The Divinity Laws
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Prologue
Marson rubbed his forehead, where a frown worked on deepening the furrow in his brow. This morning there had been another report of the deviant underground movement. This one was on a suspected gathering in the capital of a group known as the Assembly. This was the seventh deviancy report in just three weeks. There had always been fluctuations in the number of reports; there was always a rise around the old festival times for example, especially Crissmass when the long winter made people feel lonely and low. But it was unusual to get more than three reports—for either blackwashings or underground cells—in a month.
Breaking the Divinity Laws wasn’t the same as any other crime: the Divinity Laws were the foundation of every civilised society. Virtually every country across the world had adopted some version of the Laws in order to maintain peace and order. There was no intelligent, reasonable human being who would disagree that the Laws had created a safer and more enlightened era for humanity. And the Divinity Division and its agents were responsible for maintaining this new order. As firemen put out fires, Divinity Agents dealt with the potentially incendiary cases of deviants who broke the Divinity Laws. The Division preferred the term ‘deviants’ (or ‘deves’ as the younger generation dubbed it) rather than ‘criminals’ because it suggested an opportunity for correction and rehabilitation, which, after all, was the primary aim of its work. Deviancy was a moment of madness—a temporary sickness in the individual which needed to be cured. It could—and would—be fixed.
As the Head of the Divinity Division, it was Marson’s job to oversee the two main roles of his agents: prosecuting and rehabilitating deviants who had been blackwashed; and hunting down and eradicating underground deviant cells. The latter was the trickier job: groups of deviants were notoriously difficult to trace. A lone deviant was particularly vulnerable and likely to be ‘blackwashed’: exposed as a breaker of the Divinity Laws. For lone deviants, blackwashing was inevitable. But a pair of deviants was less likely to be discovered. And it didn’t take long for a couple of deviants to become twenty, and twenty to grow to a hundred, and the hundred to spread across the country, turning ordinary citizens into deviants wherever they went.
Marson opened the second report that had come in that morning: this one a blackwashing. It appeared to be an isolated case in the countryside: one of the villages on the edge of the suburban sprawl (one more housing development and it would be the suburban sprawl) where a teacher had been blackwashed by a pupil. There was nothing particularly special about the offender: male, history teacher, living in the village, working at the school for six months, single, with family in the north of the country, probably having a midlife crisis.
Blackwashings didn’t usually bother Marson so much, but with the recent surge in deviant activity he was feeling wary. He flagged the blackwashing report as important. Sometimes it was best to keep a closer eye on individual blackwashings; just in case, by a slim chance, a second deviant had stayed under the radar.
Chapter One
The halfpipe looked like the unfinished hull of a ship, beached on the edge of a tarmac island. It stood apart from the rest of the playground, guarding the rail that divided the tarmac from the sea of grass, which spread out to the cracked paths caging it in on three sides. In the whole of the recreation ground, the top of the halfpipe was the best place to get a view of the harbour below the village. From ground level all that was visible of the bay was a smudge of blue between trees and roof tops. But on top of the concrete shell, on this clear burning summer’s day, the harbour waters glistened as an expanse of sapphire blue set with the emeralds of small islands, with the glint of white sails passing by.
Clara hadn’t realised this view existed until she had gripped the hot rungs of the ladder and climbed to the top of the halfpipe platform. She had looked down at first, where the concrete plunged from her feet into a long bowl before rising again to complete the symmetry. The heat radiated up from the surface and hit her bare legs as she stood nervously on the edge. The bottom of the pipe looked flat and hard. Her skin tingled instinctively, imagining the impact of the concrete on her naked flesh. She looked at the board under her foot, unfamiliar and treacherous. They wanted her to ride it down one wall of the halfpipe and up the other. They wanted her to fail—the boys, the Boarders. They wanted to watch her fall; they were expecting it. It was inevitable: the impact with the concrete, the pain and raw skin, the humiliation.
