by Joanna Wiebe
Praise for
The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant
“From the very first pages, I was spellbound by this deliciously dark tale of mysterious attraction, cutthroat ambition, and how far we will go to keep the ones we love.”
—AMY PLUM, international bestselling author
“An original, breathtakingly written, and often chilling tale of what lengths people will go to for love. Joanna Wiebe has crafted a book that is unputdownable, so much so that I was forced to read part of it at work because I couldn’t stop thinking about Anne and Cania Christy. (Shh, don’t tell!) Joanna has officially made my instant-buy list.”
—LINDSEY R. LOUCKS, author of The Grave Winner
“She had me at the introduction of the spooky setting—the kind of stuff readers can lose themselves in. Joanna Wiebe is a fun new author to be on the lookout for!”
—WENDY HIGGINS, author of The Sweet Trilogy
“School grounds shrouded in mystery, beautiful student body obsessed with the race to be valedictorian, and a gorgeous, infuriating, unobtainable guy. Welcome to Cania Christy.”
—A.E. ROUGHT, author of Broken
THE
UNSEEMLY
EDUCATION
OF ANNE
MERCHANT
THE
UNSEEMLY
EDUCATION
OF ANNE
MERCHANT
By Joanna Wiebe
BenBella Books
Dallas, Texas
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Joanna Wiebe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
BenBella Books, Inc.
10300 N. Central Expressway, Suite #530 | Dallas, TX 75231
www.benbellabooks.com | Send feedback to [email protected]
First e-book edition: January 2014
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wiebe, Joanna.
The unseemly education of Anne Merchant / by Joanna Wiebe.
p. cm.
Summary: From the moment Anne Merchant arrives at Cania Christy, a boarding school for the wealthiest teens, she has questions that remain unanswered, including why everything is a competition to be valedictorian and what mysterious reward comes with that title.
ISBN 978-1-939529-32-9 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-939529-33-6 (electronic) [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Boarding schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Wealth—Fiction. 5. Islands—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.W63513Uns 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013027277
Editing by Glenn Yeffeth
Copyediting by Debra Kirkby
Proofreading by Amy Zarkos and Michael Fedison
Cover design by Kit Sweeney Photography & Design
Text design and composition by Silver Feather Design
Printed by Bang Printing
Distributed by Perseus Distribution | www.perseusdistribution.com
To place orders through Perseus Distribution:
Tel: (800) 343-4499 | Fax: (800) 351-5073 | E-mail: [email protected]
Significant discounts for bulk sales are available. Please contact Glenn Yeffeth at [email protected] or (214) 750-3628.
CONTENTS
one | Wormwood Island
two | The Big V
three | My Guardian
four | Prosperitas Thema
five | The Scream
six | The Model UN from Hell
seven | Fire and Life
eight | The Prince
nine | Portrait of a Boy
ten | In the Dark
eleven | Cupid and Death
twelve | Consequences
thirteen | Looking Closer
fourteen | My Soul to Keep
fifteen | The Sculptor
sixteen | The Many Lives of the Girls of Cania Christy
seventeen | Death and the Maiden
eighteen | The Quick and the Dead
nineteen | The Tuition Battle
twenty | The Ice Storm
twenty-one | Ben Zin
twenty-two | Nighttime in Heaven
twenty-three | Portrait of the Artist’s Mother
twenty-four | The Epiphany
twenty-five | Stranger Than Fiction
twenty-six | Circling Vultures
Acknowledgments
About the Author
one
WORMWOOD ISLAND
HERE’S SOMETHING NOBODY TELLS RICH PEOPLE: THEY die, too.
There’s this sense, you know, this misconception that wealthy people are invincible. Like when Fortune 500 execs get cancer or something equally awful, they think they can coerce a massive, aggressive, bumpy tumor straight out of their body by throwing bundles of cash at it. As if you can swipe a black American Express card through your armpit, and—ch-ching!—you’ve just paid off the Grim Reaper, you’ve gloriously extended your life of leisure…and you’ve been given a bump in your Air Miles account to boot.
Idiotic.
But strangely common thinking among the wealthy.
In lovely, sunny Atherton, California—the most expensive neighborhood in America and my home up until, oh, yesterday—this notion that rich people are invincible is so prevalent, people go into a state of absolute shock when someone in our fancy 94027 zip code gets sick. Or crashes their Bentley. Or accidentally inhales Beluga caviar (which happens way more often than you’d think). I see it every day.
Scratch that. I saw it every day.
I saw it before my dad shipped me across the country to doom-and-gloom central, aka Wormwood Island, Maine, for what one might call a “fresh start.”
I saw those delusional richies on a regular basis, back when I would sit quietly in the shadows at the top of the stairs and, with my sketchbook in hand, observe black-veiled parades marching somberly through the hallways of my house. See, our home is the second story of the Fair Oaks Funeral Home, where my dad’s the lowly mortician and terribly paid funeral director and where we Merchants have the distinct pleasure of being the only broke-ass family for miles.
Yes, that means I’m that girl.
