by Joanna Wiebe
Distant drumbeats.
I drift down the stairs. Standing at the front room picture window, with Skippy snoring behind me on the couch, I stare into the blackness of the night and see, beyond the forest separating all things school from all things village, bright orange sparks flying through the distant sky, over the village. Ashes. Low, vibrating drumbeats. I’m awake now, and I have no interest in returning to endless rounds of the same draining nightmare.
Slipping on a coat and a pair of boots, I grab a flashlight before I make the walk to the village, to the source of the fire. Around me, leaves rustle with the wind or with something more sinister. I can’t be sure, don’t want to find out, keep my flashlight shining forward, wonder if I’m out of my mind for walking in the dark like this, walking toward a mystifying fire in a village I’m sworn to steer clear of on a kook-run island I’ve barely settled into. But I can’t help myself. I’m drawn onward.
Torches light the harbor, where villagers are sitting cross-legged in a circle near the water, a low stage set up in the middle of their ring. A dull hum. Bonfires on rafts float beyond the docks. Flames reflect off the water as if the ocean is on fire, as if Hell is rising up to consume Heaven. The crisp air reeks of smoke. The entire scene seems private, like some ancient tribal rite that will end in a human sacrifice—and who better to sacrifice than the disobedient girl from the prep-slash-reform school? I shake my head. Overactive imagination. But I keep to the shadows nonetheless; tiptoe to a bench far enough away to watch without drawing attention; sit. The street lamps are out up and down the street. Relative to the vibrant gold of the fires, everything dark is nearly black, black enough to hide me.
Drums thump slowly. Heavily.
In the dim glow of scattered dying fires, vibrantly painted men and women hold unlit torches; a tall man, illuminated and impossible to miss, inhales from a long pipe. Slowly, the drumbeat that pulled me here diminishes, and the pace of dozens of unseen rattles around the perimeter of the stage picks up quickly, then slows. One by one, the villager torches are lit, and a fire spreads through their circle until it blazes like an enormous bullion ring. A leggy woman with white face paint and a cloth sling around her bare chest creeps through the ring, onto the stage; she is followed by two barechested men twirling large batons lit at both ends. Each time the fiery batons pass their faces, their eyes widen, their lips curl. I squirm.
A rattle shakes to a languid larghetto tempo. The painted woman is singing quietly, under her breath, so softly I can barely hear. Laying my jacket over my chest like a blanket, I listen as the woman’s melancholy voice rises and falls, as the two men chant in a language I don’t know. The crowd gradually begins to chant, too. The pipe is passed unhurriedly from person to person; only the drummers, who likely wish to avoid the slowing effect of whatever they’re smoking, refuse it. The drumbeat intensifies, the sound of dozens of drums I can’t see joining it.
The woman screams suddenly.
Startled, I recoil against the back of the bench; those who’ve smoked the pipe barely react. Swiftly, the woman pulls something from the sling around her chest, something small, like a baby. But the baby is motionless. (It can’t be a baby. No way.) She lifts it over her head. The two men stop twirling their batons, and that tall man—gray-haired and huge, maybe six-five—enters the circle; he is carrying a large, flat rock. He places it at the woman’s feet and backs away until he’s absorbed by the blazing ring. Someone makes a crying sound, like a baby’s, and then another and another, filling the air, filling my ears. The painted woman inches into a crouch—I can’t tear my eyes away—in time with the drums, and the rattles quicken. She places the baby on the flat rock. Backs into the ring.
Only the shirtless men remain.
They circle the baby. I squint, praying that my eyes are tricking me, that what looks like a baby is actually just a dummy—because I will not be able to stop myself from charging through the fire and rescuing that child if it comes down to it.
The rattling accelerates. Becomes little more than quick sharp noises slapping one on top of the other—chop shhick chop shhick. A rising wall of sound.
“Free it!” someone roars.
Immediately, in unison, the men touch both ends of the baby with their flaming batons and set the thing on fire. It bursts into flames like it’s made of gas-drenched straw.
