I WAS WRONG. I CAN MARCH UP A MOUNTAIN–OR AT least a steep hillside—in these heels, if I’m angry enough.
Fuming, I head to the cliff where I watched Villicus the other day. My motivation for climbing up here is simple: I want to get as far away from that dance as possible, and I don’t want to go home. I just want to escape. To a place where it’s dark and calm. My first thought was the parking lot, but a bunch of kids were making out there. So I marched on and up. To the one place where I can stare out at the enormous sky and hope to feel my mom looking down. Where the echo of my voice might reach her, and she can call on some angels to help me out here—maybe even send a lightning bolt to zap Harper like a Kentucky-fried bitch. But, no matter how I beg, there is no lightning. Only a chilly breeze that grows fiercer the higher I get.
The air is filled with competing sounds. A cover of a My Chemical Romance song pours from the castle; loons and sea lions, which ought to be asleep, sing their lonesome odes below; my breath heaves as I storm up the hill, giving myself hell for wimping out with Harper. At the summit, I unstrap my borrowed shoes—the words Property of Molly Watso written inside them—and look out over the endless black waters. My toes curl into the cool, damp grass. My bare heels rest on a flat patch of icy cold rock. Shoes in hand, I creep to the edge, where Villicus stood, where the pulsating moon beckons me as though it has a secret to share. I peer over the cliff, listening; my head swoons with the waves crashing below. Here I stand, staring down a 100-foot drop, inches away from a fall that will mean death, the ultimate escape from the bitches and freaks at Cania.
“It’s not worth it.”
I recognize his voice without even looking back at him. What’s he doing here?
“What do you know?” I ask. But, heading his words, I stumble away from the cliff, leaving the waves to clobber the black granite, to wear away at it chip by chip. The wind thrusts wide wisps of hair across my face when I turn to see Ben, who is just feet away, cloaked in the dark shadows of darker trees. I’m not in the mood for him. I don’t need to feel like an idiot any more tonight, thanks.
“What are you doing up here?” he asks. He looks gorgeous in his suit, and that only makes things worse.
“I didn’t realize this was private property.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“What are you doing up here?”
He shrugs. “You left the dance?”
Pressing my tongue against the back of my teeth to keep from saying more, I nod. I need to forget about Harper, not rehash it all.
“You weren’t having a good time?”
I shrug.
“You’ve lost the ability to speak?”
I huff. “No. I’m just—it doesn’t matter.”
Sighing, Ben passes me, a current of air carrying his aroma as he glides by and walks to the very spot I was just standing, inches from the edge. There, he gazes at the water below.
“I used to love dances,” he says. “I used to go to my sister’s recitals all the time.” He faces me again. His eyes are fluorescent green against the gray sky; his expression tortured. “Jeannie took ballet. Jeannie. That’s my sister.”
He’s obviously struggling with some old memory, some homesickness I could relate to, if I wanted to. But I don’t. I don’t want anything more than to be left alone. Especially by Mr. Hot and Cold himself.
“You remind me of Jeannie sometimes,” he says out of nowhere. “And not just because you won that dance-off back there.”
The revelation nearly knocks the wind out of me. I stare at him, wondering why he’s so damn hard to pin down. His emotions must run on a dial, and he’s just turned it from Complete Asshole Mode to Charming Mode.
“Because I’m blonde?”
“How do you know Jeannie’s blonde?” Then he smiles. “Oh, yeah. The break-in yesterday. You saw her photos on my computer.”
It’s bad enough that he knows I broke in, but that’s he’s calling me on it? Now, when I already feel like jumping off a cliff?
“What else did you see?” he asks. The moonlight on his face reveals his mystified expression.
“Nothing,” I lie.
“Nothing?”
“What does it matter?” The wind whips my hair across my face and into my mouth, making me cough. Damn Harper for breaking my barrettes! “I saw a web page,” I growl, shoving my hair away. “Some photos of your family.”
“That’s it?”
“Your sketchbook. And a freaky old book about demons.”
“Did you read it?”
“Read it? Why would I?”
“Because your PT is to look closer,” he says, gliding toward me. I stumble backward with surprise, but that only brings him forward even more. “Tell me you read it.”
“How do you know what my PT is?”
“Everyone’s PTs are saved in a spreadsheet on my dad’s Mac, which you’d know if you were any good at looking closer.”
“My PT is private!”
“My whole house is private.”
He rushes toward me now, and before my heart can skip a beat, before my brain can process the fact that he’s near, his incredible face is little more than an inch away from mine. I gasp, trying to step back further, to stay at a distance where he won’t see my crooked tooth and judge me again like he did before. But he catches me by the waist and pulls me against his chest.
