The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant (33 page)

After what Dia told me about Garnet’s fear that Ben’s not over me, and after what I heard Garnet say to Ben just this afternoon, I need to change Garnet’s mind about Ben’s feelings for me; that’s my first order of business. If Mephisto or Dia find out that I’m secretly collecting followers—that Gia’s gaining power—at least I can die or be sent home knowing I did the best thing I could to secure Ben’s win: I made Garnet
believe
he loved her. I need to remove my relationship with Ben from their memories.

“Of course!” I kiss the paper and tuck it away. “Star Wetpier, history teacher extraordinaire and the woman who rewrote
my
memories, you’re first on my list.”

Star Wetpier is an anagram for
rewrite past
. I’m on my way to the staff quarters at the far end of Goethe Hall, hoping to track her down, when, passing the photocopy room near the front office, I glimpse none other than Star staring my way. I backtrack. Star is watching the archway with her big blue eyes when I step under it. As if she’s been expecting me, she bows her curly, silvery head and holds up the locket she wears around her neck. I squint to see strands of my hair poking out of its smooth silver edges.

“I am already yours,” she says, “Master.” Her gaze stays below my eyes.

Holy crap. I’ve got
three
of them? Why didn’t Pilot say so? Are there
more
?

“How did you know?” I ask her.

“Pilot said you were back. I have been waiting. So many of us have been waiting for you. He’s working to spread the word.”

“Waiting for Miss Saligia.”

At the mention of Saligia’s name, Star inhales deeply through her nose and slowly exhales.

“Even when you left to become this lovely girl and gave me to Mephistopheles,” Star says, “I stayed yours at heart. Where the love lives. Like you taught me.” She gets on her knees. “My powers are yours. You needn’t twist my arm to access them, although you are welcome to.”

“Star, listen.” I glance over my shoulder to make sure no one’s watching this. “Can you get up?”

Obediently, she stands. Like Lou, she never meets my eyes. I get that it’s a sign of respect, but it’s really unsettling. Like talking to a wall.

“Look,” I say, “I need your help. I want to rewrite the past. How can I do that?”

“Rewrite the past?”

“Yeah, I mean, your power is to rewrite history for people, right?”

She nods. “Of course. Thank you for acknowledging me, Master.”

“So how do I do it?”

“You don’t know?”

I got tired of hearing that question long ago. “No, I don’t.”

“Is it
your
history you wish to alter, Master?”

“No. The history of two others.”

“Are they of rank?”

“I don’t think so. A human. And a girl whose soul is Mephisto’s.”

“If I weren’t yours, you would need to harm me to put my skills to work for you.”

I was worried about that. “But since you are?” I ask, hopeful that I won’t have to hurt this poor little thing with her cute, curly hair.

“Since I am,” she says, curtseying, “and I’m awfully proud to be yours, Master. So pleased at your return.” Wow, these people waste a lot of time being subservient. “Simply do as I do when I’m using my powers.”

“You mean when you’re not under duress?”

“Yes. I rewrite moments in one’s history on a sheet of paper and, chanting my incantation, burn it.”

“What’s your incantation?”

She blushes. “But, Master, you would use
your
incantation. Not mine.”

“I have my own?”

Dammit. I don’t know my freakin’ incantation! Am I gonna have to try to wake Gia up and ask her what it is? She only ever stays for a few seconds. And she’s never spoken.

“Rather than trouble yourself, please, allow me.” Star hands a hole-punch to me. “Perhaps you might clobber me with this? Then I’ll do as you wish.”

I look at the hole-punch. There’s no way I’m going to beat anyone! I shake my head.

With a small sigh, Star sets it back on the table next to the printer. “Then, if you’ll permit me,” she says, “I recall your incantation from our years together. I can share it with you.”

“That would be a lifesaver.”

She sees me smile, and she beams. Her teeth make sharp little points and her eyes crinkle into thin slivers that glow yellow. But, that aside, she looks happy. A happy demon.

“I heard you say it a thousand times, Master. But I mustn’t utter it,” she says. “Don’t want to turn to stone.”

Holy crap, turn to stone? Even if Gia was a decently humane underworld leader, she seemed to have a few screws loose. No sooner do I think that than my head starts to throb. That’s the downside of empowering Gia: I’ve found myself sharing more and more of my private thoughts with her.

