Chapter Text
Rules and Practical Information About Soul Marks and Soul Mates
Soul marks are shown in the form of a countdown on a person’s inner wrist. Once this countdown hits zero, you will know that you have met your soulmate.
Soul marks usually disappear after the soul mates have met.
At this time, only 30% of the world’s population are born without a soul mark.
Soul marks come in shades of black or brown, usually depending on skin tone.
It is quite common in places like England or the Americas to cover up your soul marks. Some people believe that revealing them early can doom the relationship, although there is no evidence of such a thing.
More information can be found on soulmates by picking up a copy of Claire Belton’s “Practical Rules for Practical Souls”
- An advertisement for Claire Belton’s “Practical Rules of Practical Souls”
When Edwin was born his mother sobbed for a week.
There was nothing wrong with him, technically. Her pregnancy had been rather normal, at least for the time, and his birth had even been rather easy compared to so many other horror stories his mother had heard about. Breech births, tearing, paralyzation, hemorrhaging, stillbirths, on and on the lists went until she had thought that she would go crazy if she heard any more of them.
But his birth had been easy. He’d seemed ready to come into the world, and she had been more than ready to greet him. She wanted the record to show that Violet Payne, mother of Edwin Payne, had been so excited to meet her son she had practically fought the nurse for her first glimpse of him.
She was sure that her husband, William Payne, would have been embarrassed to know that she had been so excited to meet their son. He would never have been caught dead acting like such a fool, especially not over something as trivial as a birth. People did them all the time. Animals did them, for God’s sake.
But Violet had been. She’d been so excited as she’d reached for her son, practically dragging the nurse over as she counted his fingers and his toes, as she tried to swaddle him up to keep him warm. That was Violet’s job, she would take care of it.
Somehow, she missed the sad look on the nurse’s face. She missed the almost concerned look on the doctor’s as she pried her boy loose and held him close.
He was gorgeous. Of course he was. He was her son after all, and while vanity might be a sin, Violet would not play dumb. She knew she was beautiful, and her husband was a very attractive man.
He wasn’t her soulmate, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good match. They were both from wealthy families and attractive, healthy people. It only made sense to ignore this whole soulmate business and settle down to have a family while their families both benefited from the joint business.
Her mind wandered as she counted Edwin’s fingers and toes, ignoring the fact that the nurse had already done that before. What kind of person would her son grow up to be? Would he be smart and strong, a great entrepreneur like her husband and his father before him? Or would he be more creative, someone who could paint beautiful portraits or landscapes like his mother? The world was full of endless possibilities for him, all of them just waiting and the edge of his ten beautiful fingertips.
Gently, she flipped his left wrist over. His soft, pudging little baby skin was the best feeling she had ever felt in the world. A word of protest came from someone in the room, but she ignored it. This was her son, she could see his soulmate countdown if she wished.
She blinked at the faint white lines etched into his skin. They almost looked like scars, which was ridiculous because he had just been born. How could he already be scarred? Who could have possibly scarred her perfect, beautiful baby boy?
The numbers on his wrist almost didn’t register, she was so distressed. It took a moment and a few deep breaths before her brain finally caught up with everything else.
“What is this?” she asked. Her voice was hollow, the very edges of concern and confusion starting to sink in. The nurse, the same damn nurse from before, reached for the baby- her baby, but she jerked back.
“Why does it look like that? And- and why is it so high?” she practically growled.
The number was far higher than she had ever seen a soul mate countdown be. It was supposed to count down to the exact day you met your soulmate, which obviously varied for everyone. Most people it would seem met their soulmate sometime between early childhood and their mid-twenties. She knew those numbers by heart, and had planned to calculate how long it would be until Edwin would meet his.
If he was lucky, he would meet his before they needed to plan for marriage. His mother and father hadn’t been so lucky, but there was still hope for him.
But this… This was far too high. This was unacceptable. This meant that he wouldn’t even meet his soulmate until he was…. 88? Maybe even 89? She couldn’t think, all of the air seemed to have been sucked from the room in an instant.
She glanced at her own soulmate mark. It was dark, the black lines leaving no doubt when she would meet her soulmate. There were still five years and four days before that would happen. But Edwin’s was pale, the white lines so faint they almost blended in with the rest of his pale, pink skin.
Finally, the nurse plucked Edwin from her arms. The cold hit her almost instantly as she watched her walk away with her son as the doctor and another nurse stepped forward.
