The Evolution of Mara Dyer

21

NOAH WENT TENSE AS HE LISTENED TO ME, HIS muscles visibly rigid beneath his soaked T-shirt. He ran his hand roughly through his wet hair, pushing it back and twisting it up as he studied it. I showed him the camera, too, and he scrolled through each photo. When Noah finally spoke, his voice had a dangerous edge. “Where did you find these?”

“At Horizons today. The camera was in my bag. The picture, too.”

“They’re from last night?” he asked, not looking up.

“Yeah.”

“Were the doors locked? Your windows?”

I nodded. “But he has a key.”

“How?”

I looked at the floor. “There’s almost a whole day I don’t remember,” I said. “I had Daniel’s keys with me at the police station, but after that, I’m blank.” I was growing angry, now, but with myself. “He could’ve taken the house key there, on the way to the psych unit, at the psych unit . . . I don’t know.”

Noah looked down at the pictures. “This one was taken from the foot of your bed,” he said mechanically. His eyes rested on my closet. “He must have been standing there.”

I edged closer to Noah and stared as he studied the image, then scrolled to the next one. It was me in profile, my arm tossed above my head, my blanket down by my waist.

I spoke, this time. “He was standing at my window when he took this one.” The words, the thought, filled my veins with ice. How long had Jude been standing there? Watching me?

Noah opened my bedroom door. He pointed at one of the sets of French doors in our hallway, just five feet away. “That’s probably where he—Mara?”

I looked up at him. His eyes were dark with concern. “Are you all right?” he asked.

It was only then that I realized I wasn’t quite breathing. A fist squeezed my lungs.

Noah drew me back into my room and closed the door. He settled me against it, placing his strong hands on my waist. “Breathe,” he whispered.

I tried to. But with the pressure of his fingers against my skin, with his storm-gray eyes staring into mine, with his warmth and nearness just inches away, I was finding it difficult for other reasons. I nodded anyway, though.

And then Noah pulled away. “I called the security firm after I left yesterday, but the person I wanted for you was on assignment until tomorrow. I didn’t think—” He closed his eyes, quietly furious. “I should never have left.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, because it wasn’t. “But I’m glad you’re staying tonight.”

He looked at me, and there was something hard about his stare. “Did you really think I wouldn’t? After what you just told me?”

I shrugged.

“I’m a bit bothered by your uncertainty,” Noah said. “I said I wouldn’t let Jude hurt you, and I meant it. If you didn’t want me in the house, I’d be sleeping in my car.”

His words drew a smile from my lips. “How did you manage to convince my parents to let you stay?”

“I’m taking Joseph fishing tomorrow. It’s all been arranged.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“At five-thirty in the morning.”

“Still,” I said, giving him a long look. “I’m impressed.”

“By?”

“You have my mom wrapped around your little finger—”

“I do well with older women, it’s true.”

“And everyone else adores you,” I said.

At this, Noah paused. “I think your father actually likes me less with each passing day.”

“He doesn’t know you saved his life.”

Noah didn’t respond; he went back to studying the pictures instead. “Your eyes in this one . . .”

Ah. Phoebe’s handiwork. “That wasn’t Jude,” I said. “There’s this girl at Horizons—she’s seriously crazy, Noah, not just, like, neurotic or manic or whatever—she said the picture fell out of my bag, and then handed it to me just like that.”

He held the photograph up against the light of my grandmother’s white chandelier. “You’re certain she’s the one who scratched them out?”

I nodded. “She admitted it. She said she ‘fixed’ them.”

“That is rather disturbing,” he said and paused. “Is it awful there?”

I shrugged. “Jamie helps.”

“Wait—Jamie . . . Roth?”

“Yup. He was banished there post-expulsion.”

“Intriguing,” Noah said, before I continued recounting everything that had happened. I watched him intently as I told him about the dead cat, the writing on my mirror, the near-accident, and the doll. But after his initial reaction to the pictures, he now seemed . . . impassive.

Carefully so.

And by the time I relayed my conversation with Daniel, including the fact that my brother thought I was possessed, Noah seemed light.

“Possessed with . . . emotion?” he asked slowly.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Possessed, possessed.”

“And he believes this, why, exactly?” He turned to my bathroom. “May I get a towel?”

“Sure,” I said, dropping down onto my bed as Noah disappeared. “I told him what’s happening to me.”

He emerged with his head bent, rubbing a towel through his hair. When he stood up straight, I saw that he was shirtless.

The architecture of him drew my eyes like a magnet. Noah was built with clean lines and strong ones; his jeans hung low, exposing fine hip bones that made me want to touch.

I’d seen this much of him before, but not in my room, not like this. It brought a rush of heat to my skin.

“I thought we decided against that to avoid a lockdown scenario?” He hung the towel on the knob of my bathroom door. “May I borrow a shirt?”

