The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant (37 page)

As my dad presses my palms to his face and sobs deeply, I wonder why, if there was even the chance of me waking up and revealing this secret, Villicus would let me in at all. Why? Why bend the rules for me? Why
want
me, as Gigi said?

Watching my dad shake his head, knowing he would do and give anything for me, my conversation with Ben just an hour earlier returns to me. Ben had said that Villicus used him to manipulate his dad, and that he wanted the same with me. The day I was supposed to be expelled, Teddy said the school wanted to retain me
and
my dad. What would Villicus want with my dad? It’s obvious what he’d want with Dr. Zin: his influential connections. But my dad’s nothing but a tortured widower, a desperate father. A poor, lowly mortician…

…For the wealthiest zip code in the United States.

Suddenly, I get it. Villicus wants my dad to be his newest recruiter. That must have been what he exchanged to get me into the school.

My hands cling to my dad’s face, and he pulls them back to look at me. At once, I have an urge to hug him, to rest in his arms where everything’s always felt so safe. Throwing my arms around his neck, I pull him to me and, too quickly, run out of energy to hold him as tightly as I want to, but that’s okay because he holds me close, then gently releases me, smiling ear to ear.

“Dad?” I struggle to keep my heart rate steady so the monitors don’t squeal. “About my tuition.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Did you agree to recruit rich dead kids for Villicus in exchange for my second chance?” I blurt.

He looks bewildered. “Of course not. Parents are
lucky
to get their kids into Cania. Villicus doesn’t need anyone to recruit besides Dr. Zin, who must love his job. It’s like telling people they’ve won the world’s greatest lottery.”

“You don’t think it’s sort of creepy and wrong, what he’s doing?”

“What’s
wrong,”
he replies, looking hurt, “is good people losing their children. What’s wrong is never getting the chance to tell someone you love how deeply you love them. What’s wrong is having someone you were born to protect ripped from your life. I’ve seen a lot of sad people, honey. What Villicus is offering isn’t wrong.”

“I’m sorry. I know.” Fidgeting, I finally return to my question. “If you’re not going to be recruiting for him, what did you agree to give up to get me in?”

“Oh, honey, that doesn’t matter,” he says, smiling with his big brown eyes. “The less you know at this point, the safer you’ll be.”

But keeping me in the dark hasn’t protected me yet.

“I’d give up anything for you,” my dad continues.

“Dad, please tell me.”

“If Villicus could do the same for your mother, I would have given up anything for her, too.”

The mention of my mother nearly derails my brain. I can’t help but think that I’ve never had a chance to mourn her. My monitors race. My head hurts like someone’s scraping the insides of my skull.

“Baby?” my dad asks, alarmed. “What’s the matter? You need to calm down.”

I’m trying, but it’s like the thought of my mom is tearing my mind to shreds. I shake my head weakly, trying to clear it. My dad mistakes the action as a
no
and, to my surprise, caves like he hasn’t caved since I was a two-year-old holding my breath to get candy.

“Okay!” he exclaims. The beeping on my monitors returns to normal. “What I agreed to exchange for your vivification is very small. Minor. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’d do anything for you.” He darts his gaze all over the room like he’s trying to track an invisible hummingbird. And then he just says it. “I swore I’d never love again. Not another woman. Not another child. That was it.” No beeping. The room goes silent. “It was so minor, I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

I flat-line. But only for a moment.

“Annie!” My dad throws himself on me.

I’m stunned. I knew my dad’s love for me ran deep, but I had no idea. My dad loves me so much, he agreed to be alone
forever.
Just for the chance to know I was alive on some distant island for two more years, where he could visit once in a blue moon and call bi-weekly.

“Don’t do that, sweetie, please,” he says, watching my face. “None of that quivering lip. You know how that kills me.”

I try to stop the tears, but that just makes my chin tremble.

“You’re awake now, so I’ll always have you to love. You just have to stay with me.”

