The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant (31 page)

Pilot grimaces, rolling his eyes, but a bunch of people clap, and everyone turns to him. I find myself leaning away as if trying to stay out of a photo, but his hand around my shoulder keeps me from breaking free.

“Thank you, my good man,” Pilot says, mimicking Jack’s affected speech. Jack bows dramatically, and Pilot faces everyone, steering me along with him as he moves. Seemingly on cue, a sophomore finally ignites the pile of driftwood nearby, and a fire sparks in the center of it, traveling out and up until it roars, crackles, and spits.

“Welcome, everyone,” Pilot says, “to the Festival of Fire and Life.”

I know Pilot’s kidding, but the mention of the villagers’ festival, which I didn’t even realize any of these Cania kids
knew
of, instantly reminds me of Molly. Conjures an image of her. Unearths one of the big things I’ve been hiding from. The memory of following her that night from my bedroom down to her cremation ceremony, where her grandfather lowered her former body onto the fire, where her new body flickered in her mother’s arms before disappearing. They said the fire released the spirit of the child from the power of the island. If the only way to release a child from the island—to keep that child from staying alive in the form Molly was in that night, in the form we’re all in right now—is to burn their former body, that must mean that all of our bodies are stored on the island somewhere; only when those bodies are destroyed can we permanently
die.

My dead body is somewhere here.

It could be right under my feet.

I slowly lower my gaze to the sand, a wave of dizziness—thanks to the drinks—making my head swoon. In the flicker of the fire, I’m half expecting to see a long, boney hand reach up from beneath the sand, to feel its deathly grip around my ankle, to be pulled under the earth where hundreds of decomposing bodies will writhe and claw at me. But no hand reaches up. It’s just sand. Even still, the thought of it rattles me. It’s made the fact that I’m dead—
dead
—much more real. Without thinking, forgetting that Pilot’s midway through a speech, I knock back my shot.

Everyone stares at me.

Pilot laughs. “Easy, Annie! I’m still giving the toast.”

If the blood hadn’t completely drained from my face to my toes already, I might blush. But instead, I just gawk at him, shockingly aware that I’m dead, wondering if we have to stay on this island in order to live or if we’ll ever be free again, amazed at how eerie he looks in the firelight.

He laughs nervously. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. This crazy-ass fire festival and this fine tequila are brought to you by the lovely folks at Jack’s dad’s Agave Shack, the only business Villicus allowed him to keep.”

Wait…
what
?

“To Jack’s dad!”

“And his tequila!”

“All our parents gave up much more than money to get us in here,” Pilot adds slyly, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. “Businesses. Homes. Rumor has it that, not too many years ago, a mother even gave up her own thumbs. Which brings us to my favorite Cania Christy tradition.”

“Tuition Battle!” Harper shouts. A few others copy her, and a chant begins:
Tuition Battle. Tuition Battle.

“Yes, it’s time for the much-honored Tuition Battle. Time to compare notes.” Pilot concludes, “Let’s see whose parents gave up the most, proving that they love them most.”

A half-minute later, the chants have died down, I’ve had two more shots, and I’m sitting on a blanket with Pilot, others settling around us. I’m stunned by what’s about to happen. These students who have been a complete mystery to me are now going to swap stories about what their parents gave up to get them in here.

The Tuition Battle. That’s what they’re calling this.

On my first day here, Pilot and Jack told me tuition was about more than money. But I’d thought they just meant an obscene amount of money. Now this atomic bomb’s been dropped on me: my dad—everyone’s parents—actually gave up
colossal
possessions. Businesses. Power. Limbs! And who knows what else?

What did my dad give up to have access to his dead daughter, if only briefly?

Did he ship my body here? Do I need to be on this island to live here? Do I need to be burned to leave this place? Can I live elsewhere? Was Lotus’s body burned when she was expelled? At once, the reality of Lotus’s expulsion hits me. Her last day was the day I heard the scream on campus, the day I watched Villicus chant, say her father’s name, and throw a tube into the ocean. A vial. A vial of blood.