It took a few seconds to collect myself before I could answer. “I don’t think mine would fit you,” I said, my eyes still lingering on his lean frame. “Ask Daniel?”

Noah’s gaze slid to my bedroom door. “I would, but I don’t think it would be wise to leave your room like this.”

Right. “Right,” I said. I left, came back, and tossed Noah one of Daniel’s shirts. He stretched it over his head and his slender muscles moved beneath his skin and I was riveted.

“So,” he finally said, unfortunately clothed and leaning back against my desk. “You told your brother what’s been happening?”

“Kind of . . . I said Horizons gave us a stupid assignment to fictionalize our problems and then described what was happening to my fake protagonist.”

“Oh, good,” Noah said, nodding seriously. “I was afraid you’d be obvious about it.”

I rolled my eyes. “He bought it because it’s obvious. Fictionalizing my problems for therapeutic purposes is believable. Me having the ability to kill people with my mind, less so.”

Noah inclined his head. “Fair point.”

“Anyway,” I went on, “his conclusion is that I’m possessed and I think there’s something to it, Noah.”

He ran his fingers through his chaotic hair once again. “Mara, you’re not possessed.”

“But I’m losing time and I played with a Ouija board.”

“I never played with a Ouija board,” Noah said.

“But I did. And it predicted Rachel’s death.”

It predicted I would kill her.

Noah slid into my desk chair and listened.

“Rachel asked it how she was going to die six months before the asylum collapsed,” I explained. “And it spelled out my name. I didn’t even think about it then.”

“Dramatic irony.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Mara,” he said lazily. “There are a million explanations for the scenario you just described.”

“A million?”

“All right, not a million. Two. One being that Claire, Rachel, or both of them moved the piece themselves.”

“I thought Claire was doing it too—”

“The other being that perhaps you moved it yourself.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why would I do that?”

Noah shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe you were upset with Rachel, and subconsciously you spelled your own name.”

I said nothing, but my expression must have been murderous because Noah drew himself up and moved on. “Anyway, there’s some fuckery afoot, clearly, but I don’t think you’re possessed.”

“Why not?”

“For several reasons, the most obvious one being that with said fuckery happening to both of us—albeit with different manifestations—if I am not possessed, then you, too, are likely not possessed.”

I lifted my chin. “What’s your theory, then?”

“I’ve considered several.”

“Try me.”

Noah affected a bored tone as he rattled them off. “Genetic mutation, toxic waste, radioactive isotopes, growth hormones in milk—”

“But not possession?” My eyebrows lifted. “What about reincarnation?”

“Please,” he said with amused contempt.

“Says the person who just tried to pin this on growth hormones in milk. Seriously?”

“I didn’t say they were good theories. And they’re more likely than either of yours.”

I flopped down on my back and stared at my ceiling. “Who’d have thought Daniel would be more helpful than you?”

We were both silent as rain drummed on the roof. “All right,” Noah finally said. “What else did he have to say?”

I turned my head to look at Noah. “He suggested I have a wise and mysterious figure help my character on her quest.”

“Brilliant, save for the fact that there appears to be no wise and mysterious figure. Next?”

“Wait,” I said as an idea dawned. Remembering the Ouija board from Rachel’s birthday made me remember what I did on mine. I remembered—

“Lukumi,” I said slowly.

“The priest? The Santeria priest? We’re back there, are we?”

“You sound skeptical.”

“Well, I do have doubts, yes, but I suppose I should have seen that one coming.”

“I remembered what I needed to remember, Noah. Just like he said I would.”

“Which could be explained by the placebo effect.”

I held Noah’s gaze. “I think we should look for him.”

“We did, Mara,” he said calmly. “We went back to Little Havana, and we didn’t find any answers there.”

“Exactly,” I said, leaning forward. “The shop disappeared. Something’s up with him.”

“I was curious about that myself,” Noah said, his legs stretched languidly out in front of him. “So I looked into it. Botanicas are often fly-by-night operations, because of animal cruelty issues. If proprietors think there might be a bust, they clean up and vanish. Hence the stray chickens wandering throughout Hialeah. Satisfied?”

I shook my head, growing more and more frustrated. “Why do you keep reaching for science?”

“Why do you keep reaching for magic?”

“We should look for him,” I said again, and petulantly.

“Santeria isn’t exactly the Catholic church, Mara. Asking locals, ‘Pardon me, might you have that witch doctor’s mobile number?’ is likely to prove fruitless.”

I was about to retort when Daniel pushed the door open. He looked back and forth between us.

“Uh, I was going to invite you guys out to dinner with me and Sophie, but the vibe in here’s a little intense. Everything cool?”

“Where are we going?” I asked quickly. I needed to get out of this house.

“Sophie was thinking Cuban,” Daniel said warily.

Noah and I broke into twin smiles. Then he met my eyes and said, “I know just the place.”