by Joanna Wiebe
I can feel her demonic gaze on my back, searing raw holes.
“Is that a no?” Her breath prickles my hair. “You said I should give this foolish woman half the time I gave Faust—just twelve years—to spend with her daughter. And then I should seize the two things she deserved to lose for making such a request. Do you know what those two things are?”
Before my eyes, the hallway has started to transform. Patchwork shimmers clap together, replacing the wall of lockers, into misty woods thick with knotty trees, each of which moves like it’s alive. A damp chill runs over me. A shadowy figure sways next to me.
“The first?” Hiltop says. “Her sanity. The second? Her daughter. You said, and I quote—”
I know the words before she says them.
Not because I can anticipate them.
But because I can remember them. Because I am in the memory. She is feeding the memory to me.
“—Make her kill her child, Master, in her lunacy. And I shall join you on Earth to help you expand your reign over these beings.”
The shadowy figure vanishes, exiting the memory. But I, Gia, am left behind. I feel myself sink to my knees. I feel my palms on the muck of the forest floor. I dig my nails into the powdery ash, the permafrost of the underworld. Arms wrap around me, comforting me, and I find they are not arms but the roots and branches of the shadowy trees that live and breathe in the underworld forest I’m recalling.
Hiltop steps into the hallway. She is an obscure, shape-shifting silhouette in the woods of my memory—now schoolgirl, now lurching man, now animal, now hooved beast.
“You will come around to me,” she says, her voice a thousand miles away. “Because you are my child. You will find your way back to me. We will expand our hold together.”
Could it be true? Could Gia have agreed to come to Earth, to be me, just to help her mentor? Could she have lied to Teddy? Is she playing Teddy somehow? If it’s true that she condemned Nicolette to such a fate, could she, in fact, be as evil as I’d expect an underworld goddess to be? I’d be a fool to believe Hiltop, but I’d be a fool to ignore her, too.
“I’ve given you the illusion of freedom,” she finishes. “Don’t make me regret it.”
I glance up as Hiltop’s nefarious spectre drifts off. She rounds the corner just as the roots untangle, the chill lifts, and my vision fades.
The school hallway is as it was. Hiltop is gone. But I am here. And I am different.
I fight the urge to lower my head, to close my eyes as I might have done in the past. I battle the pity party that would celebrate my penetrating shame—my furious regret—at being the reason my mother degraded through a dehumanizing mental illness, the reason she tried to kill me. And instead, I let my breath come faster, harder. I welcome bright pulsing pain as it rushes through my veins, lighting my skin on fire. I stoke the flames deep within my soul that are brimming up, up, up to my throat, that are surfacing in my mouth, and that explode, at last, with a cry that changes everything.
The overhead lights sizzle on and pop off with bright sparks. The windows flex. The walls shake just as they did at Dia’s. Everything is just as it was in the Zin mansion, but stronger.
In the midst of the pandemonium, I keep my head, though I feel weaker than I have in a long time. I force myself to stay present, not to black out, not to run from Saligia. Because I need to know if she’s good or bad, and to do that I need to connect with her. I watch the teacher’s desk slide away from me and the framed periodic table behind it clatter from the walls to smash on the floor. I watch the stools shove away and I hear the beakers near me rattle together. I refuse to be overwhelmed by my own power—by Saligia.
I am filled with great expectations when I look down at myself. Equally so when I grab for my velvety tail and wait for the itch of light-filled wings, both of which I hope are with me now.
But there is nothing.
No tail. No wings. I pat my hands over my body.
Nothing.
What happened? Why didn’t it work? And why am I so sapped of energy? I feel like I could fall asleep standing up.
A glint of silver in the far corner of the room catches my eye. I jerk to look, and there I see her.
She is not a reflection in the window. She is real, here with me in the flesh. She is standing near the collapsed shelves. With her magnificent cat eyes, she watches me, but she is as listless as I am. Two frail wings flit and fall behind her shoulders. I can’t even see her tail. She is leaning against the broken shelves, spent.
