourself out of.

So I've brought along a narrow wallpaper scraper, glass cutter, pliers and an assortment of other tools that might come in handy. I've also told Jase I've included a couple of bottles of boxed wine to explain both the heaviness of the bag he's carrying and the odd glugging noise he can hear. Actually, it's a plastic can of lawnmower petrol I've taken from our garden shed. So I've also had to tell him the smell's down to it being our gardener's bag.

The matches I've got in my pocket, thinking they're safer there rather than lying next to what could potentially be a crude bomb.

And the birthday card? Well, I could hardly tell Jase why I'm really breaking into the shop, could I?

It's one sent to me earlier that I found in my cupboard. One of those with inner leaves that I've torn out so I could re-sign it; wishing a happy birthday 'To all my wonderful friends at _NonPareil_!'

As far as Jase is concerned, I'm going through all this as an amazing surprise for my friends, as it's exactly five years since they set up the shop.

Hey, coming from Fiona, he's prepared to believe it, right? Fact is, I could probably tell him straight out what I'm intending to do, and he probably wouldn't bat an eyelid. If his gorgeous Fiona wants to indulge in a bit of arson, what could possibly be wrong with that?

Still, doing it my way, with the lie about the birthday surprise, means I can reassure him that if I'm caught, I can just pass it all off to the police as a joke gone wrong. And he's bought the lie because he wants to buy it. Because he wants to be seen to be someone Fiona can always rely on, no matter what she asks him to do.

He even offered to break into the shop with me, even though I've told him all I need him to do is help me over the wall – then he can safely head off for home.

As we reach the wall, he turns, placing the bag on the floor and grabbing me by the waist.

'Ready?' he asks.

It's odd, being like this once again. His hands on my waist. His eyes sparkling with happiness and, yes, even love.

But it isn't love for me of course. It's love for Fiona.

'Ready,' I reply.

Letting me use his hands as steps, he lifts me up. (Didn't I say he was strong and athletic? Why do you think all us girls have been lusting after him?) He lifts me up to a point where I can grab the very top of the wall and then pull myself up onto it.

Next, he hands the bag up to me. Then, using the string I'd tied to its handles, I lower it to the floor on the other side of the wall.

Finally, I slip over the wall, slowly sliding down its side as far as I can before I have to jump the rest of the way.

'You okay?' Jase whispers from the other side of the wall.

'Sure, everything's going smoothly to plan!' I say proudly.

'Remember to take care of the alarm system first,' he says.

Alarm system?

_Damn_!

*

# Chapter 42

'Sure, sure,' I hiss back at Jase from the other side of the wall, trying to hide my panic. 'My friends told me the code,' I lie. 'Don't worry.'

'Oh, okay; and you're _sure_ you'll be all right getting back out?'

'As I said, I'll let myself out the front, setting the door latch and closing it behind me. I'll be _fine_ ; you can head on home now – and thanks, Jase, thanks a lot. I owe you.'

I don't wait for his reply. I've wasted enough time chatting at the wall.

An _alarm_!

Why didn't I think of that?

Because I've been telling myself Freak's so confident that no one will dare break in he won't have bothered with any modern anti-burglary devices, that's why. They don't exactly fit in with the quaint, ancient look of his shop after all.

But yeah; it could be his shop hasn't been broken into because he's got the world's most sophisticated alarm system!

I get to the window. Thankfully, it's a sash window, as I'd hoped.

At least he hasn't had _that_ modernised!

I reach into the bag for the wallpaper scraper. I slip the blade between the gap lying between the lower and upper parts of the window, as instructed on the websites I visited.

Sliding the scraper along the gap, I search for and wait until I feel it coming up against the catch – and then I push the catch open.

Easy!

Slipping the scraper into my back pocket (I'd changed earlier into some of my own jeans and a dark jumper), I jubilantly grab the bottom of the frame to jerk it open.

It doesn't move.

I peer at the catch just behind the glass, checking that it's fully open. It is.

Trouble is, there's a modern window lock right next to it.

_Damn_!

*

I haven't really thought all this through as well as I'd thought, have I?

_Damn_!

I mean, how come Freak thinks he has to rely on all these modern contraptions when he can skin people and transform them into costumes? Isn't that enough to warn anyone off from breaking into his shop?

Well, come to think of it, it hasn't warned an idiot like _me_ off, has it?

I slump to the floor, dismayed by my stupidity.

I look at the surrounding wall.