Nodding quickly, I want to agree and believe it’s that easy. But I know, in spite of what my dad believes, that a man like Villicus—a man with power like this—will get what he wants. And I’m damn sure he wants my dad to help him fill his school and, in doing so, take everything he can from the wealthiest people on earth. As long as Villicus has my vial, he’s got what he needs to trap my dad.

I need to get back to Wormwood Island. I need to destroy my vial.

“Our little girl,” my dad whispers. “I read to you every day while you were asleep. Told you everything that was going on. Tried to wake you up by banging these bricks and cymbals. First thing every morning, I’d drive out here to rub ice on your wrists, which they say can shock your system awake.” He points to the cymbals, the bricks, the bucket of ice. And suddenly my moments of dizziness and the extreme cold all make sense. Passing out and seeing him over me makes sense. “Dr. Jones said it was a long shot, but we tried. And now, here you are.”

“What happens if I fall back into a coma?” I breathe, hoping he doesn’t catch onto my secret agenda. I need to know if I can go back there.

“Let’s not worry about that. Just stay with me until the nurse gets back, and she’ll call Dr. Jones.” His eyes are lost, as if he’s worried I might go, as if the trauma he’d mentioned—the trauma the coma has been shielding me from—is so powerful, it could take me again.

“What’s this coma called again, Dad?”

“A psychogenic coma. It’s your brain shielding you from a traumatic memory.”

“And that traumatic memory is…finding Mom?”

Sucking on his cheek, he shakes his head,
no.
Makes sense. How could I be shielding myself from that day, from walking in on my mom’s suicide and tripping over her body, if I can think about it right now and not fall into a coma?

“So, what was it? What am I trying to hide from?”

“The police and I have our theories, baby.” He glances at my monitors. “I don’t think you’re strong enough for this.”

“I’m awake. I’m doing well.”

“I’d like Dr. Jones to check you over first, just in case.”

“I just want to know,” I say. “If I’m going to get through this, it seems important to get over this hurdle.”
Tell me the thing that will send me back into a coma, back to Wormwood.
“It won’t hurt me. I’m here. Talking to you. Awake.”

Reluctantly, he succumbs. But not before he’s paced the room and stroked his beard a hundred times.

“You’ve always been so strong-willed. Just like your mother.”

I smile weakly.

“Try to stay with me?”

I nod, lying to his face and hoping it doesn’t show. His eyes flick between the monitors and me. And then he takes my hand and sits again.

“You found your mother on the floor, do you remember?” He waits for me to nod. “As far as we can tell, you tripped over her when you went to close the oven door.”

I remember. Just like in my nightmares. Walking into the house with the earthquake siren roaring behind me. Stumbling through the darkness. I’d seen the oven wide open, releasing the gas that would kill her, but I hadn’t seen her lying behind the island.

“You remember how Mom didn’t seem very much like Mom in her last months?”

I nod, recalling the way she hurled unrepeatable curses at us day after day. It was like living with a mad stranger.

“She wanted to kill herself,” he says. “The bills. The pain she knew she was causing. Her own pain. She turned on the gas while you were at school and waited to fall asleep.”

“But I came home early because of the earthquake warning,” I say, finishing his thought. Something is feeling very wrong in my head suddenly. I knew she killed herself this way, but there’s something just beyond, some buried knowledge hidden in the darkness. The monitor beeps a little faster.

“Honey, calm down, please.”

“Dad, I’m fine. Please tell me.
Please.”

Rubbing his beard, he nods. “When you tripped over her, Annie, you roused her. She wasn’t gone yet.” His jaw clenches. “And when she woke up, she was the bad version of herself. The very, very sick version.”

As I begin to recognize—and resist—the story I’ve fought to keep out of my consciousness, I strain to keep my pulse even. But it’s impossible. The machines beep in flurries.

“No more,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Dad!” I cry out. The noises pile up in the room as dormant machines awaken, as my body resists what’s happening and prepares for what’s about to happen. “I need to get over this. You need to tell me.”

