The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant (14 page)

“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 find 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 them. 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.

Five minutes later, Pilot and I are on the beach, sitting side by side on a huge fallen tree that’s turned white and smooth with age and wind and countless waves crashing over it. Deadwood scraps litter the sand. The sun is out for the first time all week, and a family of sea lions takes in the rays on the rocks. Foamy water inches slowly up the shoreline, lapping at the shapeless feet of the lions. Amazing how mammoth they are, I think, and how little attention they pay to us. As if they haven’t even noticed us, yammering as we are.

“Is it just me,” I begin, “or are things weird around here?”

“Ha! Just follow my lead, and you’ll be fine.”

Pilot then proceeds to bring me up to speed on all things Cania Christy—from the teachers to avoid to the secretaries to kiss up to.

“Dr. Tina Naysi, the chem prof, looks senile but is actually, like, a genius. Trey Sedmoney—well, you already know him. He’s caught groping at least one student every month, so watch your ass.” He grins. It’s the perfect invitation for me to tell him what I saw Harper doing last night, but I’d rather pretend it didn’t happen. “There’s no one in the front office worth trusting.”

“The secretaries are insanely creepy. And immature.”

“Yeah, just don’t get in a fistfight with one of those fuglies.” He cracks his knuckles and tugs a branch out from a tangle of mushy seaweed. “They’ve got nothing pretty to protect.”

“Except their brooches. Those are stunning.”

“Brooches?”

“Yeah. They all wear the same one. An emerald one. The cafeteria ladies wear it, too.”

“Really?”

“And the teachers, but theirs have rubies. Except Garnet.”

“They do?”

I stare at him. He’s pulling bark off the branch. “You hadn’t noticed?”

“Guess I’m not that perceptive.” Then an idea hits him, brightening his face. “Hey! Maybe they all
have
to wear it. Like, their heads’ll fall off if they take off the magical jeweled pin. Like that story about the woman with the yellow scarf or whatever, and her head fell off.”

It’s hard not to smile, watching Pilot pretend he’s trying to keep his head on straight, watching him stagger off the tree to blindly chase an invisible head down the beach. When he finally collapses on the sand at my feet, he begins rehashing all these crazy stories from last year, chuckling as he impersonates teachers. I laugh along with him, but I’m surprised to find myself
watching
him more than listening. I notice the way his lips move softly as he speaks. His dark eyes glisten brightly, and his animated face is lovely and expressive. He’s not as tall as Ben is, but that puts him right at my height, which could work—as long as I never wear heels, which I don’t. Like everyone else at Cania, he’s flawless, with skin that a magazine ad might call
radiant
or
glowing
but what I’d venture to call
candescent,
lit from within.