How am I going to get back over _that_?

Idiot, idiot, idiot!

Mary, you were a much more resilient woman than I could ever hope to be; what would _you_ do?

Wait a minute!

Mary!

_That's_ the answer!

*

# Chapter 43

The courtyard smells terrible. The sour stench of rotting horse droppings and overflowing drains.

Using the scraper again, I slip the catch – and this time, of course, the window opens easily.

There aren't any window locks in Mary's time.

No alarms to worry about, either.

I clamber through the opened window, dragging the bag through with me. I'd remembered to hold on to the bag as I'd slipped back in time.

I nearly jump right back out of the window when I see a person waiting for me in the darkened room.

_Idiot_!

It's just one of the costumes.

No, no – it's not just _one_ of the costumes, I realise, my eyes slowly adjusting to the room's dim light.

It's Helen; Helen of Troy.

I recognise her from when I saw Princess Elizabeth dressed as her.

Beautiful.

Regal.

Magnificent.

So, although she went missing at some point in the shop's history (so Freak told me anyway), the experience of being Helen of Troy was still up for sale back in Mary's time.

And Paris, is he here?

No; he's out, as it were. There's just an empty, regular tailor's dummy standing next to Helen.

Who's hired him out, I wonder? Some Jekyll and Hyde character, staid by day, but wild and carefree by night? Maybe even some highborn lady, who wants to experience the sensations and privileges available to a man?

Now that I have the chance to study her, I realise Helen's much younger than I would have expected. I mean, the siege of Troy lasted what, ten years?

So you'd expect her to be around twenty eight at least, wouldn't you?

But the Helen so imperiously standing before me looks less than twenty, easily. Perhaps that was a part of her allure, her beauty, of course; that she looked much younger than she actually was.

Then again, perhaps the weak light coming in through the window isn't the best kind of light to study her in.

Come to think of it, why's a prize like Helen kept next to a window, where she could be so easily stolen? Is that why she _was_ stolen? Why, too, Freak decided he _did_ need protection from burglars?

I suppose the window's natural light was the best thing there was in a time of oil lamps to present her at her best. Otherwise, too, residues of soot would have to be regularly cleaned off her.

When I slip back into my own time, I'm almost sorry to see that Helen's no longer in the room with me.

The only thing in here is a bared, modern mannequin.

Obviously, Paris is out again.

*

I need to find the best spot to start the fire.

It has to be sheltered, so it's protected from the spray of the sprinklers.

(Yes, that's another modern precaution that Freak's had installed in his shop.)

It also has to be off the ground, so it's not doused by water flowing across the floor.

Looking about me at Freak's 'creations', every one of which seems to be glaring at me from out of the room's dim light, I almost feel guilty of murder. Multiple murder.

On the shelves, in a long rack, I spot a line of umbrellas.

I pick one up, wondering for the first time in my life if it really is bad luck to open one inside.

What are they made of?

Do they do anything for you other than keep the rain off?

Could they be of any use to me?

Would a fire have worked better back in Mary's time, when they didn't have any sprinklers?

I doubt it, going by Freak's description of how time works.

That's another thing I have to take into account – Freak's ability to move through time. I don't want a future Freak coming back to warn everyone that I'm the culprit. So I can't leave any clues that I was involved.

As it is, it's bad enough that he'll know _when_ it happened.

But, if I've figured this out correctly, if he comes back to tell his present self that the shop catches fire tonight, it will be too late to stop it. As it's already happened in the history of Freak's future self.

That's right, right?

The worst that can happen is that they hang around to catch the one responsible. Which, yeah, is really really bad for me. _But_ they can _only_ catch the one responsible if that _also_ happened in the history of Freak's future self.

Right?

This time thing, as Freak told me, can get ridiculously complicated when you start trying to work everything out.

Now, one umbrella might not be enough, but a whole array of umbrellas – what was that?

Did _I_ just make that floorboard creak?

_No_! There it is again. _Another_ creaking board.

And _another_.

Someone's heading this way!

Freak _is_ lying in wait for me after all.

*

As silently as I can, I quickly tiptoe over towards the door. I stand to one side of the doorway, holding my umbrella like a club.

I can still hear Freak heading my way through the front room, trying to walk as quietly as he can. Sneaking around. Intending to take me by surprise and jump out on me.

Then it dawns on me

What if it's _not_ Freak

What if it's _the_ freaks?