“That’s all this island needs,” I whisper. “Our blood. Our DNA. To re-create us.”

I marvel that an island could be so enchanted. But my wonder turns to worry quickly as I consider the possibility that the island doesn’t have the power to breathe new life into kids. Perhaps someone here can perform such magic. As unbelievable as that sounds.

Imagine having that power, I think. Imagine being able to approach a father who’s just lost his little girl and offer him the chance to see her live again, walk again, talk again. Everything you never got the chance to say, you can say now. Every kiss you withheld, you can give. Every angry word you said, you can undo. Most people would give anything for one more day with someone they love. What might an
entire
second chance at life be worth to a grieving parent?

“Before we play this, Anne,” Pilot says, nestling on the blanket next to me, “we need to get something out on the table. I mean, you know, right? I saw you watching me the other day, and I figured you’d figured it out.”

“I
know
?”

“Do you?”

I haven’t actually admitted what I know to anyone. Haven’t said the words out loud yet.

“You mean…you mean…” But I can’t finish my thought.

“Uh-huh,” he says, his tone meaning-laden. “
That’s
what I mean.”

“Dead,”
I whisper, finally meeting his black eyes. “Everyone here died.”

He sighs, but then he turns to the settling crowd and shouts, “Hey, guys, she knows! Annie knows. We’re all clear.”

My mouth drops open. All at once, two dozen heads turn my way. Under their amused stares, I slowly exhale and nod. With that minor confirmation of such a major fact, they shrug and turn away. Being dead and then alive again is old news to them.

“Pi,” I whisper, shocked, “why did you tell them that?”

“Because it would’ve been a seriously dull night if we had to keep talking in code, don’t you think? It’s
good
that you figured it out.”

“It doesn’t feel good.”

“I can imagine. Ignorance is bliss, right? Hey, maybe you can move into the dorms now. Be my neighbor. We’ve still got two years together…
until.”

Jokingly, though I can’t see the humor, he closes his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest, like he’s in a coffin.

“Are you saying we don’t get to live beyond graduation?”

“I thought you said you’d figured all this out, Anne-Ban.”

I’m amazed at how quickly the veils have dropped. All this secrecy. Gone, just like that. There was a moment earlier tonight when I thought I’d have to weasel the answers out of Pilot, get him good and drunk so he could fess up the way my dad used to talk about drunken mourners spilling their guts about everything—the mother they secretly hated, the lover they furtively kept. I thought I’d have to torture Pilot for info. Quite suddenly, he’s giving it up so easily.

Too easily.

Speaking of easy, Harper jumps up, bounces to the front of the fire, and shouts out, “Well, someone get Merchant a medal!” She breaks into an undeserved fit of laughter. “All right, all right, it’s good that she knows now. ’Course we can’t go telling Villicus she knows, or the poor dear might get in trouble. And no one wants that.”

“No one wants that more than you!” Jack shouts.

Harper grins and shrugs.

“Villicus will talk to her about it later, I’m sure,” Pilot adds, pulling me closer. “So let’s just go on with Tuition Battle, all right?”

I quietly ask him, “Why shouldn’t Villicus know I know?”

“It’s just…it’s complicated.”

“Try me.”

“This is a pretty big secret to keep, Anne. It’s the reason no one’s allowed to know about the school, the reason my dad got in trouble for telling your dad.”

“But why would he think I can’t keep it quiet?”

“Villicus just needed to know he could trust you before telling you.”

“Why would he think he can’t trust me?”

“Shh,
the battle’s gonna start.”

“Okay, okay,” Harper says as I contain a growl over the ongoing, relentless secrecy, “so, y’all will get a chance to come up to the fire and explain your tuition, then we vote on whose parents gave up the most to get them in here. So, okay.”

She takes a moment to pull her hair back so the rising winds don’t whip it over her face.

