Читать книгу The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant - Joanna Wiebe - Страница 12
ОглавлениеIT SMELLS LIKE WET DOG OUTSIDE THE CLOSET IN WHICH Lou Knows and Pilot keep their janitorial supplies. I must have walked by this closet a dozen times in the last month and seen Lou bent over, filling his dingy yellow bucket with soapy water. All along, he’s known something about me. Or so Pilot suggested the other day.
Today, I’m going to find out what Lou Knows knows about my soul.
And so restarts my attempts to act on my PT to “look closer” when, in fact, all I really want to do is close my eyes and, like all the other Cania students do, act as if nothing weird is going down. But last night I saw something I’d have to be brain dead—not just in a coma—to forget. I saw something I’d be crazy not to investigate. I saw something that Harper is so going to blab to the whole school; even in a land of sworn enemies, Harper has a way of spreading news. So before I have to deal with girls in the bathroom whispering trash about my (I can’t believe I’m actually admitting this) tail, which has thankfully not reappeared since Harper screamed it away, I need to get a handle on what’s up.
So I wait for Lou.
I lean against the wall. I drum my fingers on the cool painted cinder blocks. The clock above me ticks so loudly, it echoes all the way down the hall, bouncing off the lockers. I’m next to the chem lab, inside of which Miss Incitant—one of many new faculty members Dia brought in—is conducting a lesson I can just overhear. Her name is Latin, just like Invidia, though incitant isn’t one of the seven deadly sins, so Miss Incitant can’t be one of the Seven Sinning Sisters; this is a little more proof that my hunch was right: Dia’s demons go by Latin names.
“The study of chemistry dates back how far?” Miss Incitant asks her students, who are so quiet, their silence echoes. Evidently none of her students’ PTs is to be successful by throwing the teacher a bone. “Thousands of years. To where? Anyone? To the Middle East, where philosophers and scientists engaged in what we now call… anyone? In what we now call alchemy. And what is alchemy?” She waits, patiently pulling teeth. “It is the art of freeing parts of the Cosmos from temporal existence. To what end? Yes, Jackson—oh, you’re just stretching. Anyone else care to try? Alchemy achieves the goals you seek here: longevity, immortality, and redemption. And thus chemistry is magic.”
Magic. Immortality.
Was what I saw last night magic? Was it the work of alchemy? Did someone put a spell on me? Does every student at some point look like I did, thanks to our proximity to demons? Or am I, like, possessed?
I slide to the floor to wait for Lou. I open my sketchbook. Time ticks by. Before I know it, I’ve filled page after page with hasty renderings of the vision I saw last night: her voluptuous body, her pillowy lips, her commanding stance and impressive height. The movement of her hand as she tugged her nightie to cover herself. Yes, I’m thinking about my own reflection as if it wasn’t mine at all. That’s because whatever I saw, it was nothing like me.
I tear out a page and absently roll it into a long tube. I stare down the hall through it, like a telescope. Still no Lou. I flip it over and write his name on it.
“Lou knows my soul,” I whisper. “Why do you know my soul?” I ask the name on the page.
I tap my pencil over Lou Knows and stare ahead. Lou is a demon with a non-Latin name, a demon that was here before Dia arrived. It’s probably safe to say he serves Mephisto.
“But why does Lou know something about me? Or why does he think he does?”
Lou suggested the same thing that Teddy did: that I could succeed by using my “feminine wiles.” But Teddy only said that after he’d read my soul; I’ve never even touched Lou, so he couldn’t have read my soul. How did he gain special insight into who I am?
A noise up the hall steals my attention. It’s just a heater cranking on.
I look at the page again: Lou Knows.
And then I see it.
I can’t believe I’ve missed it.
I jot a phrase under his name: know soul. And then, moving between his name and those two words, I strike out letters until I’ve proven my guess right.
His name is an anagram for ‘know soul.’
