You might think seeing that kind of thing would be a terrible shock. But it wasn’t. It was like part of me that was suffocating could breathe again. At least once I knew the truth, I could go from there. I had drowned. My funeral was on a weekday.
Sitting in the gold-and-navy-striped club chair, I opened my mouth. Instead of words, a gush of water spilled out. It was the weirdest thing — not like throwing up, when your stomach muscles get all sprung. It was my lungs squeezing the water up and out. I tried to shut the book in my lap, horrified I’d ruin it. Well, as much as a person can be horrified while she is coughing up Jacuzzi water. It spilled all over my obituary. And disappeared. Ghost water, I guessed. The pages stayed dry. I gagged up another waterfall. I should have known better than to think Charon would try and help me or anything. He stared over my head, out the window, at the black sea and moonlight.
When my lungs were clear, they stung something awful. And then it was like I was really breathing. Like somehow, I had been walking around with pneumonia or half a lung without even knowing it. I took a deep breath and laughed. I guess I was high from the extra oxygen. I thought: This must be what newborn babies feel like, getting air for the first time. I always thought they were crying, but I bet if it’s like this, then they’re trying to laugh. Everything smelled a thousand times wonderful.
And then something made me want to start bawling all over again. It was the smell of my mother. I looked all around, expecting to see her. There was no one but me and the boatman.
“My mom told me I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to.” Even though I was sitting there in that comfy club chair at sea level, everything inside me was also standing at the open door of an airplane. I was in that moment before you jump out and slip into weightlessness, right before you cannonball into gravity. Do I have a parachute? All this time, Charon had been leading me to the edge, and now here I was, pinwheeling my arms and not able to scream because everything inside of me knew that this was what I came for. I closed my eyes and fell.
It was a memory. The first thing I saw were my mom’s hands on a brown storage box. I was home, packing for school. Except it wasn’t exactly a memory at all, because the box wasn’t in my room. It was on a hospital bed. And I was in the bed, and there was something in my mouth and all the way down my throat. I waited for my mom to show me that dorky picture of me and Lia. The only thing I heard was the mechanical hiss of a ventilator. The memory of sitting in my room with my mom, packing for boarding school, got peeled apart and I saw what had happened.
My mother had brought the box to my bedside during the week I had been between dead and alive. It was full of my old stuff — pictures, that teddy bear my dad had won at the fair for me. I had never told her about my airplane dream. Instead, she’d brushed my hair and held my hand and I said nothing at all.
And then something happened. First, machines started to beep, all irregular and alarmlike. Then the sharp squeak of nurse shoes on the floor. I tried to concentrate on the warmth of my mom’s hand on mine, but it felt like I was floating away from her.
My whole arm smarted like a bee sting. The feeling crawled up to my shoulder and into my chest. Everything went bright-colored flowers behind my eyelids, and my heart thumped hard. The beeping got steady. After a while, I could hear the slow squeak of nurse shoes departing. Until at last only my mom was still there, holding my hand. I tried to squeeze back. In my mind’s eye, I could see her sitting next to me. She looked like a vacuum and I had tripped over her cord and unplugged her from the wall. This is just a dream, I wanted to tell her right away. Anything to make her feel better. She stared down at the carpet, the way she did when she had lots of things on her mind and was trying to figure out which one she wanted to say.
Mom scooched her chair close to the bed so she could put her forehead on my forehead, and she brushed my hair with her fingers. I heard her sniffle, and felt her tears on my cheeks. I could smell the good mom smell of her. It made my scared feelings go away. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her.
The monitors started to beep again, urgent and erratic and far away. My mom whispered in my ear, “Well, Camden. You don’t have to go if you really don’t want to.”
And that’s how we both knew I was going for sure.
It was still night when I woke up. Charon was gone, and there was an old quilt thrown over me. My eyes were crusty and swollen, but it felt like all the tears were out of me. My spine popped from the small of my back all the way up to my neck when I sat up. I wrapped the quilt around me and stepped out of the building onto the dock. Charon stood in the moonlight. He turned to me and every little cell in my body suddenly wanted to jump off the dock and swim away. Little late there, survival reflex, I thought. Where were you in the Jacuzzi?
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“Do you have passage?” he asked.
I felt in my pocket for the gold coin. “Yeah.”
When he turned back to me, his face was terrifying and skeletal. “It is time for you to fulfill your requirement. Think on everything I have shown you, and make your visitation.”
I shivered. “What if I can’t? I mean, if I’m not ready?” I asked.
Even though he was a little bit away from me, it felt like he was also right there, breathing on my skin. I got the crazy idea that he was barely restraining himself, like in a moment, he would cross the distance and grab me up against his old-paper body and suck the soul right out of my body, ship or no ship, ready or not. He didn’t, though. Instead, he said completely the opposite of what I expected. “You may go back to school if you feel you have more to learn. I can make it so you do not remember that you are dead. You will rediscover it eventually and experience this night again. Some of your classmates have chosen to do this instead of crossing. A few have done so many times.”
He said the last so casually that I wondered if maybe I had already been here and chosen to forget. I could not imagine wanting to ever do this again.