“Everything is fine,” the doctor said. His voice was patronizing, far too infantilizing to be speaking to Violet. Did he think he was speaking to Edwin? Even her son deserved to be spoken to better than this.
“Sometimes soulmate marks darken as children progress in age,” he said. “Edwin’s mark will likely be no different in the end.”
This was not something Violet had ever heard of, but then again, she had never been too invested in the science of soulmates. Once she had learned that she would not be allowed to wait until she met hers she had given up all hope of ever discovering what exactly all the fuss was about.
There were plenty of books and plays that she had read or seen before, and so she could really only draw one conclusion from a strange soulmark. And that was that there was something wrong with her son, even if they had not yet detected what it was.
“And the time?” she asked. Because that had truly been the biggest concern.
The doctor grimaced. “Yes, well. It would seem that he has a long way to go before he meets his soulmate,” he said. “He is not the first with such a long wait ahead of him, nor do I imagine he will be the last. He is lucky to be born with one at all.”
Lucky. Yes, she supposed he was. Some people were born without the comforting weight of a soulmate’s date on their arm, although that was rare. Some people would never know the love and dedication that came from finding someone who was literally designed by the universe for you, and those people really did have to go it alone.
Alone. It was as if Violet’s whole world had fallen out from under her hospital bed. She imagined the boy she had thought of earlier; whether he be a businessman or an artist now didn’t matter. Because her poor boy would do that all alone, for so many years.
What good was it to find a soulmate if you were already so old? She knew that she should be grateful, that such a countdown meant that her son was likely to live a long, long life, but she couldn’t find it in her.
Edwin Payne would live most of his life without his soulmate. He might not even meet her until he was on his deathbed with a countdown like that.
The doctor left. The nurse lingered by her bedside, a rather mournful look in her eyes. It angered Violet to see, why should this woman look at her so pitifully? The woman’s soulmark was covered up, some sort of medical tape that she must have to wear while working with patients. She wondered if she normally wore a leather one, or if she chose something a bit more sturdy like metal for her everyday cuff. She couldn’t imagine her using something so soft and dainty like lace like other ladies tended to do.
Violet wondered if the nurse even had a mark.
She seemed as if she might say something for a moment but quickly closed her mouth again. It agitated every single one of Violet’s nerves.
“What is it?” she snapped.
Hesitation spread across the nurse’s face again. “Nothing. It’s nothing ma’am.”
“If it is nothing then why are you looking at me like some sort of injured dog?” she bit out. Her tongue was one of her worst traits, her anger always turned to bitter and harsh words.
Hurt and anger also flashed across the woman’s face before she quickly put it in check. “It is possible that your son’s soulmate mark will darken as he ages,” she said. Which only served to annoy Violet even more. Wasn’t that exactly what the doctor had said?
Before she could snap at her she continued. “But there is another explanation. One that hasn’t been proven.”
She waited for her to continue. Once the nurse realized Violet wasn’t going to snap at her she did. “Some people believe that if you are born with such a faint soulmate mark you won’t meet your soulmate until after you die.”
Confusion spread across Violet’s face. “Like reincarnation?” she asked.
The nurse shrugged. “Perhaps. Some believe that. Or as a spirit.”
The nerve of this woman. The nerve of this vile, cruel, insensitive woman. Was this a joke? Did she enjoy pestering new, young mothers with her asinine, ludacris stories? What did she gain from doing this?
Violet wasn’t unfamiliar with spiritualism. Wasn’t that famous detective author obsessed with poltergeists or something? And she’d once attended a seance with some of her friends before she and Willian had been married. One of her cousins had even claimed to have seen a spirit once, although she was fairly certain that was simply because he had been too deep into the spirits to actually tell what was going on.
“Get out,” she said. “Get the hell out of here or so help me I will turn you into a ghost.”
The nurse, properly cowed, fled from the room. And Violet was all alone during what should have been one of the happiest moments of her life.
Violet Payne broke down. And she never really recovered.
XXX
Five Years Later
Edwin hated going to church. There were too many people, it was too hot, and they all expected him to be on his best behavior for so long that it nearly drove him mad.