“Gia,” I breathe.
I have, somehow, projected her. Split my spirit. Disassociated. Cast her straight out of me, as if from my mouth. And it’s left us both weak. “How did…that happen?”
“Our. Gift.” Her body sags into the wall. “Cast. Souls.”
Gia and I have a gift. All demons do. Ours hadn’t occurred to me. I’d ask more, but I have bigger questions. I don’t want to believe that there’s a part of me—old or not—that would do what Hiltop said I did to my mother. Or to anyone.
“Did you. . .condemn Nicolette. . .like Meph said?” I ask her.
Her lips move. But she’s listless and drifting.
“Are we evil?” I ask.
This time I hear her: “Leave. Me. Be.”
“I can’t do that. I need your help.”
“Be. Anne.”
Spent, she vanishes. And my heart thumps hard again. My back straightens, my shoulders square; I am my whole self. But a different self than I’ve been these past few months. Because the underworld goddess I was trying to be has asked me to stop using her, to be who I am.
“I’m not ready to,” I say, knowing she can hear me. “Not yet.”
No, not yet. I’ve made too many promises. Too many people are depending on me to help them. Harper and Pilot aside, Teddy and my mom need me to help them take down two underworld leaders. That Gia knows about that but doesn’t want to help makes me think maybe Mephisto was right, maybe she’s a bad soul. My head throbs at the thought, but it must be true.
“You’d rather back out on the woman you condemned to insanity and ultimately to death,” I say to myself, to Gia, “than do the right thing and help her. You’d rather cower. But I wouldn’t. Anne wouldn’t. So you won’t, either.”
THE NEXT DAY, I feel renewed. Like I’ve fought with my inner demon and won.
Until I see Harper.
I’m near the water, where a feat of strength exercise has just ended, leaving Ben victorious with his clapping girlfriend and a decidedly sober-looking Dr. Zin. A small crew of freshmen are taking down what was evidently an obstacle course, with the Seven Sinning Sisters overseeing them, when Harper plants herself in front of me, crosses her arms, and taps her foot.
“I’ll take that barrette back, ugly as it is,” she says. “I’ve figured out what we can do to get me a new life. So I’m gonna give you some power by serving you, and then you’re gonna do exactly what I say.”
Now I cross my arms. “Why would I do that? So you can serve me and leave?”
She chews on her lip. “I’ll serve you for a fixed amount of time. Then bail.”
“How long?”
“We’ll go to Voletto’s office right now. Find out what demon gives second lives. Figure out how to get that demon servin’ you. And then I’ll serve you until, say, the end of the school year, at which time you’ll liberate me.”
“Why would Dia tell us anything?”
Flipping her hair, she poses suggestively. “You stick to your knitting. I’ll stick to mine.”
Superbia is watching us. When our eyes meet, she lowers her chin for the first time in the many months I’ve known her. Oh, God. I know what that look means. Superbia’s mine? She begins walking our way, her head down the whole time.
“Let’s go to his office,” Harper says to me.
“Now?”
“No, next Christmas.”
“Do you need me there? I think you’re better at that stuff than I am.”
“I sure am! But what kinduv master would you be, lettin’ me hog all the glory?”
Superbia sidles up next to me, and Harper, never one to miss a chance to suck up to a teacher, comments on how lovely she looks today. Superbia rolls her eyes.
“I have to talk to Miss Merchant, Miss Otto,” she says. “If you’ll excuse us.”
Harper slides her narrow gaze my way. “Half an hour. Be there. I’m not kidding.”
As she darts up to Goethe Hall, I turn to Superbia. Sunlight glints off the locket around her neck. Her tattoo is gone.
“Master,” Superbia says, “I understand you split your soul last night.”
“How could you know that?”
“Good news travels fast. Until now, I couldn’t be sure if your return was sincere. But now I know. The others are sure to follow you. Even Invidia will come around. We all will. If your choice is to return.”
“Look at me,” I insist. “You can’t follow me. Dia will notice you’ve left him.”