Her stomach tightened and then she looked to her left. What a view. She hadn’t known this existed. She wondered if the Boarders saw it when they came up here; or was it so common to them that they no longer noticed? She could look at it forever. Her stomach muscles relaxed and she breathed in gently the calm sea air.
“Ready?” a voice sneered, interrupting her forgetfulness.
Clara looked back down at the skateboard and the concrete below her. There would be pain; but it would be temporary. And with that certainty, she pushed off from the edge.
The rough roll of wheels rumbled through her, the board wobbled dangerously, she cleared the expanse of the bowl and felt the change in gradient as it curved into the opposite wall. This was where she and the board parted ways, the latter abandoning the journey and clattering down into the base of the pipe. She followed it seconds later, scraping a knee down the face of the wall and leaving the skin from her hands on the hot concrete. She managed to twist on to her back as she hit the bottom of the pipe and ended up in a sitting position, legs straight out in front of her.
“Clara!” Jena yelled, leaping up next to her, “Are you all right?”
Clara nodded mutely, staring ahead of her: another new view. She hadn’t seen this one before either. She heard Jena give a snort of disgust as she followed her gaze.
“Pathetic. Come on.”
But Clara couldn’t drag her eyes away yet. The letters loomed over her from the curve in the wall, as if ready to leap on her: D.E.V.E.
“Come on, Clara,” Jena insisted, pulling at her arm.
Clara looked down at her legs where a trickle of red oozed from one knee, and then down at her lap where she was cradling her right wrist. Only now did she hear the smirks.
“C’mon ladies. Don’t take all day.”
Clara allowed Jena to drag her off the halfpipe, and then the pain bubbled up in place of adrenaline.
“You know what we’ll do if you come back,” one of the boys said calmly, shaking a spray can of paint at them. Jena manoeuvred Clara past them with a snarl. Clara tried to resist looking back, but couldn’t help a last glance over her shoulder at the concrete hull. She felt a wistful pang in her gut for the view and then for the roll of wheels and the rush through her veins.
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“You did what?” Carver asked with his usual dry incredulity.
“Fell off a skateboard,” Clara replied.
“You got her into trouble, didn’t you?” Carver said over her head at Jena.
“I did not!” Jena protested.
Clara kept dabbing her knee with spit and tissue as if the conversation had nothing to do with her. This was typical Carver and Jena.
“You stuck your nose into their business,” Carver continued, “Don’t you know what Boarders are like?”
“They were graffitiing the halfpipe.”
“It’s their halfpipe.”
Jena snorted with disgust. “That’s what ‘Ash’ said. It’s public property and graffitiing public property is illegal.”
“So how come Clara ends up in the middle of it?”
“Listen, you idiot…”
It was time to interrupt. “I agreed,” Clara said simply, giving up on her knee and kicking her heels against the brick wall.
“To ride a skateboard on the halfpipe?”
“You know me,” she smiled, and rolled her eyes: “Can’t resist a challenge—total adrenalin junkie. Anything to get a high.”
Carver gave one of his short, dry laughs and Jena snorted again, this time with cynicism.
“You enjoyed it, didn’t you?” Carver said with a keen sideways look.
“Of course she didn’t enjoy it,” Jena cut in, “She fell off. No one enjoys falling.”
“Yeah?” Carver challenged, “Bungee jumpers, skydivers, tombstoners…”
“Bungee rope, parachutes…,” Jena shot back, “No one plans to fall and kill themselves.”
“But there’s always the possibility. That’s what gives you the thrill—hoping you won’t fall and kill yourself, hoping the ’chute opens—the anticipation of danger.”
“Rubbish.”
Trying to stop Jena and Carver from fighting was like trying to stop a cat from going after a mouse. It required distracting the cat and hoping the mouse would have the sense to run for cover. Clara wasn’t always sure who was the cat and who was the mouse, but as the one always stuck in the middle, she was always in need of a distraction.
“Do you think Boarders mean it when they threaten you?” she asked.
“Ugh!” Jena responded, “Come back again darlin’,” she said in a dumb-sounding voice, “And we’ll give youse a real makeover. Huhhuhhuh.”