Not that it ever occurred to him to not be on his best behavior. It's just that everyone constantly reminding him that he needed to be stressed him out. Yes, he was aware he needed to memorize this prayer and stand during this bit and close his eyes during that one. Yes, he was aware that he couldn’t speak during most of it, not even to the girl next to him, Mable, who insisted on standing on his toes half the time.
But the worst part was the boys outside after church.
Mable’s father, who was friends with his father, would usually insist that he and Mable go play a game on the church’s grassy lawn after it was done. Sometimes his mother would protest, some made up reasons about Edwin having been ill recently or some other such nonsense to try and get him out of it, although he could never figure out why. Despite Mable’s inability to judge where her own feet should be during service she was fun and outgoing and he always enjoyed playing with her.
“The boy can go play, Violet,” his father said. His voice was a hard, no nonsense tone that only fools would argue with. He knew his mother did from time to time, but never in front of people like this. His father liked when he played with Mable. It seemed to make him happy and her father happy, so why shouldn’t they?
A small frown formed on his mother’s face, but no one seemed to pay it any mind.
“Payne!” Mr. Blackstone called out as he approached his father. “Your boy is growing like a weed.” Edwin could feel his eyes on his back as he and Mable walked towards the lawn. He was sure she would want to play pretend again, but it was a toss up whether they would be adventurers in the jungle or a bride and groom on their wedding day. He prayed for the jungle.
He kept an ear turned towards the conversation his father was having and tried to ignore the way he could feel his mother’s gaze on him. There was something wrong with him or maybe it was her, or maybe it was both of them, he wasn’t sure. Either way, she was always nervous, especially in large groups of people.
She always seemed to switch back and forth between wanting to hold Edwin too close and ignoring that he existed. If they were at home alone she would have almost nothing to do with him. The moment they were in public it was like she had tied her very eyes to his soul and refused to let him go.
He fiddled with the cuff on his wrist. It wasn’t polite to do, but he couldn’t help it. He hated to wear the cuff, hated how it made his long-sleeved shirts and jacket bunch up in odd ways around his wrist.
At least he didn’t have to wear gloves. Most people he knew wore cuffs like his over their wrists, but there was the rare person who decided to wear full gloves on both hands to hide their marks. He knew it had something to do with soulmates or something, but he’d never much cared. What did he care about love or soulmates or anything like that when he and Mable could discover a new type of jaguar?
“Mummy says we aren’t supposed to mess with those,” Mable said, eyeing his wrist. Immediately he dropped his hand away, almost as embarrassed as if he had been caught picking his nose.
“I wasn’t,” he lied.
Mable narrowed her eyes for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t care. Want to play explorers?”
Edwin felt the tension leave his shoulders. “Yes,” he said. He would love to play explorers.
They ran around for a while, ducking and diving behind trees as they sought out some type of animal that Edwin was fairly certain Mable had made up. Not that it mattered, that was the point of playing pretend.
“I think I heard it over here,” Mable whispered. She was only a few trees away, her high pitched voice barely loud enough to reach him.
Edwin nodded. This was his moment. Mable had set him up perfectly. He was supposed to swing around from the tree and ‘catch’ their made up animal and then they would wander back to their parents and see if they were finally ready to go home.
This was how this had gone countless times before. Yet something was different.
When Edwin stepped out from behind the tree, ready to leap at the air and act like he was the big hero, he realized they weren’t alone.
Three boys had gathered in the trees as well. He knew them from the church, their mothers and fathers friends with his mother and father. That courtesy did not extend to Edwin.
“What are you two doing?” Lewis, the oldest one asked. “Something inappropriate?” His tongue tripped over the word, almost as if he knew he shouldn’t even be implying such a thing.
“We are playing explorers,” Mable said, her voice haughty. “And you were not invited.”
Edwin smiled despite the roiling nerves he felt. Leave it to Mable to think she could tell the other boys off.
“Is that true, Payne?” James asked. “Are we not invited?” His father was Mr. Blackstone, and while Edwin had no qualms with the elder Blackstone, he hated James with the burning passion only a five-year-old could possibly possess. He was mean, cruel, and he loved to steal whatever snacks Edwin happened to get at the church picnics.
Edwin swallowed both his rage and his fear. “You are not,” he said. “It is Mable’s game, and if she says you are not invited then you are not invited.”
“Look at him,” the youngest boy, Julius, said. He was a year older than Edwin, but almost a head shorter. “Doing everything just because a girl tells him to.”
