Текст книги "The Evolution of Mara Dyer"

Автор книги: Michelle Hodkin

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

36

NOAH,” MY MOTHER SAID, EMERGING FROM THE kitchen and wiping her hands on a towel. “We missed you.”

I stuffed the picture in my back pocket as furtively as I could.

“Thank you for having me,” Noah said. “I have something for you, from my parents—”

Mom smiled and shook her head. “Totally unnecessary.”

“It’s just in the car, I’ll go get it,” Noah said. He left and I ran to my bedroom and hid the picture before my mother saw it or I spilled water on it or it spontaneously burst into flame.

When I came back, Noah and my mom were talking in the kitchen.

“So where in London did you used to visit?” he asked her as he stirred what I thought might be salad dressing.

“Oh, you know, the usual.” She shrugged from the sink. “Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, that sort of thing.”

“Your mother grew up there?”

A hundred points for Noah Shaw. I almost mimed a high five.

Mom nodded.

“What did she do?”

“She was a student,” she said, her voice clipped.

“That’s so interesting—what university?”

My mother set the salad bowl in front of Noah. “Cambridge.”

Our eyes locked.

“Darwin College,” she went on. “She was in school for her PhD, but she never finished. I think that always bothered her. All right, you two,” she said, grinning at us. “Thanks for helping, you’re free to go.”

This was the one time ever in my life that I would rather be talking to my mother than taking my boyfriend to my room.

“It’s no trouble,” Noah said. He apparently felt the same way.

My mother dusted her hands off. “I’m finished. There’s nothing more to do. Go on,” she said, waving us away and shutting the conversation down. It would happen that she’d extend a grand gesture of trust when what I really wanted was more answers from her. But Noah and I had been dismissed and if we didn’t leave, she might get suspicious.

Once we were alone in my room, I closed the door almost all the way, turned to Noah and said, “Holy shit.”

“Well put.”

I was completely overwhelmed, and backed up onto my bed. “Where’d you find it?”

“A random box of my mother’s things.”

I rubbed my forehead. “So they knew each other.”

“Seems that way. Where’s the picture?”

I went to my desk and took it out from the drawer, then handed it to Noah. “How did you know it was my grandmother?” I asked him.

He looked up at me, clearly perplexed. “Seriously?”

“Yeah . . .”

“You don’t see the resemblance?”

I glanced over at the picture again. Something bothered me about it, but it wasn’t that.

“When was this taken?”

He flipped the photograph over. “1987.” He paused. “My mother would have been in university,” he said. “At Cambridge.”

“Wait,” I said as an idea dawned. “Your parents went there together, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” Noah said slowly.

“Can you ask your dad? Maybe he remembers this.” I indicated the picture.

“He won’t talk about her.” Noah’s voice went flat.

“But—”

“He won’t,” he said again. Then, “I could try Ruth, maybe. She was there also.”

One look at him told me I wouldn’t get any further, not unless I pushed, and I wasn’t sure if I should. Not about his family.

I looked back at the picture in my hands. Then wandered out of my room and into the hallway. Noah followed. I glanced down at the photograph and up at my grandmother’s portrait that hung on the wall and then I realized what was off.

“She looks exactly the same,” I said.

Noah’s eyes followed mine. It was a long time before either of us spoke.

“They couldn’t have been studying there at the same time,” I said, once we were back in my room. I sat back down on my bed. “My grandmother would’ve been living in the States when your mother was in school.”

“But she used to go to London every year when your mum was growing up. Maybe they met on one of those trips?”

“I guess, but they seem kind of . . . familiar, don’t they?” I said, staring at the photograph. “Like friends.”

“Everyone seems that way in pictures.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Why take a picture with someone you barely know at all, then? It’s weird.”

Noah’s eyebrows knitted together. “Is it possible she may have gone to London more than your mother knew?”

I sighed. “At this point, anything’s possible,” I said, and paused. “Maybe she was immortal.”