I’m the weird mortician’s daughter. The creepy girl the kids at school call Death Chick or Wednesday Addams. The eerie girl they shy away from whenever I wear black or look unusually pale. The poor girl raised with dead bodies in the basement, zombies scratching at the cellar door, and ghosts around every corner. I’m that girl.
“No, you were that girl,” I remind my reflection as I adjust a blue-and-gold tie over the crisp white shirt of my new school uniform. “Now you’re just Anne Merchant, a junior at the Cania Christy Preparatory Academy. No one knows anything about you, which means—” I pause to tweak the tie so it draws a little less attention to my chest “—you can rewrite your history.”
I am standing in front of a small mirror, which is on top of a small dresser in the small attic bedroom of the small cottage that’s going to be my home for the next two years. I’ll be here until I graduate from Cania Christy. Fingers crossed: I’ll graduate as valedictorian. Becoming valedictorian is a critical part of my plan—my future hinges on it. If I don’t graduate at the top of my class, I won’t qualify for the scholarship money I’m going to need. But if—no, when—I graduate as the valedictorian, I’ll be almost guaranteed a full scholarship to the s
chool of my dreams, Brown. From there, my life is perfectly plotted: spend four years in undergrad, open a gallery in New York City, promote my own art while discovering new artists, and make enough money that my dad can leave behind his life of death to come out east for a fresh start of his own. Since I first put chalk to paper as a toddler, I’ve known my life’s purpose: to create art. Art that presents a different version of the world to the world; art that looks closer. I lost sight of that vision over the course of the last two years, but it’s back now. In full force. And to realize that vision, I’ll need to be valedictorian. Which shouldn’t be too hard. After all, I spent the first sixteen years of my life at the top of my class—the upside of being shunned as Death Chick is that you have plenty o’ time to study.
Stepping back from the mirror, I assess myself. Turn left, turn right. And give up. I shake my head at my uniformed reflection.
“You look like some sort of anime floozy.”
Everybody on earth has something they don’t like about the way they look; for me, it’s always been my one crooked tooth (which I’ve learned to mask with a closed-mouth smile) and my wildly curly blonde hair. That’s usually what I’m up against. But today, I’ve discovered two new problems that had never seemed like problems before: my breasts. It’s like they doubled in size overnight. This would not be a bad thing if I had a closet of clothes to choose from for my first day of school, but it is a significant issue given that I have only the uniforms that were waiting for me when I arrived here late last night. Uniforms that are decidedly form fitting. By which I mean they are decidedly three sizes too small.
Giving up, I button a cardigan over the shirt, trace my fingers along the golden Cania Christy emblem on it, mentally untie the knots in my stomach, and turn to fiddling with my wonky curls.
“Who would you like to be?” I ask myself lightly. “The daughter of a zillionaire turned yogi? The fabulously wealthy love child of a famous ballerina and a recluse artist?”
As if to drive home the point of who I really am and where I really come from—and the inescapability of both—a glint of sunlight shines through the attic window and reflects off my late mother’s barrettes, which sit atop my dresser, sending a beam of light at my eyes. As if my mom’s trying to get my attention from above. As if she refuses to be forgotten.
As if I could ever forget her.
It only takes the span of a breath, it only takes the lightest touch of my fingertips on those silvery barrettes, for visions of my beautiful mother’s last moments to come rushing at me. The quiet desperation in her glassy stare when I found her on the kitchen floor. Her frail body hanging loosely in my arms as I rocked her and begged God for her life. The dampness of her lovely face as my tears rained down on her. I discovered her body when I was fourteen—well over two years ago—but the pain is so raw and the ache in my chest feels so bright red, it’s as if she died yesterday.
My dad disapproves of my style of mourning. Particularly the length of time I’ve been in mourning and the life I’ve turned away from since she died. That’s why I’m here. Because I can hardly breathe when I think of her. And because he is so used to death, he can’t understand what’s taking me so long to get back to my old overachieving self.
I pull my hand away from my mother’s barrettes.
The sun disappears behind the clouds, leaving me to stare into the whiteness of the endless sea of fog separating me from the mysteries—the distant school, the sprawling campus, the teachers, the other students, the people on this island—that lie in wait.
Unlike rich people, poor folks know all about death. I know everything there is to know, from the temperature of the refrigerator they keep the bodies in to the weight of the thread they use to stitch eyelids tightly closed. I know that embalming fluid can be used for a cheap high. I know you instantly lose twenty-one grams of weight when you die. I even know the superstitions, like it’s bad luck to have a mirror in a funeral hall because it traps the spirit of the dearly departed. If anyone should be comfortable with the idea of death, it’s a mortician’s daughter.
But nothing can prepare you for losing your mother.
Nothing can prepare you for the suddenness of a constant source of love and support vanishing so quickly. And so permanently.