The other boys laughed. Mable’s face turned a bright shade of red as her face puckered. “You can’t play with us, so leave!” she all but shouted.
Lewis stepped closer to her, practically invading her space. She made no move to step back, something Edwin respected her for, but he could see the way her hands gripped the fabric of her dress with anxiety.
“We’ll leave,” he said and Edwin almost relaxed. “But first you two have to do something for us.”
For a moment no one said anything. Then Edwin spoke up, his voice squeaky. “What? What do you want us to do?”
Lewis tilted his head, almost like he hadn’t expected Edwin to give in so easily. But what else could he have done? There were two of them, with Mable being a girl, and three of them. Plus, they were older than he or Mable, which also made it seem like an unfair fight.
“Let us see your soul marks or-” he trailed off, his eyes looking up into the trees for inspiration. “Or we’ll throw you in the river.”
Mable glanced at Edwin. It wasn’t like it was illegal to show your soul marks to anyone, but it was rather…unusual. Most people liked to keep them hidden, especially in children.
The last thing Edwin wanted to do was show his mark. He knew that something was wrong with it; could tell by the way his mother would sometimes trace her finger along it and sigh like she was disappointed.
He still didn’t know entirely what any of it meant. That wouldn’t come until later.
But here he was, being threatened with showing his soul mark or getting thrown in the river. And these boys would do it too, Edwin had no doubt. Well, they might not throw Mable- she was a girl after all, and there would likely be hell to pay for doing it to her. But they would certainly do it to him without even an ounce of hesitation.
Would there be enough time for Mable to get away? Once they were distracted with throwing him in, would she rush to their parents and tell them what had happened? If she did- if she was fast and his parents even faster, there might be hope for him.
Otherwise he would drown.
It seemed as if Mable was questioning the same thing. A pucker formed between her brows as she looked to the boys standing in front of her. “We show you, and then you leave us alone, correct?”
James sneered. “Yeah, suppose that’s the plan.”
She nodded at Edwin and that was the only sign he needed. He sighed as he started to work the cuff off his wrist, revealing the faint white lines of his soul mark.
The numbers were always counting down. Each day it would be one less than the day before, but it never really seemed to get any close. How could it, when his number was literally more than he as a five year old could count?
The boys immediately grabbed Mable’s wrist, something Edwin had been told to never, ever do to a lady. They turned her wrist this way and that, and Edwin could see the faint outline of a tan where her lacy cuff usually rested. He could also see the dark numbers against her skin, but it was too far away for him to make out how long it would be until she met her soulmate.
“Looks like you’ll be meeting yours soon,” Lewis said and dropped her arm. “Lucky you.”
Mable snatched her wrist back and held it close to her chest. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked over to Edwin, maybe to see if he could help her or what he might say.
There was no time to offer any comfort, however, because the other boys had already moved over to him. They finished removing his cuff and stared down at his wrist.
“What’s wrong with it?” Julius asked. He stood on his tip-toes to try and see over James’s shoulder. “Why’s it look like that?”
“And why are there so many numbers?” Lewis asked. “That’s not for another thousand years or something.”
That wasn’t true. Edwin had heard his parents speaking about it once, in hushed tones late at night when they thought he was asleep. “It’s eighty-something,” Edwin mumbled.
A roar of laughter came from the other boys. “Eighty! What, you gonna be an old man trying to get someone?” Lewis asked. He tilted his head back and laughed as if this were the funniest thing he had ever heard.
“Not even your soulmate wants to spend your life with you,” James said and shoved him down.
Tears filled Edwin’s eyes as he tried to blink them away. That wasn’t true. He knew that wasn’t true. Some things just took longer than others. And he was sure he could have a perfectly normal life without his soulmate. Look at his mother and father, they weren’t soulmates.
“Just what do you children think you are doing!?” Mable’s mother’s voice called out. She stood near the edge of the trees, her arms folded and angry. Edwin’s mother and father stood close behind, a matching look of disappointment on their faces.
“Nothing!” All three of the other boys practically shouted. They sent glares to Edwin and Mable, daring them to contradict them.
Any other day it might have worked. But any other day Mable’s and Edwin’s cuffs wouldn’t be on the dirty forest floor and both of them wouldn’t be crying and everything wouldn’t have been so wrong.
“Edwin!” his mother snapped. He put a hand over his wrist, trying to hide the fact that it was visible as he rushed to stand up.
