by Joanna Wiebe
“Well, tell me,” he continues, “how would you feel if you lived day after day on this island? With the bullshit rules, signing forms in blood, a fucking mausoleum for a graduation hall, expulsions around the corner for everyone—just as you start to care about them.”
“Care! You?”
“Yes, care! I’m capable of it, you know. Let me prove it.”
That gets my attention. That’s interesting.
“How will you prove it?” I ask tentatively, hoping against hope that he’ll pull me close to him again.
“With advice, which is all I can give you,” he storms, stuffing his hands in his pockets like he’s trying to control himself. “Do what your Guardian says. Work for the Big V. And, for God’s sake, stay the hell away from Molly. You will get caught.”
I. Am. A. Fool.
“Thanks, Ben,” I begin soberly. “But I already have a Guardian giving me all the advice I can take. Keep yours. I don’t need it.”
Clenching my teeth, I whirl and race down the hill, refusing to yell at Ben or let him yell at me for another second. I hear him call my name, but I ignore it. In the shadows, I trip on one of my abandoned heels, which scrapes the bottom of my foot. Wincing with pain, I stumble, grab the shoe, and glance back at the mountaintop. But I can’t see him.
“Of course he’s gone,” I sniffle.
Of course he doesn’t care to follow me or make sure I’m alright. Patting around in the darkness for Molly’s other shoe, I feel tears heat my face; they blur my vision, and I lose patience looking for the shoe. It’s gone. So I hike up my dress and race down the remainder of the hill. The bottom of my foot is bleeding as I stumble onto campus, begrudging the music that I’d danced to an hour ago, begrudging everything that has been taken from me tonight.
Sunday morning. There’s a sparkly Jimmy Choo on the landing outside my bedroom door when I head downstairs. I’ve got to meet Molly in half an hour down at the marina, and I need to get a coffee. Last night kicked the crap out of me.
I pick up the shoe. Read Molly’s name inside.
Freeze in place.
As it occurs to me that someone has found the missing shoe and returned it to me when Molly’s name is written inside, as the implications of this returned shoe dawn on me, I hear a noise downstairs.
Someone is weeping.
I creep down the stairs, avoiding the step that creaks, and pass Teddy, who’s glowering at me in the living room.
Gigi is sobbing at the kitchen table. Her crying stops short, and she shifts in her chair to face me as I enter the room. Mascara streaks her face. In her hand, she swirls a glass of whiskey around some ice cubes.
“It’s done,” she says. “The last child in the village is dead.”
Her words rush at me with so much force, it feels like they’re pulling the walls in around us. Stunned, I wait for my brain to make sense of what she’s saying. I wait to be crushed.
“Villicus left her no choice,” she continues. “It was Cania or…death.”
My throat doesn’t work. My brain can’t catch up. It’s too much. I must be sleeping. Except I’m not. This is happening.
Molly.
“What do you…?” My voice falters. Cania or death?
All at once, in an alarming montage, I see Molly standing outside last night, with that white box in her hands. Poking her head in the door at the Zins’ on Friday, smiling her metallic smile. Waving to me as she biked away.
Gigi sputters, “Molly’s dead now. What are we supposed to do? What have we become?”
I see idiot me, carelessly leaving Molly’s shoe on the hillside. I see Teddy, standing at his bedroom window last night, watching Molly say we should meet for a gossip session this morning. Turning, I walk into the living room, walk up to Teddy, and deliberately bring my hand across his face with all my might—or at least I try to. He catches my wrist midair and stares me down.
“You did this to Molly,” he states bitterly. “You both knew the rules. But you decided to break them.”