Star grabs a sheet of paper, scribbles on it, and, with the deepest bow, offers it to me. Thanking her, I take it and leave her with her eyes still downcast.

Feeling closer than ever to saving Ben, I dash up to the fourth floor of the library, the only place I can be alone to think. Problem
is, I’m not alone. No sooner have I opened the door to the chilliest place on campus than I see Ben and Garnet walking toward the stairwell where I stand, dopily squinting at them. On instinct, I whip my incantation behind my back.

“Stalking your ex, Miss Merchant?” Garnet asks me.

I can’t help but look at Ben even though everything in my mind screams not to let on that I have feelings for him. My little plan is not so flawless that Garnet, on looking closer, couldn’t figure it all out. She would only have to ask Kate Haem and Eve Risset if they know why Ben Zin hates me so much, and that would be that. But even still.
Even still
. I look at him, and in doing so I risk blowing everything. It’s just that I so rarely get to see Ben up close like this. I need to soak this moment up, to capture it mentally so that, later, I can close my eyes and remember him. Rapidly, like a camera shutter on overdrive, I memorize his face. I don’t need to memorize his eyes. I already know them down to the lightest, smallest fleck.

“Not exactly.” I step aside for them to leave.

She doesn’t budge, even as Ben hurriedly walks by. I want to breathe him in.

“That’s a beautiful cashmere sweater,” she says to me.

My stomach knots. Oh, shit. It’s Ben’s! I glance between Garnet and Ben.

“Um, yeah, it’s old,” I say.

“I know it is.” Garnet’s face is red as, catching me off guard, she shoves me against the door. “Take it off. Now.”

“She’s not worth it,” Ben tells her.

“Yeah, but she needs to know that,” Garnet says and pushes my shoulder again. “Do you know that, Merchant? Do you know that you’re nothing and no one? Have you got a clue, you poor little screw-hard?”

My skin tightens. I can feel Gia rising, but I push her down. This will all be over soon enough. Stopping behavior like this is the reason I’m here.

“I’m not sure what a screw-hard is,” I say.

Realizing I’m not going to fight her, Garnet scoffs, flips her hair, and joins Ben by the stairs.

“Come on, baby,” she says as she takes Ben’s arm. “I never liked that sweater.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Ben says. I just catch the last words he utters before they disappear around the bend: “I don’t know why you’re insecure about her at all. She’s not even pretty.”

I close my eyes.

And breathe.

And almost abort this whole mission. But I push past my wounded ego and step into the cold library.

Rewriting Ben’s history and Garnet’s history takes longer than I’d expected. There are so many moments I need to erase and replace. My hand is cramped and it’s dark out when, at last, I light one of the many matches Ben and I have stored up here over time and, watching a flame consume their rewritten histories, recite my incantation:

Omnia peccata in saligia

Cum omnibus vitam saligia

The paper burns until its glowing blackness reaches my fingertips. I place what little is left in my palm, give it a little blow to reignite the flame, and watch the significant moments in my history with Ben and with Garnet get reduced to ashes.

“Done,” I say to myself. “Ben will forget me now. And Garnet will forget Ben and I were ever together. Everything we had and did never happened. They’ve been together all this time.”

I walk to the window overlooking the quad and see, far below, Ben and Garnet kissing deeply. He kissed me like that on a few occasions, but he’ll never remember it.

I press my palm to the window.

“I’m not done yet, Ben. But it’s a good start.”

T
HAT
M
ONDAY MORNING
, an unusually happy Garnet greets us in our morning workshop. Everyone seems to notice the improvement in her disposition, but none of them can attribute it to me. I wait for Harper to clue in—to realize I’m behind this—but how could she know? I also wait for her to mention my hairbrush, but she doesn’t.

The day passes slowly. I’m anxious to see Pilot, get a tally on how many people he’s convinced to serve Gia, and move on with visiting the next staff member on my list. I just want to get this all over with, but classes and acting normal keep getting in my way.

“You haven’t asked about Paul,” Molly says to me as we pack up after Superbia’s most recent discussion of
The Picture of Dorian Gray
.

“The guy you gave the smartphone to?”