“But that didn’t stop you from breaking in,” he finishes, gazing into my eyes disarmingly.
“You’re wrong, you know,” I stammer, trying to find my voice and winded by the surprise of feeling his body against mine, his hands on my back, tortured by the presence of his beautiful lips so near mine but so out of reach. “I looked for answers on your computer.”
“Then what did you find?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
Am I supposed to be looking for something? This isn’t the first time Ben’s implied so. He tilts his head and inches his face close enough that our lips nearly brush.
“You should have read the whole book,” he says. “Every book on our shelves. I can’t—” he sighs, his eyes flooding my face “—I can’t give you the answers.”
“What answers?” I gasp. This closeness to Ben, when he is always so unimaginably distant, is clouding my mind and compromising my focus.
“I can’t risk everything. You have to try. I thought you were smarter than this.”
“…smarter?”
Exactly the word to wake me from his trance.
Worst of all? He’s right. I’m an idiot for falling for his charms time after time. And the moment I let that fact hit me, the moment I remind myself that I am hopelessly brainless around him, I shove at his chest, trying to free myself.
But he refuses to release me. “That’s not what I meant,” he says, his low voice rumbling over my face as he grips my wrists behind my back. “You always misunderstand me. Just hold on a second.”
Even as I wriggle, I notice that his breath is sweet like cotton candy. His eyes unimaginably clear. His skin glowing. When he turns his head a fraction and the moonlight slips over the side of his face, he radiates a soft white light. I stop wrestling.
“Oh, my gosh,” I whisper, locked on him.
“What is it?”
Our eyes meet. And slowly, before I can stop myself, I say, “You’re perfect.”
He thrusts me away. I stumble, barely keeping myself from falling, as he retreats.
“No,” he says. It sounds like a warning. “I’m not.”
Again, I’m an idiot! I’ve lived my life with a perfect GPA and was once called an art prodigy. Yet, somehow, I’m totally mental when it comes to Ben Zin.
“You of all people,” he sighs, running his hands through his hair wildly. “You’re an artist! You should want to look beyond the surface. Find the greater truth. Look at all the layers and reject them, one by one. Don’t you get that? You must try to see beyond the illusion of normalcy they create.”
“Normalcy?”
“I’ve hinted at so much already, Anne.”
“Hinted? You call those hints? A few book titles outside some hall? You’re so unbelievably cryptic, it’s like talking to Gollum!”
That comment obviously throws him off but only for a moment.
“Look, I’ve been doing my best to help you. I got in trouble for it, too.” He fidgets with his suit sleeve. “Why did you bother breaking in? Weren’t you looking for exactly what’s inside Ars Goetia?”
“It wasn’t my idea. It was Molly’s,” I blurt. And, with that, my confession is just spilling out of me. “She said we should find out about your girlfriend. We saw you leave. And we just thought…” I search the moonlit horizon for a way out of this. “It was stupid.”
“My girlfriend?” His smile makes a surprise reappearance. “And who exactly is my girlfriend?”
“You tell me!” I holler, exasperated as I throw my hands in the air. The shimmery Jimmy Choos in my hand reflect the moonlight. “That blonde girl. The one in your house the other day.”
He says nothing for an eternity. So I don’t, either. Instead, I stand silently in the wind, waiting for who knows what. Beating myself up for abandoning Pilot at the dance. Silly me. A perfectly nice guy with a good head on his shoulders likes me, and I’m in a shouting match with an unattainable snob who takes every opportunity to trash my intelligence.
“It doesn’t matter,” I stammer, ending the silence, ending it all. “I’m going to be smarter going forward.”
“You saw me with her?”
“I don’t want to hear a word about it.” It’s bad enough that I’ve spent the last few days stressing over it. It’s bad enough that I’ve told myself Ben couldn’t have a blonde girlfriend, that I’ve convinced myself it was his study partner. If Ben actually has a girlfriend, he can keep it to himself. I’ve suffered enough tonight. “I’m over it.”
“Over it? Why? Because you’ve found true love with your reckless boyfriend, Pilot?”
“My what?”
“Be careful with him.”
“He’s neither reckless nor my boyfriend. He’s good. He never makes me feel like you do, and he doesn’t judge me for my flaws. That, and he’s above this whole valedictorian race.”
“Wait a second,” Ben says, shaking his head. “What makes you think I’m not above the race, but he is?”
