The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant

by Joanna Wiebe

  She sputters. I shove a tad harder on the window. Her body jerks under my thighs. A boy walking by claps his hands to his mouth. I drag my annoyed gaze to him and the new crop of gape-faced onlookers. They do what everyone here has been so beautifully trained to do: pretend it’s not happening.

  Vale punches and flails her arms. I tuck each one under my knees, rendering her all but motionless. Her head wiggles as much as it can, which is not much, and her feet kick.

  I lift the window.

  She gasps for air and shoots a fiery glare at me.

  “I prefer something more like The Fountain, by Mark Ryden,” I say. “Do you know it? No? It’s this picture of a doll-like child holding her own head as blood spurts from her neck.” I begin lowering the window again. “How do you think she lost her head?”

  “No, please.” Her eyes are wide as she watches the window frame lower.

  “Va-a-ale,” I half sing. “Tell me, which seniors are going to be at the top of Dia’s short list for the Big V this year?”

  I ease the sash up just enough for her to gasp, “How could I know?”

  I inch the window down again. Her eyes bulge.

  “Don’t play dumb. You think I stumbled in here and did this on a whim? I’ve been planning this for weeks.” When she shakes her head in confusion, I bring the sash down again, cutting off her air. I hear her windpipe crunch. “Your power is to reveal the future. So reveal it.”

  She curses me voicelessly.

  “Do it. Or things are going to get much worse incredibly fast.” When I dig my knees into her arms, she gasps her concession. I lift the window.

  She sputters, “Jack Wesson. Joie Wannabe. Ebenezer Zin.”

  “Perfect.” Effortlessly, I hop down and give her leg a slap for good measure. “I invite you to follow me.”

  She frees herself and, to my surprise, tearfully accepts my invitation. As I leave the cafeteria, I instruct Pilot to get her a locket. He bows.

  Okay, that wasn’t so bad. The art thing helped.

  Now that I know who Ben’s primary competition is, I can move easily along to destroying their chances of beating Ben. I figure that if I can get the other top students out of the running, Ben will be the absolute best of the remaining students. To destroy Jack and Joie’s chances of taking the Big V from Ben, I need to know what their PTs are. It’s only by proving they’re not living and breathing their PTs that I can remove them both from the top spots.

  A crowd has gathered around the seniors, balancing on their poles in the water. I slip behind them and see that those still standing are none other than Jack, Joie, and Ben. If only I knew of a demon whose power was to shove people from posts, I’d take Jack and Joie out now. Instead, I head to the gymnasium, where Stealth Vergner, whose power is to reveal strength, seems to be expecting me. That’s not good. If he knows about me, it won’t be long before Dia or Mephisto calls me on what I’m up to.

  Stealth lets me shove him down and pin him under a stack of dumbbells. He lets me stomp my foot into his throat. He winces in pain, but I think I catch him looking up my skirt as he does. I drop a stinky gym towel over his face.

  “Their PTs,” I demand. “Tell me. Jack Wesson and Joie Wannabe.”

  “Jack’s PT,” he coughs behind the towel, “is to be dependably levelheaded.”

  “And Joie’s?” I ask Stealth.

  “It’s a shitty one.”

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion.” I grind my foot in deeper, then release it so he can speak.

  “She’s supposed to…it’s like…it goes, love thy neighbor. That’s hers.”

  This is the part where I know I ought to have a crisis of conscience. Jack’s been nothing but kind to me from the first day I met him. And Joie—how am I supposed to take out someone with such a positive PT?

  I should have a crisis of conscience.

  But I don’t.

  Jack’s gotta go, and so does Joie. Because Ben needs to win. The ends justify the means.

  DR. NAYSI, WHOSE power is to drain sanity, surrenders eagerly to me. After I’ve nearly broken her arm, she asks for a lock of my hair, pledges her undying love for Miss Saligia, and gives me assurance that Jack will no longer be a contender for the Big V.

  “He’ll be about as mentally unstable as a kid can be,” she says.