Carver raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” he said, “They do.” He slid off the wall. “Maybe you should learn,” he said to Clara, with a mischievous smile.
“Learn what?”
“To skateboard—since you enjoyed it so much…”
“Don’t you dare!” Jena exclaimed to Clara, “I’d never speak to you again.”
“Sounds like the perfect reason…”
“Shove off, Carver,” Jena scowled.
Carver shrugged and stuck out his tongue before sauntering back to the house next door.
“Freak,” Jena muttered after him.
“Don’t,” Clara said quietly, “He’s all right.”
“I don’t know how you can stand him living next door—always just over the fence.” Jena glanced over her shoulder and slid off the wall. “I should go,” she said with a nod at the house behind them.
Clara followed her gaze to catch a twitch of the curtain at the front window.
“I have to pack,” Jena added.
“Ah. The tropical holiday.”
“Yes, do think of me,” Jena smiled, tossing back her dark hair dramatically and slipping on her sunglasses, “When I’m sitting on a golden beach, being served a mocktail by a handsome waiter…”
Clara made a face of mock disgust. “You’d better bring me back something.”
“Hey, I’m sorry, by the way…” Jena wrapped her arms suddenly round Clara’s shoulders, “For getting you into trouble. Thanks for bailing me out, you’re a real friend.”
Clara swallowed awkwardly and patted Jena’s arms in surprise.
Jena released her with a perfect grin on her face. “Catch you tomorrow,” she sang aloud, strolling with a confident bounce up the road.
Clara watched her until she turned the corner and then looked over her shoulder again at her own house. With a thoughtful pursing of her mouth, she swivelled on the wall, dropped onto the small square of lawn and limped to the front door.
The hall was cool and dark compared with the heat and glare of the street. Clara gingerly dusted herself off and smoothed her hair with one hand, before following the ‘clack, clack’ of a knife into the kitchen.
Sandy was standing at one counter dicing vegetables rhythmically, her back tall and straight, hair swept up into a neat swirl, one shoulder barely moving with the expert movement of the blade in her hand. The clacking stopped and, taking a sidestep to the right, she slid the contents of the board into the pan of hot oil on the stove. The oil spat and hissed. Sandy half turned to look at Clara, giving her an appraising look up and down before she reached for a wooden spoon and started stirring the contents of the sizzling pan.
“Been out with Jena?” she asked.
“Yes,” Clara answered, crossing to the sink to wash her hands, “At the park.”
“What have you done to yourself?”
“I fell off a skateboard.”
Her aunt gave a small sigh of irritation. “Really?”
Clara gave her perfectly-vertical back a curious look.
“I received an email from your parents,” Sandy continued, “They are supposed to come home next week, but they’ve had to extend their stay for a fortnight beyond that; so they won’t be back for another three weeks now. They wanted to know if your uncle and I would continue our visit here for that time.”
“Oh…,” Clara responded vaguely, tenderly drying her hands.
“I agreed. Apparently there’s a letter in the post for you.”
Clara took an apple from the fruit bowl and carefully lifted the garage keys from the hook, watching her aunt’s back while she placed another vegetable on the chopping board. The ‘clack, clack’ of the knife began again.
“I don’t know why they don’t just email you. It would get to you a lot quicker.”
Clara slipped the keys into her pocket. “It’s just something more tangible,” she said.
Her aunt let out a sharp breath through her nostrils that, in anyone less ladylike, would be interpreted as a snort. “I’m out for dinner,” she said, “I’ll leave this in the fridge and you can reheat it when your uncle gets in.”
“Thank you.” Clara bit into her apple, hesitated at the kitchen door for a moment and when no further conversation was forthcoming, slipped out to the garden.