I nervously look about the room I'm in, expecting the secret doors to open any moment, the freaks pouring out and overrunning me in a matter of seconds. The last and most terrifying seconds of my life.

I mean, it's not like they're regular staff, heading on home at night after a hard day working the tills, is it?

They probably live here, don't they? Where _else_ are a bunch of freaks going to live?

I'm _dead_! I'm going to end up as pair of _gloves_.

Or, even worse, an _umbrella_.

*

# Chapter 44

The door opens.

I raise my umbrella, ready to strike.

(Sorry! I say to whoever the umbrella used to be.)

Even in the room's poor light, I recognise that it's Jase just before I bring the umbrella down hard on his head.

'What are _you_ doing here?' we both say at once in surprise.

*

'How the heck did you get in?' I ask Jase.

'You let me in; at the front,' he replies, both mystified and innocent at the same time.

'No I didn't!'

'Yes you did,' Fiona answers, stepping into the room just behind Jase.

*

'This...this isn't _possible_!' I gasp in complete surprise.

Jase looks even more puzzled than I am. Even so, he grins stupidly, like having two Fiona's is the most amazing thing he could have ever dreamed of.

'Twins?' he chortles in delight. 'Oh this is great! Like something out of a soap opera.'

'Sure, sure, that's right Jase,' the other Fiona says contemptuously. 'And you've got the soap bit right too,' she adds with a bitterness now aimed at me. 'Because she's what your soaps would call my evil twin. _I'm_ the real Fiona. _She's_ just been leading you on, planning on getting you into trouble by setting this shop on fire!'

I've been too shocked to put up any defence. At one point, I'd almost cried out 'Jackie, I know it's you.' But that's only going to confuse Jase even more. And I need to persuade him that I'm the real Fiona.

_'I'm_ the real Fiona!' I insist, stepping closer towards him, placing my hand against his cheek and bringing his lips to mine.

We kiss. He's hungry for me.

It's nice, but, strangely, not as nice as I used to think it was.

We break apart, both grinning. Jase because he can't believe his luck. Me because I think it was quite a nice little masterstroke to pull.

Jase knows Fiona's lips. They're not the kind of lips you can forget.

The other Fiona grins back at me just as triumphantly. She points over towards the umbrella rack, where I've left the bag containing the can of petrol.

'Check out her bag,' she says to Jase.

Giving each of us a bemused look, Jase begins to walk towards the bag.

'Jase! Stop! Look!' I call out to him, making him stop and turn. ' _None_ of us are Fiona! And I can _prove_ it!'

I prepare to hurriedly shrug out of Fiona's skin.

'No no; don't!' Jase commands brusquely, stepping back towards me. 'That's an expensive garment you're wearing! I don't want to risk damaging it just so you can make some silly point!'

'What? What did you say?'

I stop in mid-action, more confused than ever.

Jase smiles.

'I mean – what the?'

Before he can finish speaking, the freaks suddenly begin rushing out of their secret cubby holes and rooms.

They all charge towards a horror stricken Jase. Clambering all over him before he has a chance to start knocking any of them off, they immediately start tearing at his skin with their weird tools.

And Jase screams and screams as they begin to skin him alive.

*

# Chapter 45

Leaping forward, I begin to pull or knock off any freaks I can. But it's hopeless, there are too many of them.

Jase's skin is being steadily pulled off him in one amazing, sickening piece, as if already partially formed into a full costume. He screams pitifully, he writhes agonizingly.

The other Fiona giggles gleefully.

I'm not going to be able to save him. I'm too late. I'm too useless.

More and more of his skin is being peeled away, uncovering the glistening veins and muscles that had lain beneath.

Amazingly, amidst all his agony and his terrified wailing, Jase manages to raise a hand to his head, wiping away the thick sheen of blood from his eyes.

A thin film of muscles and veins also begins to come away in his hand until, amazingly, all of it begins to peel away, revealing a new face.

Freak's face!

'Ta-da!' Freak yells out jubilantly, spreading out his arms to either side as if he's just performed the most incredible trick. 'And in one bound, he was free!'

Horrified, I fall back, crumpling to the floor, trying to scuttle farther away like a terrified crab.

'God, no!' I shriek in terror. 'You'd _already_ skinned him!'

*

Freak laughs like it's the best joke in the world.

Using both hands, he begins to swiftly strip away the thin patina of muscles and veins covering his body. Some of the freaks continue to remove Jase's skin, others have begun cleaning off the rest of the bloody sheen of fake muscles.