Yes, I’m to blame for breaking a rule. But it was a ridiculous rule. And it was Teddy who told Villicus what he saw; I wouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Zin was behind this, too. Behind the death of an innocent kid who broke a rule no one can even explain. The punishment is so preposterous, so out of whack with the crime that I know now that there’s more to this island and the people on it than I’ve been told. I know, glaring into Teddy’s hate-filled sallow face, that I’m in a high-priced insane asylum. And if I believed in it, I might even be convinced I’m in Hell itself.
thirteen
LOOKING CLOSER
THERE’S NO ANSWER AT THE ZINS’, NO MATTER HOW many times I ring the bell, pound on the door, or shout over the driving rain for them to let me in. It’s hailing now as I run from their house toward the marina, knowing already Molly won’t be there. I run at breakneck speed up to campus, to the middle of the quad, where I slump against a tree and try to catch my breath, to arrange my thoughts. But I can’t. My heart’s beating so fast, it’s impossible to do anything but run even more.
The hail won’t let me stay outside, though, so I’m forced to look for refuge.
Every door is locked on campus except the dorms, the cafeteria, and the library. Swinging the door open, I burst into the bottomless quiet of the library, wheezing, and hear a resounding shhh that sends me looking for a stairwell to escape into. What am I doing here? I need to know if Ben’s dad was involved, if he told Villicus that Molly and I were in his house. As much as I wish I could forget, I haven’t forgotten the gunshots I heard last week. I can’t forget Dr. Zin was there.
But I need more answers than just that. I yank open the heavy door to the stairwell and, rushing in, stop to process a thought. If Ben knows everything he says he knows about Wormwood Island and Cania, then he needs to tell me what exactly is so horrendous about this place—aside from the obvious—that Molly would rather she be dead than attend this school. “Molly’s dead,” I finally let myself say, even if only in a whisper. I must be in shock. Because I don’t cry. I owe it to Molly to keep it together until I get some answers. If at some point I feel like crying, then I’ll have to shove it down deep and let it out later. I collapse against the cold concrete-block wall and stare across the landing. The hood of my yellow rain slicker cushions the blow as my head bobs against the wall.
Molly’s dead. And I’m expelled.
The expulsion is nothing. I don’t care—I couldn’t possibly care about that right now. It’s all about Molly. A girl I knew for less than a week but who, in that time, was more a friend to me than anyone I’ve known in years. And how did I repay her friendship? Shuddering, I close my eyes and relive that moment in the darkness last night, as I halfheartedly patted around for her shoe and then ran away empty-handed. Knowing her name was inside it. It’s enough to send me flying up the stairs, as if I could run away from what I’ve done, from my responsibility in Molly’s death. Up, up, I run, until I’m on the fourth floor, the top floor, where the staircase ends at a single steel door. I throw it open and burst into the room.
The first thing I notice is the cold.
The second is that I’m not alone.
“Anne? Is that you?”
The only person on the entire floor, Ben is sitting on a hard wooden chair with his head in his hands. Over his head is a sign shaped like an arrow that reads “Religion” and points west. A stack of books sits on the study carousel beside him, a reading lamp shining down over him, glowing yellow, bringing out the shadows that ring his eyes. He looks as exhausted as I feel.
“Have you heard what happened to Molly?” My voice is surprisingly clear and strong. He nods. “I need to know if your dad was involved.”
“Shh,” he says, pressing his finger to his lips. “Inside voices in the library.”
“Was he? I need a straight answer.”
“My dad?” He shakes his head, but he doesn’t look surprised. “Not this time.”
“But he’s done crap
like that before?”
Reluctantly, he nods. “He’s been involved in expulsions and similarly ugly situations. It’s his job. There are rules he has to play by.”
“Did he tell Villicus that Molly and I broke into your house? That we’re friends?” Were friends.
Again, he shakes his head. “My dad’s had a change of heart recently. He doesn’t tell Villicus anything he doesn’t have to.”
So it was that bastard Teddy. If it wasn’t for me and my stupid Guardian, none of this would have happened to Molly.
“Why don’t you sit?” Ben offers. “You can’t stay long because I’m expecting Lizzy, but—”
“I’m fine standing,” I huff angrily. But a moment passes, and I make my way over to him, taking the chair on the opposite side of the small table. “Who’s Lizzy?”
