The Faceless Ones

Chapter Three. That First Kiss

By the time they got to Haggard, the lights turning the streets of the small town a hazy shade of orange, it was almost ten. There was nobody walking in the rain, so Valkyrie didn't have to slump down in her seat. That was the only problem with the Bentley--it wasn't the type of car that went unnoticed.

Still, at least it wasn't yellow.

They approached the pier. Six months earlier, Valkyrie had leaped from it, followed by a pack of the Infected--humans on the verge of becoming vampires. She'd led them to their doom, since saltwater, if ingested, was fatal to their kind. Their screams of pain and anguish, mixed with rage and then torn from ruined throats, were as fresh in her memory as if it had all happened yesterday.

The Bentley stopped and Valkyrie got out. It was cold, so she didn't linger. She hurried to the side of her house and let her hands drift through the air. She found the fault lines between the spaces with ease and pushed down sharply. The air rushed around her and she was rising. There was a better way to do it--to use the air to carry, rather than merely propel, but her lessons with Skulduggery hadn't reached that level yet.

She caught the windowsill and hauled herself up, then opened the window and dropped into her room.

Her reflection was sitting at the desk, doing homework--part of the job of keeping up Valkyrie's "mortal" life as Stephanie Edgley. "Hello," it said, looking up.

"Anything to report?" Valkyrie asked as she slipped off her coat and began changing out of her black clothes into her regular wear.

"We had a late dinner," the reflection said. "In school, the French test was postponed because half the class were hiding in the locker area. We got the math exams back--you got a B. Alan and Cathy broke up."

"Tragic."

Footsteps approached the door, and the reflection dropped to the ground and crawled under the bed.

"Steph?" Valkyrie's mother called. Mrs. Edgley used her daughter's given name, of course, not Valkyrie, the name she had adopted when she'd joined forces with Skulduggery.

Knocking on the door, Mrs. Edgley stepped in at the same time. She held a basket of laundry under her arm. "That's funny. I could have sworn that I heard voices."

"I was kind of talking to myself," Valkyrie said, smiling with what she hoped was an appropriate level of self-conscious embarrassment.

Her mother put a pile of fresh clothes on the bed. "First sign of madness, you know."

"Dad talks to himself all the time."

"Well, that's only because no one else will listen."

Her mother left the room. Valkyrie stuck her feet into a pair of battered sneakers and, leaving the reflection under the bed for the moment, clumped down the stairs to the kitchen. She poured cornflakes into a bowl and opened the fridge, sighing when she realized that the milk carton was empty. Her tummy rumbled as she dumped the carton into the recycling bag.

"Mum," she called, "we're out of milk."

"Damn lazy cows," her mother muttered as she walked in. "Have you finished your homework?"

Valkyrie remembered the schoolbooks on the desk, and her shoulders sagged. "No," she said grumpily. "But I'm too hungry to do math. Do we have anything to eat?"

Her mother looked at her. "You had a huge dinner."

The reflection had had a huge dinner. The only things Valkyrie had eaten all day were some vanilla cremes.

"I'm still hungry," Valkyrie said quietly.

"I think you're just trying to delay the math."

"Do we have any leftovers?"

"Ah, now I know you're joking. Leftovers, with your father in the house? I have yet to see the day. If you need any help with your homework, just let me know.»Her mother walked out again, and Valkyrie went back to staring at her bowl of cornflakes.

Her father walked in, checked that they weren't going to be overheard, and crept over. "Steph, I need your help."

"We have no milk."

"Damn those lazy cows. Anyway, it's our wedding anniversary on Saturday, and yes, I should have done all this weeks ago, but I've got tomorrow and Friday to get your mother something thoughtful and nice. What should I get?"

"Honestly? I think she'd really appreciate some milk."

"The milkman always seems to bring her milk," her dad said bitterly. "How can I compete with that? He drives a milk truck, for God's sake. A milk truck. So no, I need to buy her something else. What?"

"How about, I don't know, jewelry? Like, a necklace or something? Or earrings?"

"A necklace is good," he murmured. "And she does have ears. But I got her jewelry last year. And the year before."

"Well, what did you get her the year before that?»He hesitated. "A ... a certain type of clothing ... I forget. Anyway, clothes are bad because I always get the wrong size, and she gets either insulted or depressed. I could get her a hat, I suppose. She has a normal-sized head, wouldn't you say? Maybe a nice scarf. Or some gloves."

Valkyrie nodded. "Nothing says 'happy anniversary' more than a good pair of mittens."

