The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant

by Joanna Wiebe

  “Not a bad gig you’ve got, buddy,” Jack mumbles to Pilot, his voice low. “Get some ass from the blonde in the woods. And get blown by the redhead for your troubles.”

  The two take off in a run. I don’t even want to know what Jack was talking about.

  I stagger back to the beach, but I don’t join the others. Instead, when I reach the bonfire, I stop and stare into it, numb, as the singing and dancing commence far ahead.

  The fire. It’s the only thing that released Molly from this island.

  Robotically, I stick my hand smack in the middle of it—testing my theory about the impossibility of injuring these new, perfect bodies of ours—and watch the vibrant flames rise up to lick it. I feel the pain. I soak up the pain, wondering how long my hand would need to stay in for my skin to char. And then I pull it out, inspecting my flesh immediately. Sure enough, my skin is bright red and tight, even close to blistering near my pinky finger. But, within moments, the redness disappears, the pain disappears, every indication that I’ve just burned myself severely enough that I should be on the way to the hospital right now disappears. I turn my hand over, amazed to know that I was right, that this body, though real, is different from a human body. And then, from out of nowhere, Ben places his hand on mine.

  “Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to play with fire?”

  Fifty feet away from where I stand, staring in shock at Ben Zin, looking from him to his hand, which is still on mine, an impromptu concert has broken out, stealing everyone’s attention and leaving me to feel, for perhaps the first time ever, that I can actually talk to Ben without being intruded on. Plum is standing on a huge fallen tree, belting out some song, with Pilot as her backup. The rest of the crowd is dancing, cheering, singing along; I can barely see them, tucked away on the other side of the bonfire—which means they probably can’t see me.

  Where the road meets the beach, a yellow Ducati is parked. If that bike wasn’t sitting right there, providing solid evidence that its rider is in the vicinity, I wouldn’t believe my eyes or the sensation running under my skin at Ben’s touch.

  All night, I’ve watched for him furtively, hoping against reason that he’d show up here, mentally replaying the cold way he addressed me in the quad today and balancing that with the hint of interest he showed in speeding by me and Pilot twice on our way here. And now, here he is. No Garnet in sight. Just Ben. Taking my hand in his.

  “Because it doesn’t appear you have a partner,” he begins, grinning in his gorgeous way, “any chance I can have this dance?” Placing his hand on my lower back, he pulls me to him. His cool breath moves my hair, sending shivers over me. He smells ethereal. His sea-colored gaze is ethereal. The airy way he floats in and out of my life is ethereal—like he might drift away the moment I get close to him—and that is the problem. “If you’ll have me as a partner.”

  But I can take no more.

  Freeing myself from his embrace, I back away from Ben’s impossibly alluring expression. I don’t give a damn if he’s beautiful or if I’m hopelessly crushing on him. I’m not going to let him keep throwing my heart around.

  “Why did you come here?” I demand. “Why, when you made it so clear today that you loathe me?”

  “Is it bad that I came?”

  “You told me we’re not friends. You embarrassed me in front of everyone, including your dad. It was mortifying, Ben. And, icing on the cake, you’re dating Garnet. A teacher.”

  “No, I’m not. Let me explain.”

  “I saw you two. Don’t lie to me.”

  “We were dating. We dated for two years. But we’re not now.”

  “I don’t want to hear it. I can handle you being in love with someone else. I can handle you being caught up in some sordid teacher–student affair. Because at least I can still be friends with you that way.” I begin backing away, which I realize I should have done from the start. “But you took even the hope of friendship away today.”

  “Surely you noticed that it’s only when Garnet’s around that I’m cold to you. Unfortunately, you misread that. It’s not because I care for Garnet. It’s because I care for you that I’ve acted as I have,” he says, following me until the heat of the bonfire warms my back. “It’s the only way to protect you.”

  “I don’t need your protection!”

  “Oh?” He thrusts his hand into and out of the flames. “A girl who can take care of herself doesn’t play with fire.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”

  “For the last time, I don’t think you’re an idiot,” he says, softening his tone though his eyes still flare. “I think you’re brilliant. I think, in fact, that you’ve figured it out.”