“Annie!” my housemother, Gigi Malone—who, may I add, is certifiably crazy with a certifiably crazy dog—shouts at me from the bottom of two flights of rickety stairs. My door is closed, but this teetering cottage is so old and flimsy, it sounds like Gigi’s standing right next to me and screaming into my ear. I can hear her little Pomeranian, Skippy, yelping wildly, just as he did the moment he met me last night. “You don’t want to be late for your first day of school!”
I march on the spot for a moment, and the floorboards squeal. That’s my way of telling Gigi I’m up without actually shouting back at her. You learn to communicate soundlessly under the constant weight of respectful silence in a funeral home. The year before my mom died, when she was in the hospital receiving treatment for what the docs called “rapid cycling bipolar disorder,” my dad and I had the house to ourselves for nearly three months, and we might have spoken a half-dozen words to each other. Since her passing, things have become even quieter between us. But my dad was never one for words.
I hear Gigi walk away.
Then I slip on my knee-high boots, straighten my tights, smooth my skirt, and make a last-ditch effort to keep my shirt from busting open. I’ve got time for one more pep talk before I head downstairs and this new life of mine truly begins.
I start to tell myself, “You are a great artist,” but my voice cracks.
So I take a deep breath. And I push out the loud voices that would hold me back. They’re all going to laugh at you. You’re never going to fit in. You’re still just Death Chick. Your dad can’t afford to send you here, and you’ll probably end up being shipped back to California when his check bounces.
Squaring my shoulders, I stare harder into the tiny mirror on top of the dresser and, making every effort not to groan at my Einstein-inspired hair or to mask my crooked tooth with a slanted grin, say in my most confident tone, “Anne, you are a great artist. You are as gifted as any other student here. This is your chance to get your life back on track.” Proving I’m not great at pep talks, I finish with, “So don’t blow it.”
As I open my bedroom door, leaving behind scents of shampoo and deodorant, and start down the creaky stairs, the smell of the sea—that slimy, green, salty smell—hits me with a wallop. Welcome to Maine. Small, square stained-glass windows line the narrow staircase that leads me down to the second floor, where Gigi’s bedroom, the bathroom, and a tiny guest bedroom are; the windows extend down the next staircase, which is the main staircase, which will bring me to the living room and kitchen. When I pause to peer through the stained glass just steps above the main floor, I find the bluish-gray landscape of Wormwood Island distorted by red, orange, and green triangles. A permanent mist hovers two feet over the ground, running through a world of overgrown ferns, clouding moss-covered tree stumps, and wrapping like a thick cotton scarf around the beech trees that line the shores. There seems to be no beginning and no end to the island. It’s as infinite as death itself.
“On the bright side,” I say, gazing through the multicolored glass until my breath steams it, “you can hear the ocean here. That’s like California.” The glass squeaks as I rub the side of my fist through my breath-mist and see a break in the fog not fifty feet from Gigi’s cottage. For the first time, I glimpse the outlines of a nearby row of houses and whisper, “Howdy, neighbors.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spy Gigi poking her head around the corner.
“You’re talking to yourself, kid,” she says.
Her voice sounds like a piano that’s been played too long without tuning. Skippy races around his master’s feet and barks at me with such force, his puffy orange body bounces a foot into the air; Gigi shoos him away.
Without looking at Gigi, I ask,
“Who lives next door?”
“Don’t you mind who lives next door. It’s the Zins’ place, but don’t mind them.”
“The Zins’ place? It’s one house?” The fog rolls along, and I can make out the connection between what appeared to be multiple small homes. I count six chimneys on the mansion’s rooftop. “They must be rich.”
“Everyone here’s rich. Except you and me. But even I was rich once. Now I clean the Zin house and watch his kid when Dr. Zin’s away on business, and they let me stay in this cottage.”
“I wonder what sort of business he’s in to afford a place like that.”
“Not that you need to mind, but he’s the head of admissions for Cania.”
“Why’s everyone rich here?” I don’t know much about Cania or Wormwood Island—the decision for me to come here was made hastily—but I recall hearing something about the island once being a fishing village. Of all the wealthy people I’ve met, I can’t recall any of them being fishermen.
Flitting her hands, Gigi mutters something and turns away.
Passing a growling Skippy, I follow Gigi through the front room and into the kitchen, which might have been nice twenty years ago, where I watch her shimmy onto a hard wooden bench behind the table before shoving half a piece of toast into her mouth. Glancing around, I notice a whitewashed curio cabinet, which holds what remains of an expensive-looking teapot collection. An open case on a shelf displays the last few pieces of silver flatware. The fingerprint-smudged glass of two cabinets reveals a wide selection of half-full liquor bottles.
Trying not to think much of the missing items and the booze—and trying even harder not to mentally weave a sad story of Gigi Malone, crazed woman in a stretched-out homemade sweater—I pour myself a cup of coffee as she leans over her crossword puzzle. I offer her a cup, too; she scowls and grumbles that I ought not to go around stunting my growth with caffeine.
I’m just over five-ten. Not exactly a hobbit.
“So my dad never explained why I’m living with you instead of in the school dorms,” I begin, walking to the end of the kitchen and gazing out the garden window as I sip my coffee.