There was an old pay phone against the wall of the clubhouse, and I knew what I was supposed to do, but I couldn’t move.
“I can’t,” I said. “I don’t know what to say.”
He said, “This is not for you. It is for her.”
As soon as I put the phone to my ear, the line started ringing. It rang and rang. A gentle wind blew in my face, salty and damp.
“Hello?” Lia asked, over the phone line. Hearing her voice was like getting punched right in the nose. My eyes stung and my head was full of stars. There were a million things I wanted to say. They logjammed in my head.
I guess she knew it was me, though, because she started bawling. My cheeks felt cold and I realized I was crying, too.
“Hi,” I said.
“You’re not really here,” she said. “I’m making you up.”
“That’s funny,” I said, into the phone. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
She laughed and sniffled, all together, like it was one thing. “I waited so long, and nothing. I thought if …” Her voice broke. “You would come back and let me know it was OK. You know. After.”
I thought about all those times I’d wanted to call her and had been angry instead, and when I’d called her and listened to her breathe on the other end of the line.
“I got here as quick as I could,” I said.
“Tell me something. Like a message that I couldn’t make up on my own, so I know it’s you.”
I thought about it. Then I said, “The summer we were ten, we dressed your dog up in your old baby clothes, put him in a stroller, and walked him around the neighborhood.” I choked up.
“I hate you!” Lia yelled into the phone. I guess she must have believed it was me then. “How could you die on me? You ruined my life!”
“I ruined your life?” It was all that I could do not to hang up. She was alive. And I was in a strange place, away from my family and friends, dead. All because of her. Who did she think she was?
“I’m the girl wh
o killed my best friend!” she screamed.
The first star in the sky. Then the bubbles in the water. The hard scrape against my butt as I hit the underwater bench, and still I’m falling. Water up my nose. The back of my head hits bottom. Ouch. I try to flail my way to the surface, but something down here yanks me back.
“My hair got caught,” I whispered, running my hand through what was left on my head. Not a sleek little bob at all, but hacked and ripped out of my scalp, by the feel of it. “The drain?” How many times had Lia and I tickled our toes on the suction there? Up there in the breathable air of the end-of-summer party, they are still laughing. I thrash my legs and pull at my hair, but I’m caught. Lia’s legs plunge in. She yanks my arm. “Ouch,” I try to tell her, but I can’t. Her hands grope down over my face, into my hair where it connects to the drain. Through the water, I can hear her yelling, screaming, “Something’s wrong. Turn off the power!”
More legs splash in, churning up so many bubbles I can almost breathe down here. They yank me, but still, I’m stuck. Kevin starts bailing water out with his two cupped hands, like he thinks he’s gonna empty the Jacuzzi before I drown down here. Somebody’s knee comes down on my stomach and I puke air bubbles. Reflexively, I gasp, and when that chlorinated water comes in, it stings. I cough it out, but my stupid lungs keep sucking it back in. I’m drowning, I think. Where’s Lia? The worst is she’s not in the Jacuzzi anymore. How could she leave me like this?
And then there’s a huge splash. “MOVE!” Lia shouts. She plunges a big, serrated knife through the water. I know what it’s for. It’s to cut cake, after hamburgers.
What’s she doing? I’m not cake, I think. Everything is weirdly funny, and the need to breathe has passed. I must be a mermaid. Lia’s down here with me now, too, and in the water, her face is crumpled in sobs. Hey, don’t cry, I try to say.
And then my best friend takes the knife to the back of my head and starts sawing my hair. It feels like my head is a giant, wiggly tooth. She has to go up once, twice, to breathe. The last strands pop, and I am free, coming up, in Lia’s arms. And when I break the surface, everyone is screaming.
“You saved me,” I whispered into the phone.
“No, I didn’t.” Her voice sounds like she was the one who drowned. “You died anyway.”
I held the phone to my ear and said, “Dork, you totally did. It was the water that got me.”
“I don’t hate you,” she whispered, after a few moments.
“I knew that,” I said. Lia laughed and sobbed, like she was stuck inside an emotion blender, and all the things I loved about her were coming through the phone line as soup. My heart swelled up like a new bruise to hear them. When she was done, I listened to her breathe. It felt good to hear the ticktock of her body.
“Tell me something else about us,” she said. “You know, some secret.”
The wind shifted and the waves lapped against the dock posts under my feet.
“I had a secret crush on Kevin Meyers,” I said out loud before I even thought it.
It surprised a laugh out of her. “I knew that,” she said, echoing my tone. Then she sobbed like I had stepped on her fingers until the bones broke, but that wasn’t the worst. The worst was that her voice was getting faint, like someone was turning the volume down. I pressed the phone hard against my ear. “You were worth a million of that guy. I’m so sorry.”
I knew what she’d done. One stupid, impulsive thing. She’d also been my best friend since second grade. “I forgive you, on one condition.”
“Anything,” she said.
I thought about Mark, still stuck back at school. It felt like my chest opened up and the wild bird that’d been trapped inside flew out, free. I said, “You have to forgive yourself. You have to let me go.”
“I can’t.” She wailed.
