The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

by Michelle Hodkin

  Joseph nodded in the backseat. “Okay,” he said evenly. He didn’t even question me; he trusted me that much. My throat tightened.

  Noah pulled onto our street. “This is your stop,” he said to Joseph. My brother got out of the car after Noah shifted it into park. I followed suit before Noah could open the door.

  Joseph walked to the driver’s side window and reached in. He shook Noah’s hand. “Thanks,” my brother said, flashing a dimpled grin at Noah before heading to our house.

  I leaned down to the open passenger window, and said, “We’ll talk later?”

  Noah paused, staring straight ahead. “Yes.”

  But we didn’t get the chance.

  I met up with Joseph back at the house. All three cars were in the driveway now. Joseph showered outside, then we crept in through my bedroom window so as not to wake anyone. My brother was smiley, and tiptoed down the hallway with exaggerated steps like it was a game. He closed his bedroom door and, presumably, went to bed.

  I had no idea what he thought, what he was thinking about all this, or why he let me off so easily. But I ached with exhaustion and couldn’t begin to work through it. I peeled off my clothes and turned on my shower, but found that I couldn’t even stand. I sank down under the stream of water, shivering despite the heat. My eyes were blank, vacant as I stared at the tile. I didn’t feel sick. I wasn’t tired.

  I was lost.

  When the water ran cold, I got up, threw on a green T-shirt and striped pajama bottoms, and went to the family room, hoping the television could dull the droning non-thoughts in my brain. I sank into the leather couch and turned on the TV. I scrolled through the guide but saw little besides infomercials, while the news hummed in the background.

  “Locals reported a massive fish kill this morning in Everglades City.”

  My ears pricked at the mention of Everglades City. I closed the guide, my eyes and ears riveted to the plastic-looking anchorwoman as she spoke.

  “Biologists called out to the scene are saying it’s most likely due to oxygen depletion in the water. A startling number of alligator corpses are thought to be the culprit.” The video switched to a freckled, blond woman in khaki shorts with a microphone pointed at her bandana-covered mouth. She stood in front of an eerily familiar looking body of murky water; the camera panned in on the white-bellied, dead alligators floating in it, surrounded by hundreds of fish. “An abundance of decomposing matter in the water soaks up a large amount of oxygen, killing off fish in the area in a matter of hours. Of course, in this case, whatever killed the alligators could have killed the fish. A chicken and the egg puzzle, if you will.”

  The anchor-mannequin spoke again: “The possibility of illegal dumping of hazardous waste is being investigated as well. Herpetologists at the Metro Zoo are expected to do necropsies on the animals over the next couple of days, and we’ll be sure to report the results right here. In the meantime, tourists might want to steer clear of the area,” she said, holding her nose.

  “You aren’t kidding, Marge. That has got to stink! And now over to Bob for the weather.”

  My arm shook as I held out the remote and turned the television off. I stood, swaying on alien feet, as I made my way to the kitchen sink for some water. I pulled a cup from the cabinet and stood at the counter, my mind reeling.

  The place they showed on camera didn’t look exactly the same.

  But I was there in the middle of the night; surely it would look different in the daytime.

  But maybe it was somewhere else entirely. Even if it wasn’t, maybe something had poisoned the water.

  Or maybe I hadn’t been there at all.

  I filled the plastic cup and brought the water to my lips. I accidentally caught my reflection in the dark kitchen window.

  I looked like the ghost of a stranger.

  Something was happening to me.

  I heaved the plastic cup at the dark glass and watched my reflection blur away.

  47

  BEFORE

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT DAY IN A SKELETAL, INSTITUTIONAL bed inside the Tamerlane State Lunatic Asylum. The mattress beneath me was torn to pieces and filthy. The bed frame groaned as I shifted and I looked down at myself. I was dressed in black. Someone kissed my neck behind me. I whipped around.

  It was Jude. He smiled, and snaked his arm around my waist, pulling me closer.

  “Come on, Jude. Not here.” I ducked under his arm and stood up, tripping over the debris and insulation on the floor.

  He followed me, and backed me up against the wall.

  “Shhh, just relax,” he said, as he lifted his hand to my cheek and went for my mouth. I turned my head away. His breath was hot on my neck.

  “I don’t want to do this right now,” I said, my voice hoarse. Where was Rachel? Claire?

  “You never want to do this,” he mumbled against my skin.

  “Maybe because you do it so badly.” My stomach clenched as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

  Jude was still. I chanced a brief look at his face; his eyes were vacant. Lifeless. And then he smiled, but there was no warmth in it.

  “Maybe it’s because you’re a tease,” he said, and his smile faded. I needed to leave. Now.

  I tried to extract myself from between his body and the wall by pushing against his chest with my palms.

  He pushed back. It hurt.

  How was this happening? I’d learned over the past two months that Jude had his dick moments—entitled, spoiled, obnoxious—typical Alpha male garbage. But this? This was a whole new level of fucked up. This was—

  Jude pressed me against the dusty, crumbling wall with the full weight of his body, cutting off my train of thought. I felt the individual hairs rise on the back of my neck and assessed my dwindling options.