'No no; we wouldn't be _so_ cruel!' Freak assures me. 'Your precious Jase, he _never_ existed.'

As the freaks finally strip off the very last of Jase's skin, they slightly stretch it out between them, a macabre, deflated version of the boy I'd once loved.

'Please allow me to introduce you to Paris,' Freak declares theatrically, indicating this ghoulish sight with a flamboyant wave. 'Once one of the most desirable men in history, and therefore someone you could hardly resist falling for, my dear!'

'It's...it's been _you_ all along?'

God, I'm more disgusted than ever! Never, _ever_ , have I felt more like I needed a shower.

'How _sick_ is _that_? What are you, some sort of–'

'Freak?' he guffaws. 'But no no; not the type _you're_ thinking of! Please, please; that really _is_ beyond the pale!'

The other Fiona smiles, like she's the magician's assistant, there to reassure you everything's just fine, there's no real danger involved.

'I don't usually go in for such subterfuge; but _you_ Jill, I knew _you_ were a _special_ prize! Requiring _special_ means!'

Thankfully, the freaks have carried Jase's – I still find it hard not to think of him as Jase – grisly costume away. A few of them have remained behind, however, and they're circling me.

'Hah; thank goodness for _that_ , eh?' I say light-heartedly, slowly rising to my feet, glancing about me, looking for any possible route of escape. 'Now that that little mistake's all cleared up, I'll just–'

'Just return to things as they were? I'm afraid the only mistake is mine; despite my best intentions, and all the benefits that I've shown could be yours, it seems I can't even trust you to recruit your friends.'

With a nod and a flick of his hands, he commands the surrounding freaks to begin closing in on me.

'It's such a shame that after all my effort, all I'm going to get for it is a pair of gloves!'

*

# Chapter 46

With any luck, most of those awful little freaks have banged their heads as they've leapt into nothing but empty space.

I'm back in Mary's time. Back in the Victorian shop.

'Mary?'

I whirl around.

An assistant is there, with a male customer. Thankfully, the customer is oblivious to everything going on around him. He's wearing a long, fawn pair of women's gloves.

I wasn't expecting anybody to be around at this time of night. Obviously, I've no idea who the man is, but he must be an extra-special customer to be receiving such exclusive service.

'It's okay – I mean, all right.' I use the hand signal I remember Freak using to reassure the assistant we'd surprised when we'd travelled back to his Elizabethan shop. 'Freak's – Mr King's – expecting me.'

She frowns doubtfully but returns to assisting her customer, who seems pretty close to crumpling to the floor in ecstasy.

Joshua must have introduced Mary to the shop at some point in their relationship, probably without realising the danger he was placing her in. Freak wouldn't pass up an opportunity to acquire someone as beautiful as Mary; he probably played some underhand role in ensuring the poor girl would eventually commit suicide.

I rush towards where I know Anne Morrow is stored, planning on moving farther back in time before either Jackie or Freak follows me here.

With any luck Jackie – if it _is_ Jackie clothed as Fiona, of course – hasn't got the full range of skills enabling her to immediately chase after me. If that's the case, Freak will have to slip into a Victorian costume; but he can probably do that remarkably quickly.

Then I see the door leading to the room where I saw Helen.

She was on her own in there, as Paris was obviously out for hire. If I travel back to her time, Freak shouldn't be able to follow. I mean, how many more costumes from over four thousand years ago must they have?

It will give me time to calm down and try to work out whatever I should be doing next.

I slip out of Fiona as swiftly I can, yet still take time to carefully drape her over Paris's empty tailor's dummy. She deserves some respect.

Seeing her like this, I can't help but think how terrifying it would be for Mary to come in here and see herself like this. It also explains how there was an extra costume for Jackie to slip into and become another, second Fiona.

Helen is an almost perfect fit, such that there's little excess and few areas of tightness that my own body has to adapt to before it can fully bind to it.

It's only when I'm fully Helen that it suddenly dawns on me that I've made a dreadful mistake; how can I travel back to Helen's age when not even Freak's ancient shop would have existed?

Didn't Freak say that, if you can sense a highly emotional point in their lives, you can turn up almost alongside them?

Thing is, I haven't got time to try and discover an emotional high-point in Helen's life that will do the trick for me.

Then again, I _do_ know _the_ most emotional time of her life.

*

This time, the water that's surrounding me is warm, relaxing.

Dulling.