At that, Noah cracked a smile. “I was going to suggest ‘time traveler,’ but, sure.” He stretched his arms casually behind his head, exposing a sliver of stomach above the low waist of his jeans.

Torture. I cleared my throat and looked back at the photograph. “My mom said the portrait is the only picture she has of my grandmother. She’d die if she saw yours.”

Noah’s smile vanished. His expression made me want to talk about something else.

“Do you still have the pendant?” I asked.

“Yes.” The planes of his face were smooth. “Do you want it back?”

I did not. “It’s safer with you,” I said. “I’m afraid I’d lose it.” Or throw it away. “I was just wondering if maybe you found out anything else?”

He gave a single shake of his head before asking, “What’s your mother’s maiden name?”

“Sarin, why?”

“I’m going to have Charles look into this,” he said, indicating the picture.

“And Charles would be . . .”

“The private investigator.”

“Did he turn up anything on Jude?”

Noah looked away. “Dead end after dead end. Did you find the answers you were looking for in that book?”

“I haven’t had a chance to read it yet,” I said nonchalantly.

A half-smile tugged at Noah’s mouth. “You fell asleep, didn’t you?”

I lifted my chin. “No.”

“What page?”

“I didn’t fall asleep.”

“What page?”

Busted. “Six,” I said. “But I was really tired.”

“No judgment. I could barely make it through that obscenely pompous introduction.”

“What about the Lukumi situation?” I said, changing the subject. “Any luck?”

Noah’s voice brightened a bit. “I did in fact return to Little Havana while you were at Horizons, and I canvassed the botanicas, just as you asked.”

“Well?”

“Well,” he said slowly. “Imagine for a moment how receptive they were when I walked in there and started asking questions.”

“What? Your Spanish is perfect.”

He arched an eyebrow. “One look at me and their jaws visibly clamped shut. One owner thought I was with the Health Department and started showing me around the place, repeating ‘No goats, no goats.’”

I smirked.

“Glad to amuse you.”

“I get my kicks where I can these days. Speaking of Horizons, I almost had an . . . incident.”

“Of what nature?” Noah asked carefully.

“This girl, Phoebe—she keeps pushing me. I almost lost it with her.” Remembering filled me with frustration. “What if someone pisses me off and I tell them to go jump off a bridge?”

Noah shook his head. “You’d never say that.”

“Oh, really?”

“You’d tell them to go die in a fire.”

“Helpful. Thank you.”

Noah stood then, and joined me on my bed. “I only said it because I’m sure that’s not how it works.”

“How does it work?” I asked out loud, as my fingers curled into the blanket. They were nearly touching his. My eyes traveled up to his face. “How do you heal things?”

I thought I saw a faint tinge of surprise in Noah’s expression at the sudden shift in the conversation but he answered evenly. “You know that everyone has fingerprints, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“To me, everything has an aural imprint as well. An individual tone. And when someone—or something—is ill or hurt, the tone is off. Broken. I just . . . innately know how to correct it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Because you’re not musical.”

“Thanks.”

He shrugged. “It’s not an insult. Daniel would get it. If your mother wasn’t in the kitchen, I’d show you.”

“How?”

“You have a piano. Anyway, it’s like . . .” He stared straight ahead, looking for words. “Imagine the melody to a song you know well. And then imagine one note of that song being changed to the wrong key, or to a completely different note.”

“But how do you fix it?”

“If you asked a basketball player how to shoot a perfect free throw, he wouldn’t be able to describe the physiological process that makes it happen. He just . . . does it.”

I inhaled. “But there are so many people.”

“Yes.”

“And animals.”

“Yes.”

“It must get noisy.”

“It does,” Noah said, “I told you before, I learned to tune it out unless I want to focus on one sound in particular.” He smiled. “I prefer,” he said, trailing a finger down my arm, “to listen to you.”

“What do I sound like?” I asked, more breathily than I intended. God, so predictable.

He considered his answer for a moment before he gave it. “Dissonant,” he said finally.

“Meaning?”

Another long pause. “Unstable.”

Hmm.