I start to scream—it’s just about howling from my lips—when someone clamps a hand over my mouth. That only makes me want to scream louder. I flail my arms, trying desperately to escape the hold of the stranger standing behind me. I finally free myself and fall off the bench, looking up with terror lighting my face to see him standing behind the bench, his mint-colored eyes glowing in the darkness.
“Ben?”
“You know, you actually seemed bright in class today. But I’m beginning to wonder if you aren’t the dumbest person alive,” he whispers, scowling. “What are you doing in the village?”
“You scared the hell out of me!” I say, panting, my heart beating an insane staccato. I throw my gaze at the men, who are tossing their batons at each other, back and forth over the burning body.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Ben says, his wide eyes reflecting the ring of fire. “Your Guardian will notice you’re gone. He’ll come looking.”
“Did you follow me?”
“I saw you sneak out.”
As I focus on Ben, I try not to pay attention to the fact that the rattling has stopped, the crying from the crowd has stopped. I try not to look at the stage again, but I can’t help myself. The men grab the fiery body with their bare hands.
“Why did you follow me? To watch what I do and tell Teddy? I’m not even your competition. You’re a senior.”
“You think I’m telling you this because…I want to be valedictorian? Anne, you don’t know what you’re playing with here,” Ben warns quietly. “If Villicus were to find you, he would punish you. And his punishments are…they’re terrible.” Then he glances at the stage and pales.
I follow his gaze to see Molly creeping toward us, her face painted bright pink with green stripes. She has her finger to her lips, shushing me, and is smiling her metallic smile. Turning back to Ben, I’m about to tell him to relax, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Hey, you,” Molly says to me.
On the stage behind her, the men leap in this strange, awkward way through the circle and race to the ocean. “A-ya!” they scream while the crowd looks on. They drop what’s left of the baby on a floating bonfire, which finishes it off. As I sit on the bench again, she scoots up next to me.
“It’s freezing out. Let’s share some body heat.”
I need a second. I need to wrap my brain around what’s just happened. First, what I saw. Second, the arrival of Ben who was, to my surprise, following me.
At the center of the fiery ring, the huge man has returned, standing like an unshakable oak burst forth from the island. The harbor is silent save the crackling of fires.
“You have witnessed the cremation ceremony,” the man says, his voice a deep baritone that carries so powerfully, I feel the earth rumble.
“You cremated it?” I whisper, turning to Molly, who’s snuggling under my coat with me. “That baby?”
She furrows her brow. “What?”
“Please tell me it was already…passed on.”
“What, you mean the dummy?”
“The what?”
“The bundle of straw. The one that represents a child.” Molly shakes her head at me. “Did you think we burned real bodies in these ceremonies? Come on. We’re not, like, barbarians. It’s just a show.”
A groan of relief escapes me. “Well, I didn’t know. It’s dark! It looked real. I thought maybe that was why Villicus keeps us away from you guys.”
Molly chuckles, and we both shift to watch the man, who Molly explains is her grandpa and their shaman. With his arms extended, he fluidly pivots in the glow of the torches to address the whole circle. Now that my fears are allayed, I f
ind myself torn between listening to Mr. Watso and wondering why Ben followed me.
“This is the final ceremony in the Festival of Fire and Life,” Mr. Watso bellows, “a tradition unique to the Abenaki of this island they call Wormwood, this island that is Ndakinna to our great ancestors. It is a tradition that is just decades old but more meaningful than any ritual we have ever performed.”
I feel Molly’s eyes on me.
“You must be either crazy or stupid,” she says when I finally look her way.
“So I’ve heard,” I mutter. “Same with you. You know the rules.”
“Let’s blame my lapse in judgment on the Devil’s Apple we were just passing around in the pipe,” Molly chuckles.
“I thought it was, like, a peace pipe or something.”