“An old friend. That’s just her nickname.”
The books on the tabletop are old and picked over. Some have tattered corners and age spots, faded spines, and tea-spattered edges. Titles like Bedeviled Constructs of the Reformation and Diabology: Better the Devil You Know.
“Why are you reading these?” I ask.
“Is that what you really want to ask me?”
“I want to know why Molly died.”
“Because she was killed.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s my only answer. I don’t know, Anne.” His eyes meet mine. “What’s this change in you? You’re finally ready to start asking questions? And you start with the hardest one.”
“Why weren’t there any other kids in the village but Molly?”
“There used to be,” he says. “But the villagers slowly started moving away, back in the fifties, I guess. The ones who’ve stayed rarely have children. The elderly have stayed, too, for Mr. Watso. I guess they’ll go now.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Is this an interrogation?” he asks, but I respond with a blank glare. “They want off this island. Villicus needs them, though, and he pays them so well, his generosity would be a hard habit for them to break.”
“Why does he need them?”
“Why not?”
“Is it because this is an asylum?”
He frowns at me. A chill courses through the room though no windows are open.
“I know you want some answers, but I really don’t think you could handle them.” Sighing, he adds, “And I wouldn’t risk it.”
“You have no idea what I can handle!”
“I know what I can handle. The repercussions would be…unbearable. I’m sorry, it’s out of my hands.”
“Fantastic, Ben. Thanks for the help.”
“Hey, you had a chance to find the truth. You were in my library on my dad’s computer.”
“I saw photos of your family! That’s nothing.”
Flinching, he looks away. “Maybe not to you, but it’s something to me. Photos of my last Christmas with my mom and sister. That’s everything to me.”
I finally nod. “Okay.” I fidget. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I am sorry, though,” I say, and my voice cracks to prove it. With everything that’s just happened, I’m starting to feel seriously emotional. And the mere mention of Christmas with family only reminds me of how much I miss my mom. Why does everybody have to die? My throat tightens. “I’m so lost.”
“You’re just not in the know right now,” he says gently. “The only consolation is, I think, that you’re a fighter.” His hand on his knee is close to me, and I watch it shift as if he’s about to reach for me but won’t let himself. “Jeannie was a fighter, too.”
“Why doesn’t she go to Cania?”
Shifting away from me, he says, “She passed away. She and my mom did. In a car accident.”
“Oh, my gosh. They died?”
“We were in California at a black-tie event for some celebrity client of my dad’s. He had a few too many, and then he drove us back to the hotel. Or tried to.” He rubs his hands over his face. “You know what that’s like, of course, to lose part of your family.” I’d almost forgotten that he read my file. “I once thought that that was what drew me to you, that you’d lost your mom, too. But I know now that it’s more than that.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I have to be cryptic, A.M.” Smiling softly, he adds, “Do you really think I come off like Gollum?”
Footsteps pound out in the stairwell, and the door flies open, hitting us with a sudden gust of warm air. There stands Garnet, her face flushed like she’s been running and crying at the same time. I suppose she’s heard the news about Molly and is trying to round up kids for a grief counseling session.
“Well, hello, you two,” she says coolly. “I didn’t expect to find you in here, Miss Merchant.”
Hold that thought. She didn’t expect to find me? She’s not rounding up kids.
“Garnet,” Ben breathes. Their eyes meet. “I was just telling Anne where to find a book she was looking for.” His suddenly blank stare darts at me. “Second floor. Check the stacks.”
“Oh. Thanks,” I say, confused, and get to my feet. I adjust my rain slicker as Garnet and Ben stare my way. Are they waiting for me to leave? I shuffle my feet a bit. “Um, okay. See you guys later.”
“See you tomorrow morning, Anne,” Garnet says. “I’m announcing the Art Walk winner first thing in class. We’ll see how you fare.”