He shook his head. “Not the way you’re thinking,” he said, the shadow of a smile on his lips. “In music, consonant chords are points of arrival. Rest. There’s no tension,” he tried to explain. “Most pop music hooks are consonant, which is why most people like them. They’re catchy but interchangeable. Boring. Dissonant intervals, however, are full of tension,” he said, holding my gaze. “You can’t predict which way they’re going to go. It makes limited people uncomfortable—frustrated, because they don’t understand the point, and people hate what they don’t understand. But the ones who get it,” he said, lifting a hand to my face, “find it fascinating. Beautiful.” He traced the shape of my mouth with his thumb. “Like you.”

37

HIS WORDS WARMED ME THROUGH EVEN AS HE pulled his hand away. I was sure my face fell.

“Your parents,” he said, with a glance at the door.

I got it. But still. “I like hearing about your ability,” I said, my eyes on his mouth. “Tell me more.”

His voice was level. “What do you want to know?”

“When did you first notice it?”

When his expression shifted, I realized I had asked him that question before; I recognized that shuttered look. He was withdrawing again. Shutting down.

Shutting me out.

Something was going on with him, and I didn’t know what it was. He was growing distant, but he wasn’t gone yet. So I quickly said something else. “You saw me in December, after the asylum collapsed, right?”

“Yes.”

“When I was hurt.”

“Yes,” he said again. To anyone else, he would have sounded bored. But I was learning, and now I recognized something else in his voice. Something that never fell from those reckless, careless, lips.

Caution.

I was pressing up against something raw, and I wanted to know what it was.

“You’ve seen other people who were hurt,” I went on, keeping my tone even. “Four?”

Noah nodded.

Keeping my tone light. “Including Joseph.”

He nodded again.

And then I had an idea. I pinched my arm. I watched Noah to see if there was any reaction. There wasn’t, as far as I could tell.

I pinched it again.

He slitted his eyes. “What, exactly, are you doing?”

“Did you see me when I pinched myself?”

“It’s a bit hard to ignore you.”

“When you first told me you saw me,” I started, “in December, in the asylum—you said you saw what I was seeing, through my eyes. And when Joseph was drugged, you saw him through someone else’s eyes—the person who drugged him, right? But you didn’t have a—a vision just now, did you? So there’s some factor besides pain,” I said, studying his face as I spoke. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“Of course,” he said indifferently.

“Have you tested it?”

His eyes sharpened, then. “How could I? You’re the only one I’ve seen that knows.”

I held his stare. “We can test it together.”

Noah shook his head immediately. “No.”

“We have to.”

“No.” The word was solid and final and laced with something I couldn’t quite identify. “We don’t. There’s absolutely nothing at stake except information.”

“But you’re the one who said that whatever is happening to me is also happening to you—that was your argument for why I can’t be possessed, right?”

“Also because it’s stupid.”

I ignored him. “So figuring out how your ability works could help me figure out mine. And no one would get hurt—”

Noah’s expression grew very serious, and his voice grew dangerously quiet. “Except you.”

“It’s science—”

“It’s madness,” he said. He was completely still but completely on edge. “I’ve never regretted telling you the truth. Don’t make me start.”

“Don’t you want to know what we are?”

Something flickered behind his eyes, there and gone before I could identify it. “It doesn’t matter what we are. It matters what we do.” His jaw tightened. “And I won’t let you do that.”

Let? “It’s not just up to you.”

There was nothing but apathy in his voice when he finally spoke. “I’ll leave.”

“I’ve heard that before.” The second the words left my mouth I wished I could take them back. Noah’s expression was as smooth and colorless as glass.

“I’m sorry,” I started to say. But then a few seconds later, when Noah’s expression still hadn’t changed, I said, “Actually, I’m not. You want to go because I don’t agree with you? There’s the door.” I flung my hand dramatically, for emphasis.

But Noah didn’t leave. My outburst thawed whatever had frozen him, and his gaze slid over me. “I wish you had a dog.”