“So you don’t choose the life of Saligia?”
As the Existentialism Club takes over our spot in the quad, I pull Superbia aside. For privacy.
“Tell me,” I whisper to her, “why did I leave the underworld? Was it because of Dia? Or Mephisto? Or…was it to help Teddy? Do you remember my friendship with him?”
“Ted Rier?”
I nod.
“We cannot be too careful with our choice of enemies.”
Shit, that’s not very helpful. I realize, at once, that she’s quoting Dorian Gray. I’m about to push for more, but she is slipping my locket from her neck. She hands it to me.
“Did you just stop following me?” I ask.
“Your question proves to me you are not the Saligia I once served.”
That was fast.
I watch in confusion as she saunters away, all eyes on her.
Then the impact of what I’ve just said hits me. I told her I was helping Teddy! That’s the worst possible thing I could have told anyone, especially one of Dia’s followers.
Without another thought, I race hard and soon burst into the office shared by the two people who can help me now: the Cania Christy counselors. Scout Colenns, the career counselor, and Lance Crenmost, the grief counselor. I’ve gotta talk to Teddy. Their powers will connect me with him. The office is empty when I slam the door behind me, startling them. Scout and Lance roll out from behind their desks, swiveling in their squealing old chairs to stare up at me.
“Are you back, Miss Saligia?” they ask in unison.
“Essentially.”
“May we”—Lance looks hopefully at me—“see you?”
“I didn’t come here to put on a show,” I say hurriedly. “And I didn’t come here to talk.”
“Please?” Scout begs.
“I said no.”
A typewriter sits on one of the desks. I march to it, lift it, and stomp back to the guys. Gripping the typewriter by its platen knobs, I raise it above my head. I don’t want to waste a second. Lance’s heavy brow is curled up like a massive crouching caterpillar, but Scout looks intrigued, like something amazing might happen any second.
And it does.
I slam the typewriter down on Scout’s knees. He howls and leaps up. I push him back down and do it again, then let the typewriter fall to the ground. Lance is staring at me like he’s not sure if he should be impressed or call the cavalry. I shoot a glare at him, and his browterpillar jumps for the roof.
In my mind’s eye, I can see Molly wagging her finger at me, and I can see Saligia, exhausted, asking me to leave her. But what else can I do? Superbia knows about me and Teddy. I have to talk to Teddy.
Scout is doubled over when I pull him up by the scruff of his collar.
“Scout, look at me,” I insist and wait for his eyes to stop rolling like bingo balls. I think he might cry. Doesn’t matter. I need him to use his power for me: connect souls.
“You broke my femurs!”
“Connect me to the soul of Ted Rier.”
“That really hurt.”
“Scout!” I slap him across the face like I’m focusing someone hysterical.
Lance writhes a little in his chair. “Do it again.”
I hit Lance. “Was I talking to you?” Back to Scout. “Now, do as I commanded.” Grasping Scout’s hair, I yank his head hard, like I’m trying to rip it from his neck, and hear a series of cracks. “I told you to connect me with Ted—”
I’m here. At least, my spirit is here; my body is back in their dingy little office, awaiting my return. I turn in circles, temporarily forgetting why I’m in this new place with the surprise of actually being here. I can feel the ground beneath my feet. I can. It all feels as real as it looks—and it looks like the beginning and the end of the world.
I’m on a litter-strewn rocky ledge overlooking a vast bluish-gray sea, with a decrepit concrete building seven stories high looming next to me. Two similar buildings, abandoned and dilapidated, are next to it. Garbage everywhere. Broken bicycles and dead things.
“I know this place.”
It’s Battleship Island, an abandoned island I read about years ago, during a particularly morose period in which I only wanted to paint dead things that had never had a true heartbeat: dreams, rock and roll, education, Latin, and this deserted Japanese island. It would not surprise me in the least to find Teddy here. It’s dark and awful enough to be an ideal location for the next Cania.
“Teddy?” I test my voice. It works.
