Pure

  PRAISE FOR KAREN KROSSING’S

  TAKE THE STAIRS

  “Krossing’s significant achievement is to create an utterly believable, complex teen world. The writing is strong and the characters are well-drawn. The crises are real issues facing many teens: abuse, unwanted pregnancy, fitting in, and homosexuality. Take the Stairs will appeal both to teens experiencing any of these problems and to parents who want to support them.”

  Quill & Quire

  “An excellent collection… Not only does Krossing create a strong cast of characters, but she skilfully casts the Building as the 14th major character, one whose stairs lead out as well as in. Highly recommended.”

  Canadian Book Review Annual

  “Through reading Take the Stairs, one develops a greater appreciation for the commonality that runs through people’s lives: suffering, struggle and hope. These are not the glossy stories one sees on TV but the real lives of teens growing up in Canada in the twenty-first century.”

  Resource Links

  “Krossing incorporates a remarkable range… each account resonates with the turbulent emotions of young people coping with the gamut of teenage issues.”

  CM Magazine

  “The teenagers are appealing and realistic, sometimes troubled by life, sometimes hopeful, sometimes gaining their dreams. A thought-provoking novel and also a very good read. Highly recommended.”

  Hi-Rise

  “In all of the stories, the teens cope in the best way they know how with the difficult circumstances that life has dealt them. Despite the challenges the teens face, there is a ray of hope that threads itself throughout the stories and keeps the reader intrigued.”

  KLIATT Review

  PURE

  PURE

  KAREN KROSSING

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Krossing, Karen, 1965-

  Pure / by Karen Krossing.

  ISBN 1-896764-96-7

  I. Title.

  PS8571.R776P87 2005 jC813’.6 C2005-904202-8

  Copyright © 2005 by Karen Krossing

  First published in the USA in 2006

  Edited by Kathryn Cole

  Copyedited by Sandra Braun

  Front cover design by Karen Kraven and Laura McCurdy

  Text design by Melissa Kaita

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Quotation on page 9 from Anthem by Leonard Cohen

  Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

  Published by

  SECOND STORY PRESS

  20 Maud Street, Suite 401

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  M5V 2M5

  www.secondstorypress.ca

  For Kevin, Paige, and Tess

  “There is a crack in everything.

  That’s how the light gets in.”

  -Leonard Cohen

  the portrait

  The swarm of off-duty workers blasted apart, making way for two Purity guards. Like the shiver running across my skin, the guards’ silver uniforms sent a rippling chill through the crowd. Anyone could be picked up by Purity, pure or not, and even questioning could become painful. These guards were walking their usual lakeside patrol, as if bio-invaders might bubble up from the lake bottom, spraying hazardous DNA molecules over everyone in Dawn.

  Dawn. A promising name for a settlement. Purity loves names with promise, but Dawn only holds promise for some.

  Dawn is a mind-numbing city surrounded by acres of boreal forest. There’s a lake, a waterfall over the rocky cliff, our precious hydro unit, and lots of wholesome human DNA. We’ve got a fence to protect us from those bizarre creations in the Beyond. We’re merely one link in the chain of Purity’s controlled communities across the globe. Pure forever. Protect the gene pool. Stake a claim in the New Canadian North. With noble mottos, Purity hangs over us like an ominous spider ready to strike anyone who can’t prove they’re pure, unaltered DNA. And I was only another stupid fly caught in their web.

  At the lakeside commons, I was foolishly trying to sell portraits to a crowd preoccupied with the size of our energy allowance, DNA registrations, and where to get the latest temporary IQ boost. No surprise that my portrait chair stood horribly empty. Rivers of people rushed past, splitting into two streams to avoid where I sat. In the large stone courtyard surrounded by unused benches and ignored gardens, who cared about a teen artist?

  Heat shimmered above the rocks and skinny fir trees that crowded the lake. My feet steamed in my sandals, and my sunblock was fighting the usual battle. A kid on jet blades wove through the crowd. Everyone hurried past like they’d rather risk the Beyond than stop for a portrait.