“Much better. Really takes the edge off. You’ve seen, like, salvia on those YouTube videos?” I say nothing, hoping not to reveal just how uncool I am. “Well, the Devil’s Apple is like that, a natural hallucinogen that affects you for days.”
“You smoke it together?”
“It’s part of an Abenaki tradition. We’re not just getting high.” Bashing her argument to bits, she breaks into a fit of giggles.
“You blame talking to me on that?”
Snuggling against me, she sighs. “You and I both know it’s not that. I just don’t care anymore. There’s practically no one left in our village. So I can’t help but wonder why the hell I’m following rules that don’t work for us.”
“So, what’s the point of the rules?” I ask, yawning. “Why keep us separated?”
“Oh man, Anne, I dunno. It’s just been a rule for decades—it goes back to when Cania opened years ago,” she sighs. “Initially, I think our village told the Cania people that they couldn’t come onto our land. Then a line was drawn. And, since then, a rule we made has been turned against us. So now we don’t question it. We’re just supposed to follow it.”
“Well, even if we get caught, so what?” I ask. “You’d be forced to come to Cania. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
“You’d be expelled, though. So I’d be stuck there alone with those snobs.” We both chuckle at the idea.
Mr. Watso’s voice lifts through the air again, interrupting us. “Cremation protects our souls and returns us to Tabaldak, our mighty creator.” A single drumbeat begins.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” Molly whispers, her voice filled with misery as she watches the ceremony. “We used to be this really proud island nation, you know? Even though we lost everything when we had to stop whaling, we still had pride.”
“Well, I don’t know about pride, but I’ve never seen such a cool ceremony before.”
“Cool? It’s garbage. There’s nothing cool about it or this mental island. I wish we could just move away.”
As much as I know we’re not supposed to fraternize, I can’t help but want Molly to stick around. “Your family must feel bad you don’t have anyone your age here.”
“You’d think, right? But look at him!” She flicks her glare at her grandpa. “He’s our shaman. He can’t leave. Refuses to. A captain goes down with his ship, y’know?” Then she turns to me, her eyes bright and slightly out of focus, the paint on her face glowing. “But what about me? I’m never supposed to have any friends? I’m just supposed to be this pathetic excuse for a teenager. In our stupid house. With our stupid fancy clothes.”
“I love your clothes! You’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” She shakes her head. “Try bought and paid for.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know, paid to lease the island to Villie and look the other way.” She waves her hand in the direction of the magnificent homes on the hillside. “As if getting the finer things in life washes away the need for an actual life.”
“What do you mean, look the other way?”
Pausing, Molly searches my face. Then she slides down, resting her head against me, fakes a yawn, and closes her eyes. “I’m just exaggerating. Blame the Devil’s Apple again. Forget I said anything.”
As if I could forget! I sit up straight, and her head bounces off my shoulder. She’s frowning when she looks up at me.
“Look the other way? Look away from what exactly, Molly?”
But Mr. Watso’s voice sails through the air before she can answer.
“My grandfather first welcomed the people of Cania to this island and signed the pact that would allow them access to this majestic land,” he bellows. “Even as our village shrinks around us, as the young wisely abandon this place, we who remain must never forget the necessity of this pact that spared the lives of so many casualties of war and, when the whales were denied us, saved our people from starvation. That pact remains intact with our enduring silence.”
Whoops and chants rise up around him, stretching across the ring of fire and through the smoke, into the murky darkness that hides me and Molly from sight.
“What’s he talking about?” I ask, talking through my thoughts. Torches begin to sizzle in the water as the festival winds down. “Pilot said that the school’s got a code of secrecy, but I assumed he was talking about something like the Illuminati or Freemasons have. Some secret society thing. Is there something bigger than that? Something Villicus would pay you to pretend not to see?”
“Anne—”
“Wait. And you guys needed to get paid because you used to whale but aren’t allowed to anymore. Of course.”
Molly glares at me. “Seriously, Anne, cool it.”