Mable’s mother glared at the other boys. “I think it’s time you went home, don’t you?” she asked. It was very pointed in a way Edwin rarely ever heard her. She was usually all smiles and hugs and sweet treats.
The other boys tried to defend themselves. Obviously, they had just been playing in the woods when they came across Edwin and Mable showing each other their soul marks. And obviously they had been worried about the two of them getting in trouble and they had tried to stop them.
And obviously Edwin had tried to start a fight about it.
It was clear that none of the adults believed a word that any of them said. But it didn’t matter. Because Edwin and Mable were still going to get in trouble and now everyone knew about his strange soul mark.
The other boys trudged out of the forest. They grumbled the whole time and Edwin knew that there would be hell to pay for this later. He could only hope that it wouldn’t be in front of Mable. How embarrassing.
Mable’s mother held a hand out, clearly intending for her daughter to take it. She did, sniffing the whole time as she tried to get her cries under control.
“They were going to drown Edwin,” she said. “They threatened to throw us in the river if we didn’t.”
Mable’s mother looked over to him, just a five-year-old little boy crying in the forest. He could see the sadness in her eyes as she looked him over before turning to Edwin’s mother.
“I’m sorry,” she said. And maybe there was more to it than that, maybe it was a conversation they had had a million times before that always ended the same. Edwin didn’t know, nor did he care. All he wanted was for his mother to tell him that everything would be okay and that they were going home.
Mable and her mother walked away. His friend glanced one more time over her shoulder and waved a sad, small wave before they were gone.
That would be the last time Edwin saw her.
“We’re going home,” Edwin’s mother said. She didn’t offer a hand to Edwin, didn’t offer any other sort of comfort like he had hoped.
Well, he supposed one out of two wasn’t bad.
XXX
Eight Years Later
Edwin had all but begged his father to let him stay home and attend school nearby. There were plenty of good, solid choices, he didn’t have to go to St. Hilarions after all.
Plus, if he stayed here he could learn the family business! And wasn’t that a better thing to learn than whatever they might teach him at this boarding school?
His father hadn’t even pretended to listen to him. Even though Edwin was only thirteen, he knew there was more to this decision than he was privy to.
His mother had been gone for weeks now. Both she and father had claimed that it was so she could go to the coast and “seek help” for her illness, but Edwin knew what that was code for. Even if no one told him or wanted to admit that they knew it too.
His mother had met her soulmate.
Well, she’d met him years ago. Shortly after Edwin’s fifth birthday, if he remembered correctly. There had never been much fanfare made of it, they weren’t the type to do that after all, so he hadn’t thought it was truly such a big deal.
But his mother’s mark had disappeared, signaling that she had met her soulmate, and she was never quite the same again.
Sure, she was just as smart and cunning as she had always been. But she was distant, even to Edwin’s father. He could tell that she had started to pull away from them long before she actually ran.
He wasn’t sure exactly what her illness was, doubted that it even existed if he were honest, but she had insisted that she move to the coast to deal with it.
Edwin’s father had refused. His work was here, as were all of his friends. There was no way he was going to uproot all of that just so she could move to the coast.
(So she could be closer to her soulmate.)
In the end his mother had gone anyway. She’d claimed that she was traveling with one of her best girlfriends, but Edwin had seen that woman just days later. Everyone knew what had really happened, even if they didn’t speak of it.
It wasn’t unusual to leave your husband or wife once you met your soulmate. Divorce wasn’t something that was spoken of fondly, but you were certainly free to do it. But Edwin knew that for people like his parents it was a social death sentence. They would be judged by their peers and shunned from social circles that used to welcome them if they were to ever divorce.
That was one of the worst things for a business man like Edwin’s father. He lived and thrived on connections like that, and having a woman leave you for her soulmate either made people look at you with pity or like you were weak.
“You will enjoy St. Hilarion,” his father said, his deep timber filling the train car. “It will be good for you to be around other boys your age, help you toughen up a bit.” He didn’t point out the obvious, that he’d been around boys his own age at his last school and it hadn’t gone so well.
He pressed his fists together anxiously. His father hated when he did that, but he hated even more when he messed with the cuff on his wrist, so Edwin chose the lesser offense. It was important to this father that he go to this school. It was the school his father had attended, and he swore that it had helped to shape him into the man he was today.