  Just snag someone, I thought.

  I stood, stepping in front of a thin man dressed in the loose-fitting overalls of a greenhouse worker.

  “Like a portrait?” I gripped my slate tighter.

  He stopped abruptly, now a rock in the stream. People pushed around us, glaring. In his bony hand he held the leash of a transgenic animal — part monkey, part cat, I guessed. For Purity, gen-eng of animals and plants was fine, but don’t touch human DNA. The man looked at me, then at my solar sign.

  My sign stood on a flat of gray rock, catching the morning sun. PORTRAITS BY LENNI HANNIX - 1 CREDIT flashed in lights across the top of the sign. A modest price, I’d thought. I avoided looking at my sample sketches, parading across the bottom. Somehow, they’d never captured the images that were in my mind.

  Would he like my sketches? I held my breath. Sweat trickled down my neck, creeping closer to my tanktop. I’d worn my hair in two braids to keep the thick mess off me, but it was no help. Hurry up, old man.

  His beast scampered closer, hissing at my toes. Pointed teeth and glow-in-the-dark eyes. I jerked my foot back, leaving my sandal behind. Purity shouldn’t allow those things.

  The man frowned. “She just wants to meet you!”

  “Sorry, I’m…”

  He tugged the leash and strode around me. The animal scurried after him. Last I saw, it had climbed up his leg and was sitting on his shoulder, staring back at me with accusing eyes, as though I were the mutant.

  I slipped my sandal back on and sighed. Maybe I shouldn’t charge anything. Maybe I should offer pet portraits.

  A brief pine-scented breeze off the lake cooled me then left me sweating again. I glanced up at the too-hot late-November sun, then returned to watch the rush of people weaving around me, across the courtyard, between the trees, along the walk. I noticed the jagged leaves of lifewort — the gen-eng plant my father’s company had created — growing out of tiny crevices in the concrete. Lifeweed, the reporters now called it, although Dad still called it lifewort. I didn’t know what to call it. Across from the commons, the shops and cafes were bustling, too. Beyond them were the towers of Center Block. Maybe I should set up there.

  Then a middle-aged couple with matching gray hair cut short around their ears paused near me, glancing at my sign. I pounced.

  “Like a portrait?”

  “What for?” the man grumped. His eyes found my breasts then traveled slowly to my legs. I squirmed. I was the sort of person that most men looked at twice, and I hated it. I mean, I liked Jonah’s eyes on me, but who wanted to attract a creep? The woman squinted and pursed her lips, reminding me of Mother. Gutter gypsies, Mother called street vendors. She stepped around them in distaste. Mother better not find me here.

  “To remember… uh… this moment in your lives?” Or to capture your scowl.

  “Humph.”

  The woman glanced at me accusingly then yanked her leering man away.

&nbs
p; Butterfly wings began to stir my stomach. I should pack up. I wasn’t a real artist. No one wanted a portrait. Oh, Mur, why was I doing this?

  Then I remembered. Last night, Mur had whispered into my dream. Draw portraits by the water.

  Mur was my childish slur of the word mother. I’d named her when I was just learning to speak, when I’d mistaken Mur for Mother. I was lying in my crib on my back, playing with my toes. Sunlight shone through the leaves outside, burst through the window to where I lay, and made the shadows dance. In that lick of sun and shadow, I played contentedly, until a pain in my belly made me cry out. It was probably hunger, but I didn’t have a name for it then. I whimpered and wailed, pulled myself up and clung to the bedrail, calling for someone to sooth me. Yet no one came. I suppose Mother had been in some crisis then, but I had no way of knowing why I’d been abandoned.

  Then I saw her.

  She was standing over me, and the light and shadow leapt over her silver hair, her earth-dark eyes. When she spoke, a breath of wind stirred, scented with the rich promise of new spring growth. Shh. All is well.

  Her voice was so soothing that the pain in my stomach vanished.

  Mur, I cooed, naming her. Mur.

