The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant

by Joanna Wiebe

  Molly whispers, “Your heart beating again?”

  I look at her. We’re both thinking the same thing: well played. Little wonder Garnet won last year. She’s got a knack for working a crowd.

  After that pitch, it surprises no one when Ben’s name is called as one of the top three candidates, along with Veronica Brass and Joie Wannabe. The camera cuts to the faces of the parents whose children didn’t get through. I look away when they show Jack’s dad, who looks like he’s about to punch something. I’m sorry, I think. But my weak apology is not enough. Not nearly enough.

  “Joie made it,” Molly whispers to me.

  “But Jack didn’t.”

  The debate that follows will be swift, Invidia explains.

  “First,” she says, “former Headmaster Villicus will present a challenging life scenario. Each Guardian will be given the chance to explain how their student’s PT would help them succeed in that scenario. They must then support their hypothesis with an example from their life to date. They will have thirty seconds to present their argument. The countdown will show on the screen.”

  It’s the real-life examples that present the most trouble for Ben, who’s got just nine months of graded experience to pull from, three months of which were spent not trying.

  “When all three Guardians have made their arguments,” Invidia says, “the Guardians may then challenge each other.”

  “These challenges,” Superbia interjects, “are by far the most important component of the debate. Some Guardians will look closer to find the truth, and others will stop inspecting and simply accept the surface for the truth it reveals.” Her gaze lands on me. Something inside me flutters. “Because there is no fiction. And you needn’t always read between the lines or look closer. Sometimes the truth is plainly written on one’s face.”

  Is she talking to me?

  I glance at Teddy, but he’s vanished. He was just standing there a moment ago.

  I half expect Molly to nudge me with some little joke, like I guess I Love Porno guy really does love porno. But she doesn’t. She is looking at me, though, out of the corner of her eye. I catch her just before she glances away.

  Invidia continues her speech as if Superbia hadn’t interrupted. “Villicus and Dia will then assign A, B, or C to each candidate, with A being the most desirable grade. The candidates and crowd within the hall will not be able to see the grades, but you’ll look no further than the right-hand screen, where they’ll be displayed. Five rounds of questions. This will be followed by our judges’ assessment and ultimate ruling. You will then have your valedictorian.”

  We all hold our breath as Villicus begins.

  “Your student,” he says to Finn, Mr. Farid, and Garnet, “is guilty of a hit-and-run. The laws of man would send them to prison for life. With the goal of true success in mind, what do they do? Mr. Kid, begin.”

  Finn says, “Veronica’s PT is to lie. A very clean, very elegant prosperitas thema. She intends to become a lawyer, which will give her the skills and the network to defend herself effectively and bend the truth to her will. As we all know, the truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It is easy enough to convince someone that an utter lie is the truth. So, knowing people are more prone to believe what they’re told than to question it,” he pauses to think about an example from Veronica’s recent history, “Veronica promised a student named Molly Watso that, in exchange for an MP3 player, she would be kind to a boy named John. But Veronica swiftly planted the player in John’s book bag and told Headmaster Dia what John possessed. Following this event, John was expelled.”

  I glance at Molly to see tears in her eyes. Her gramps kisses her on the hair.

  “Time,” Villicus calls. “Mr. Farid, you’re next. Same scenario and question.”

  “Joie’s PT is to love her neighbor,” Mr. Farid says. “You may think that such a PT condemns her to a life of do-gooding, but I assure you it does not, for Joie’s brand of love is one often referred to as tough love. She is a master of drawing strong, often brutal lines to protect herself and ‘help’ others. Earlier this year, a junior named Tallulah Josey broke a rule. The girl entered the front office when the secretaries were preoccupied elsewhere and called her boyfriend. Joie witnessed this. She promptly told another girl named Harper Otto, whom she was certain would turn Tallulah in. That’s exactly what happened. Tallulah needed to learn a lesson, and Joie applied tough love to teach it.”

  “That’s a whole lotta tough,” I whisper to Molly.