Her dad looked at her. "That was a grumpy joke. You're grumpy."

"I'm hungry."

"You've just eaten. How was school, by the way? Anything interesting happen? "

"Alan and Cathy broke up."

"Are either of them anyone I should care about?"

"Not really."

"Well, okay then." He narrowed his eyes. "How about you? Do you have any ... romances I should know about?"

"Nope. Not a one."

"Well, good. Excellent. There'll be plenty of time for boys when you leave college and become a nun.»She smiled. "I'm glad you have such ambitious dreams for me."

"Well, I am the father figure. So, anniversary present?"

"How about a weekend away? Spend your anniversary in Paris or somewhere? You can book it tomorrow, head off on Saturday."

"Oh, that's a good idea. That's a really good idea. You'd have to stay with Beryl though. Are you all right with that?"

The lie came easily. "Sure."

He kissed her forehead. "You're the best daughter in the world."

"Dad?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"You know the way I love you so much?"

"I do."

"Will you go out and get some more milk?"

"No."

"But I love you."

"And I love you. But not enough to get you milk. Have some toast."

He walked out of the kitchen, and Valkyrie sighed in exasperation. She went to make some toast, but they were out of bread, so she took some hamburger buns and slid them into the toaster. When they popped up, she covered them with freshly microwaved beans and took the plate up to her room, closing the door behind her.

"Okay," she said, putting the plate on her desk, "you can go back into the mirror."

The reflection slid out from beneath the bed and stood. "There are a few homework questions still to do," it said.

"I can do them. Are they hard? Never mind. I can do them. Anything else happen today?"

"Gary Price kissed me." Valkyrie stared. "What?"

"Gary Price kissed me."

"What do you mean? Like, kissed you kissed you?"

"Yes."

Her anger made her want to shout, but Valkyrie kept her voice low. "Why did he do that?"

"He likes you."

"But I don't like him!"

"Yes, you do."

"You shouldn't have kissed him! You shouldn't be doing anything like that! The only reason you exist is to go to school and hang around here and pretend to be me!"

"I was pretending to be you."

"You shouldn't have kissed him!"

"Why?"

"Because I'm supposed to!"

The reflection looked at her blankly. "You're upset. Is it because you weren't around for your first kiss?"

"No," Valkyrie shot back.

The reflection sighed, and Valkyrie looked at it sharply. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"You sighed, like you were annoyed."

"Did I?"

"You did. You're not supposed to get annoyed. You don't have any feelings. You're not a real person."

"I don't remember sighing. I'm sorry if I did."

Valkyrie opened the wardrobe to show the reflection the mirror.

"I'm ready to resume my life," she said, and the reflection nodded and stepped through. It stood there in the reflected room, waiting patiently.

Valkyrie glared at it for a moment and then touched the mirror, and the memories came at her, flooding her mind, settling alongside her own memories, getting comfortable in her head.

She had been at the lockers, in school, and she'd been talking to ... No, the reflection had been talking to ... No, it had been her, it had been Valkyrie. She'd been talking to a few of the girls, and Gary had walked up and said something that everyone laughed at, and the girls had walked off, chatting. Valkyrie remembered standing there, alone with Gary, and the way he smiled, and she remembered smiling back, and when he leaned in to kiss her, she had let him.

But that was it. There was the memory of the thing, of the act, but there was no memory of the feeling. There were no butterflies in her stomach, or nerves, or happiness, and she couldn't remember liking any of it because there was no emotion to accompany it. The reflection was incapable of emotion.

Valkyrie narrowed her eyes. Her first kiss, and she hadn't even been there when it happened.

She left the beans on toasted buns on the desk, her hunger fading, and sorted through the rest of the memories, sifting through to the most recent.She remembered watching herself climb through the window, then she remembered sliding beneath the bed, waiting under there, and then crawling out when she was told.

She remembered telling herself that Gary Price had kissed her, and the argument they'd just had, and then she remembered saying, "You're upset. Is it because you weren't around for your first kiss?" and the sharp "No" that followed. And then a moment, like the lights had dimmed, and then she was saying, "I don't remember sighing. I'm sorry if I did."

Valkyrie frowned. Another gap. They were rare, and they never lasted for more than a couple of seconds, but they were definitely there.

It had started when the reflection had been killed in Valkyrie's place, months earlier. Maybe it had been damaged in a way she and Skulduggery hadn't anticipated. She didn't want to get rid of it and she didn't want to replace it. It was more convincing than ever these days. If all Valkyrie had to worry about was a faulty memory, she figured that wasn't too high a price to pay.