Nodding like a robot, I glance from her to Ben once more before exiting into the stairwell, leaving them behind in the frigid darkness. The concrete steps blend into one gray blob as I race down as quickly as possible, recalling the strange expression on Garnet’s face and the shift in Ben’s mood when she arrived. As if I was the intruder. As if I was an annoying little girl the big kids had to shoo away. Bracing the cool handrail, I stop short near the doorway to the first floor and look up to the fourth again, my head dizzy and my chest heaving.
This is the moment when I realize who Ben’s blonde girlfriend is, who the person nicknamed Lizzy is.
“No way,” I whisper, covering my mouth. “But she’s a teacher.”
Following Gigi’s lead, I retire to bed early that night. It’s been a long day, and I’m ready to cry into my pillow for Molly, but not before Teddy stops me on my way up to the attic.
“The master has demanded to see you in his office first thing in the morning,” he says. His tongue slithers in his puny black mouth.
“The master?”
“The headmaster,” he corrects. “I have strict instructions to walk by your side from Gigi’s front door to his office door. So don’t try any funny business.”
“What does he want with me? Is he going to off me, too?”
“You’d better watch yourself,” he warns, his beady eyes bright. “He wants your confession.”
“My what?”
“Your confession about your relationship with Molly Watso.”
Fine!, I think, slamming my door. I’ll be expelled tomorrow morning, shipped back to California, and there I’ll force my dad to come clean about sending me to a rich-kid asylum. Fine by me! I’ll tell him and anyone who’ll listen every little detail about this nuthouse, from signing forms in blood to pitting students against each other. I’ll tell him how Harper performs sexual favors for teachers to win the Big V. How Garnet is having an affair with a minor. How I may be the only student at this school who isn’t screwing some teacher to get a grade—and how, if Teddy had had his way yesterday, that wouldn’t even be true. How they’re so evil here, good people like Lotus get expelled and Molly would rather die than join the student body.
Exhausted by it all, I turn out the lights. It’s time for a cry. It’s time to let out everything I feel about what’s happened to Molly. As I pull back my covers, though, I stop short. There is a hardcover book half-tucked under my pillow: Machiavelli’s The Prince. Its jacket gleams.
I squint in the darkness of the attic.
“Hello?” I whisper. “Who’s there?”
Flicking on my bedside lamp, I pick up the book and a note falls out, flitting down to my duvet.
Here’s the book you were looking for.
~Ben
Wondering if Ben’s watching me right now, I head to my window, fully expecting to see him at his. But I don’t see him at all. What I see makes my voice catch in my throat.
There she is. There’s Molly. Waving up at me before darting into the shadows.
My voice finally escapes, and I scream once, short and tight, then leap into bed and throw the covers over my head, breaking immediately into the prayer my mom used to say with me when I was certain I’d seen a ghost in my bedroom doorway. I chant it until I fall into darkness: Now I lay me down to sleep.
fourteen
MY SOUL TO KEEP
IN AN EERILY SILENT ROOM, I WAKE UP WITH A START AND sense that I am not alone. Ben’s book is under the covers with me, where I still hide, where the air is stuffy, humid with my tears. Outside the covers? I have no idea. And that is the worst part of falling asleep with your face covered—waking up to darkness, waking up to the awareness that someone could be standing right over your body, waiting for you to slowly inch the covers back, waiting to ambush you. I hear the floor groan near the staircase. I know I am not alone.
There is someone in my room.
But at least they’re near the stairs, not hovering over me. And perhaps they don’t realize that they’re dealing with a girl from a funeral home, a girl who learned to shine a flashlight on the monsters under the bed, to swipe her hand through the shadows just to prove there’s nothing to fear when it comes to things that go bump in the night. A girl who, in one quick motion, is whipping the covers off and thrashing her head in the direction of the intruder. Which I expect to be Teddy. But which is categorically not.
“Molly.” I say it in a whisper. For a reason I’ll never understand, I don’t scream when I see her leaning against the newel post at the top of the stairs, smiling a lovely straight, white smile at me.