The Evolution of Mara Dyer (14 page)

“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.”

22

B
EFORE WE LEFT, MY MOTHER MADE
D
ANIEL AND
Noah both swear to watch me every second and made me take my father’s cell phone too, for good measure. She would have fitted me with an ankle monitor if she could have, but I didn’t care—I was just glad to go.

We picked up Sophie on the way to the restaurant; she practically bounced into the car and kissed Daniel on the cheek. He totally blushed. She totally beamed. They were adorable together, I had to admit it.

The perfect pair talked about some concert some famous violinist was giving at the Center for Performing Arts next week, and I leaned my cheek against the cool window of Daniel’s Civic.

The drenched roads rushed by us. Street lamps cast yellow cones of light on the houses below them, which went from expensive in Sophie’s neighborhood to run-down as we neared the restaurant. At a red light, I noticed a cat watching us from the roof of someone’s parked car. When it saw me, it pulled its gums back in a hiss.

Maybe I imagined it.

The restaurant was lit with white Christmas lights outside, and the smell of frying dough invaded the damp air.

“Whatever that smell is,” Sophie said as we went inside, “that’s what I’m having.”

“Churros,”
Noah said. “It’s a dessert.”

Sophie tucked her short blond hair behind her ears. “I don’t care. That smell is
crazy
.”

“So’s the line,” Daniel said, eyeing the assembled crowd. Dozens of people were standing, laughing, talking—all waiting for a seat.

“It’s always busy,” I said.

“You’ve been here?” Sophie asked.

“Twice.” Once on my birthday. And then the first time—the first time Noah and I went out. I smiled at the memory, just as Noah said, “I’ll be right back.”

The crowd pressed us against the bar. “Oh my God,” Sophie squealed, looking at a display of the restaurant’s green and white promotional T-shirts behind the counter. “Those are so cute.”

“You want one?” Daniel asked her.

“Would it be cheesy if I said yes?”

“Yes,” my brother said, but he was smiling.

She wrinkled her nose. “I love cheese.”

So did I, in small doses.

I discreetly inched away from them and toward the glass dessert case. I didn’t care about the food; my eyes roamed over the wall next to it, over to the fliers tacked on a giant bulletin board. That was how I first found Abel Lukumi. Maybe I’d get lucky again.

I scanned hundreds of words as quickly as I could when Daniel appeared back at my side. “Table’s ready,” he said. “Come on.”

“Give me a second.” My brother sighed and went off to sit with Sophie. But as promised, he didn’t leave me alone.

“Find anything?” Noah’s voice was velvet and warm next to my ear. I shook my head, but then four letters caught my eye.

kumi.

They peeked out from under the corner of another flier. I folded the top one over, feeling a rush of hope—

The full word
was
Lukumi, but as I squinted to try and read the small type, I realized I was having trouble understanding the sentence. Either the context was off, or my Spanish was already fading from disuse.

“It’s a church,” Noah said, reading the text along with me. “Church of Lukumi.”

I bit my lip. “Well, he’s a priest . . . maybe it’s his church?”

Noah withdrew his iPhone and typed something in. “Of course,” he said, sounding resigned.

“What?”

He showed me the screen. There were hundreds of thousands of hits—mostly referring to the Church of Lukumi and a Supreme Court case bearing its name.

“It’s another name for Santeria,” he said, and met my eyes. “For the religion. Whatever that man’s name was, it wasn’t Abel Lukumi.”

He had used a fake name.

I tried not to let my disappointment show as I ate, but it was hard. Sophie didn’t appear to notice, though, and Daniel pretended not to. When we finished dinner, we left the building loaded with Styrofoam boxes full of plantains and beans to spare.

“That was
incredible
,” Sophie said, her voice dreamy. “I can’t believe I’ve lived twenty minutes away and never knew about it.”

“Good choice,” Daniel agreed, chucking Noah on the shoulder. We all climbed back into the car, and Sophie put her iPod into the dock and played some tense, obscure piece she wanted Daniel and Noah to hear. But just as the music swelled to a crescendo, something small hit our windshield and slid down.

Sophie screamed. Daniel screeched to a stop.

The wheels skidded slightly on the wet pavement, and we found ourselves under a pool of light. The streetlamp illuminated a bloody smear on the glass and the windshield wipers swooped, spreading the stain.

We hadn’t even turned off of Calle Ocho, but it was late and rainy and there was no one behind us, so my brother got out of the car. Noah followed right behind him.

The car was silent but my heartbeat roared in my ears. They were outside for less than a minute before the car doors creaked open again.

“It was a bird,” Noah said, slipping into the backseat beside me. He laced his fingers between mine, and I began to calm down.

“A crow,” my brother clarified. He sounded drained and guilty.

