Something is very, very wrong.
When the Smiths stop sobbing with joy long enough to realize that there may be little to be joyful for, the only sounds in the room become the low wheeze that leaves Damon’s mouth in choppy spurts and the creaking of the floor as he turns toward new noises.
“What’s going on?” Dia asks Hiltop through a clenched smile. “Why does he look like that?”
Mrs. Smith echoes his concern, but louder. “Damon?”
Damon shifts on instinct toward each new sound he hears, pivoting in the center of the room.
Mrs. Smith stumbles back. Away from her husband. Away from what should be her son but clearly isn’t. The blood has drained from her face just as it’s drained from Damon’s. Mr. Smith is no less horrified by the possibility of what has happened here than his wife; he’s just slower to react, slower to believe it could be so.
“Tell me this sometimes takes a while.” Mr. Smith’s deep voice fights a tremble. “Tell me it’s normal for my boy to seem so…soulless. This will change. He’ll be his old self soon. Tell me, Dr. Zin. It just takes a minute for his soul to meet his body. Isn’t that right?”
“It looks to me like the body of your boy is with us,” Dia says like some sort of rookie policeman poking around the scene of a murder, “but his soul’s long gone. Probably moved on to its next life.”
Dia raises an eyebrow in Hiltop’s direction, and I realize that Hiltop’s walking our new headmaster through the vivification process; this is Dia’s first time. Hiltop steps up swiftly to calm the Smiths, though her message does little to end Mrs. Smith’s whimpers. The child they thought they’d be holding is, once again, being taken from them.
A lump is in my throat. I can’t swallow it down.
“My apologies, but this happens from time to time, as I’m sure Dr. Zin told you,” Hiltop says, flicking a stony glare as she walks by an unfazed Dr. Zin. “Cania Christy cannot guarantee that every child can be vivified. Naturally, understanding that we could not fulfill our end of the exchange, your contract is now null and void.”
“What do you mean this happens? What do you mean no guarantee? Why can’t you do what you said?” Mrs. Smith looks frantically at each of us. She bounces on the spot as if torn between rushing to hold the animated body of her son, a body that appears far healthier than Damon must have been in his last days, and cowering from the dismal monster that teeters in confusion. “Where’s Damon? Where’s my baby boy? What is this atrocity? Zin didn’t tell us anything about—what the hell is this?” She shoots a stinging glare at me and Hiltop. “Did you know this would happen, you little freaks? Is this some sort of edgy story for your stupid paper?”
My tongue knots. Hiltop looks expectantly at Dr. Zin, who, inebriated, shrugs like it’s not his problem.
“Would you like me to walk them out?” Dr. Zin asks Dia.
“No!” Mr. Smith insists. “No. That’s not the answer. There’s no walking us out. No. No, make Damon be here. It doesn’t get simpler than that. You said you would. What more do you need? What more can I give you?”
I drop my eyes the moment Mr. Smith fumbles to remove his watch, as if this is one of those problems you can solve by hocking your Rolex. When I dare to look up again, I find him with his hands fidgeting helplessly at his sides; his fingers are stripped of rings; his jewelry is pooled in Dia’s hands alongside the vial of blood.
His wife bolts from the room. She slams the door and attracts Damon’s vacant stare.
Mr. Smith’s reddened gaze falls on the boy. “Why is he like this?”
Hiltop nudges Dia, who hands the jewelry back to Mr. Smith and says, “Each of our souls is on a continuum. It stops in bodies— in different lives—along the way. Being Damon was just one stop on his journey. Usually we’re able to vivify before the next stop. That wasn’t the case today.”
“Are you talking about reincarnation?”
“Exactly.”
“So, wait,” Mr. Smith sniffles, taking a silk handkerchief from his coat and blowing his nose as his gaze rolls to and from the rocking boy. “Are you saying that Damon—hold on, can you please do something to get rid of this abomination? It breaks my heart to see him like this. Even if it’s just his body.”
Dia holds the vial up and, without a thought, tosses it into the fireplace. In moments, the glass heats enough to shatter, drizzling blood into the flames. Damon Archibald Smith gradually vanishes; Mr. Smith turns his eyes away like he’s been slapped, and I’ve gotta say that, as cool as I think I am with death thanks to growing up in a funeral home, even I have to glance away.
Again, Mr. Smith blows his nose. When he turns back to Hiltop and Dia, he looks more composed.
“I don’t want the contract to be null and void,” Mr. Smith says. “I died the day cancer took Damon, so I’ll be happy for the distraction of building your college.”
“We can’t bring your boy back,” Dia says.
“I will give you what you wanted—that college in the village—if you will tell me this: Who has my son been reincarnated as? When we’re finished building your college, I intend to move to wherever he is and watch him grow.”
Dia begins to protest, but Mr. Smith holds his hand up to silence him and turns instead to Hiltop.
“You,” he says to her. “You’re the one running this, right?”
“Until recently, yes. Now I’m more of an advisor.”
“And you, too?” He looks at me.
I stammer, “No. Not me. Not at all.”
“So you’re just a dead kid this actually worked on?”
Hiltop brings the conversation back on track. “I’m the one you want to talk to.”
“Have you still got what it takes to track a deceased child’s soul? Can you help me?”
I’m stunned at how much Mr. Smith knows. Do all parents know there’s more to Cania Christy than a magic show?
“I am always open to…interesting exchanges.”
“Good,” Mr. Smith says. He glances at Dia, too. “Good. I’m not here to judge. I just want to know what my boy is doing. Where he’s living. Who he was reincarnated as. Tell me that, and you’ll get your college.”
I FOLLOW DR. Zin, Hiltop, and Mr. Smith out of Dia’s office, leaving Dia staring after us with a particularly unsettling glow in his dark eyes. Only the clamor of the hallway filled with Guardians can tear my eyes from his. I snake through them until I spy Pilot.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask him.
“We heard the Moron Parade was about to begin, and—voilà— here you are,” he says. “Why should I tell you?”
Just as he finishes his question, his face crumples. And I turn to see Invidia standing behind me. She flips her thick black-and-green hair and, to my surprise, asks Pilot to answer my question properly. He looks tongue-tied at first, but, with his eyes downcast, he eventually gets it out.
“Dia’s making a change to the Big V competition,” he explains.
“And what do you have to say to Miss Merchant?” she asks him. Before he answers, she turns to me and touches my hair. “You have the loveliest hair.”
“Um, thank you.”
I catch Pilot’s stare out of the corner of my eye. He looks a little less weirded out than I am, but