  “I have.”

  “You have?”

  “You just said you thought I did!” I fire. “Why do you look so surprised?”

  “I’m not surprised,” he says, lowering his voice and pulling me away from the bonfire. “I’m scared. For you. What exactly do you think you’ve figured out?”

  Dropping my voice to mock his, I whisper, “That we’re all dead and brought to life again.”

  His face blanches. A drop of rain hits his nose. “Vivified.”

  “Sure. Vivified. What’s the difference?” I glare at him.

  “Brought to life again sounds like we’re in our old bodies. But we’re not. We’re spirits in new versions of our old bodies.”

  “I know that, too. The point is that I’m not dumb after all, am I?”

  “I never said you were,” he says. “But, tell me, do they know you know?” He stabs in the direction of the dancing mob.

  “What does it matter?”

  “Do they?”

  “Yes!” I cry as two freezing raindrops hit me hard.

  What little color Ben had in his face drains away. “Okay, okay, we’ve gotta get you out of here. I’ll get my dad to call your dad.”

  “Wait, why?”

  “Look, Teddy’s already pissed that you left the house without checking in with him,” Ben says hurriedly. “He came to my house and demanded I lend him my bike so he could look for you. If he knows you know about vivification, Anne—”

  “Shouldn’t I be allowed to know I’m dead?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not? Stop talking in puzzles and just tell me!”

  “I want to. That’s all I’ve wanted to do. And I might. Tonight. But not here.”

  I grab his arm and hold him in place. “What don’t I know, Ben?”

  His silence is an answer of its own. There’s so much I don’t know. The truth about our vivified selves is just the beginning. Perhaps even the reward of the Big V is just the beginning.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He starts tugging me up the beach, toward his Ducati.

  We make it about ten steps from the bonfire before the sound of singing halts and the cheering stops. Shaking my arm free, I turn to see what’s happened—only to find everyone glaring at me. Worst of all? Pilot’s staring at me with this expression that crushes my heart. He dashes off the boulder and, like a wounded deer, bolts into the woods.

  “Way to go, Anne,” Harper shouts, racing after Pilot. “You ruin everything.”

  Another drop of rain hits me. Another, and another. I glance from the sour faces of the group to Ben, who’s waiting for me to follow him, to the sky—just as the clouds that have been looming, the clouds that have threatened to bring the promised sleet, burst open.

  Within the span of a few breaths, it’s raining full force. Icy, sharp rain that tears at my skin.

  “Party’s over!” Jack shouts.

  The sleet douses the enormous fire while Ben lifts his jacket over my head, while the beach clears of people, while everyone rushing off shoots angry glares at me, glares that feel worse than the icy rain. Soon, they’re all gone. And Ben and I stand silently—tensely—in the storm, facing the ocean and watching hundreds of millions of ice pellets hit the water’s uneven surface by the second. The raindrops thi
cken into frosty sheets. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to take a step in any direction. Every time I move, it seems, some horrific realization rushes at me. Maybe if I just stand here. Maybe if I just close my eyes.

  “We have to go,” Ben says. “This is supposed to be a serious ice storm. It’s not safe to be out here. And we need to take care of your situation.”

  A rumble of thunder. A clap of lightning tears through the clouds, and something else tears at my chest.

  “Get away from me,” I whisper when he reaches for me.

  “Anne, I can tell you’re upset, but we’ve got to get you home.” I shake my head. He attempts to negotiate. “Can we at least get on my bike and go somewhere dry? You’re shivering.”

  “No.”

  “Then can we walk? We can’t stay here.”

  Reluctantly, I nod. “I don’t need you to hold your jacket over me.”

  Leaving the beach and his bike behind, we walk back down the island, paralyzed by the tension, wondering, I think, if the other will break the silence. Up and down the narrow, winding road, icy rain collects on tree branches and leaves, building on itself, rapidly crafting dagger-like icicles that drip downward like the stalactites of a long dark cave lit by bolts of lightning. A motorbike roars down the island, making its way over the ice-slicked roads, its sound nearing.

