The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant. Joanna Wiebe

my other senses—so, all at once, I can hear Teddy breathing loudly through his mouth, and I can feel the damp milkiness of his too-warm hands. He starts humming, and I open one eye a little to find him concentrating with his eyes closed. Like he’s meditating.

      “Close your eyes,” he commands without opening his.

      His fingers squeeze mine. I watch his thick, overgrown fingernails press deep into my palms, making me wince. As Teddy repeats his command, I glance at the Zin mansion lit by twilight beyond my window and allow myself to think not of Teddy but of Ben. Pretending Teddy is someone else—someone who I already recognize as the secret crush of my junior year—is the only way to get through this. I snap my eyelids shut and visualize Ben’s thick hair, piercing eyes, and crinkle-nosed grin.

      Moments pass like this. I’ve never had a reading done, but they’re common enough where I come from that this isn’t completely absurd. Just semi-absurd.

      All at once, though, a shudder overtakes my body, and I’m caught off-guard by the strongest sensation of being not entirely myself any longer—of being invaded by some sour presence that lumbers its way around under my skin.

      “Wait,” I begin, but my voice catches in my throat.

      I twitch involuntarily, as if my body is shaking out an intruder.

      It’s as though Teddy’s reaching into my soul, and my soul is trying to shove him out. But that’s impossible. Teddy is just a guy. The effect, the unnerving sense of having company under my own skin, can only be the result of some manipulated pressure point on my hands.

      “Remain absolutely still, Miss Merchant,” Teddy warns.

      Keeping still is the last thing on my mind. A wave of nausea runs over me, and I suck my tongue to avoid getting sick right there on the creaking wooden floors, squeeze my eyes shut tighter, and tell myself to breathe. What’s happening? Moments creep by. The sense that this might never end washes over me.

      But still I stand, motionless, doing as I’m told, finally realizing that this—whatever this is—is the manner by which all students have their PTs selected. And I, like everyone else, am expected to stand quietly while I’m mysteriously, telepathically prodded.

      Opening my eyes during a brief moment of calmness, I watch Teddy’s long head rumble on his neck, teetering and bouncing like a bobble on the end of a radio antenna; his eyes are still closed. My stomach is once again on the brink. My skin feels tighter every second. And the idea, the absurd notion that Teddy could somehow be penetrating my soul, my aura, whatever you want to call it—that idea is flipping over and over in my mind. Without a resolution. My brain tells me it’s impossible. My body makes a shockingly compelling argument against my brain.

      “Yes.” Teddy’s tongue slithers. His tone is peril personified, but I’m glad for the noise, for the promise of this all being over soon. “I see it. It’s you. I see your PT.”

      See my PT?

      “Your soul is very old yet invigorated. It is…so seductive.”

      “Gross.”

      “Hush now. A shadow hovers over you.”

      With a sharp, unexpected gasp, Teddy suddenly lifts my hands high in the air. My eyelids pop open. His eyes flash wide, glowing oddly, bloodshot beyond repair as his gaze fuses with mine. Briefly, in that moment, I feel, in spite of myself, as if our souls are real, as if our souls are touching each other, as if I can see his and—to my great surprise—it’s not all dark. But then, without warning, he whips my arms down. Hard. So hard, I hear a snap, and my shoulders feel like they’ve popped right out of their sockets as he releases me.

      With a howl of shock and pain, I hobble away. I balance myself after a spell of stumbling and lean against the foot of my bed, rubbing one shoulder, then the other. The only consolation, and it is a significant one, is that I feel like myself once again, even if I’m struggling to catch my breath, even if a dull creaminess coats my tongue.

      “I have seen your PT. You have in your aura a tendency toward—” Teddy hesitates, standing in the midst of a great, long, exaggerated pause “—seduction.”

      I collapse against the bed and, baffled by the whole experience, start laughing. “Are you kidding me?”

      “Miss Merchant,” Teddy says, holding his hands up, “I assure you that your spirit does, in fact, lean toward a hyper-sexualized state.”

      “Or you wish it would,” I counter, glaring up at him as the smile leaves my face. “If my PT were to sleep my way to the top, or whatever it is you have in mind, then tell me, dear Teddy, how would you grade me on that?”

      He flinches. “You can’t be suggesting…”

      “Having your way with me here? Nightly stripteases in your bedroom, Teddy? Is that close to what you were thinking?”

      “That would be an abuse of power! I would never!”

      “I’ll have you know that my uniform is as tight as it is because someone got my measurements wrong!” I get to my feet, wincing at the pain, and stride to the top of the stairs, gesturing for him to leave the attic. “I won’t sign anything that says that’s my PT. In fact, maybe I’m not interested in the Big V after all. Maybe I’ll be just like Pilot and turn my back on this idiotic race.”

      “Wait!” Teddy cries, coming after me. “You need to do this, Anne.” His expression is softer—almost kind—as he looks at me now. “There was something else in your aura.”

      “Surprise, surprise. What is it?”

      “I would encourage you to choose the one I mentioned, though. It is your greatest strength. There are many ways to use your sexuality to your advantage. It doesn’t have to be as obvious as you might think.”

      “That’s BS. What was the other one? Tell me.”

      Reluctantly, Teddy nods. “It is because you are an artist that this is in you at all,” he stammers, which, in combination with his thick accent, makes him that much harder to understand. “But I warn you that, although you are an artist in this life, you may not have been in other lives. Your soul has spent much longer in the role of the seductress than the artist.”

      “Teddy! Just tell me.”

      “Your alternative PT, Miss Merchant, is that you will succeed in life by looking closer. Beyond the surface. By asking questions and never accepting things at face value.”

      “Looking closer?”

      I can’t help but smile a little. It’s exactly right. I feel it immediately, and knowing that Teddy was able to land on this assessment of my strength—a strength that one art curator once commented on—makes me wonder, for the briefest moment, if he was actually somehow in my soul, reading it.

      “This might only cause you trouble, Miss Merchant,” Teddy warns.

      “It’s perfect. Let’s do it. What do I sign?”

      “Very well.” Teddy’s voice shakes as he lifts the form to me. I scribble it down and turn to let him go.

      “Not so fast,” he says. Turning back, I find him lifting a long, silvery needle from his case and holding it out to me.

      I stare at it. “What’s that?”

      “To seal the deal.”

      “To what?”

      “We seal our official forms with blood at Cania Christy. It’s in my guide.”

      “You’re really funny tonight. But you should probably leave now.”

      Teddy just holds the needle out to me.

      “So we’re in the Middle Ages now?”

      “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” Teddy says. “Signing in blood is a tradition