by Joanna Wiebe
“There’s someone else in control?”
“You don’t want to know why your friend Molly allowed herself to be killed?” he continues in disbelief. “You don’t want to know if, after you destroyed the Stone boy’s vial, he’s gone Upstairs or Downstairs?”
“Now that you mention it…”
“You don’t want to know if Mr. Zin and his father are being punished for what the two of you did? You don’t want to know what punishment you’ll endure now that you’re back?”
God, I’ve really messed this up. There’s so much to know here, and it’s like I’m always a step behind. Teddy’s already glancing up-island, looking desperately through the trees toward something I know nothing about. So many secrets for such a small island.
“Just answer the question, Teddy,” I say in exasperation.
“I wasn’t there,” he reminds me, “but, as I understand it, you were vivified sometime in the early morning of your first day of school. Dr. Zin brought your vial to Gigi’s house, where Mephisto was waiting to vivify you and Star Wetpier was waiting to…” he hesitates, “rewrite your past. Your recent past.”
“Star Wetpier. The history teacher?”
“She’s a demon. Everyone who works here is either a punk— that’s what we call new lost souls—or a demon of some rank. Demons have powers, you see. Star’s gift is to rewrite the past. When you were in the initial fog of vivifying that day, she fed you details that kept you from questioning why you were here.”
“That’s a lot of work to get a coma victim into a snobby school for dead kids.”
“If you come with me, I’ll explain more.”
Teddy grabs me by the arm, and we’re running again. He tells me, in short gasps as we race to the road, what’s been happening in our absence. He knows because he’s bound to Mephisto, his master, who has brought him up to speed, like, telepathically or something.
“The underworld has been in an uproar since you and that Zin boy jumped off the cliff.” He charges on. “Mephisto has fallen from the status of devil to archdemon, which is still far above a demon but is, nonetheless, below where he once was. He’s been removed from Cania Christy.”
“What?”
“Gone. Until he can prove himself again, which will require him to rebuild his legions, he cannot lead this school.”
“We’ve got a new headmaster?”
“Don’t be too excited,” he warns. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Prepare for madness on campus. Everyone’s arguing, switching sides,” Teddy explains. “Alliances are forming and breaking. It’s chaos. And, yes, it’s all your fault.” He barely pauses for emphasis. “The powerless punks, scheming succubae, darkest demons— everyone that served Mephisto is questioning him. Your escape was like nothing seen before. Many of Mephisto’s followers lost faith in him—”
“Faith in a devil!”
Teddy shoots me a glare. “Everyone needs to believe in something.”
We bolt out of the woods and onto the road. The massive iron gates to Cania Christy loom ahead. I hear the commotion Teddy’s been warning me about: warring staff members trading sides and creating volatile new alliances.
“You should be safe now, though,” he says. “The demons won’t battle you. And the parents have all left.”
I happened to escape on one of the few nights of the year that parents are allowed to visit their kids—and my cries for help as I raced out of Valedictorian Hall, chased by Villicus and Pilot Stone, did not go unnoticed. Not that any of the parents raised a finger to help me. No, they closed their blinds and turned out the lights.
“What does that mean, I should be safe?”
Teddy’s breath is fast. “The parents see you as a threat. You killed one of their own. Pilot Stone.”
“He had it coming!”
“If that settles your conscience.”
He did have it coming. Pilot’s scheming ways could have jeopardized my life. It was him or me. None of the Cania parents would understand that. I’ve been an outsider among wealthy people all my life—first back in Atherton, and most definitely here. It’ll be a cold day in Hell before they take my side above one of their own.
“The new headmaster is about to arrive. I can feel him.” Teddy pauses to focus on whatever he’s feeling. I’m never going to get used to living among mystic oddballs like Teddy. “Oh, it’s him,” he says, seeing something I can’t imagine. “He’s the replacement. I should have guessed.”
“Who?”
“A liar. A terrible being. A devil we will destroy. Someone you should stay away from.”
“Who?”