  I feel Ben’s gaze on me. I feel his hand approach mine and pull away, sensing I’m not ready to be touched. At least he’s perceptive.

  “You have to tell me why you did it,” I say finally, stopping and forcing him to do the same. We peer at each other through sheets of frosty rain that collect on our hair, freeze on our eyelashes, and coat our clothes. “What made you think you needed to fix my tooth, Ben?”

  “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about today?”

  I don’t reply, which he accurately takes as a yes.

  “I’m so sorry, Anne. I’m sorry because I couldn’t risk Garnet finding out that I care for you. And I’m sorry because, well, if I changed anything about you by touching you, it wasn’t intentional. I’ve just never touched anyone like you, not since I came to Cania.”

  “What does that mean, like me? Is this about my situation?”

  “Look,” he begins, catching my gaze and holding it even as cold rain streams down his face, making my heart drum loudly enough that I can hardly hear my own thoughts. At the same time a clap of lightning splits the sky above us, he takes my hands in his. “Look at us.” Then he glances down tellingly at our entwined wet hands. “Look at this.”

  With my teeth chattering now, I follow his gaze. Just as when Pilot held my hand and I could barely tell where our flesh met, Ben’s hand against mine looks strangely blurred. As if our skin is melting together, the edges smudged.

  “Vivified, we’re more spirit than we are flesh, you see, so the lines blur,” Ben shouts over the rain. “He takes vials of our blood—he gets the morticians to do that. Blood from our remains. And he uses our DNA to re-create us here because he can’t create us from thin air. He doesn’t have that power.”

  “Who’s he? Villicus?”

  Ben nods, but I can’t help but shake my head.

  “Impossible!” I cry.

  “Just listen, will you?” Ben fires back. “It’s all true. All of it. Including the fact that I shouldn’t have touched your face in our sculpting class that day, Anne. But, God help me, I wanted to be close to you. I feel as if I’ve been dreaming of you all my life. I can’t help the way you make me feel, and I gave in to my desire to touch you. But I didn’t mean to change you! I’m sure it was just part of your transformation, Anne, into the perfect manifestation of your DNA.”

  I tear my hands away. “You think I’m so imperfect.”

  “Don’t take that the wrong way!” he exclaims. “I wasn’t trying to fix you. I am fascinated by everything about you.” He pulls me fiercely into his embrace, catching me softly before I slam against him. Giving into him, I find my body fitting perfectly into the crook of his arm, my face nestling easily into the warmth below his strong, beautiful jaw. “I suppose I inadvertently sculpted you into exactly what I see when I look at you,” he says softly, his voice hoarse. “Pure perfection.”

  But before he can say another amazing word, a Harley rounds the curve ahead of us and screeches to a halt, nearly skidding out on the icy pavement. I turn to peer through the rain.

  “She came after me,” Ben mutters as the biker dismounts.

  The biker pulls off her helmet, and I groan the moment I see her. “Garnet.”

  “Just let me take care of this,” he says to me as I draw away, “and then I’ll explain everything. Okay?”

  “Ben!” Garnet calls from the opposite side of the road. “I have to talk to you.”

  “We’ve talked about this enough,” he calls back.

  As beautiful as ever—maybe even prettier lit by lightning—Garnet flicks her gaze at me. I realize how crazy I must look in this ice storm, like a drowned rat compared to Garnet, with her soft golden hair and creamy complexion. The rain is only starting to touch her.

  “It’s not going to be that easy,” she says, more meaning behind her words than I can possibly fathom. “I’ve given up too much for you. I won’t leave now.”

  Another rumble of thunder moves through the air, so close the ground shakes. Clenching his jaw, Ben steadily nods at her before turning to me.

  “This’ll just take a sec. I’m really sorry,” he explains, his eyes pleading with me as he hands his jacket to me. “Cover your head with this. You’re, um, soaked.”

  A flicker of the grin I love passes over his face, and I take his jacket, knowing for certain now that I look like death warmed over. Who cares? I am death warmed over.