Alongside me, on the side of the sunken marble bath, a sharp knife waits.

A little farther along, placed where they won't get wet, are a beautiful pair of the finest gloves.

This is the easiest way. The easiest way to make sense of a life that's become too complicated.

Too entrapping.

Menelaus will never rest unless he can control my every move.

I don't love him. I never have.

It was a political marriage, nothing more.

If I can't be with the man I really love, then I'm not really living. I'm just a prisoner. Trapped within seemingly endless walls, but walls nonetheless.

I'm surprised how quiet it is in this room.

I thought I would have been able to hear the screams of the fleeing Trojans, the shouts of the triumphant Greeks. Perhaps even the cackling of fires, the toppling of buildings.

I'm surprised, too, that Paris isn't with her. If they've decided to commit suicide, rather than let themselves fall into the hands of the victorious Greeks, I would have expected them to have been together in their last moments.

It's not exactly a time I should be traveling back to, is it?

Besides, I'm still not exactly sure how you do travel back, as opposed to just sensing Helen's emotions as she – wait, I'm watching her in the bath!

I'm no longer Helen! I'm standing in the shadows, a few steps away from the ba–

'Who's there?'

Helen nervously reaches for a thick towel lying alongside her.

'Is that you Philista?' she demands angrily.

She rises from the water, swiftly wrapping herself in the towel.

She reaches for the knife.

'Prince Erades is guarding my door; I'll shout for him, should I?'

'No, no, there's no need for that,' I blurt out anxiously.

What's she going to think when I step out from the shadows, looking exactly like her?

I step forward into the amber light cast by the blazing torches scattered around the room.

Helen gasps, grips her knife more nervously than ever.

'Is...is this a trick of the gods?'

'Oh, er, no no, not _really_ a trick, I mean, I'm the goddess...goddess...'

Damn! Why didn't I pay more attention in my history classes?

'–goddess _Athena_! And I've taken on a semblance of your beauty to prove it!'

She frowns doubtfully, like she's having difficulty weighing up just how likely all this is.

'If you're the goddess, you won't mind me calling in Prince Erades so–'

'But I'm here to stop you taking your own life!'

Am I?

Can I even do it?

I mean, it's that paradox of time again, isn't it?

It's already happened. It can't be changed.

But – what if Freak's wrong? Or lying?

If I stop her, will it somehow change everything that's happened?

Will it change _everything_? Everything that's happened over the last _four thousand years_?

The hand Helen's using to hold the knife drops down by her side.

'Then – you can help me be with...with the man I _truly_ love?'

'I know you think you've been betrayed by him; but Paris is–'

'Paris? What's _he_ got to do with this?'

'I mean, well, because...because...'

What the heck does she mean, 'What's _he_ got to do with this?' I'm sure I didn't get _that_ part of my classes wrong, about Helen and Paris being an item!

'Is he intending on taking me hostage?' Helen demands quite forthrightly.

She doesn't seem to be exactly cowed by the appearance of a goddess, does she? Then again, would _anyone_ be awed by a goddess mumbling 'because...because'?

'I saw the way he was looking at me!' she continues irately, obviously already forgetting that just a moment ago she was so miserable she was about to take her own life. 'I've heard he's quite prepared to forcibly take hostage any woman who doesn't fall for his charms!'

If it isn't Paris's charms she's fallen for, just who is it who's dragged a girl like _this_ to the point of suicide? I mean, I've heard of super models with smaller egos.

I'd better stay away from mentioning any names; start sounding a bit more like a goddess too!

'Mighty Troy may have fallen, but such ill-tidings don't mean–'

'Troy's fallen?' She sounds incredibly shocked. 'How? Who's captured it?'

'What? Well, the Greeks of course–'

'Greeks?' She looks _really_ puzzled now! 'Is that why you referred to Paris? Should he be told before he sails for home?'

'Er...'

Just what the heck is going on here?

I almost blurt my question out loud. I'm even more bewildered than Helen!

I'd like to ask if I've got my dates right here. As that wouldn't be very goddess-like, however, I have to bite my tongue. Besides, I don't exactly know when Troy fell anyway.

'Where _are_ we, exactly?'

Damn! _That's_ an even _worse_ question to ask, isn't it?

'You don't know? You're a goddess, and you don't know we're in Sparta?'

'Well, I – ooowww!'

'That's because she's _not_ a goddess!' growls this huge guy who's just painfully grabbed me by my arm.