“We went for a long walk together.”

“Oh. Cool,” I say, my mind elsewhere.

“Nice, Anne. Your interest in my life astounds me.”

Ugh! Acting normal when I have so much on the go! If only I could tell Molly. If only I wasn’t 190 percent positive she’d flip on me and judge me into the ground for exploring my inner demon.

“That sounded bad,” I say and put my book bag down, giving her my full attention. She’s quick to forgive. “So, you and Paul.”

“Not really.”

“But you just said!”

“He’s cute. But I don’t think there’s anything serious there. I’m just having fun. You should try it.”

“Well, he’s a senior with four months left to live,” I remind her. “You might not want to get too attached.”

She zips her bag. “And you might want to read a book on sensitivity.”

“I’m
sorry
,” I say in exasperation.

She ignores me and leaves the classroom just as Superbia calls my name. I reluctantly meander to the front of the room.

“Did you get a haircut?” Superbia asks me. “It’s a bit of a botch job.”

My hand goes straight to the spot Pilot cut. For the briefest moment, I wonder if this is Superbia’s way of telling me she’s on my side now. My gaze darts to her clavicle, exposed in her boatneck sweater. But she’s still wearing Dia’s tattoo; she’s not mine.

“If I were you,” she says, “I’d make sure no one important notices.”

“I’ll try.”

“Are you enjoying the Wilde book?”

I nod.

“What’s your favorite line?”

In the corner of my eye, I watch Molly walk away with a freshman just as Pilot and Harper appear at the doorway. They’re waiting to talk to me.

“Miss Merchant?” Superbia repeats. “Your favorite line.”

“I—I don’t have one.”

“But there are so many!” She tsks. “For example, ‘Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth.’ Do you like that one?”

“I guess, sure.”

“Do you understand what it means? Do you see how, perhaps, it could apply in your life?”

Pilot is coughing to get my attention.

“Not really.”

“Your PT is to look closer, is it not, Miss Merchant?”

“It is. I will. I’ll look closer. I’ll read that whole scene again tonight and look really, really close. Now, I’m sorry,” I say, excusing myself from Superbia. “I’ve gotta go.”

Harper and Pilot loop their arms through mine the moment I enter the hallway.

“What was that about?” Pilot asks me, flicking a glance back at Superbia.

“My PT, I think. And something about sin showing on a man’s face. Not sure.”

They walk me to the cafeteria, where we find a quiet table overlooking the gray ocean. I set my book on the table.

“Why’re you reading that?” Pilot asks.

“For English class,” Harper answers on my behalf. “Superbia assigned it.”

“Interesting.” He turns the book over in his hands while I rummage through my backpack. “She was always your biggest supporter. Rumor is she wept when you left the underworld.”

“Superbia did? What’s that got to do with this book?” I ask.

“Not up to me to say.”

“You’re my follower, Pilot. Can’t I, like, command you to tell me?”

“Superbia ranks above you
and
me. I can’t tell you shit about her or that book she’s making you read.”

“Wait,” Harper says. “Pi, did you or did you not tell me that this Saligia chick ruled the seven deadly sin ladies?”

“Yes, but Saligia gave Superbia and her sisters to Mephisto when she left the underworld. Now they’re Dia’s. It doesn’t matter who they serve, though. All that matters is that they don’t serve Anne now and they’re higher ranking than most of the demons here combined.”

“Then let’s build my followers already and see if we can’t change that.” I find my mom’s barrette, the very one I tried giving Harper the other day, and set it on the book. “Let’s start with this.”

Harper looks at the barrette. “I’ve given your proposition some thought.” She glances at me. “Does your offer still stand?”

“You’d have to serve me, Otto. You couldn’t act like you’re helping me. You’d have to see it as me helping you.”

“I know.”

“Then my offer stands.”

“I’ve got one condition before I stuff this ugly-ass comb-thing in my hair,” she says, holding the barrette. “If you’ve got so many followers, and they’re demon-types, summon one now.”

She and Pilot sit back in their chairs.

“You want me to dance for you. That’s not how it works.”

“Because you can’t do it?”

“This isn’t the movies, Harper. This is real.”

“Summon. Someone.”

“Harper, I wouldn’t know where to start.”