Not that Edwin wanted to be a man like his father. He knew that his father meant well, but meaning well and being good at something were two completely different things. Even at such a young age Edwin had already decided that he would never have children. Or if he did, he would be better than both his mother and his father.
“I still feel as though my time would be better spent at your side, learning the business, but I can see your point,” Edwin said, his voice agreeable. Passive. “I suppose the school might be good for certain… connections.”
His father smiled so wide it showed his dimple. It was such a rare sight nowadays that Edwin almost forgot he had one. “That’s the spirit, son!” he said, and clapped Edwin on the shoulders. He pointed at Edwin and tapped his chest to prove his point. “You go to school, you learn everything they have to teach you, then when you and your friends are running everything you will have all the connections you could ever need!”
It did sound nice when his father framed it that way. It was just so unlikely that events would unfold like that. Edwin knew that from experience.
“The Paynes persevere, you’ll see,” his father said. His family didn’t have a motto or an oath to live by, but if they did Edwin was certain that’s what his dad would choose.
Edwin nodded and smiled. He tried to mirror his father’s excitement, even if it was only for a moment. Did going to school really have to be such a bad thing? Edwin quite enjoyed the learning aspect, and as far as everything else went, well, Paynes persevered.
Besides, what were five short years in the grand scheme of life? He could endure five years. Five years and he would be free to go where ever he wanted, study whatever he wanted at university. Hell, he might even go back home and become a businessman like his father.
He had a long, long life ahead of him if his soul mark was any indication. Five years at school would hardly be the death of him.
XXX
Three Years Later
School was a living hell. There had been a point in time where Edwin had believed that he might survive school, that he might have even thrived during it, but that time had come and gone. School was a lesson in endurance and while Paynes persevered, it sure was dreadful.
He’d only been home twice since arriving at St. Hilarions, and his mother had not been home either time. His father said that she had been delayed- something about the train breaking down or a storm brewing on the coast, but the neighbors had made it quite clear that his mother had had no intentions of coming home. It was likely that she didn’t even realize Edwin was back home. Not that he believed that would have brought her back anyways, she had left him in the first place after all.
He sighed as he walked down the long hallway towards the dormitory. His hat had gone missing again, likely snatched by Simon, or at least another boy under Simon’s instructions, which meant that he was going to have to try and find something else to wear. He’d quite liked that hat, too, not that it really mattered.
He should have known by now that nothing he cared for belonged in a school like this.
A group of boys were already gathered in the room by the time Edwin made his way to bed. Sometimes it was better this way, as there was always a chance that they might be asleep by the time he got in there, other times it was worse. If they weren’t asleep it usually meant all sorts of probing questions or jokes that he knew he was missing, but he couldn’t understand why.
The air was filled with tittering noises that turned into actual laughs the second they noticed who had entered. Red burned across his face and his ears felt as if they had been stuck into a fire. It would have been so much easier if they had just been asleep.
“Oi! Payne!” Simon called out. Silence fell over the room as all of the attention turned towards whatever was going to happen next.
Edwin paused, his hand hovering over his bedsheets. He’d been so close to just climbing into bed and pretending to be asleep. If only he’d been just a bit quicker, maybe he could have avoided some of this.
“Show us your soul mark,” Simon said, a sideways grin spreading across his face. He cocked his head to the side, a natural born sense of self-confidence that Edwin envied leaking out of every part of him.
Subconsciously, Edwin’s hand crept out to wrap around his other wrist. His cuff was still there, just barely peeking out from the edge of his shirt sleeve.
“Why would I do that?” he asked, trying to keep his tone level and calm. If he seemed upset about the presumptuous statement they would swarm like sharks smelling blood. No, it was better to play it off, as if this were a normal if not weird request.
Which, Edwin supposed, it was a normal if not weird request. A lot of boys their age had already stopped wearing their cuffs because they had already met their soulmate. Others still wore theirs, as polite society deemed, but still sometimes took them off in the privacy of their dorms.
He’d seen all sorts of times left on people’s wrists. A day, three months, five years. The longest he had seen was ten, but that still had nothing on Edwin’s. Plus, all of them were dark, like black ink etched into their skin. His was the only one he had seen that looked like pale scars on the inner wrist.
“Why wouldn’t you?” Simon asked. He pushed himself up off the edge of the bed he’d been leaning against and approached Edwin’s. A couple of boys moved out of the way, their own matching grins easily reflecting Simon’s.