  The road is slick when Ben starts across it. As he strides across the ice with a confidence only the unbreakable have, a flash of lightning tears through the sky and hits a power line nearby. Sparks fly through the air. The power line snaps free.

  “Ben!” I shout to warn him.

  He and Garnet glance up. We all watch as the liberated black rope, filled with a violent electrical current, twists in the freezing midnight air, sparks exploding as it touches down on the road once, and again on a tree, bouncing wildly from object to object, threatening to take out everything in its path. Just as it flips again in the air, surges wildly, soars in hundreds of directions at once, and then careens toward me, Ben’s eyes lock on mine.

  I’m helpless to it.

  With my next breath, it will hit me.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself, preparing to be electrocuted right here on this road, right in front of Ben and Garnet.

  But it doesn’t hit me. I hear a violent zap. Then nothing at all. I throw my eyelids open to see a spray of golden orange light all around Ben, who crossed back to protect me. It hit him.

  As bulbs in the street lamps burst—one, two, three, four—all the way down the island, as zaps and sizzles echo against the trees, as I stare and stare at what the electricity is doing to his body, it comes to an end. At last. Leaving no trace of the damage it’s done. Because it leaves no trace of Ben.

  He is simply gone. Vanished.

  “More spirit than flesh,” I utter, staring at the blank spot where he just stood.

  He’s disappeared. Into thin air. Where his feet were, just a blink earlier, now lays the spent wire, sleeping quietly in an unmoving curl. Unable to comprehend enough to even scream, I squeeze my eyes closed again and try to talk myself into opening them, but I can’t. It’s all madness on that side of reality. It’s safer in my mind, where it’s dark and cool and quiet.

  “But nothing can kill him, right?” I call to Garnet, expecting my teacher to teach me. “He’s vivified. He gets more than one body, doesn’t he? More than one chance?”

  “He’s mine,” she sneers. “I came back for him, and I’m not leaving without him. Don’t fool yourself.” Then she straps on her helmet, mounts her bike, and speeds back down the island, leaving ev
ery question unanswered.

  In the blackout, with the sky stone gray, with the rain coming down in torrents, I run back down the island, avoiding the ice on the roads, uncertain where I’m going but certain I’m looking for one person: Ben Zin. He’s somewhere out here. He must be. Just as Pilot and Harper are out here commiserating, swapping stories about how terrible I am.

  “You don’t just disappear,” I convince myself through gasps for air. “There must be rules to vivification. Constants. If–then laws. If your blood is on the island, then you are vivified. Like Ben said.”

  I focus on finding Ben. The ice in my hair is heavy as I run. It separates my curls into thick dreadlocks that splay at the bottom, the wet ends slapping my chin and shoulders, spraying droplets of water into the air as I pass the gates of the dark campus and charge on. The Zin mansion soon becomes a barely discernible outline behind the black rain, with just a small glow in one of the windows to give away that someone is there, burning a candle. Is it Ben? Is that remotely possible?

  Veering from my course, I steal up to the window, peeking in to see Dr. Zin, Gigi, and Teddy sitting together, with Skippy curled on Gigi’s lap and snarling at Teddy.

  But it’s just those three. No Ben in sight.

  Stopping for that one second, I let myself listen briefly to the thoughts flitting like colonies of rabid bats through my head. Garnet said she came back for Ben. From where? And what if the electricity actually killed Ben for good? What if he’s really gone? A whimper escapes my lips. I clutch my hands over my mouth—but not before something scrapes at my arm. No, doesn’t scrape at it. Clutches it. And yanks me from the window.

  If my hand weren’t on my mouth, the entire island would hear me scream.

  Desperately, I claw at my unseen attacker.

  I slip on the grass as rain pelts me from every direction. Finally freeing myself, I scramble away from the person, who is cloaked in darkness, and glare in its direction. At first, I see only a shadow, a glowing outline of a tall man. And then Ben’s eyes. Bright green. Illuminated. He steps out of the shadows, his finger pressed to his lips.