I whirl around to tell him to at least go a little easy on the way he's handling me.

'Jase!' I breathe with relief, recognising him straight away. 'I mean, sorry, _Paris_!'

'Paris?'

Now he's the one who looks confused.

Just what _is_ going on here?

*

# Chapter 47

As this guy who looks like but obviously isn't Paris holds me tight, a young girl rushes forward towards Helen.

'I saw her hanging around, and thought I should warn Prince Erades.'

She subserviently helps Helen to slip into her dress. Going by the way Helen doesn't seem to mind this Prince seeing her naked, I think I'm safe to presume this is the man she loves.

'You did well, Philista!'

The Prince's grip on my arm tightens. He's seen the knife lying by the side of the hot bath.

'Helen! What...what were you intending to do?'

He says it like he knows full well what the presence of the knife indicates.

Helen bows her head, ashamed.

'When you told me you can't continue to betray your King...'

'Because it's too dangerous for us _both_!'

At last, he lets me go. He rushes towards Helen, taking her in his arms, holding her tight, realising how close he came to losing her.

Philista carefully picks up the gloves, slipping them into the type of box I've come to recognise as one of Freak's. She guiltily glances my way, giving me the impression that she has some idea who I really am.

'You could safely leave your husband's kingdom now,' she says slyly, nodding in my direction. 'If Paris is seen to abduct _her_ in your place.'

Helen and the Prince look at me, look at each other.

'If some of your men were dressed as Trojans...'

'And some as Spartans. But we'll have to act quickly; Paris is preparing to sail tonight.'

'Now wait a minute...' I say, stepping closer towards them.

It's a mistake stepping towards them and not keeping my eye on Philista.

As soon as she finds herself standing behind me, Philista swings the heavy glove box she's holding hard against the back of my head.

*

When I wake up, my head's painfully throbbing. I'm still a little dazed, a little confused.

I'm being violently jolted up and down, my whole body swaying back and forth. Both my back and my head are banging hard against something solid and agonisingly uneven. My bottom and legs are similarly being viciously shaken, as whatever I'm sitting on is uncomfortably rising and falling at a ridiculously fast rate.

I'm seated on a ferociously galloping horse. Someone's seated behind me in the saddle, holding me in place with the thickly muscled arms he's also using to hold and control the reins. He's wearing armour, including the helmet my head's continuing to bang against.

I try to scream, but something's been crammed into my mouth. I've been gagged. My hands are also tied behind my back.

There are other riders around us, all pushing their horses hard as we noisily hurtle through narrow, darkened streets. The sky's incredibly black, the only light coming from a thin crescent of moon.

All the riders are armoured, their shields strapped to their horses' sides, their lances held upright, as if ready for action. The pounding of the horses' hooves on the stone or cobbled streets echo back from the closely set houses and buildings.

'They've taken our Queen!' someone cries out.

'The Trojans have betrayed us!' another yells.

The odd thing is, it's the men around me who are doing the shouting.

And then, coming out of my daze at last, I remember what I'm doing here.

These are Prince Erades' men, dressed as Trojans.

*

# Chapter 48

It's time I left this time.

But – how do I get back?

Before, I've moved from Freak's shop in the past to Freak's shop in the present. And it's happened without me having to give it any more effort than just wishing I was back there.

Now though – nothing's happening.

How does thinking of a highly-emotional time in someone's life work in reverse?

We're swiftly heading downhill and, through gaps in the closely surrounding buildings, I begin to catch glimpses of the moonlight reflecting off the sea as silvered waves. The part of the dock we charge out onto is lit by flaming braziers, set well back from a ship whose crew is hurriedly preparing to sail.

'Treachery, treachery,' the men riding alongside me are now yelling out to the ship lying ahead of us. 'The Spartans are attacking us!'

Other men, this time on foot, are rushing out onto the dockside from other streets on either side of us. The group of riders split into two, with each new group rushing off to confront the rapidly approaching foot soldiers. Only the horse I'm unwillingly mounted on continues heading towards the ship, galloping at full speed up the rocking gangplank.

'Set sail!' the rider sitting behind me cries out in warning. 'We'll hold them off! _You_ get our Prince to safety!'

Before any of the shocked and bewildered crew can ask him for any details, he draws his mount to a sudden halt on the deck. Lithely swinging down out of the saddle, he rushes back down the gangplank. Turning back, he picks up the gangplank's end and swings the whole thing around, tossing it into the sea.