I stomp over a stained doll with its dirty stuffing puffing out and creep from the breakwater deeper into the remains of an island long deserted. There’s no one living here, but I can almost hear the laughter of kids some twenty stories up. I think I glimpse them darting around corners and looking up from the dark shadows, where their bicycles lay. I follow a shadow around the side of an apartment complex and find Teddy standing not ten feet away.
“Anne.” He looks me up and down. “What are you doing here? How are you doing this?”
“With Scout’s help.”
I hear a giggle, but it falls over us like wind. Scout’s laughing. That means Scout can hear us, and we can hear him. It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d be able to eavesdrop. If I’d known that, I would never have come looking for Teddy.
There’s only one way we can talk in private now.
As I gesture for him to draw the Silencer, I say, “I just wanted to see you because I’m working on a painting of, um, sheer evil. And I thought you’d make a good model.”
He shakes his head. I hope he knows that I’m not actually here for an art project.
“Please. Just stand silently there, Mr. Rier. And I’ll stand silently here. And I’ll memorize your face. Very briefly. And then leave. Silently.”
With a deep sigh, he swirls his hands down, just like he did last time, and seals the two of us in a vacuum.
Make it quick, he thinks.
Superbia knows that you and I are…connected.
What does that mean?
I asked her if Gia came back here to help you.
Christ, Anne!
I’m sorry!
And she said?
Almost nothing. She just stopped following me.
She was following you?
Yes, and now I’m worried. I mean, you haven’t been my Guardian during her time at Cania, so she’ll be suspicious. I shouldn’t have mentioned you!
Just steer clear of her.
You’re not worried? What if they figure out our plan?
Stay away from her. Ignore her. In fact, ignore the Seven Sinning Sisters.They’ve always been hateful to me. He dusts his hands like this is over.Now, if that’s everything.
It’s not!
He groans.
Ted, Hiltop told me something about my mom.
That you condemned her to insanity?
It feels like I’ve been punched.
Can you give my mom a message for me?
Yes. But wait for me to come to you with
her response. Don’t pull a stunt like this again.
I nod.
Tell her, I begin, that I’m sorry I had anything to do with her illness. And I love her. And I’m only doing this for her. Oh, and if she feels bad about how I got into a coma, she shouldn’t. I love her.
If that’s everything.
I am back in my body in the office, where Lance and Scout are watching me. It’s a huge relief that he’s not worried about what I told Superbia. And as a side perk, Teddy’s going to be talking to my mom. If only I could talk to her directly.
“All that for a stupid drawing?” Scout asks me.
“You’re spot-on painting that Ted Rier guy,” Lance says. “Sheer evil.”
That’s when I notice Lance holding a chunk of my hair. I pat around my head and quickly find my newest bald spot—right up front. I scowl at them. Guess I’ll need to cut bangs now.
“You couldn’t even do it in an inconspicuous place?”
“The others will be so pleased to know you’ve returned, Master,” Scout says, taking a lock of hair from Lance and rubbing it over Dia’s tattoo on his wrist. The tattoo vanishes. “We’ll divide your hair among those who wish to serve you. Pilot ran out of yours a couple days ago.”
They bow to me as I leave the room.
But I turn back.
“You guys are both serving me now?” I ask to clarify. They nod. “So I can use your powers without hurting you?” Again they nod. “Show me how you do what you do.”
“But then you’ll do it on your own!”
“Without coming to see us!” Scout whines, echoing his roommate.
“I promise I’ll come back. Really.”
Reluctantly, they show me what I need to see. And I leave their office knowing that, without waiting on Teddy and without worrying about someone eavesdropping, I can now connect directly with my mom. With anyone who’s crossed over.
So, because I’ve got no interest in returning to my dorm room— not after fighting with Molly—I go to the library, to my favorite spot, where I whip through my very own short list of people with whom I’m going to reconnect. Scout’s power is to connect souls on Earth, and Lance’s power is to connect realms, like Heaven and Earth. I want to connect with Heaven, where my mom is, where Ben’s mom is, and where his sister Jeannie is.