  Mur was my dream spirit, my inspiration, my muse. I didn’t know why she came to me or why I alone could hear her. I’d just always known her, and I couldn’t draw without her.

  In my dream last night, Mur had shown me the stylus gliding smoothly across my slate. People had lined up for one of my pictures. I’d made them laugh, smile, cry. This was nothing like my dream.

  Then the chill returned to the crowd. The Purity guards were zigzagging back, searching each face carefully, stopping one terrified woman to quiz her. This wasn’t regular patrol. Were they looking for someone? I held my breath and examined my toes. Drawing portraits was too public. What had I been thinking?

  When I raised my head again they were gone. Enough. I didn’t want Purity’s attention, and offering portraits just might be considered strange enough for a closer look. I was embarrassing myself anyway. I folded one chair. As I reached for the other, a large woman in a billowing dress as dull as gray pixels waddled toward me. Before I could fold my second chair, she had squeezed herself into it, elbows pushed out to the sides and hands on the armrests.

  “Are you any good?” she wheezed.

  “I guess so.” Get out of here, I thought. Yet this would be my first real portrait. I unfolded my chair and sat with a thump.

  The woman leaned close enough for me to smell her sour breath. “What does that mean?”

  I waved a hand at my sign. “See for yourself.”

  Without meaning to, I caught a glimpse of the sketch that was now showing. Myself with my parents. I’d sketched them from memory so they wouldn’t have to know. It was hardly a success — too boringly realistic. I soared above them like a young willow tree while they were squat evergreens with wide behinds. We were so different. I used to pretend that I was adopted, although I knew I wasn’t. My DNA registration clearly showed who my parents were.

  “Good.” The woman dropped a credit into my hand.

  Good! I pocketed the credit. My hand trembled as I touched my stylus to my slate to power it. The slate was rechargeable, but I couldn’t use up too much of my energy allowance.

  Trying to concentrate, I stared hard at the woman’s face. Small eyes, thin lips pointing down, deep creases on her forehead. Worst of all were the red-brown sunspots on her neck and the backs of her hands. Scaly, cancerous welts. I shrank back.

  “Why aren’t you drawing? I paid my credit.”

  “I am. I will,” I stuttered.

  Ignore the welts. I shut my eyes to capture what I would draw. Usually, I got the outline that way, then the details came as I sketched.

  Nothing came.

  Calm down, I thought. You can do this.

  I swallowed hard to clear the lump in my throat. My heart raced. I could feel sweat gathering between my breasts.

  Mur? Are you there?

  Always. Mur’s breath was earthy. Her hair was silver cloud.

  Where is this woman? I can’t find her portrait.

  Let go.

  Mur was before me, around me, within me. Relax. My jaw unlocked, muscles slackened. I searched for a way into the portrait, until my thoughts extended like fingers into the gray woman. Unexpected. Vile. Pull back. Too close to this stranger — to the slow, sluggish sense of her. As if her cells were covered with oil.

  Then the image of what I was to draw invaded like a sickness. Thick, rancid oil began to choke me, to clog my throat with the stench of decay. I gagged. Struggled to hold onto myself, to plant firm in this oily smear, to bring a touch of life to the decay, like lifewort growing out of concrete.

  When I opened my eyes, I gasped in the muggy air. My blood pulsed through my head with dizzying speed. The drawing was finished. How had I sketched with my eyes closed?

  I gazed dumbly at what I’d drawn, still breathing hard. The vast landscape of the woman was a melting ooze. Her fingers dripped like grease toward the ground, her eyes stretched like two fried eggs. She was collapsed over the back of the chair as if her backbone were rubber. Yet a tiny stem of green had sprouted between the blobs of her toes.

  The woman pulled the slate down so she could see her portrait. “That doesn’t look a bit like me!”

  “No, it doesn’t.” My voice so quiet it hid the tremble. None of my sketches were like this. So abstract. So confused. Yet so right. Mur, what happened?

  Only what should happen.