“Oh yeah?” I raised my eyebrows. “Why’s that?”

“So I could take it for a walk.”

“Well, I’ll never have a dog, because dogs are either terrified of me or hate me and you won’t help me figure out—”

“Shut up.” Noah’s eyes closed.

“You shut up,” I said back, quite maturely.

“No—stop. Say that again.”

“Say what again?”

“About dogs.” His eyes were still closed.

“They’re either scared of me or hate me?”

“Fight or flight,” Noah said as something clearly fit into place for him. “That’s it.”

“That’s what?”

“The difference between the humans and the animals that you’ve—you know,” he gestured. “When we went to the zoo and the insects died, it was because I nearly forced you to touch the ones that terrified you most. But once they were dead, I couldn’t push you anymore.”

Flight.

He ran a hand over his mouth. “In the Everglades, you were terrified we wouldn’t reach Joseph in time, and so you eliminated what was in your way—you reacted—without needing to think.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “You were pushed, and unconsciously you pushed back.”

I knew what was coming next and preempted it. “But with Morales . . .”

“You weren’t afraid,” he said.

“I was angry.” Fight.

“There are different biochemical reactions that occur in response to different emotions, like stress—”

“Adrenaline and cortisol, I know,” I said. “I took ninth grade bio too.”

Noah ignored me. “And they’re processed differently by the brain—we should read more about this.”

“Okay,” I said. But I was still frustrated; Noah once again managed to turn the conversation back to me, thereby avoiding what I wanted to know about him.

So I said, “I still think we should test your ability.”

Noah’s eyes went sharp—he was uncomfortable again. “You want to do this scientifically? Here,” Noah said, and stood. He crossed the room and picked up a bottle of Tylenol that I left on my bookshelf. Placed it on the floor. “We’ll use the scientific method: My hypothesis is that you can manipulate things with your mind.”

Deflecting again. He didn’t actually believe I could do it; he was just trying to distract me. I went along with him—for now. “Telekinesis?”

“I don’t think so, exactly, but in order to figure out what you can do, it would be helpful to know what you can’t do. So here, move this.”

“With my mind.”

“With your mind,” he said calmly. “And I’ll know if you’re not trying.”

I glared at him.

He gave me a nod. “Go on.”

Fine. I’d do this and then it would be my turn to make him do something. I dropped to the floor, crossed my legs and hunched forward, staring at the bottle.

About twenty seconds of fruitless silence later, Daniel knocked and pushed my bedroom door open all the way.

“I’m here to announce that we’re departing for the carnival in approximately twenty minutes.” He paused. I felt him look down at me, then up at Noah, then back at me. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“Mara is trying to move a bottle of Tylenol with her mind,” Noah said casually.

I glared at him, then back at the bottle.

“Ah, yes,” Daniel said. “I tried that once. Not with Tylenol, though.”

“What did you use?” Noah asked.

“A penny. I also tried that ‘light as a feather, stiff as a board’ game—the levitation one, you know?” he said to Noah. “And Ouija boards, of course,” he said to me, adding a melodramatically meaningful look.

“You played with a Ouija board?” I asked slowly.

“Of course,” Daniel said. “It’s a childhood rite of passage.”

“Who did you play with?”

“Dane, Josh.” He shrugged. “Those guys.”

“Was it yours?” I felt nervous without quite knowing why.

Daniel looked taken aback. “Are you kidding?”

“What?” Noah asked.

“I would never keep one in the house,” Daniel said, shaking his head vehemently. “Conduit to the spirit world, Mara, I told you.”

Noah cracked a wry grin. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

“Hey,” Daniel said. “Even men of science such as ourselves are entitled to get the heebie-jeebies now and again. Anyway,” he said, a smirk creeping onto his lips as he gestured to the Tylenol bottle, “nice to see you giving something the old college try, Mara. Though, my brain is bigger, so if I didn’t have any luck—”

I refocused on the bottle and said, “Go away.”

“Any progress on the vampire story?”

“GO AWAY.”