  “And not much love,” she finishes.

  “In the hit-and-run scenario, Joie would do the same.” With an eye for time, he rushes to finish. “She’d dig up dirt on the person she killed, and she’d use that to weave together a story of righteousness in which she was merely a vessel for a cosmic, justice-seeking power.”

  “Time,” Villicus says.

  When it’s her turn, Garnet takes a moment.

  Molly and I shift on our chairs.

  “Dr. Zin’s son,” my dad whispers to me.

  “Yeah, I know him.” I never told my dad about the two of us.

  “Dr. Zin mentioned that you and Ben don’t get along well.”

  I’d laugh if I wasn’t so damn nervous.

  The clock starts ticking away the seconds.

  We watch Garnet smile and take a sip of water. I hear her swallow. She pats the corners of her mouth with a cloth napkin. Behind her, Ben sits tensely, his hands folded on the table. The woman behind me starts whispering about whether Garnet knows she’s up or not. Just when I think Garnet might say nothing at all—might throw in the towel and declare that she knows Ben and I are in love—she sets down her napkin and faces the audience, not the judges.

  “When we hear that Ben is to be ‘sacrificial’ to succeed in life,” she begins at last, “we think he will sacrifice his own wants for those of another. We fool ourselves into believing he is magnanimous. But that is not Ben Zin.”

  The camera zooms in. On one screen, Ben’s face. On the other, Garnet’s.

  “What would you sacrifice to save your life?” she asks the audience. “To whom would you go to make such a sacrifice?” She turns back to Villicus and Dia, who looks half-asleep. “Although Joie and—what’s that other girl’s name?—Veronica might spin their little wheels in search of a way to outsmart the laws of man, they would, in fact, be playing by those very laws, which, let’s be honest, we all know are the laws of fools. Ben Zin has spent nearly six years on this island. Six. And he’s learned what each successful mother and father here knows well: that the truly successful do not face such obstacles alone. We do not show up for a gunfight armed with a gun; we show up with Mephistopheles at our side.”

  My breath catches. Around me, most of the students look taken aback, but the only parent that seems surprised by what Garnet’s revealed is my dad.

  “Ben would sacrifice whatever you tell him to, Headmaster, to escape prison.”

  Just five seconds left.

  “So know this,” she looks pointedly at Villicus, “you will not lose Ben Zin, or his father, when you make him valedictorian today. They will always be yours.”

  Garnet’s either clever, or she’s just cheated.

  I watch the screens for Villicus’s reaction. His expression reveals nothing.

  “The floor is open to the candidates,” Villicus says. “Debate.”

  Garnet seizes the moment.

  “Finn Kid,” she begins, “you’ve just told us that Veronica is a liar. How could any human being trust a known liar? It would take little, in the real world, to expose her. She would have been wise to have a PT to be an escape artist, for that is the only way she’ll get out of jail.”

  Villicus smirks, and Dia smiles weakly.

  Veronica’s dad boos from the audience.

  “And Mr. Farid,” Garnet adds, “what if there was no dirt on the person Joie killed? What if she’d killed Gandhi? Any decent lawyer—hell, even Veronica—could dig up just as much dirt on Joie, esp
ecially given that she’d have a rather black period on her record. Remember that if she were to win the Big V today, she’d need a new identity. The first eighteen years of her life would be unknown… and suspect.”

  Finn and Farid have little to say to her. How can they argue that Ben couldn’t use Mephisto? How can they say, to Mephisto’s face, that he wouldn’t be able to protect Ben from prison?

  The scores are revealed: C for Finn, B for Dr. Farid, and A for Garnet.

  Molly and I smile in relief.

  The next question comes and goes just as successfully, with the audience falling for a beautiful and witty Garnet, who fawns over Ben the way only someone in love would do. The crowd eats it up. Garnet is doing a spectacular job of convincing the world that, should they make it through, the world will benefit from such a beautiful and well-matched couple. Even I have to wonder if they don’t belong together.