  My cheeks felt flushed and my palms were slick with sweat. I touched a spot on my slate to bank the image and another to transmit it to the woman’s slate. The drawing looked nothing like her, but it was her somehow — except for the green stem. That was my own touch.

  The woman’s hand, gripping the side of my slate, had white knuckles. The bubbling welts of the sunspots were gone! Gone from her neck, too. Smoothed over into darkened patches of skin.

  “Your hand!” I touched the spot. Satin soft. How?

  She pulled back her hand as if I’d burned her. “How did you… ?”

  “I… uh,” I mumbled. The pounding of my blood was growing stronger, hammering in my ears like crashing waves. The green sprout. Could I have… ? Impossible!

  “What are you?” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Are you skidge?” She stood.

  Her voice pushed at me. Too loud. My head was throbbing. “Of course not!”

  How dare she? I was no illegal genetic experiment. My registration proved it. I had full reproductive classification. I was pure. I hadn’t even had an IQ boost.

  “Purity will be after you!” The woman pointed at me.

  I stood, arms on hips. People stared at us. The woman began to back away, still waggling one finger at me. I glared at her, willing her to stop pointing. Others were listening. The Purity guards might still be nearby. What if they believed her? I had nothing to hide, but Purity had a habit of investigating any unusual behavior.

  “I’m pure!” I shouted, sounding like a desperate skidge. Really believable.

  She crashed into my display sign and gave me one last accusing glance, not even waiting for a transmit of her portrait. My sign teetered on the rock for a moment, then righted itself.

  The throbbing overtook me then, thumping steadily in my ears. I wanted to collapse back into my chair, to wait for it to slow. But fear of Purity picking me up, even for questioning, forced me to pack up and get out of there, head down, and walking as fast as I could manage.

  skidge

  When uniforms matter more than art, when everyone has the same haircut, you don’t go and distinguish yourself by drawing portraits in the commons. Stupid. Why was I so stupid?

  I stumbled into Nature’s Way Cafe, my folded chairs slapping against my leg, the strap of my heavy bag cutting into my shoulder. All the tables were filled, but Jonah wasn’t there. He’d promised to meet me. Where was he?

  Cool indoor air, final
ly. Behind the long counter, the grill spat out the scent of fried vegetables and grease. I hauled my load through the tangle of tables, avoiding eye contact with anyone, and burst out into the sweltering heat of the side patio.

  Too hot, but empty, except for one guy about my age, dressed in medic clothes, hunched over a game screen, his fingers plugged into the controls. Probably a medic trainee off-shift.

  I weaved between clusters of tables and large shade trees, dumped everything in a corner, and slumped into a chair. The medic looked harmless enough. The fence around the patio made it mostly private. No one should notice us. Hurry up, Jonah, I thought. I needed to make sense of what had happened, and he always knew how to help.

  The molded plastic chair trapped the heat against my skin. I rubbed at the ache in my shoulder. Mur’s energy was gone, and my head still pounded slightly.

  A skinny waiter entered the patio with a tall glass of pink juice on his tray. He was dressed in uniform, too — slate-gray shirt and shorts with a modest white stripe down each side. His hair was cut in the usual blunt unisex style. My own Academy uniform was stuffed deep into my bag. No one needed to know where I belonged.

  I signaled the waiter over. Just then, the medic with the game screamed, as if he were being tortured. “Ahhhhh!”

  I jumped, my bare legs peeling painfully off the chair with a ripping sound. The waiter almost spilled the drink.

  “You all right?” he asked the medic.

  My legs stung. I glared at the medic. Fool game junky. Must be playing Blass — a complex puzzle game. Everyone knew that you could damage the nerves in your fingers with that game.

  The medic had bulky shoulders. His arms rippled with muscle inside the pale blue smock as he pulled his fingers from the game slots. He nodded to the waiter, even though the tips were bloody.

  “Lost again?” The waiter set the tall glass next to the many empty ones.

  The medic closed one eye and peered up at the waiter, who was standing with his back to the sun.