“Good luck!” he said cheerfully.

“I hate you,” I said as Daniel closed the door.

“What vampire story?” Noah asked.

I was still staring at the bottle. The bottle that hadn’t moved. “It was his other theory about my fake alter ego,” I explained. “An alternate to possession.”

“Well, you are awfully pale.”

I exhaled slowly. Refused to look up.

He reached for my bare foot and squeezed my toes. “And cold.”

I pulled my feet away. “Bad circulation.”

“You could always bite me, just to test.”

“I hate you, too, by the way. Just so you know.”

“Oh, I do. I would suggest make-up sex, but . . .”

“Too bad you have scruples,” I said.

“Now you’re just being cruel.”

“I like pushing your buttons.”

“You’d enjoy it more if you undid them first.”

Save me. “I think you should go and help Daniel.”

“With what?”

“Anything.”

Noah stood. There was a mischievous smile on his lips as he left.

I stared at the bottle of Tylenol for another few minutes and tried to envision it moving, but it went nowhere and I gave myself a headache. I popped it open and took two, then trudged into the kitchen and plopped down at the table across from my mother, who was sitting with her laptop. I rested my head on my arms and sighed dramatically.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Why are boys so annoying?”

She chuckled. “You know what my mother used to say?”

I shook my head, still in position.

“Boys are stupid and girls are trouble.”

Truer words were never spoken.

38

DELIGHTED SCREAMS PIERCED THE AIR AS carnival rides swirled and blinked and swung over my head. I walked with my older brother through the crowd of people; it had been years since we were last at a fair, and the second we arrived, our dad dragged our mom onto the Ferris wheel and Joseph absconded with my boyfriend to conquer some ride, leaving me and Daniel alone.

I was flooded with sounds and scents; artificial butter and giggles. Frying dough and swelling shrieks. It felt good to be out like this. Normal.

“Just you and me, sister,” Daniel said as we milled around between booths. “Whatever shall we do?”

A little kid walked by carrying enough balloons to make me wonder how many it would take for her to lift off. I smiled at her, but the second she met my eyes, she darted away. My smile fell.

We passed beneath a row of hanging stuffed animals. “I could win you a teddy bear,” I said to him. My feet crunched over discarded popcorn and I dodged a giant puddle left by an earlier drizzle.

He shook his head. “The games are rigged.”

Noah and Joseph reappeared from the multitudes, then. My little brother looked pale and shaken. Noah’s blue-gray eyes were lit with amusement.

“How was the ride?” I asked.

Joseph lifted his chin and shrugged. “It was okay.”

“He was very brave,” Noah said. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

The four of us meandered until Joseph stopped us and pointed up. A huge menacing clown face towered over the entrance to a garishly painted building.

“Hall of Mirrors! Yes!”

No.

Daniel must have noticed my unease because he put his arm around Joseph’s shoulder. “I got this,” he said to Noah and me. “You guys have fun.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Joseph called back, and the crowd swallowed them up.

A slightly wicked smile appeared on Noah’s lips. My favorite. “It seems we’re on our own,” he said.

It did. “It does.”

“What shall we do with this newfound freedom?”

The twinkling lights accented the angles of his high cheekbones. Noah’s chestnut hair was a tousled, gorgeous mess.

I’m sure we can think of something, I thought. I was about to say so when I heard a voice behind us.

“Would the young lovers like their fortunes told?”

We turned to find a woman wearing the traditional costume: long and flowy printed skirt, check. Peasant blouse, check. Wavy black hair spilling out of a head wrap, check. Too much makeup, check. Regulation gold hoop earrings, check.

“I think we’ll pass,” I said to Noah. No need to tempt fate. “Unless you want to?”

He shook his head. “Thanks anyway,” he told her as we headed away.

“You must not go out there,” she called out after me.

I felt a rush of familiarity as her words tickled the back of my mind.

“What did you just say?” I’d heard those words before.

The fortune-teller peered at me with guarded eyes, her expression mysterious. “Come with me and I will explain.”