  “Don’t be jealous,” Molly reminds me when Ben and Garnet kiss. “This is all part of the game. It’ll be over soon. And Ben will be free. After you destroy Dia, maybe, like, we should try to wake you up? Send you home?”

  “But what about Meph? And what about all the lives here?”

  “None of that is your responsibility.”

  “Well what about you?”

  She smiles and holds her hand to her heart, then says mockingly, “I’ll always be in your heart.”

  The show goes on. It’s so hard to watch. Question after question. Kiss after kiss. The applause on the lawn from people who are actually entertained by Garnet. It would be unbearable if we didn’t see so many As stacking up for Ben and Garnet.

  They turn off the screen with the scores before the last question is asked, but it’s a done deal now. Nothing but As for Team Ben. Impossible to beat.

  I turn to Molly, whose eyes are bright with hope. “Done,” I say. “Ben’s safe. He’ll be paying Jeannie a visit at Harvard this time tomorrow.”

  “You’ve saved him. Will you save yourself?”

  Villicus stands, while Dia sleeps peacefully. Doesn’t Villicus care that Dia is so weak? Doesn’t he know that that must mean something?

  “It is time to declare,” Villicus begins boldly, “the sixty-fifth valedictorian from the Cania Christy Preparatory Academy.”

  Molly and I jump to our feet, unable to sit a second longer. Together, clutching each other’s hands, we stare wide-eyed at the screens, which are divided now into eight blocks featuring close-ups of Villicus, Dia, the competitors, and their Guardians and parents. Everyone looks terrified except Garnet, who is gripping Ben’s hands to her chest and beaming. She has it in the bag.

  It’s a no-brainer.

  We saw the scores.

  The Big V is undeniably Ben’s.

  “This year’s valedictorian and the winner of a second life off this island, complete with cash winnings and a relocation package is,” Villicus sets his gaze firmly on the camera as Molly and I prepare to hug each other, “Joie Wannabe.”

  My breath catches.

  I hear Molly moan.

  The grounds spin. Everything spins. And I don’t even feel my head hit a chair, my fingers loosen from Molly’s, or my body collapse, in a slump, to the ground.

  I WAKE WITH Teddy standing over my bed. At first I don’t know what happened. I was feeling elated, like the world was full of hope and wonder. And then.

  I sit up fast.

  I’m in my dorm.

  Thank God I’m not in my California hospital bed.

  “Ben lost.”

  “Easy,” Teddy says. “You passed out.”

  “How long has it been? Is Ben…is he already gone?”

  I whip the covers off, jump up, and start for the door, but Teddy grabs me.

  “Teddy!” I slap his hands to free myself, but he’s unyielding. He tugs me to sit next to him, but I don’t have the time or patience. I slap and then punch and then kick, and eventually I get free. “He can’t be gone. He can’t!”

  I bolt out of my room. Down the hall. Round the corner. Down the stairs, my heels skidding. Teddy’s behind me—I can hear him calling for me. I push through the doors. Sunlight blinds me. I scramble forward. The quad focuses before me.

  “No,” I utter when I see the worst: the chairs outside Valedictorian Hall have been put away. I whirl back to Teddy. “What the hell time is it?”

  “You’ve been out for a half hour.”

  A half hour. No. Only parents and the valedictorian leave Valedictorian Hall—those who fail have their vials incinerated within the hall.

  I look up at the sky. A thin trail of smoke still twists out of the chimney.

  Ben’s already gone. Ben’s already gone. Ben’s already gone.

  “Is it over? Is it done?” I ask.

  Teddy nods. “But our plan to end Dia lives on. Tell me, what did you have in mind?”

  I’m sweating and shaking.

  This isn’t happening.

  All this work—it can’t be for nothing.

  “I’m sorry Ben didn’t win, Anne,” Teddy says. Sealing my fate. Until he spoke those words, I still had a little hope. I slump to the ground, and he stands over me. “Your hair. Who made you do that?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Why?”