“I know who you are,” I said. “Promise me.” For a long time, it was only the sound of her crying, and I was scared for her.
But at last she said, “OK,” and I knew by her promise it would be.
There were a billion more things I wanted to tell her, but the phone was getting more static with every second. I said, “Tell my parents I’m safe and good. Tell them, I’m … um … I’m graduating.” I was shouting into the phone.
From very far away, I heard Lia say, “I’m graduating, too.” It stole my heart out of my chest. In real time, in alive time, had all of high school passed? I was going to miss Lia’s whole life.
In the last few seconds that I knew she was on the line, I searched my head like mad to give her something good. I finally realized there was only one thing I had to say. “I love you,” I yelled.
Faintly, I heard her say, “Love you, too.”
And then she was gone.
For a while after, I stood on the dock, thinking about all the things I wished I’d said to her. Who was Lia now, if she was old enough to graduate? Not a fourteen-year-old with a killer smile anymore. That girl was as much of a ghost as I was. But even so, Lia was out there, somewhere, still my best friend.
“What’s on the other side?” I asked Charon.
“I have never stepped on the other shore,” he answered.
“Yeah, but you know something about it, I bet.”
Eventually he said, “Consider an unhatched chick. That creature believes the entire world is the inside of an egg. Then things begin to change. One day, there is no more nourishment, no more room. I find it hard to imagine a more frightened creature, with nowhere to go and no ability to stay. That small bird must put its head against the edge of the world and break through its own reality in order to continue on. And yet, this happens every day. If the universe has such an elaborate plan for a chicken, perhaps one could hope there is also a plan for you.”
In my pocket, I held the coin until it was warm in my hand. I listened to water lap against the dock posts. Behind us, the first streaks of purplish dawn appeared. Perhaps it was a warning — a sign that lightness was behind me and darkness ahead. Or maybe it was just the sunrise. I shivered from the cold, even though my body should no longer care about things like that.
What about everyone I loved? What about the good smell of my mom when she hugged me? What about the sound of my dad’s voice? What about Mark? Nora? Lia? Would I ever find them again if I went across the water?
You do, a voice inside me whispered. You do see everyone again.
Charon waited with me. The streaks of dawn in the sky remained, unchanging. My heart started up with the pitter-patter racing of happy fear.
See, I knew what was on this side. But over there, across the water? Anything could be waiting, as different from this dark place as the bright light of day compared to the inside of an egg. I took a deep breath, taking my time. You know. Considering.
For a long time, I was afraid to write. I worried people wouldn’t like what I had to say. That fear seems kind of silly to me now, but it felt very real when I started. The cure, of course, was to write anyway. As I did, I came to realize I was surrounded by all kinds of amazing mentors. Which was really lucky for me, since I’m a big chicken on my own. I’d like to thank the following people for helping me understand it’s OK to be scared, as long as I don’t let fear get in the way.
A heartfelt thank you to Charlie, Karen, Peg, Mary, Carol, and especially Kari, all of whom read what I wrote and sometimes didn’t like what I had to say. How wonderful to learn it wouldn’t kill me! Most of the time, it even helped. Thank you for your insight, clever suggestions, and encouragement.
A huge thank you to Cori Stern. My dad used to say, “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Cori has been the exception to this rule, being both way too good to be true, and also everything she claims. She, along with the incredible Bruna Papandrea, helped make publication possible.
On the publication end, I’d like to thank my agent, Eddie Gamarra, who has been fantastic. I am also hugely appreciative of the Scholastic team. Many thanks to Yaffa Jaskoll, who created the beautifu
l book design; Janet Robbins, the production editor; and Becky Shapiro.
I couldn’t have asked for a better editor than Aimee Friedman. She saw how to make my manuscript about ten times better, and was incredibly kind, deft, and insightful about sharing that information with me. She put a ton of energy and thought into this project, and has remained enthusiastic about it since the very first. It has been a privilege to work with her.
Much love to my father, who believed I’d be a writer long before I did, and to my mother, whose brilliant understanding of character helped me when I had no idea what to do next. Finally, to my children and husband, who gave me the space and encouragement to try this. Change can be frightening, especially when it occurs in a parent or spouse. But they are brave, amazing individuals, who helped me become something more than I was before. Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a teenager, ANNE APPLEGATE attended boarding school near Santa Barbara. She later graduated from Tufts University with a degree in psychology, and now lives in California with her husband and three children. You can visit her online at www.anneapplegate.com.
Copyright © 2013 by Anne Applegate
All rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Applegate, Anne.
The last academy / by Anne Applegate. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Camden Fisher arrives at a boarding school after a falling-out with her best friend, but Lethe Academy is a strange place, where students disappear suddenly, and as she searches for answers Camden begins to fear what she will find.
ISBN 978-0-545-50204-7
1. Future life — Juvenile fiction. 2. Death — Juvenile fiction. 3. Boarding schools — Juvenile fiction. 4. Best friends — Juvenile fiction. [1. Future life — Fiction. 2. Death — Fiction. 3. Boarding schools — Fiction. 4. Schools — Fiction. 5. Best friends — Fiction. 6. Friendship — Fiction.] I. Title.
The Last Academy Page 19