Wondering if that’s just lucky—just a one-time coincidence— I write down the next staff name that pops into my head: Trey Sedmoney, Harper’s Guardian, the only teacher I’ve had the displeasure of seeing in the buck (purely for artistic purposes), and a decidedly creepy dude. He was here before Dia, so he’s one of Mephisto’s. Do all demons have a special power? Is it possible that all of Mephisto’s servants, when they arrive here, get names that are anagrams of their powers? And maybe Dia’s followers have kept their underworld names because he was rushed here; I’ve already seen that Dia needs Hiltop’s help with almost everything related to this school, so he definitely wasn’t prepared to come here. It’s possible…
I stare at Trey Sedmoney.
Rearranging that name is a lot harder because I have no idea what Trey’s power could be, unlike in the case of Lou Knows. Trey is Harper’s Guardian, so maybe something to do with sex? But no matter what I try, those twelve letters don’t rearrange to form any sex-type phrases.
I scribble his name out. Maybe I’m wrong about this. But before I discount the whole idea, I remember that, my first day here, the secretary Kate Haem used all sorts of anagrams for my name. I thought it was just an annoying game, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was a hint. Was Kate trying to tell me something almost from the moment I stepped foot on this island? But why would she do that?
I write down Kate Haem.
That turns into “aka theme,” “take me ha,” and “meet kaha” until eventually I land on something that just might be right.
“Make hate,” I whisper.
Kate Haem’s power could be to make hate.
Immediately, I write down Hiltop P. Shemese, which rearranges easily into Mephistopheles. It’s not a single power, but perhaps that’s because Mephisto is higher-ranking and, thus, has multiple powers.
I list everyone I can think of. The secretary, Eve Risset; my sculpting teacher, Dr. Weinchler; the music prof, Maestro Insullis; the gym coach, Stealth Vergner; the history teacher, Star Wetpier; the poetry prof, Levi Beemaker. Then my housemoms, Elle Gufy and Shera T. Bond. And Ben’s housedad, Finn Kid.
I start with the short names. They’re easier.
“Finn Kid might be able to find kin,” I say as I write it down. “And Elle Gufy could be feel ugly. Maybe Shera is bond hearts? And I think…Star is…rewrite past. Or trap sweet.” No, that leaves an extra I and R. “Rewrite past. That’s what Star can do.”
As I’m working on Stealth Vergner’s name, Lou finally rounds the corner. He’s hunched over his yellow bucket, steering it with the mop and the lever he uses to ring the mop out. Between the gap in his teeth, he is whistling a low tune. Until he spies me. Then he stops in his tracks.
I close my sketchbook and stand.
“If you’s looking for Pilot—” he says and starts pushing his bucket again.
“I’m looking for you.”
“Some idiot throw up or something?”
“No, I don’t need you to clean anything.”
Watching me from the corner of his dark purple eye, he pushes the bucket past me, jingles with his keys until he unlocks the door, and shuffles into the cramped space of the janitor’s closet. I follow him in, almost pass out from the muggy chemical stench, and close the door behind us. Lou dumps brown water out of the bucket and sticks a hose in it to rinse the remaining grime down the drain.
There’s nowhere to sit.
“Cut to the chase,” he says over the rush of water.
“Pilot said you know something about my soul. My history. Something that makes him think I’d be successful in life”—ridiculous— “on my back.” Old pipes squeal as he shuts the water off. “Were you guys just being pervs, or is there something I need to know? About my soul.”
Lou faces me. His blue coveralls are wet with mop water, and a smear of mud or oil crosses his stubbly cheek. With the set of his jaw, if he weren’t so thin, he’d almost look like a bulldog.
“Pilot told you that?”
“Tell me what you know, Lou. Please.”
“It don’t work like that.”
“Well what do it work like?”
“If a demon’s gonna get me to cough up what I know about their soul, they’re gonna have to be my master or twist my arm a good deal.”
“And if a human wants to know?” I tap my foot.
“I ain’t high ’nough ranking to give no human what they want, unless I serve them.”
“Demons can serve humans?”
“And humans go ’round serving us, too. Happens lots. Usually don’t work out though.”
“Your master is…Mephisto?”
He nods fast and taps the pin on his shirt pocket. It’s just as I’d suspected.
“Then how come you told Pilot about this secret you’re keeping about me? Did he twist your arm?”
“We was just shootin’ the shit at work. It came up. Wasn’t a favor or special request or nothin’.”