“Because you’re so hateful! You keep to yourself. You never say hello. You’re just like everyone else. Except Pilot.”
For a second, Ben looks like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. For a second, I wish I could take it back.
“That’s what you think? I’m hateful? You don’t…you don’t feel any sort of connection to me whatsoever?” he asks, his eyes narrowing as he moves closer to me, sending me staggering backward again.
My heel hits a rock, and I lose my balance, regaining it just in time to keep from falling but not before my shoes fly from my hand and down the dark hill. Great. Now I’ll never find them.
“Well, tell me,” he continues, “how would you feel if you lived day after day on this island? With the bullshit rules, signing forms in blood, a fucking mausoleum for a graduation hall, expulsions around the corner for everyone—just as you start to care about them.”
“Care! You?”
“Yes, care! I’m capable of it, you know. Let me prove it.”
That gets my attention. That’s interesting.
“How will you prove it?” I ask tentatively, hoping against hope that he’ll pull me close to him again.
“With advice, which is all I can give you,” he storms, stuffing his hands in his pockets like he’s trying to control himself. “Do what your Guardian says. Work for the Big V. And, for God’s sake, stay the hell away from Molly. You will get caught.”
I. Am. A. Fool.
“Thanks, Ben,” I begin soberly. “But I already have a Guardian giving me all the advice I can take. Keep yours. I don’t need it.”
Clenching my teeth, I whirl and race down the hill, refusing to yell at Ben or let him yell at me for another second. I hear him call my name, but I ignore it. In the shadows, I trip on one of my abandoned heels, which scrapes the bottom of my foot. Wincing with pain, I stumble, grab the shoe, and glance back at the mountaintop. But I can’t see him.
“Of course he’s gone,” I sniffle.
Of course he doesn’t care to follow me or make sure I’m alright. Patting around in the darkness for Molly’s other shoe, I feel tears heat my face; they blur my vision, and I lose patience looking for the shoe. It’s gone. So I hike up my dress and race down the remainder of the hill. The bottom of my foot is bleeding as I stumble onto campus, begrudging the music that I’d danced to an hour ago, begrudging everything that has been taken from me tonight.
Sunday morning. There’s a sparkly Jimmy Choo on the landing outside my bedroom door when I head downstairs. I’ve got to meet Molly in half an hour down at the marina, and I need to get a coffee. Last night kicked the crap out of me.
I pick up the shoe. Read Molly’s name inside.
Freeze in place.
As it occurs to me that someone has found the missing shoe and returned it to me when Molly’s name is written inside, as the implications of this returned shoe dawn on me, I hear a noise downstairs.
Someone is weeping.
I creep down the stairs, avoiding the step that creaks, and pass Teddy, who’s glowering at me in the living room.
Gigi is sobbing at the kitchen table. Her crying stops short, and she shifts in her chair to face me as I enter the room. Mascara streaks her face. In her hand, she swirls a glass of whiskey around some ice cubes.
“It’s done,” she says. “The last child in the village is dead.”
Her words rush at me with so much force, it feels like they’re pulling the walls in around us. Stunned, I wait for my brain to make sense of what she’s saying. I wait to be crushed.
“Villicus left her no choice,” she continues. “It was Cania or…death.”
My throat doesn’t work. My brain can’t catch up. It’s too much. I must be sleeping. Except I’m not. This is happening.
Molly.
“What do you…?” My voice falters. Cania or death?
All at once, in an alarming montage, I see Molly standing outside last night, with that white box in her hands. Poking her head in the door at the Zins’ on Friday, smiling her metallic smile. Waving to me as she biked away.
Gigi sputters, “Molly’s dead now. What are we supposed to do? What have we become?”
I see idiot me, carelessly leaving Molly’s shoe on the hillside. I see Teddy, standing at his bedroom window last night, watching Molly say we should meet for a gossip session this morning. Turning, I walk into the living room, walk up to Teddy, and deliberately bring my hand across his face with all my might—or at least I try to. He catches my wrist midair and stares me down.
“You did this to Molly,” he states bitterly. “You both knew the rules. But you decided to break them.”
Yes, I’m to blame for breaking a rule. But it was a ridiculous rule. And it was Teddy who told Villicus what he saw; I wouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Zin was behind this, too. Behind the death of an innocent kid who broke a rule no one can even explain. The punishment is so preposterous, so out of whack with the crime that I know now that there’s more to this island and the people on it than I’ve been told. I know, glaring into Teddy’s hate-filled sallow face, that I’m in a high-priced insane asylum. And if I believed in it, I might even be convinced I’m in Hell itself.