On board the ship, orders have already been barked out to get away from the dockside, to man the oars. Men are leaning over the side, using long, thick shafts to push the ship away from the dock.

From the darkness lying out of the reach of the flickering flames, there comes the sounds of ferocious fighting. Yells, screams, clashing swords. Now and again, a sword or a shield flashes as it catches the amber light.

It's a scene that looks and sounds suitably chaotic, unpredictable and dangerous.

And amongst it all, I'm sitting astride a panting horse with my hands tied and my mouth gagged.

You know, I'd had it up to _here_ with that bloody Jase; but this Prince Erades is even worse!

*

As the ship isn't really of much a size, it's soon clear of the dockside.

The massed oars dip and rise in the swelling waves. The single but incredibly large sail is quickly unfurled, the crew expertly manoeuvring it until it makes the most of a wind that grows stronger the farther we move away from the shore.

'Watch out for any ships that are already afloat!'

The man who shouts out the warning is already heavily armed, prepared for any trouble we might encounter.

No one's paid any attention to me. I'm still on the horse, still bug-eyed in my anger that I'm being treated like this.

And then, as if to make every crazy thing that's happened to me recently seem perfectly reasonable after all, the most beautiful man I've ever seen – the most beautiful man I could ever imagine – rushes up from below decks.

He's about to hide his ridiculously high-cheekboned face inside a helmet. But, fortunately, he stops half-way through this move as he catches my eye.

He grins wickedly.

He strides across the deck towards me, dismissing warnings that the Spartans are preparing their ships to give chase with a nonchalant laugh.

'Sorry we have to meet again like this!' he says, reaching up and grabbing me by the waist.

He lifts me down from the horse as if I weighed no more than his sword.

He swiftly and deftly pulls off my gag, as if he's used to this kind of thing.

He leans in towards me, his lips connecting with mine before I can protest.

That is, if I _wanted_ to protest.

*

# Chapter 49

As Paris kisses me, the world around me seems to explode in a cacophony of banging and clattering.

Paris pulls back quickly. In the same flowing move, he withdraws a knife from his waist belt, using it to slice the ropes binding my arms.

The heavy banging and clattering hasn't gone away. It's coming from a large crate tied to the centre of the ship's deck.

'It's a stallion,' Paris explains. 'Still wild; we thought it best to keep it in the crate until we were out at sea.'

'Paris; you have to know, I'm not who you think I am.'

I'm not _quite_ sure why I feel I have to tell him this. But I feel that if I'm going to suddenly vanish from his presence at some point, I owe him some form of explanation.

I tug at Helen's skin, intending to show him it's all nothing more than some form of macabre dress; but the skin doesn't come free of my own skin, like I'm expecting. It reacts in the same way my own skin would if I pulled on it, moving only a little way, and smoothly dropping back into place.

I'm bound to Helen's skin as if it were my own.

Paris frowns then smirks, like he thinks I've tried to play a joke on him that hasn't quite come off the way I'd intended.

Before I can explain anything more, the stallion's pounding on the wooden planks of its imprisoning crate reaches a crescendo. The wood begins to shatter, with splinters sent scattering across the deck.

Suddenly, a whole side of the crate completely fragments. The creature immediately leaps free, with a triumphant cry.

'Ta-da! And in one bound, he was free!'

*

# Chapter 50

It isn't a wild stallion that's standing before us on the deck.

It's a centaur.

And the human part of the centaur is quite definitely Freak.

The crew and the soldiers have stepped back in amazement, as if this is the very first time they've encountered a centaur.

Paris stays right by me, however. He steps in front of me, standing between me and Freak with his sword drawn.

'Who are you?' he demands brusquely.

'Shall we say – a friend?'

He looks to me, waiting for my reply.

I step alongside Paris, placing a reassuring, restraining hand on his arm.

'Yes, I know him.'

I glance towards what's left of the crate, wondering why there's no sign of any other creature there. When I'd appeared here, Helen had been close by.

Freak notices my confusion.

'Didn't I say there are other ways of moving through time – oh, and that we also create hybrids?'

'How did you find me?'

'You're flight from Sparta appears in the histories that _I'm_ thankfully aware of. It's just lost to those who only know of the myths of your life.'

_'My_ life?' I chuckle unsurely.

'Of course. The silly little girl that you met earlier; she's hardly the stuff of legend is she? Let her retire to Egypt with her silly little prince! While you, my dear, and your lover Paris, create a story that will live for ever!'