Ignoring me, Teddy pushes through the gates of Cania Christy. We stumble into the closest thing to pandemonium this side of Hell. It’s late afternoon. In the half day that separated my departure from my return, the order of Cania Christy has collapsed into chaos as the school has found itself without a leader. An absent headmaster wouldn’t be a problem if the staff and faculty weren’t composed entirely—save Garnet Descarteres, my art teacher and Ben’s ex-girlfriend—of Mephisto’s legions. In his absence, they’ve gone off the rails. I watch as secretaries, Trey Sedmoney, and a teacher named Levi Beemaker board up Goethe Hall’s stained-glass windows. Below them, housedads, chem teacher Dr. Naysi, and my sculpting teacher ol’ Weinchler curse and throw anything they can get their hands on at the building. Near Valedictorian Hall, the janitor is fielding attacks from a cafeteria lady, who has broken a makeshift switch off a tree and is brandishing it.
“It’s so loud!”
At the opposite end of the quad, near the shore, student noses are pressed against the glass in the dorms, where most people must have been when the madness erupted. I search the crowd for the one face I most want to see. But he’s not there.
“It’s a wonder the parents escaped this madness. Come, to the quad,” Teddy says, pointing into the eye of the storm.
I follow him with my head down. Not just because I want to avoid the fighting faculty. But also because I get the sense that, among the student body, there’s a warrant out for my arrest. The coma girl who shouldn’t have been allowed here in the first place has caused more trouble than she’s worth.
I call after Teddy, “Why are they fighting like this?”
“Like I said, they’re choosing sides and forming alliances. Those who serve Mephisto are trying to defend themselves against those who’ve turned. This kind of upheaval isn’t rare Downstairs.”
“You mean in Hell?”
He nods as we back against a tree in the middle of the quad. And wait. Teddy keeps looking toward the Atlantic.
“This will all be different any second,” he says, and I hope he’s right.
But I’m not just hoping for peace. Or a new, better leader.
I’m hoping that, if and when this chaos subsides, I’ll see the boy I’ve been trying not to be too obvious about looking for. Ben Zin. His dad’s mansion is all the way on the other side of the woods, toward the village. Is he there now? Does he know I’m back? Is he, as Teddy suggested, being punished for helping me escape last night? Will I, too, be punished?
For the last few weeks, I was neighbors with Ben. I lived in the attic bedroom of a house that belonged to Gigi Malone, who sadly took her own life last night. She asked me to throw her body in the ocean, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had to go to Valedictorian Hall, where my vial of blood was stored, and free myself. If I’d stayed, if I’d done what she’d asked, or if I’d gone to Ben’s like he’d asked, would this mess have happened?
“Who’s the new headmaster?” I ask Teddy. “You saw him?”
A woman’s shout interrupts me: “There he is!”
The hollering and smashing stops. We look toward the small dock just north of the dorms, just south of the cliff. There, a caravan of canal boats like you might see in Venice is being nudged against the dock by thick, burly rowers in red-and-white striped shirts.
The men and women that fill the boats are dressed like members of the most spectacular circus; they begin, one by one, on shaky feet, to come ashore.
Students file onto the quad, veering away from the unstable staff as they do. I spot my archnemesis, Harper Otto, quickly; it’d be impossible to miss that red-haired Southern beauty queen, especially with her entourage of too-perfect followers. She sees me and mouths, “Murderer.” Behind her, someone I like even less—Hiltop P. Shemese, whom I didn’t expect to see again—shuffles out of the woods, smoothing her short bangs and bobbed hair as she flicks a glare at me, a glare that morphs into a thin grin. She offers a little clap for Teddy. Only when she’s turned back to the caravan do I smack Teddy.
“I thought you said Mephisto was gone,” I say. “Hiltop’s obviously still here.”
“Villicus is no longer in control of Cania. Even if he hadn’t been demoted, the parents wouldn’t have stood for it after seeing him chase a student down like he did you. But Mephisto will never leave this place, and so his avatar Hiltop remains.” He shoots me a pointed stare. “Until we destroy him—and his replacement—he will be here in whatever form he can skulk around in.”
“And how do you propose we destroy him? What’s the plan? I’m not exactly a demon slayer. Unless I can paint him to death, I’m not gonna be much help.”
“I don’t know the plan yet.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Patience, Miss Merchant,” he hisses. “You’re rushing like a common demon. We’ll work on it shortly. There’s time.”
“Here’s an idea: let me go home, and come get me when you’ve got a plan.”
He points hard at the people around us. “Don’t talk so loudly, and don’t look so familiar with me. I brought you back here against your will, remember?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well, then, you’re supposed to hate me. Play the part.”
That shouldn’t be a stretch.
“And remember,” he says so quietly I have to read his thin lips, “no one can know about my secret identity or our plan, when we create it. Tell them I put you in an unbreakable coma. Tell them whatever you must. Fight for the Big V to make them believe it. But do not let on that I’m involved in anything, Miss Merchant, or I will be killed. No one must know. Trust no one.”
“So I’ve gone from discovering secrets to keeping them?”
“Let’s hope so.”
Teddy stands on his tiptoes. Everyone is leaning and jumping to see over the heads of the crowd, to see the man of the hour. Playing the part of a loyal follower of Mephisto, Teddy grumbles that he thinks he can see “that egotistical little freak.” So our new headmaster has a big ego? I’m not sure that distinguishes him much from Villicus, who was anything but humble.
I watch Hiltop from afar and realize that I’d be a fool to believe that she—the only remaining avatar of Mephisto—is going to take this upheaval lying down; she’s probably already knee-deep in a plot none of us can imagine.
“Dia Voletto. He’s here,” Teddy whispers to me as he points at a man. “See his boldly tattooed arms—I believe you call those sleeves? That’s his mark; his followers wear tattoos the way Mephisto’s followers wear jewels. Those tattoos represent their powers.” He charges on. “Look at him. You’re not looking! Come, get closer and you’ll see little tick marks all over his body. That’s how he keeps track of his legions of followers. Anne, come. See your new headmaster. Tell me what you think of him.”
But I’m not paying attention to Teddy. Or to Dia Voletto. Or even to Hiltop.
Because Ben has just walked into my line of sight.
two
SAME AS THE OLD BOSS
IN THIS MOMENT, I CAN’T HELP BUT WONDER IF MY RETURN to Wormwood Island isn’t the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Demons aside. Devil Destruction Challenge aside. Medically induced coma that could kill me aside.
Ben and his dad, Dr. Zin, the recruiter for Cania Christy and a former plastic surgeon, are walking in what could be slow motion directly across from me, only steps from me—and they don’t know I’m here. I want to call out, but more than that I want to pause time and simply look at the guy I thought I’d never see again. Ben, with his precisely brushed ashen hair. Ben, with his uncannily green eyes, eyes the color of a breaking wave in a Turner shipwreck painting or the sky in a Cézanne seascape. He is tall, his back is straight, and his chin is held high, like his mother must have told him to hold it back when she was alive, and his sister Jeannie was alive, and his life was headed on a different course. Back before a drunk-driving accident brought him to my family’s funeral home and changed everything.
Around me, everyone is saying, “Look, look.”
I watch Ben and Dr. Zin pass me by. It’s only when Dr. Zin falls against a sophomore girl that I realize this is not the picture of a father and son out for a walk. It looks like Ben’s hoisting Dr. Zin up, like his dad might fall over at any moment.
“What do you think of him?” Teddy nudges me.
“I think he’s drunk.”
“Voletto?”
No, not Dia Voletto. Dr. Zin is clearly intoxicated. I close my eyes, certain he fell off the wagon after learning about the reckless, destructive escape plan his son was involved in. Now I can see the far-reaching effects of what we’d tried to do: Dr. Zin nearly lost the only child he has left, the son he chose over his daughter. And, without question, Ben will be punished for helping me. What might that punishment be? The worry about it could easily push a recovering alcoholic like Dr. Zin beyond his will to be sober.
I call Ben’s name. But the crowd is too noisy.
Taking me by the arm, Teddy ushers me in the opposite direction, through the throngs, up to the front of the crowd where Hiltop is quietly observing the arrival of the new headmaster. The underworld leader known as Dia Voletto is, to my surprise, on his hands and knees just on the edge of the shore. He seems fascinated by something he’s spotted in the water.
Hiltop looks angry enough to kill. Which kinda makes me like Dia, her replacement.
“Master,” Teddy says to Hiltop, with the slightest bow.
I shudder at the sound of it. Master. If my mom wasn’t on Teddy’s side, I’d be grabbing his satchel, throwing it into the Atlantic, and praying for a miracle in California.
“You’ve brought her back,” Hiltop says to him without deigning to look his way. Or mine.
“I promised I would, Master.”
Teddy’s convincing enough that I almost believe he was lying to me about this whole celestial takedown mission. Of course, he’s had a few years of practice as a fake demon. If he wasn’t believable, he’d probably have been destroyed—I think you can destroy a demon, but hell if I know—or, at minimum, Mephisto wouldn’t have brought him to work at his precious school for dead kids.
“Dia Voletto will need the vials,” she tells Teddy with a glance at his satchel. She turns her glare on me. “I told you you’d be back. You thought you got away.”
“I did. Your little peon had to abduct me to bring me here. But I guess breaking the basic rules of humanity is the norm on Wormwood Island.”
“A bent rule is not a broken rule,” she says. “You were signed over to me, and not just until something better came along. You were signed over to me until the day of your graduation. Only I may sever that contract; you may not. There are no refunds at Cania Christy.”
“Well, given that you’re not even in charge here anymore, whatever contract my dad signed is null and void.”
She clenches her fists. “All the contracts have been revised, to be sure, and Dr. Zin will begin traversing the world to have Cania’s 200 parents sign their precious children over to Headmaster Voletto,” she says. “Of course, he’ll have help.”
“Help? From whom?”
“I’ve found myself a second recruiter, you see.”
While Hiltop watches Dia Voletto, who is still transfixed seemingly by his own reflection, I watch Hiltop. This small, nearly inv
isible girl with a face so simple, she could be a doodle; she’s hardly fleshed out human. I’d never given much thought to her before—I’d barely even seen her on campus before last night—but now I see her: dots for eyes; long, thin nose; scribble of lips. Designed to be overlooked. The avatars of Mephistopheles are more perfunctory than artistic. If Mephistopheles is the devil with the strongest hold on mankind, he is interested in something beyond the aesthetic beauty of this world.
“A second recruiter?” I repeat.
“Surely you knew you’d be punished for what you did, Miss Merchant,” Hiltop says.
The main reason I tried to escape Cania Christy was to keep my dad from being as enslaved to Mephisto as Ben’s dad is. Could this be my punishment?
“Your father agreed this morning. It took very little to persuade him.”
I practically growl at Teddy, hoping he realizes just what he’s done. I may be the one being punished, but my dad’s bearing the brunt of it. To atone for my rebellious behavior, my dad—Mr. Stanley Merchant, funeral director in the most expensive zip code in the United States—is Cania’s newest recruiter.
“Why would you punish him?” I ask Hiltop. “I’m the one to punish. Punish me instead.”
“Hush. I would think you’d be more interested in the arrival of Dia Voletto.”
“I’m not. Not in the slightest.”
“I thought your prosperitas thema was to look closer. And yet you’re missing everything.”
A burst of activity near the water draws my eye. Dia Voletto is getting to his feet, and a dozen of his servants have bolted toward the student body to make room for their leader. Two part the crowd, shoving me and Hiltop back, while two follow closely behind and roll out a deep purple carpet. Six more men cart wood and a gauzy fabric up to the middle of the quad, where they hurriedly pound together pillars and string tulle over them, creating a gazebo. A platform and podium are placed within.
Dia’s entourage, all dressed fantastically, start up to the podium. Dia is in their midst. He glances around, searching the crowd. I’m stunned by how attractive he is, how very different he looks from his predecessor. This twentysomething who could be mistaken for the front man in an Oregon indie band is Villicus’s replacement?