“And the line, the red line that separates us.” The pieces are coming together fast, though I wish they’d lock in place. I know there’s more that I’m missing. “Are you guys keeping something secret…from us? From the kids up at the school?”
She clenches her jaw and glowers. “No. Not usually, at least,” she finally says—reluctantly.
“Then you’re keeping a secret about us? About the school? From other people?”
“God, who died and made you detective?”
A roar rings out through the air suddenly. My heart jumps, and Molly and I look up to see six feet, five inches of angry grandpa tearing through the throngs and charging at us.
“Molly Lynn Watso!” he roars.
Molly throws a quick apologetic glance at me as Mr. Watso storms our way. “Sorry,” she mouths.
His face is red, his eyes bulging, his huge fists clenching. Startled, I get to my feet and back away. But Molly’s already throwing her arms out in front of me; it’s just a gesture, not enough to protect me from his ferocity.
“Gramps, don’t! It’s not her fault,” Molly pleads.
“You will not do this! You will not bring on our demise!” he hollers. Then he yanks Molly’s arm and tugs her away from me. He points at the men who’ve followed him and shouts, “Get that Cania girl out of here!”
But I don’t need an escort! I spin on my heels and charge away, shaking, mortified. I race hard. Through shadows thick like cobwebs, my flashlight beam bounces frantically, barely cutting the darkness. I run for an eternity. When I finally slow to a pace my heaving lungs can bear, I wonder if my heart will ever calm down again. And I wonder if I’ll ever see Molly again. Her grandpa’s angry face is so clear in my mind. His bottomless bellow so deep in my ears. He shouted as if I were wielding a gun, not shaking in my boots. He glared like he hated me. But how could he? He doesn’t even know me. I’m harmless! I’m just some artsy geek sitting alone on a bench in the dark. But it was like I was threatening his only grandchild’s life.
Staring into the blackness beyond the beam of my flashlight, I know now there’s something I’m meant to find out, some dark secret lurking, waiting to be discovered if I can just point my beam in the right direction and really, truly see. But at this exact moment, I don’t see. I hear. I hear something in the woods, and I stop in my tracks as fear like cold, icy water cascades over my back and onto my legs.
I hear another noise.
And then I see t
hem. In the shadows a few feet into the woods—feet from where I stand—two people. Two bodies. I silently beg for it not to be Ben and his girlfriend.
It’s not Ben. It’s a red-haired girl and a man; the soft moonlight glints off his bare chest, a chest I recognize because, just this morning, I drew it in class. My stomach drops to my feet as I gape at them.
“Trey Sedmoney,” I utter. Nude model. Member of the Cania faculty.
No sooner have I said his name than he looks up from the redhead on her knees and locks his gaze on mine. A grin spreads across his face. And that’s when I hear her voice.
“I deserve to win, don’t I?” Harper asks him with her unmistakable Texan drawl. “Do you know anyone who’s living and breathing their PT better than I am, Trey?”
eight
THE PRINCE
“COME ON. LIVE A LITTLE. YOU KNOW YOU WANNA SKIP study hall.”
Pilot has correctly guessed that I’m in a bit of a funk today. He has no idea why, though. How could he? How could he know what I endured last night? That I was screamed at publicly by a huge man from the village just before I watched my fiercest competitor engage a member of the faculty, a man I had to sketch this morning, knowing what he used those parts for just last night? I can’t exactly confess this crap to Pilot. So, after our morning workshop and after shaking off another bout of the chills, I tell him I’m homesick. And he says the best remedy for homesickness is skipping study hall.
“It’s not like you can be graded for anything in study hall. I mean, you can, but who cares?” he insists as Harper glides by us and flips her hair, eyeing Pilot seductively.
Seeing her is all it takes to convince me to bail—to get as far away from this scene as I can when I’m surrounded on all sides by treacherous ocean. To say nothing of the fact that I’m hoping Pilot will open up to me about whatever it is the villagers are being paid to pretend not to notice. Perhaps it’s just the student–faculty sex stuff—but something tells me it’s more than that.