Edwin fought for any reason to not do it. “It’s inappropriate,” he said and immediately cringed. Of course it was the truth, but that didn’t stop it from sounding lame.
“Inappropriate!” Simon snorted. Like a ringleader commanding a circus, he turned towards the other boys in the room and gestured to him. “Did you hear that, boys? He thinks it’s ‘inappropriate.’”
Simon spun on the balls of his heels to look back at Edwin. “You think I’m inappropriate?” he asked. Some of the teasing tone had left his voice, leaving behind only the vague sense of a threat brewing.
There was no good answer, so Edwin went with the one least likely to upset him. “Of course not,” he said. “It is just… It is usually something private.”
Once again, Simon gestured around the room. “We’re in private, Payne,” he said. His eyes darted down towards Edwin’s wrist and the cuff that laid there. Edwin’s hand was still firmly over it, still doing its best to hide it from view.
Everyone knew that dorm bedrooms did not count as the type of private Edwin was meaning. But it would be a losing battle to fight it much longer, he knew from experience. It seemed like everything Edwin did to try to avoid Simon’s attention was a losing battle.
“I’ll even show you mine,” Simon said. He didn’t even wait for Edwin to remove his cuff, simply snatched his own off to show Edwin the clear, blank wrist underneath. His arrogant smile never changed, in fact if anything it seemed to grow. “So come on, show us yours.”
Sighing, Edwin unlatched the cuff on his wrist, immediately missing the soft leather and metal that held it firmly in place. The world’s faintest tan line was burned around it, almost highlighting how pale his own soulmark was compared to everyone else.
Surprise shot over Simon’s face. He blinked rapidly before looking back up at Edwin’s face. “You haven’t met your soulmate, yet?” he asked. A stupid question, truly, because why would Edwin have been so concerned about showing everyone if he had? If there had already been a person on this Earth that wanted him, there would have been no need to feel so alone.
“Looks like he’s not going to, either,” another boy from his year, Teddy, said. His finger hovered in the air, pointing straight at Edwin’s pale wrist. “Look at it, it’s all scarred over.”
Another boy nodded. “Your soulmate’s already dead,” another boy, Albert, said. “My nan says that when it looks like that it’s ‘cause they already died.”
Edwin had also heard of this, too. All of it simply folklore, of course, as there was surprisingly little research on soulmates made available to the public. Death, birth, distance, any number of human experiences might make it impossible to meet your soulmate. And since soulmarks were something better talked about in private, it was hard to actually know what was the truth and what was merely old wives tales.
Edwin would not be the first person to not meet his soulmate until late in life. And he was likely not even the only person to have a mark that looked like a scar. But he was the only person that he knew about, and that was enough to drive home the loneliness.
Anger seemed to blossom over Simon’s face, even though Edwin couldn’t figure out why. “What is this? It looks like it just goes on and on.” A hand darted out, long fingers wrapping around Edwin’s wrist to turn it this way and that. As if the light might be the only explanation for its appearance.
Edwin fought to tug his wrist back. “Well, we cannot all be lucky enough to get our soulmates early, can we?” he snapped.
Simon seemed to check himself. An inhale and sigh later and his emotions seemed much more in check. He let out a breath of a laugh, somehow more cruel than the boisterous ones they’d done earlier at his expense.
“Yeah,” he said, practically throwing Edwin’s hand down. “Looks like you’re not as lucky as me.” A sneer made its way across his expression as Edwin put his cuff back on. “If I were you I’d make sure I hid that thing everyday, too.”
Edwin would never understand what it was that drove people like Simon to cruelty. It was obvious that his soulmark was strange, he hardly needed to kick Edwin while he was already down. But that is what boys like Simon were good at doing. Of course someone like Simon would be blessed enough to meet his soulmate early, and of course his mark hadn’t looked like a scar. Why would it have? Things like that didn’t happen to people like Simon.
Edwin crawled into bed, not even bothering to read or pretend to do anything else before he fell asleep. The nighttime caretakers would be by soon to extinguish the lights and do a headcount, and Edwin wanted to either be asleep or able to pretend he was when it happened.
That was the last night Edwin ever slept in that bed. The last night he ever truly slept at all. And all he could think as Simon and the other boys dragged him down to the basement to kill him was at least now he knew why his soulmark had been scarred over.