  Sure enough, later that day, I hear freshmen girls whispering in the dorm common area about “the Goth dude who tried to set fire to the Rex Paimonde building and got suspended.” When Pilot sits in stunned silence at our next meeting, torn over the pain his friend and former roommate might now be enduring on “suspension”—which probably isn’t good in a world where expulsion is death—I marvel that he has no idea I was behind it. It’s so clean, so elegant. I mean, sad for Jack, but that’s not the point.

  Kate Haem doesn’t give in to me quite so easily when I seek her out to destroy Joie.

  For hours, I wait for Kate in a bathroom stall in Goethe Hall, listening to every secretary but her come in, do her business, check herself out in the mirror, and prance out. Kate finally takes a seat in a stall. She’s got her skirt hiked up around her waist, and her ankles are practically tied together by her pantyhose when I use my library card to twist open the lock of her stall door.

  “Surely you’ve been expecting me,” I say to her.

  Kate leaps to her feet and smacks at the air around me. I step back and let her waddle past me out of the stall as fast as her locked ankles will move. But she doesn’t get far. She trips, smacks her head against the countertop, and falls to the floor.

  I watch her crawl away from me.

  “Honestly,” I say, “who still wears pantyhose?”

  Having run-of-the-mill physical pain inflicted by yours truly does little for Kate. She’s a freak; that much is clear. So I put on the kind of show only she can respond to: I smash the mirror with my fist and, from the heap of shards, select the thinnest one, the one most likely to slice her flesh like a hot knife through butter. The gashes on my knuckles are already healing as I stalk Kate, trapping her in the far corner, near the paper towel dispenser. The splinter glints in her eyes, and I wonder just how much damage she’ll need me to do before she gives.

  “Are you at all familiar with Andy Warhol?” I ask Kate as I kneel and tug her ankle my way.

  She chews her nails in anticipation. I tear her stockings and shoes off. She doesn’t make a sound, but she hungrily watches everything I do. What a freak.

  “He was, perhaps, the pop artist,” I say. “He painted shoes often, and he even kept a mummified human foot in his bedroom.” Her bare, callous-covered foot is wiggling in my left hand. “I don’t understand it, but a lot of semi-normal people have the most unusual fascination with feet.”

  Holding the shard in my right hand, I jab the end of it deep into her foot’s flesh. She bites her fist but doesn’t make a sound. I draw a long line from her curled-up big toe, through her arch, and down to her heel. As she wheezes and sucks back another cry, blood begins to trickle out.

  “Maybe it’s because there are so many nerve endings in our feet,” I offer, watching her response. I release her. “Now, Kate, are you ready to do as I say?”

  She clambers into a sitting position and draws her foot up, cradling it. She’s flexible. She kisses her foot better.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” I say.

  I wrestle her foot away from her again and, using all my weight to pin down her writhing body, stab the splinter under her big toenail. At last, she screams wildly, like I’m murdering her.

  “Take the writer Goethe,” I grunt, pushing the splinter even deeper. “You know him—this building is named after him.”

  “Get off me!”

  “He was one of a handful of writers to tell the story of your ohso-noble master, Meph. Is the name ringing a bell?” Her whole leg quivers under me. “Goethe had a mistress named Christiane—”

  “Someone help!”

  “—who, on his request, would mail her worn shoes to him
. Freaky, right?”

  I glance at her face and find it twisted to the point that she must only be seconds from passing out. She’s gasping for air, spent by the pain and her efforts to free herself. The door opens a little, and I glare at a student as she enters; she backs out.

  “Kate, do as I say.”

  “Never.”

  But she seems unable to tear her gaze from me. A rush of energy surges through me. And, as it does, I catch a glimpse of my hands, gripping her ankles, mid-transformation. For the first time, without even trying, I’m morphing into Miss Saligia. The faint lines across the skin of my hands go smooth; the bulging blue veins flatten and fade away; my fingers and nails extend. Up my arm, a shiver travels, leaving behind the faintest blue trail of vines, a trail that gleams when the light hits it. My wild curls stretch into lengthy blonde waves that brush Kate’s bare legs.