“Well, what if we were to shoot the shit?” I ask hopefully. “You and I.”
His lips curve. His stringy black hair shakes. “It’s never been that the likes uh you’d do that with the likes uh me.”
The bell rings, and Lou takes that as his cue to limp out of the janitor’s closet as if we weren’t just in the middle of a conversation. Frustrated, I give the messy closet one last look, hoping to see something I can use, but come up empty-handed.
I boot it to my next class: Exploring the Science of Consciousness. There Mr. Farid—whose first name is Moses and whose power, I spend ten minutes working through, is to disarm foes—drones on about anesthesia, cognitive unbinding, and seeing visions. His words remind me of the woman I saw in the mirror last night. That’s a vision I’ll never, ever tell Ben about.
Which is exactly what I think when I find Ben waiting in the hall for me after class.
As I walk toward him and watch his smile turn into that crinkle-nosed grin I love, I privately will whatever that weird vision was last night to go away and never return. Let me be as normal as Ben is. Please.
“Hungry?” he asks.
“On Wormwood Island?” The upside of vivification is you can’t die of anything, including hunger; the downside is that your will to eat virtually vanishes. “We could go for a walk.”
“That sounds good.”
Our fingers touch, twine, and release in a way that gives me shivers. I know that, eventually, I’m going to have to convince Ben to leave me and tell Garnet he’s made a huge mistake in rejecting her. But for now—just for now—I’m going to enjoy it.
Or so I think.
As we push into the cold air, I spy Pilot sprinkling salt on any icy patches of sidewalk. Although Lou may not have opened up about the skeletons in my closet, Pi is going to. Even if I have to force him.
“Gimme a sec?” I ask Ben. “I’ve gotta talk to my, um, Guardian. I’ll meet you by the dorms in five.”
He suspiciously eyes Pilot, whose back is to us, but finally agrees and turns away. I rush behind Pilot and tip over the broom he’s rested against a tree. He stumbles, curses, and scrambles after it. But when he pushes up his woolly cap to see me glowering at him, his eyes light up.
“Anne! You ready to talk about the Big V? Great! We’ve gotta get prepping for the Scrutiny.”
“The what?”
“I’ll tell you all about it—don’t worry, it’s not till Christmastime. Short-list stuff.” He hurriedly starts shoving the bucket of salt to the side. “We can meet now—that’s cool, let me put this stuff away— but I want a session every single day, got it?”
“Cut the crap, Pilot. I asked your little janitor buddy what he knows about me.”
“You did? Even better! So you’re ready to change your PT?”
“I might consider it.”
“If ?”
“If you tell me what he wouldn’t.”
“Lou didn’t tell you?”
With my hands on my hips, I shake my head. “So go ahead. I’m listening. What’s my story?”
“I—I can’t, Anne. Lou outranks me. I’m just a punk. I’m still trying to become a demon. If my superior won’t tell you, I sure as hell can’t. We get destroyed for breaking rank.”
“Get real, Pilot. Your chances of escaping this crappy life of yours hang in the balance.”
“I know, but rank is everything. If I knew Lucifer—the leader of Hell—was plotting against Mephisto, I couldn’t tell him, even though I serve him. Rules are rules.”
“‘Rules are—’? What happened to the Machiavellian son of my favorite sex-addict senator? You make up your own rules.”
“I wish I could help you, Anne. I really do.”
“So Hell has turned a sinner into a saint?”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“The truth! I know that Lou’s power is to know my soul.”
“How do you know that?”
“I figured it out. And Kate Haem makes people hate each other.”
“That’s great. See? You could easily win this thing.”
“Only if you tell me what Lou knows about my soul.”
He shakes his head. No matter what I say, Pilot’s adamant that he can’t tell me a thing, insisting that the underworld follows a medieval caste system he’d be a fool to ignore.
“So what’s your power?” I ask him.
“I’m a punk. I don’t have one yet.”
“Great. What good are you to me?”
“Don’t give up!” He calls as I storm away, “Use your PT, Anne. The one you’ve got now—use it!”
Look closer. Look bloody closer. It’s become code for You’re on your own, sucker.