“As you know, my family’s got more money than God. Oil money. The
best
kind of money.”

Letting his hand rest for a noticeably long time on my knee, Pilot whispers in my ear, “Did you know Harper got kicked in the head by a prize-winning horse?”

“Why can’t he trust me?” I press.

“Pilot, you and your girlfriend need to
hush
!”
Harper shouts, her drawl extra-thick thanks to the tequila. “So, here’s my tuition. My daddy, because he loves me so damn much, more than he loves my stupid stepmonster, agreed to do
this
!
He told Villicus he’d cause at least ten oil spills every year. And!” Swiping her hands through the air, she cuts everyone off as the whoops begin and as my jaw drops for the second time in as many minutes.
“And
he agreed to make it seem impossible to clean them up.
A-a-and,
when he finally did get around to cleaning them up, he’d only use chemicals that are as bad as the oil.” Gleefully, she claps. “That’s what my pa agreed to do in exchange for a second chance to love me. Top that!”

The roar of a dozen kids shouting erupts; others clap, less impressed. With a fake curtsy, Harper returns to her spot, but not before shooting a glare my way.

I’m stunned silent.

Next, Jack describes how his dad signed over twelve distilleries and breweries, retaining just the tequila factory in Mexico. Twelve of them. Handed to Villicus on a silver platter. All in exchange for giving Jack a second chance at life.

“So tuition isn’t just about money,” I ask Pilot, with my throat tightening around every word, “and it isn’t just about signing over businesses, either. It’s about…?”

“It’s about testing the lengths parents will go to for their children,” Pilot says as if I’m boring him. “How ’bout Jack? Know how he died? He was poisoned by his personal chef.”

The Tuition Battle rages on. Tallulah’s father, a famous movie director, was forced to get a sex change. Mark’s former supermodel of a mother had to gain and keep on
exactly
four hundred extra pounds; every hour—night and day—she weighs herself to ensure she’s on track. The billionaire parents of a senior named Tom agreed to become homeless so he could attend Cania.

Why would Villicus want that?

Why would parents be so willing to do that? Especially if graduation will end our lives?

This must be the hundredth time I’ve asked myself that very question. But it is the first time I’ve actually come up with an answer. And the answer changes everything.

twenty

THE ICE STORM

I KNOW NOW. I KNOW WHY PARENTS GIVE UP EVERYTHING—
and then some—to see their children come to Cania. It’s not just for the chance to extend one’s life a little on the island.

I know why the valedictorian race means so much.

I know why they call it the Big V. Because its rewards are as big as they come.

I know now.
Only the valedictorian gets to live again.

It’s a lottery like no other. With a highly priced ticket to match. Little wonder the Big V race consumes our every action and thought.

“You okay, Annie?” Pilot tries to concentrate his unfocused gaze on me, leaning in.

I am anything but okay,
I think, as Pilot watches me. His face is almost above mine, closer than it’s ever been, and oddly intimidating. Like Ben’s breath, his is candy-scented. Like Ben’s skin, like everyone else’s, his is luminescent, translucent. The acne, the scars, the extra weight, the broken bones of our previous lives, they’re all gone. One glance around the beach reminds me that everyone is flawless, above mere humanity, above mortality. The bonfire sends flecks of ash soaring through the sky.

If those flecks landed on us, would they burn us, I wonder? Can we be hurt?

But my tooth. My tooth was still crooked before Ben sculpted it. And I’ve had a few zits already here. I briefly entertain the idea that I’m still alive when the memory of my dad’s overly happy voice hits me like cold water. He’d only be that happy if he thought he was never going to hear my voice again.

“Annie?” Pilot asks, his voice low. “What about you? Will you go next?”

Should I tell him I don’t know, that I’m terrified of what my tuition might be? If I play along, if I act like I’m knee-deep in knowledge rather than just starting to get my toes wet, Pilot might reveal more, which is exactly what I need him to do.