“Absolutely not!” Without another word, he bounds to the door, pausing briefly to look back at me. “Calm down, baby. I’m going to find someone to help. You need to stay awake.” And then, like that, he’s gone.

I’m left to try to remember on my own, without him to fill in the gaps that will bring on the old memories my mind can’t handle. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try with what little strength I have to remember what happened after my mom woke up. But the memories refuse to be found.

Desperately, I snap my eyes open.

To my indescribable surprise, I find my mother standing before me. Inexplicably.

But it’s clear she is not her human self. Nor is she vivified. This is her ghost, her spirit. Why she’s chosen to come to me now, I can’t imagine—and I’m not given the time to.

In one elegant stroke, her beautiful, ghostly hand traces over my eyes, closing them again. I can feel her with me, bringing back the memories I need. They rush at me like enormous sledgehammers battering through the walls in my mind. Each blow is a memory.

Bang: My trip and slow-motion fall. Seeing my mom on the floor. Seeing her eyes pop open before she reaches for my throat, violently pulling me down.

Crash: She’s grabbing a kitchen chair, lifting it high over her head.

Slam, slam, slam: the chair’s coming down again and again. I’m horrified, shocked to see my own mother transform into a monster. I feel blood near my leg, feel my face swelling, lose focus. My mom screams that she’ll kill me. Straddles me. Grips my hair.

“You tried to kill me that day,” I whisper to the ghost I can’t see.

There.
The blackness opens for me, welcoming me into its embrace. But I’ve only just curled up in my safe cocoon when the soft noises of Wormwood Island steal in, drowning out the nurse’s voice as she finds me asleep, drowning out my dad’s voice as he begs me to come back to him, pushing away the quiet darkness of this in-between state where the blue glow of my mother’s spirit guides me, and shoving me violently back into my attic room.

twenty-four

THE EPIPHANY

I WAKE WITH A START IN A HOUSE THAT IS MUCH TOO
quiet. Only the sound of breathing and something like water dripping into a bucket. Where I’d expected to be lying in a lump at the bottom of the stairs, with Teddy and Villicus looming over me, there is instead my soft little bed under me and a glowing candle on my bedside table. For a moment, I watch it flicker and wonder if it’s a remnant of some late-night vigil.

Here I am, back on Wormwood Island, back in my bed. Back in the body I left behind…how long ago? Glance at the clock. The power is still out. Glance at the window. My head pounds with the strain of peering into the darkness. Looks black out. Looks like a sheet of ice is coating the windowpane, with more icy rain thrumming against it; that was the sound I’d thought was dripping water. It’s still raining, or it’s raining again.

With an enormous sigh, with the task I have at hand boring a hole in my beaten, battered, bruised brain, I close my eyes.
Must not think about what Mom tried to do to me. Must destroy vial.
“Good luck with that,” I tell myself.

“Shh,” I hear Ben whisper before I even realize he’s in the room.

The unexpected sound of a voice would normally send me leaping off my bed, but nothing can shock me now. Ben is lying right behind me; his heavy arm is draped over me.
Ben Zin is spooning me.
His warm hand holds mine, and his other arm rests under my pillow, supporting my neck. His sweet breath hangs in the air. No wonder my breath isn’t like his, and no wonder he could change my teeth like he did; I’m only partway dead, but he’s entirely deceased. I’m even more torn between worlds than he is.

“No one knows I’m in here. Keep quiet.” Ben’s arm tightens around me, and he rolls me gently onto my back. “Teddy left after you—after you left. Did you wake in California, Anne?”

I nod.

“You weren’t supposed to come back,” he whispers. His gaze pores over my face before darting to the stairs. “You were supposed to start again. Go to a normal school. Graduate as valedictorian with transcripts you can actually use.”

I struggle to keep my focus with Ben so near. My eyes have started adjusting, but the throbbing in my head marches on. A low hum resounds somewhere behind my ears. Disorienting. I don’t remember feeling like this the last time I came to Wormwood. I wouldn’t forget a feeling like this.