Noah sighed. “Look—”

“It’s okay,” I said, glancing up at him. “I want to go.”

Noah raised an eyebrow, his expression darkly amused. “As you wish,” he said to me, and we began to walk.

We followed the woman as she wove a path through the people to a small striped tent. She held the flap open; there were twinkle lights and crystals, flocked tablecloths and hanging tapestries. They adorned the little space without irony. Noah and I stepped in.

The fortune-teller shook her head at Noah. “You may wait outside,” she said to him. “My daughter will show you where. Miranda!” she called.

A sullen-looking girl with a pink streak in her hair appeared from behind a beaded curtain.

“Please offer this young man some tea. Show him where to sit.”

The girl, who was about thirteen or fourteen, seemed like she was about to roll her eyes until she noticed Noah; the long line of him leaning carelessly against the frame, the slight sarcastic smile on his perfect mouth. Her demeanor changed instantly and she drew herself up.

“Come on,” she said to him, and tipped her head toward the curtain.

He looked to me.

“I’ll be okay,” I said, nodding. “Go.”

Once they were gone, the fortune-teller gestured to a plastic folding chair beside a round card table that was swathed in cheap fabric. I sat. There was a deck of cards in front of me. Tarot, I presumed.

“Money first,” she said, and held out her hand.

Of course. I reached into my pocket and withdrew her fee. She tucked the cash into the folds of her skirt and then stared at me for a beat, like she was expecting something else.

I had no idea what. When she didn’t stop staring, I said, “So do I cut the deck, Miss . . .”

“Madam.”

“Madam . . . what?”

“Madam Rose.”

“Madam Rose,” I said with mock seriousness. I glanced up at a crystal ball sitting on a shelf. “Is the pseudonym thing a requirement too?”

Her expression was grave. “There is power in a name.”

The words filled my heart with ice. They echoed in my mind but in someone else’s voice. I blinked, and shook my head to clear it.

“Do you have a question?” she asked, breaking the silence.

I swallowed and refocused on Madam Rose. “What do you mean?”

“A question you seek an answer to.”

A bitter smile twisted my lips. I had tons of questions. All I had were questions. What’s happening to me? What am I? “I have lots of questions,” I finally said.

“Think carefully,” she warned. “If you ask the wrong questions, you will get the wrong answers.” Then she nodded at the deck.

I reached for it but paused before my fingers made contact. My heart thundered against my ribs.

Madam Rose noticed my hesitation and dipped her head, catching my eyes. “I can do a different type of reading, if you like.”

“Different how?”

“Give me your hands,” she said. I reluctantly placed mine in hers, palm up. She shook her head and her earrings swung with the movement; she flipped my hands over, palm down. Then she rolled her neck, her long hair draping her face like a veil. She said nothing. The silence stretched on uncomfortably.

“How long—”

“Hush,” she hissed. The fortune-teller drew her head up and examined my hands. She studied them for a few moments, then closed her heavily shadowed eyes.

I sat there while she held my hands and waited—for what, I didn’t know. After another length of time, I don’t know how long, her red lips parted. Her eyelids twitched. She tilted her head slightly up and to the left, her forehead creased in concentration. Her fingers twitched around mine and then tightened. I was getting freaked out and I nearly pulled away, but before I could, her eyes flew open.

“You must leave him.” Her words cut the air.

A few seconds passed before I found my voice. “What are you talking about?”

“The boy with the gray eyes. The one outside.”

“Why?” I asked warily.

“The boy is destined for greatness, but with you, he is in danger. You are linked, the two of you. You must leave him. This is what I have seen.”

I grew frustrated. “Is he in danger because of me?”

“He will die before his time with you by his side, unless you let him go. Fate or chance? Coincidence or destiny? I cannot say.” Her voice had turned soft.

Soft and sad.

A fist closed around my heart. I tried to let him go once before. It didn’t work.

“I can’t,” was all I said to her, and quietly.

“Then you will love him to ruins,” she said, and let my hands go.