  For Ben. For Jeannie. For a vain, stupid hope. I should have known Villicus would never let Ben off this island. Never. Not in a million years.

  Like my body is filled with ants, I jump to my feet and shake out my limbs. I just want to scream. Or hit something. I tear away from Teddy. I run as fast as I can to Cania College, to the grand opening. I sail through the campus gates and follow the sound of Cania’s brass band, short its seniors, playing in front of the stone cathedral, which is surrounded by brightly colored streamers. Parents are mulling about with their kids. I dart around them all and burst into the cathedral. I stop short. Look up at the painted ceilings. Around at the stained-glass windows. And start madly searching aisles of seats for the Seven Sinning Sisters. Maybe there’s still time. Maybe Dr. Zin has another vial of Ben’s blood; surely he couldn’t have left it all in Villicus’s possession! The sisters can create a new life for Ben. I need to convince all seven of them to serve me.

  No, I think. I need to kill off Dia. As planned. Then the sisters will be without a master. They’ll choose me—I’ll make sure they do.

  “And then I’ll ask them to vivify Ben,” I say, careless to how crazy I look talking to myself.

  The Seven Sinning Sisters will serve me. Superbia will be easy enough to win back; she was trying to say something to me earlier today, to warn me of God knows what. I know she’ll serve me. Invidia, the one I’d have the hardest time winning over under normal circumstances, was the first to leave Mephisto. She’s unlikely to want to return to him, and I’ll be her only other option. The missing link is a vial of Ben’s blood. Dare I hope Dr. Zin has more?

  I spy Lou and Pilot carrying my painting of Dia. They disappear behind a set of curtains behind the podium on stage. I chase after them.

  “Get your hands off that,” I shout, shoving them away from the precious painting, the only thing standing between me and reclaiming the Seven Sinning Sisters. “Get out of here!”

  Pilot swears at me. But, to my surprise, Lou bows. I grab his arm.

  “You still serve me, Lou?” I need a little power to finish the painting.

  “If I had a token of your leadership,” he says softly, “I would.”

  I tug off my cardigan and hand it to him. “Serve me. Tell others.”

  “With pleasure, Master,” he says and takes Pilot with him.

  When they’re gone, I whip off the sheet. I’m taken aback by my work, which radiates an energy unlike anything I’ve captured before or ever will again. I peek out from behind the curtains, looking for Dia. Where the hell is that guy? I need to put the finishing touches on this, but I can’t without him.

  My blood is still racing through my body when I see, across the vast room, Molly enter.

  I a
lmost call out her name.

  I almost don’t notice the boy at her side.

  She waves with her free hand.

  Her other hand is on Ben’s arm.

  “Ben,” I utter.

  But how?

  Together, Molly and Ben run past the rapidly filling rows of seats and right to me.

  Ben doesn’t say a word. He just wraps his arms around me and kisses my face in spite of the curse that would make him hate me. He kisses my eyelids and my forehead and my nose—everything. I can’t even understand what’s happening. As he kisses me, Molly explains: Dia had mentioned there’d be a small change to the Big V this year. I passed out before I could hear it.

  “That change,” she says as Ben wipes away my tears, tears I didn’t even realize I was crying, “was that the two other short-listed graduates would get the chance to enroll at Cania College. Ben and Veronica are the first members of the freshman class here. Dia’s gonna fill the rest of the school this summer, and classes will officially begin in September.”

  This should be good news.

  It almost is. Almost.

  “The tuition,” I say, wild-eyed as I look at them both.

  “Villicus said we’ll sort that out after this ceremony,” Ben says, “when everything calms down.”

  “They’re taking souls,” I blurt. “No. We can’t let this happen.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ben asks.

  “Dia. He told me what he’s going to take as college tuition. Pure, clean souls. Souls the underworld would never otherwise see. ‘The most beautiful thing’ he’s ever seen. Does your dad have more of your blood?” I ask Ben hurriedly. The ceremony’s bound to start any second; nearly all the seats are taken in here now. “On the yacht? Did he keep, like, backups?”