The Boy with Words for Skin

Chapter 6: Clean-Up

must refer to each other and themselves

by their new names

The Boy with the Mirror Face, just Gregory Yuss back then, was furious. He was the third oldest in the house at fifteen years old, tall and thin and the meanest kid I've ever met. He chose a hand mirror at the Farewell and his face had been replaced with a flat, oval piece of mirror. Sometimes, when you looked into his mirror face, you'd see things that weren't your reflection. And when he spoke, it was like you heard it from inside of your head. It was like he was inside of you. It was terrible.

"You're making up rules now?" he said. "You're like, what, our boss?"

Everyone turned to me. I realized I was naked and scrambled to pull on my clothes. After I'd tightened my hood around my face and pulled my hands up into my sleeves, I muttered that, no, I didn't make up the House Rules. I had no control over what appeared on my skin. If I did have control, there'd be no words.

Greg refused to listen to me. He said I was a liar, that no one should trust me. They should kick me out of the house, he said. His brother Darren, who was two years younger at thirteen years old, chose a dirty rubber band ball at the Farewell and had his tongue tangled over and over again into a hopeless mess, agreed—no surprise there.

Greg kept going on and on about how terrible I was and how stupid they'd be to let me make up rules. He got louder and louder. And then, all of a sudden, he stopped mid-sentence.

No one spoke for a little while. We just stared at him, confused why he'd stopped talking. After a bit, he shoved his way through everyone and left without saying anything.

No one said much after that. We just trickled out of the bathroom and went our separate ways. We didn't talk about the House Rules because no one knew what to say about them.

A few hours later, Darren started getting nervous. He'd searched the house, checked their family's house, and even went to their favorite spots in the woods, but he couldn't find his brother anywhere.

Some of us helped search the house again, but when we didn't find him we stood around the front hallway, feeling helpless, confused, and scare.

Then the entryway closet door opened and Greg stepped out. The door closed behind him all on its own. My entire body prickled with fear when the handle clicked shut. It prickled even more when Greg just stood there and didn't say anything. He swayed a little bit, like he was dazed.

"Come on, Darre—" he cut himself off, "I mean . . . come on."

The two of them went upstairs to the bedroom we shared and stayed there all afternoon until Kit called a house meeting to discuss the House Rules that night. Neither of them said anything as everyone agreed to obey the House Rules, at least until we figured out what was going on with them. We all agreed we'd be home by ten. We all agreed to not tell anyone about anything that happened inside the house. But the new names part was confusing. What new names?

"He'll give you your new name," Greg said.

Everyone waited for him to go on.

"When he makes you go into the closet."

This made more questions than it answered, but Greg refused to say anything else. Instead, he and his brother went upstairs, got their things from our room—their Tokens and sheets and clothes—and took it all down into the basement. None of us had been down there by that point. There were no lights and it was pitch black, but they didn't even take candles with them. 

Over the next few hours, we each felt something pull us toward the entryway closet. It was a lot like when you get so hungry that eating is all you can think about it. One by one, we went into the entryway closet and met The Voice. That was when he gave us our new names. It was scary talking to him—a voice in an empty closet, but he was friendly that first night. It didn't take long before we learned that he wouldn't also be so nice.