Clara jumped a little as a spider scuttled away from the light which flooded the garage floor and disappeared under the workbench. The smell of damp filled her nostrils as she edged warily into the crowded space, one eye searching for anything else of the eight legged kind. The garage was like almost any other garage on the street, housing all sorts of items except a car. Clara had to move half a bike and a standard lamp before she could squeeze between the chest freezer and the lawnmower to get at what she wanted. Greg’s boxes were clearly identifiable with his name scrawled in fat black letters on every side. They were sealed with packing tape which Clara slit open with a pair of secateurs. The first box had a lot of paperwork in it, so was surprisingly heavy to move when she tried to get to the box underneath it. The next contained old films and music albums, a pair of speakers and a defunct hard drive, but the third had just what she was looking for, right at the top. Clara took out the skateboard and dusted it down on her shorts. It looked old and tatty, but it was in one piece and the wheels made a satisfying ‘whirr, whirr’ when she span them.
She carefully re-stacked Greg’s boxes before squeezing back out into the sunlight. She locked the garage and then stood swinging the keys on one finger whilst she considered whether it was possible to get the skateboard into the house without being seen by Sandy. It was worth trying, if her aunt was still cooking in the kitchen. Or she could put the skateboard back where she had found it. What did she need it for? Carver’s suggestion was only a joke. She should unlock the garage and put it back. But even as she agreed with this idea, she carried the board into the house with her.
Once in her room, Clara slid the board under her bed and grabbed a book from her bedside table. Slipping off her shoes, she curled up on the window seat and rested the book on her lap. She lifted a section of the windowsill and took out a folded piece of paper from the small cavity underneath. Unfolding the paper, she laid it across the opened book and drew her knees up. A shallow pool of blood had collected in the jagged edges of the torn skin on her right knee. She would have to put a plaster on it later. She smoothed the paper, but she didn’t read it straight away. Her mind drifted off to the view of the harbour from the top of the halfpipe and the rumble of wheels through her bones and then the graffitied word on the halfpipe wall: ‘DEVE’.
A crude, almost obscene word, designed to offend in a meaningless sort of way—mere decoration in this context. Yet to apply it directly to a person was quite another matter. A serious matter. It was an accusation then: the sort that could get the recipient in all sorts of trouble. Only Boarders would have the audacity to spray the term on their property—it was the same audacity that allowed them to ‘ban’ others from the park, as if they owned it. Jena was right; it wasn’t their property. And Carver was right too; Boarders didn’t make empty threats. So a person would have to be careful if using the park without them knowing.
There must be times when the Boarders would leave. The park would be empty. The halfpipe deserted. But if she was caught…
Clara looked at the paper spread on the open pages of the book in front of her. There were worse things to be caught at…
She stared pensively out of the window again and it was a good five minutes before she noticed Carver pulling faces at her from the opposite window. Clara made a face back and then pulled down the blind, shutting him and the perilous world out.
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“A school teacher has today been arrested on deviancy charges. Hatherhay Summers, who taught at Greylinghurst Secondary School, was reported to police by a pupil after allegedly breaking the Law of Witness. Further investigation is underway and the trial will take place…”
Carver switched the broadcast to mute and poked a fork at his dinner thoughtfully. So, Mr Summers was a deviant. It just went to show you could never tell. He wondered how long he had been keeping that secret and who had blackwashed him. It always happened in the end; they were always blackwashed. Secrets had a way of coming to light, especially with deviants. It was as if they couldn’t help themselves. You’d think keeping your own secret would be easy, especially if it was something as simple as a belief or idea, but something always brought it out in the end. It was their own fault really.
Still, Carver felt sorry for Mr Summers. The trial would be merely a formality to determine the nature and extent of his deviancy. He would be found guilty, sentenced to a rehabilitation centre and, when he got out, he would never teach again. He would probably have to move where no one knew him, take up a new career, start afresh.
Carver suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore. He got up from the kitchen stool and pushed the remains of his meal off the plate and into the bin.
It was a shame. Mr Summers had been a good history teacher and he had always looked forward to his lessons. But you never could tell with people. Unless you knew them well enough you’d never see the signs, and even then you might still miss it until it was too late. Until they were too far gone. Until they had broken the Divinity Laws. Once that happened, there was no going back.
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