  “Gia,” she gasps.

  As I withdraw the shard, part of it snaps off under her nail. I leave it there and pound my fist against it. Hard. She gasps and wails, at last, writhing like she might die.

  “Turn Joie Wannabe against her Guardian,” I command her, feeling invincible. “Fill her with hatred for her Guardian.”

  “It’s done!” she cries.

  I let her foot go and get up. Gia looks at me in the reflection. I smile, and she slowly vanishes. Most of the buttons on my blouse and cardigan have survived her appearance, but it takes a while to adjust until I look like myself again.

  “You’ve got blood on your shirt,” Kate stammers, “Saligia.”

  There’s a spot on my collar. “So I do.”

  I turn on the water, run a paper towel under it, and start dabbing away Kate’s blood as she hobbles up to what passes for standing. She and I meet eyes in the shattered remains of the mirror. Her gaze is the first to drop.

  “I will serve you again,” she says. “You need more followers than Mephisto has if this is going to work.”

  “If what’s going to work?” I ask. “What?”

  “Build your legions, Master. It’s the only way.”

  “The only way to what?”

  “To protect yourself.”

  “From whom?”

  “Just be careful.”

  “From the person with ‘sin written on their face’?” I ask, recalling Superbia when she quoted The Picture of Dorian Gray. “Is that it?”

  She staggers silently out of the bathroom, leaving me wondering what she means. I’ve been so preoccupied with my own goals, I haven’t stopped to think about what people have been hinting at. Superbia knows something; Pilot knows she knows something; and now Kate seems to know something. That I need protection. From someone. But as I look in the mirror and dab at the blood, I realize I need protection from everyone—even, perhaps, myself.

  When I’m cleaned up, I leave Goethe Hall and walk into a misty April afternoon to find, in the quad, an angry-looking Joie Wannabe storming away from a rather confused Mr. Farid. It’s only a matter of time before her refusal to do anything that pleases him will make it impossible for Mr. Farid to report well on her activities; it will be very hard for her to be short-listed. Others will make their way onto the short list, but Ben’s already ahead of them.

  I did it, I think as I sit in class the next morning. Ben’s going to be safe. One goal down.

  Garnet is standing at the front of our workshop. She has my half-finished painting of Dia on an easel next to her, and she is pointing out all the parts that she loves about it. Yes, loves. Because she’s forgotten everything. This moment would not have happened if I hadn’t rewritten her history. The class claps half-heartedly as Garnet congratulates me on a job well done.

  “I think I speak for everyone,” she says to me, “when I say we are very much looking forward to seeing your completed portrait of Headmaster Voletto. I understand you’ll present it to the school on graduation day?”

  I nod, and she says how splendid that is.

  “I don’t think it’s splendid at all,” Harper sneers at me as, after class, she pulls me aside. “Was this your plan all along, master? To get back in the teacher’s good books so you can beat me?”

  “What? You think I went to these lengths to get Garnet to like me?”

  “This was just one big manipulation, wasn’t it?”

  “Harper, be reasonable.”

  “I should never have helped you. I can’t believe I was so blind.”

  “Wait, hold on. I admit I’ve used the strength you’ve helped me rebuild to, well, further my plans.”

  “Your plans to get Garnet to score you higher than me and beat me to the Big V.”

  “No!” I tug her out of Garnet’s earshot. The room is almost empty, and the last thing I need is for Garnet to overhear and get suspicious. That would undo all my hard work. “I promise, Harper.”

  “A promise from a demon.”

  I’ve never heard anyone call me that. “I’m not a demon.”

  Harper points to the barrette under her hair. “Then why am I wearing this and calling you my freakin’ master? Speaking of which.” She takes it out and shoves it at me.

  “Fine. Want the truth?”

  “Only the whole truth, Murdering Merchant.”

  “I wanted to make sure Ben would get the Big V, so I’ve been doing some…things to make that happen.”

  “All this for a boy? The boy that left you for Garnet?”