He smiles appreciatively at the way Paris has curled a protective arm around me.

'You're saying...you're saying I don't go back?'

He grins at me knowingly, seeing the casual interactions that are already naturally taking place between myself and Paris.

'You're saying you _want_ to go back?'

'I could have you killed, you know?'

I look towards Paris, seeking confirmation. He grins, nods, and with a subtle wave of a hand orders a number of archers to aim directly at Freak's heart.

Freak smirks.

'Hah, but _will_ you?'

Before he can receive any form of reply, Freak wheels around, rising high on his hind legs. Galloping towards the ship's side, he leaps over the rails, plunging down towards the darkly rolling waves.

Most of the archers rush across the deck, firing their bows – but the arrows strike nothing but empty air. Freak has vanished.

'Ships! The Spartans are following us!'

The warning cry jolts everyone back into ensuring the safety of the ship rather than wasting time wondering how the centaur had simply vanished in mid-air.

Paris gives me a quick, reassuring embrace.

'Sorry we let him go,' he says, an apology that he manages to make sound strangely seductive. 'But I'm not letting _you_ go!'

As if to prove his point, his lips connect and meld perfectly, sublimely, with mine once more.

He pulls back, smiles, lets me go – then sprints off to the back of the ship.

'Haul down the sail! Use the oars only; and take us to steer board as soon as the sail's down!'

The sails of the pursing ships glow ghostly white in the moonlight. There are only three, but I know a thousand will soon follow.

Can I make this whole, bizarre thing work?

Why not?

Paris smiles in the moonlight as our sail is swiftly lowered to the deck. Our pursuers have just watched us disappear into the darkness.

Yes, I think I _can_ make this work.

I have to.

And that, of course, includes making sure we don't end up as Freak's most prized creations.

*

# Epilogue

The shop, as usual, was extremely busy.

Most of the Ladies were looking forward to an evening as women of ill-repute.

Some of the Lords would take the risk of being highwaymen. If they were captured, they reasoned, their contacts amongst the most senior judges would save them once they revealed who they really were.

(Wasn't it secretly hinted at in Cruikshank's outrageous cartoons that the Prince Regent himself relished playing such roles?)

Others would just relish being younger, or stronger, or possessing an identity they could shrug off in the morning, bearing no responsibility for their disreputable nocturnal actions.

Every customer bar a surprisingly and particularly handsome young couple had been left in the competent hands of the pretty assistants. Mr King himself was entertaining the fashionably overdressed fop and his graceful escort. They had expressed a particular interest in seeing Helen and Paris.

'Truly gorgeous isn't she?'

Mr King sighed with pleasure, awed by the incredible beauty of the woman imperiously standing before him.

'And Paris, so wonderfully beautiful too,' he continued, drawing the couple's attention to the handsome blond man standing alongside Helen. 'But you say – he's not the _real_ Paris?'

The young dandy shook his head sadly.

'It's only _recently_ come to my attention that the lady charged with Helen's recruitment had indeed supplied us with both her and her _lover_ – but the lover is a Prince Erades. _Not_ Paris, as we'd presumed.'

'And... _Helen_?' Mr King asked apprehensively.

'Oh, thankfully she _is_ the real thing; the _original_ Helen in fact! Though not, I'm afraid, the Helen of _legend_. It took the remarkable young woman I've already informed you of to create the _legendary_ Helen we base our claims upon!'

'Then; you believe it's not _entirely_ amiss to continue to promote our most valued exhibits as Helen and Paris?'

'There's no harm in that at all!'

Mr King smiled in relief.

'Then we have much to thank your young acquaintance for!'

'We do indeed! Not forgetting our resourceful Miss Dorent here, who aided her as much as possible to ensure we achieved our prize!'

He presented his delightful companion by lifting her arm high, as if preparing to whirl her off into an elegant dance. She curtsied demurely.

_'My_ Mr King is being most modest,' she breathed endearingly. 'For he had his own, many varied roles to play!'

'And so,' the shopkeeper asked politely, yet with a mischievous grin, 'will you now be returning to your own time? Or, as you're here, would you like a little reminder of just how debauched Georgian society can be?'

'Jackie?' queried Freak, turning towards his beautiful companion.

Jackie took Freak's hand, raising it high as if for a dance once again.

'I think we deserve a _thoroughly_ decadent ball, don't you?'

End
If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things – The Last Train

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess
