The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant

by Joanna Wiebe

  “Pilot said you know something about my soul. My history. Something that makes him think I’d be successful in life”—ridiculous— “on my back.” Old pipes squeal as he shuts the water off. “Were you guys just being pervs, or is there something I need to know? About my soul.”

  Lou faces me. His blue coveralls are wet with mop water, and a smear of mud or oil crosses his stubbly cheek. With the set of his jaw, if he weren’t so thin, he’d almost look like a bulldog.

  “Pilot told you that?”

  “Tell me what you know, Lou. Please.”

  “It don’t work like that.”

  “Well what do it work like?”

  “If a demon’s gonna get me to cough up what I know about their soul, they’re gonna have to be my master or twist my arm a good deal.”

  “And if a human wants to know?” I tap my foot.

  “I ain’t high ’nough ranking to give no human what they want, unless I serve them.”

  “Demons can serve humans?”

  “And humans go ’round serving us, too. Happens lots. Usually don’t work out though.”

  “Your master is…Mephisto?”

  He nods fast and taps the pin on his shirt pocket. It’s just as I’d suspected.

  “Then how come you told Pilot about this secret you’re keeping about me? Did he twist your arm?”

  “We was just shootin’ the shit at work. It came up. Wasn’t a favor or special request or nothin’.”

  “Well, what if we were to shoot the shit?” I ask hopefully. “You and I.”

  His lips curve. His stringy black hair shakes. “It’s never been that the likes uh you’d do that with the likes uh me.”

  The bell rings, and Lou takes that as his cue to limp out of the janitor’s closet as if we weren’t just in the middle of a conversation. Frustrated, I give the messy closet one last look, hoping to see something I can use, but come up empty-handed.

  I boot it to my next class: Exploring the Science of Consciousness. There Mr. Farid—whose first name is Moses and whose power, I spend ten minutes working through, is to disarm foes—drones on about anesthesia, cognitive unbinding, and seeing visions. His words remind me of the woman I saw in the mirror last night. That’s a vision I’ll never, ever tell Ben about.

  Which is exactly what I think when I find Ben waiting in the hall for me after class.

  As I walk toward him and watch his smile turn into that crinkle-nosed grin I love, I privately will whatever that weird vision was last night to go away and never return. Let me be as normal as Ben is. Please.

  “Hungry?” he asks.

  “On Wormwood Island?” The upside of vivification is you can’t die of anything, including hunger; the downside is that your will to eat virtually vanishes. “We could go for a walk.”

  “That sounds good.”

  Our fingers touch, twine, and release in a way that gives me shivers. I know that, eventually, I’m going to have to convince Ben to leave me and tell Garnet he’s made a huge mistake in rejecting her. But for now—just for now—I’m going to enjoy it.

  Or so I think.

  As we push into the cold air, I spy Pilot sprinkling salt on any icy patches of sidewalk. Although Lou may not have opened up about the skeletons in my closet, Pi is going to. Even if I have to force him.

  “Gimme a sec?” I ask Ben. “I’ve gotta talk to my, um, Guardian. I’ll meet you by the dorms in five.”

  He suspiciously eyes Pilot, whose back is to us, but finally agrees and turns away. I rush behind Pilot and tip over the broom he’s rested against a tree. He stumbles, curses, and scrambles after it. But when he pushes up his woolly cap to see me glowering at him, his eyes light up.

  “Anne! You ready to talk about the Big V? Great! We’ve gotta get prepping for the Scrutiny.”

  “The what?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it—don’t worry, it’s not till Christmastime. Short-list stuff.” He hurriedly starts shoving the bucket of salt to the side. “We can meet now—that’s cool, let me put this stuff away— but I want a session every single day, got it?”

  “Cut the crap, Pilot. I asked your little janitor buddy what he knows about me.”

  “You did? Even better! So you’re ready to change your PT?”

  “I might consider it.”

  “If ?”

  “If you tell me what he wouldn’t.”

  “Lou didn’t tell you?”

  With my hands on my hips, I shake my head. “So go ahead. I’m listening. What’s my story?”

  “I—I can’t, Anne. Lou outranks me. I’m just a punk. I’m still trying to become a demon. If my superior won’t tell you, I sure as hell can’t. We get destroyed for breaking rank.”

  “Get real, Pilot. Your chances of escaping this crappy life of yours hang in the balance.”

  “I know, but rank is everything. If I knew Lucifer—the leader of Hell—was plotting against Mephisto, I couldn’t tell him, even though I serve him. Rules are rules.”

  “‘Rules are—’? What happened to the Machiavellian son of my favorite sex-addict senator? You make up your own rules.”

  “I wish I could help you, Anne. I really do.”

  “So Hell has turned a sinner into a saint?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “The truth! I know that Lou’s power is to know my soul.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I figured it out. And Kate Haem makes people hate each other.”

  “That’s great. See? You could easily win this thing.”

  “Only if you tell me what Lou knows about my soul.”

  He shakes his head. No matter what I say, Pilot’s adamant that he can’t tell me a thing, insisting that the underworld follows a medieval caste system he’d be a fool to ignore.

  “So what’s your power?” I ask him.

  “I’m a punk. I don’t have one yet.”

  “Great. What good are you to me?”

  “Don’t give up!” He calls as I storm away, “Use your PT, Anne. The one you’ve got now—use it!”

  Look closer. Look bloody closer. It’s become code for You’re on your own, sucker.

  seven

  DIA VOLETTO

  EVERY DAY THAT PASSES BRINGS BEN’S DEMISE CLOSER. And the days are racing by like they’ve got the devil on their heels.

  Ben and I have been dating (yay!) for just over five weeks, but every time we kiss and every time our hands touch, it feels like we’re leaping off the cliff again, like no time has passed at all.

  But it has.

  The countdown to save Ben’s life is well under way.

  Unfortunately, I’m the only one trying to save him.

  Garnet—the woman who’s still technically Ben’s Guardian, the woman who loved him enough to surrender her soul to be with him here, the woman who could easily save him—wants nothing to do with him. Because he’s with me. And she won’t budge on the matter. No matter how much I suck up to her. No matter how much I try to downplay my relationship with her ex. No matter what I do, Garnet refuses to show up to her meetings with Ben, and she hasn’t even talked with him about the upcoming Scrutiny challenge, which, Pilot explained to me weeks ago, is an annual challenge that gives us all chances to get gold stars. When your every move is graded, gold stars can erase all manner of shortcomings. For seniors, they’re especially important: they can move you onto Dia’s short list of fave Big V contenders.

  “Why do you keep hiding our relationship from Garnet?” Ben asks me. “She knows.”

  “Why don’t you fight for the Big V?”

  “Seriously?”

  We’ve fallen into a pattern of asking the same questions. Always with the same non-committal answers. I refuse to tell Ben the truth: naively, I believe Garnet just might change her mind and help him. Yes, it’s naive. Ubernaive. Like doe-eyed, post-lobotomy naive.

  But like Ben once said, hope—innocent hope—is the only thing we’ve got.

  It’s almost Nov
ember now, and sleety rain has turned into thick white snow that sticks to the green grass in the quad. (Not even grass dies on Wormwood Island.) This weekend is the Day of the Dead, which gives all our friends and family back home a day to remember the dearly departed. But given that every day is the day of the dead around these parts, the most we’re doing to celebrate is presenting an assignment in Garnet’s workshop: If we could vivify as anyone from history, who would it be?

  I’m already dreading standing in front of Garnet and this classroom of piranhas when Garnet drops a bonus bomb on us.

  “Headmaster Voletto will join me in grading your presentations today,” Garnet tells us.

  On cue, Dia walks in, all swagger, and gives us a wave. Standing side by side, Dia and Garnet look like a gorgeous celebrity couple we should be snapping photos of. Maybe if I could set them up, Garnet would ease up on Ben, and she’d be so grateful to me, she’d stop snapping at me every chance she gets. It’s possible. Except Dia’s got that Dia + Gia tattoo, which I guess means he’s already taken.

  “Earth to Merchant,” Garnet calls.

  I realize I’ve been daydreaming when I hear everyone, but Harper, snickering. Harper has been avoiding me since that weirdass vixen with the sparkly tail showed herself in our room, but she hasn’t spread a word about it, to my relief. It’s almost like she wants to pretend I don’t exist. Or maybe she’s scared of me? I dunno. She addresses me only when I miss a Social Committee meeting, and even then her eyes never meet mine.

  “I was calling on you,” Garnet tells me. Next to her, Dia is watching me intently.

  “Oh.” That’s my great response.

  “Didn’t you hear your headmaster’s question?”

  Obviously not! “No. Sorry. Would you mind repeating—”

  Garnet groans. “Honestly. Have you tried cleaning your ears? Miss Merchant, if you would like to remain a student at this school, you’re going to need to pull up your socks.” She turns to Dia. “I’m so sorry about her. She’s always been a problem.”

  Wow. Nice.

  “I’m not surprised by that one bit,” Dia says, but he’s smiling at me. “Miss Merchant, I was wondering if, given the secrecy that clouded your orientation at Cania Christy back in September, anyone told you about the Scrutiny. It seems you weren’t told very much. Secrecy is the name of the game around here.”

  “Oh, yes, I know. Thanks. My Guardian told me. It’s a challenge on New Year’s Day.”

  “If you have any questions about it,” he says, “my door is always open.”

  Annoyed now, Garnet encourages Dia to sit down. Then she turns her scowl on me again.

  “Miss Merchant, let’s get your presentation over with. Up to the front. Now.”

  If Ben only knew what I put up with.

  I set my painting, covered in a sheet, on the easel at the front of the room. Garnet has very specific rules about how art is to be presented, and she’s a major fan of drama. (Surprise, surprise.) She likes us to introduce our piece, do a countdown from three, and whip back the sheet. It’s hokey, but I’m hardly in a position to do things my way.

  I face the dead glares of my peers and Garnet.

  “If I could vivify as anyone,” I say dutifully, as an introduction.

  Only Dia looks interested. He’s turned his chair around so he’s straddling the back, with his arms wrapped around it. He’s almost likable. Almost. The way bright, twinkling lights are “likable” until you realize they’re on the front of a semi-truck that’s charging straight at you.

  “Well, as I understand,” I begin, “to vivify, your blood has to come in contact with Wormwood Island—unless the blood’s been touched by the headmaster, in which case you don’t have to, like, be touching the ground.”

  “Exactly,” Dia confirms.

  “Miss Merchant, we don’t have all day.”

  “I wondered, if you blended a bunch of drops of blood together from a bunch of different people, could you make one new person?” I anticipate the groaning objections, so I rush to add, “I know it’s more complex than that. It’s about your DNA, not your blood. And I guess our souls have to be in there somehow, so you’d have a bunch of souls fighting for room”—thinking about Damon Smith, I look at Dia and add—“unless that soul has already reincarnated, leaving their body empty.”

  “Is your PT to bore us to death?” Augusto shouts from the back of the room.

  “We’re already dead! Bore us into resenting vivification, more like,” Plum adds.

  “Miss Merchant, today.” Garnet snaps for emphasis.

  I mumble, “Three, two, one.” And I “whip” back the sheet, by which I mean I lift it a little faster than normal. There, on the canvas, is a mosaic of all the people I’d want to be. I’ve used torn pieces of photographs and thick, oil paints and wispy watercolors to blend them into one.

  “If I had to vivify as someone other than myself,” I explain, “I’d come back as my mom, and Molly Watso, and Gigi Malone—”

  Plum’s hand shoots up. “Aren’t those all people you killed?”

  “Not her mom,” a girl I barely know says. “Her crazy mom taught her how to kill.”

  I’m at a loss for words.

  “She killed Pilot Stone, too,” Emo Boy says, “but he’s not up there.”

  “Who’re you gonna kill next, Murdering Merchant?” Augusto adds. “Harper must be scared to death, sleeping in a room with you.”

  I can’t believe my ears. Is that really how they see me?

  Dia has shifted on his chair to watch my peers hurl accusations at me. Garnet has, too, but she’s watching with a cool smile, which she shines on me before she adds her own indictment.

  “Easy students,” Garnet says, “Miss Merchant has her sights set on killing Mr. Zin next.”

  I take my painting from the easel. A thousand dark thoughts are racing through my mind, but I don’t dare say anything. They don’t need more ammunition. I have my gaze fixed on my workstation when, to my surprise, Dia speaks up.

  “Tell me your PTs,” Dia says. I look back to see he’s standing at the front of the room. “You, boy with the moustache at the back. Or you, boy wearing all that eye makeup. Or you,” he points to Plum. “Your PT is to use your desirability to win, isn’t it?”

  She nods.

  “What is desirable about saying such hateful things to Miss Merchant?”

  She looks down at her workstation.

  “Whose PT is to attack others publicly? Whose PT is to spread rumors and lies?”

  Everyone looks down.

  “Meanwhile, Miss Otto is perfectly enacting her PT. She couldn’t be more desirable in her quiet defense of Miss Merchant.”

  I glance at Harper. She looks as surprised as I feel.

  “Choose your enemies carefully,” he warns us as he sits again. “Who’s next?”

  It’s not until after class that I start to recover from hearing the long list of deaths I’ve been closely tied to. I’m packing up my stuff when I notice Dia standing in front of me, a playful grin teasing the corners of his lips. If he wasn’t a demon and Ben wasn’t my boyfriend, I could see possibly—maybe—only slightly, of course— having a teensy tiny crush on him.

  “Anne, I have a question for you.”

  I look at where my watch would be if I wore one. “I’ve gotta get to my next class. Can it wait?”

  “You have a spare minute now.” He knows my class schedule. Why does he know that? “Look, instead of trying to wriggle your way out of talking privately with me, let me make this easy. Walk with me to Goethe Hall, and I’ll let you make a phone call. As a reward.”

  “I can call my dad?”

  An unexpected phone call? He’d freak!

  I agree, and we start toward Goethe Hall.

  “It sounds like you’re close with your parents,” Dia guesses.

  “Pretty close. I’m an only child.”

  “Of course you are.”

  Whatever that means.

  “I have a proposi
tion for you,” he says.

  “I’m not really the propositioning type. You might want to try Harper.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says with a laugh. “Anne, remember a few weeks back when we talked about beauty up on that cliff ?”

  Vaguely.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about it since. And today’s class gave me an idea.” He pauses like he’s waiting for me to guess. “I’d like to mentor you.”

  “Mentor me?” Quoi? “In what?”

  “I’ve been a great admirer of art for, well, a long time. You’ve got potential. Untapped potential. So,” he tilts his head bewitchingly, “will you let me coach you?” He leans in close enough that his aroma floats around me, and I’m extremely disappointed to find he is sans the brimstone odor most demons skunk up rooms with. “I’d like you to join me every Saturday, starting tomorrow.”

  “So soon?”

  “Yes. You’ll paint me. A beautiful painting we can hang in Cania College. Something real. Raw.”

  “Every Saturday?” Nooo! Find a way out! Make up an excuse! “Um, sure, that sounds…great.”

  Sonuvabitch!

  “Great.”

  We’re standing outside the front office, inside of which Kate Haem and Eve Risset are watching us like odd-looking birds.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock. In my office. Enjoy chatting with your father.”

  I do. Even with Kate and Eve obviously eavesdropping on me, I get a kick out of surprising my dad. He picks up on the first ring, and he takes a while to convince that I’m allowed to be talking to him; rule breaking is his biggest fear, understandably.

  “Dad, seriously, the new headmaster let me call you.”

  “Headmaster Voletto? Well, he seems to be a decent guy, punkin’.”

  “Yeah,” I say, turning away from my eavesdroppers, “he’s surprisingly great.”

  THE SUN IS setting. Ben’s holding my hand and leading me through the brush on the southwest side of the island, where Mr. Watso lives in an ice-fishing tent in a frozen-over inlet. Because Ben and Dr. Zin lived on the island for so long, they got to know Mr. Watso fairly well, and they weren’t punished for their relationship because they weren’t technically breaking a rule: Dr. Zin and Mr. Watso often fished together off the island, where Mephisto’s rules don’t apply. But ever since Ben became a student and Dr. Zin was forced to live off the island—in a yacht just offshore—they haven’t seen Mr. Watso much.