  I don’t have time to get into the specifics with her. “Yes, Harper. And all this praise from Garnet is just a side effect. But, listen, she can’t know about Ben. So keep it down. Please. I’m trusting you in the hopes you’ll trust me back.”

  “When are you going to get me the life you promised?” she demands.

  “I’m working on it. I just need the right people to follow me. People with the power to vivify.”

  “Well, I want to be home for July fourth.”

  “This July fourth?”

  “My dad hosts a real big celebration. I want to be there.”

  Harper’s so wired with anger, I don’t dare remind her that she’s never going to be Harper Otto again. She’s not going to attend backyard barbeques as Harper again. Her family and friends all know she’s dead.

  “I’ll do my best,” I tell her.

  She sneers. “You promise me I’ll be real independent as of Independence Day, and I’ll serve you again. Until then, my followers and I are no longer yours.”

  I can almost feel the energy leaving me, like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me, as I pick up the barrette she’s abandoned and watch her go. She’s easily cut my follower-base in half.

  What follows can only be described as an act of desperation.

  twenty-two

  THINGS FALL APART

  I STORM UP THE STAIRS TO THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE girls’ dorm and race to my room, desperate to rebuild my followers now that Harper’s taken hers from me.

  I throw the door open. Molly, who is sitting on the floor with Joie Wannabe, shoves her box of contraband under her bed. When she sees it’s just me, she takes it out again.

  I don’t know how to ask her for what I need—or to convince her that it’s right to help me. She doesn’t know anything about what I’ve been up to. Will she help? Will she see the purity of my intentions, evil though they may seem?

  She hands Joie a camcorder. “You know how to work this, right?”

  “I can figure it out,” Joie says and gives Molly a slip of paper.

  “Wait!” I cry and snatch the paper. I turn to Molly. “Before you take this as payment, I need to talk to you.”

  Molly and Joie exchange a look.

  “Please,” I whisper to Molly, as if Joie can’t hear, “ask her for something else.”

  “For what else?”

  I don’t want to say in front of Joie.

  Without so much as a flinch, Molly takes the paper from my hand and helps Joie to the door. She agrees to make sure Joie’s parents get whatever sad-sap good-bye video she’s going to make for the
m—because the Big V is basically off the table for Joie now—and closes the door after her.

  “She’s very upset,” Molly says to me.

  I know she is. And I had everything to do with that. But I can’t let those thoughts in. Because of Ben. It’s because of Ben I’m going to such lengths. Only for him.

  “So,” Molly glances at me as she tucks the slip of paper into her envelope—all those favors, all that goodwill, wasted, “my gramps said he thinks he saw Gigi wandering around. Can you believe it? Her bones must have washed up on shore. Like, seriously, we should put walls around the perimeter of this island. She doesn’t even have a soul. It’s just her vivified body roaming around.”

  “Molly, I was serious about asking for something else. Not these do-gooder favors you’ve been collecting.”

  “Try not to be so upset about Gigi,” she says coldly. “I’ve gotta say, if your mom were alive, she’d be really, really disappointed in you.”

  “Well, my mom’s not alive.”

  She winces a little. Our gazes meet. Unable to wait another second, I swipe the envelope from her hand and begin flipping through each slip of paper.

  “Such a waste,” I say. “I need your help, Molly, but you don’t even care. You just keep wasting everything. This person has to be nice to some kid named Carson. And this one’s for Jack. And Plum. And Toshio—he’s not even here anymore!”

  She watches as I read one name after the other, and then she calmly takes the envelope from my hands.

  “Snoopy called,” she says and drops the envelope in the box. “He wants his shtick back.”

  I square my fists on my hips. “I need your help, Molly.”

  She mimics me with a mocking smile. “With what, Anne?”

  “I need you to stop asking people to be nice to someone in exchange for the devices you give them.”

  She arches an eyebrow.

  “I need you to ask them to serve you, Mol. And then you need to serve me.”

  For a second, she just looks at me. Then the laughter starts. To my great annoyance.