Sophie reached over and put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

My brother just sat there, idling in the lane. He shook his head. “I’ve never hit anything in my whole—”

His sentence was cut off by another soft thump, this time on the roof.

This time, the car wasn’t moving.

“What the—” Daniel started.

But before he could finish his sentence, the thump was followed by dozens more. And not just on our car but also on the road, on the parked cars that lined the street.

We were shocked into silence as a murder of crows fell from the sky.

23

A
FTER WE DROPPED
S
OPHIE OFF,
D
ANIEL AND
Noah exchanged theories on the way home. The storm. Disease. There were a bunch of scientific possibilities, but a feeling gnawed at me.

A feeling that it was something else.

Seconds seemed like lifetimes as I waited for Noah to come to my room that night. I stared at the clock on my nightstand, but the hours passed and he didn’t show. He didn’t tell me he would, but I assumed it.

Maybe I assumed wrong.

Maybe he fell asleep?

I threw off the blanket and slipped out of my room. The guest room was on the other side of the house, but I was confident I could silently make my way over and see if he was still awake. Just to check.

I stood outside the guest room door and listened. No sound. I pushed it open a crack.

“Yes?” Noah’s voice. Wide-awake.

I opened the door the rest of the way. A small lamp was on a circular accent table in the corner of the room, but Noah was painted in shadow. He was still dressed and he was reading, his face entirely obscured by a book. He lowered it just enough to reveal his eyes.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello.”

“Hi,” I said again.

Noah lowered his book farther. “Is everything all right?”

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. “I just came to say good night.”

“Good night,” he said, and returned to the book.

I had no idea what was going on, but I didn’t like it. I half-twisted toward the door, then stopped. Glanced back at Noah.

He arched an eyebrow. “What?”

I’m just going to say it. “I’m just going to say it.”

He waited.

“I thought you were coming to my room.”

“Why?”

Well, that stung. I reached for the door.

Noah sighed. “I can’t, Mara.”

“Why not?”

Noah set down the book he was reading and crossed the room. He stopped next to me but stared out the window. I followed his eyes.

I could see the ridiculously long hallway that led to my bedroom from here, and the three sets of French doors that spanned its length. The hall light was on, which made it nearly impossible to see anything outside. But if someone went
inside
, Noah wouldn’t miss it.

Was that why he didn’t come? “You can keep an eye out on my room from my bed too, you know,” I said.

Noah lifted his hand to my cheek; I wasn’t expecting it and my breath hitched. He then ran his thumb over my skin and under my jaw, tilting my face up, drawing my eyes to his.

“Your mother trusts me,” he said quietly.

A mischievous grin curved my mouth. “Exactly.”

“No, Mara, she
trusts
me. If I’m caught in your bed, I won’t be allowed to be here. Not like this. And I
have
to be here.”

I tensed, remembering words I said to him not even a week ago, before I knew that Jude was alive. Back when I was only afraid of myself.

“I want a boyfriend, not a babysitter.”

The circumstances had changed, but the sentiment hadn’t.
“You don’t
have
to be here,” I said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I want to be here.”

“Why?”

“I can’t let anything happen to you.”

I closed my eyes in frustration. Either Noah didn’t understand what I was trying to say, or he was ignoring it. “Should I go?” I asked.

His hand was still on my face, and his touch was impossibly soft. “You should.”

I wasn’t about to beg. I broke away from him and reached for the door.

“But don’t,” he said, right when I touched it.

I faced him and stepped back into the room. He pushed the door closed behind me. My back was against the wood and Noah was almost against me.

I went in search of Noah with every intention of just sleeping when I found him. But now the beat of my blood, of my wanting, transformed the air around us.

I was consumed by the slow lift of the corner of his mouth and the need to taste his smile. I wanted to dip my fingers under the hem of his shirt and explore the soft line of hair that disappeared into his jeans. To feel his skin under my teeth, his shadowed jaw on my neck.

But here, now, with him only inches from me, and nothing to stop us, I didn’t move.

“I want to kiss you,” I whispered instead.

He angled his face closer, lower down to mine. But not to my mouth. To my ear. “I’ll allow it.”

His lips brushed my skin and suddenly it was too much. I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him against me as close as I could but he was still not close enough. My hands were trapped between the hard ridges of his stomach and my softness and I was almost breathless with wanting, trembling with it.

But Noah was still.

Until his name fell from my lips in a soft, desperate groan. And then his hands were on my hips and his mouth was on my skin and he lifted me and I wrapped myself around him. I was backed against the door and the copper buttons on Noah’s jeans pressed against me and the ache was delicious and not enough, not at all. His rough cheek electrified the curve between my neck and shoulder and I leaned back, completely senseless. He gripped my waist and he shifted me up and then his lips brushed against mine. Soft. Tentative. Waiting for me to kiss them.