  I could scream. Rachel and Claire might be close enough to hear me, but they might not. If they weren’t—well. Things would get uglier.

  I could smack him. That would probably be stupid, as I’d seen Jude bench-press twice my body weight.

  I could do nothing. Rachel would come looking for me eventually.

  Door number three seemed the most promising. I went limp.

  Jude did not care. He crushed into me with more force, and I fought the swirling hysteria rising in my throat. This was wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong. Jude crushed his mouth against mine, panting, and the force of him pushed me deeper into the wall, setting loose small clouds of dust that billowed around my body. I felt nauseous

  “No,” I whispered. I sounded so far away.

  Jude didn’t answer. His pawing hands were rough and clumsy under my coat, under my sweatshirt, under my shirt. The cold of his skin against my stomach made me gasp. Jude laughed at me.

  It sparked a cold, rocking fury inside of me. I wanted to kill him. I wished that I could. I pulled one of his hands off my body with a force I didn’t know I had. He replaced it, and without thinking I hauled off and smacked him.

  I did not even have the opportunity to register the sting on my hand before I felt it on my face. On my face. Jude’s blow came so fast and so fierce that it seemed to take me minutes, or hours, to realize he’d even hit me back. My eyeball felt like it was dangling from my socket. The pain bit at me from the inside. My whole being was hot with it.

  Shaky-limbed and crying—was I crying?—I began to sink. Jude pulled me up, up, and pinned me, trapped me against the wall. I trembled so furiously against it that bits give way against my hands, my arms, my legs. Jude trailed his tongue over my cheek, and I shuddered.

  Then Claire’s voice rang out, cutting the charged, silent air. “Mara?”

  Jude backed away just a little, only a little, but my feet would not move. My cheeks were cold and itchy with tears and his saliva that I couldn’t wipe away. My breath was ragged, my sobbing silent. I raged at myself for not knowing the hollow stranger standing near me. And I raged at him for hiding himself so well, for tricking me, trapping me, crushing me. I felt something tug at the edges of my mi
nd, threatening to pull me down.

  A pair of footsteps a few feet away brought me back. Claire called my name again on the other side of the doorway; I couldn’t see her, but I clung to that voice, tried to shake off the infuriating helplessness and powerlessness that clogged my throat and weighed down my feet.

  Her flashlight danced around the room and finally landed on Jude as he stepped out from behind the wall, raising tiny cumulus clouds of dust.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hey,” Jude replied with a calm, even smile. It was impossibly more frightening than his rage. “Where’s Rachel?”

  “She’s looking for the blackboard room to add our names to the list,” Claire said quietly. “She wanted me to come back and make sure you guys weren’t lost.”

  “We’re good,” Jude said and beamed, flashing those all-American dimples. He winked at her.

  The shrieking violence inside of me escaped in only a faint, wretched whisper. “Don’t leave.”

  Jude stared hard into my face, his eyes reflecting pure anger. He didn’t give me a chance to speak before turning back to Claire. He grinned and rolled his eyes. “You know Mara,” he said. “She’s a little freaked out. I’m taking her mind off of it.”

  “Ah,” Claire said, and chuckled softly. “You two kids have fun.” I heard her footsteps retreat.

  “Please,” I said, a little louder this time.

  The footsteps paused for a moment—one bright, hopeful moment—before picking up again. Then they faded into nothingness.

  Jude was back. His meaty hand pushed against my chest, crushing me back into the wall. “Shut up,” he said, and unzipped my coat in one harsh motion. He unzipped my sweatshirt in another. Both garments hung limp from my shoulders.

  “Don’t move,” he warned me.

  I was frozen—completely, stupidly incapacitated. My teeth chattered and my body shook with anger against the wall as Jude fumbled with the button on my jeans, popping it out of the buttonhole. I had only one thought, just one, that had crawled like an insect into my brain and beat its wings until I could hear nothing else, think nothing else, and until nothing else mattered.

  He deserved to die.

  As Jude unzipped my fly, three things happened at once.

  Rachel’s voice called out my name.

  Dozens of iron doors slammed shut in a deafening clang.

  Everything went black.

  48

  THE SOUND OF MY MOTHER’S VOICE SHOCKED me awake.

  “Happy birthday!” She stood next to my bed and smiled down at me. “She’s awake, guys! Come on in.”

  I watched numbly as the rest of my family paraded into my room, carrying a stack of pancakes with a candle in the middle. “Happy birthday,” they sang.

  “And many moooooreeee,” Joseph added, with jazz hands.

  I put my face in my hands and tugged on my skin. I didn’t even remember going to sleep last night, but here I was in bed this morning. Waking up from my dream-memory-nightmare about the asylum.

  And about the Everglades?

  What happened last night? What happened that night? What happened to me? What happened?

  What happened?

  My father pushed the plate at me. A tiny droplet of wax rolled down the side of the candle and lingered, trembling like a lone tear, before it hit the first pancake. I didn’t want it to fall. I took the plate and blew the candle out.

  “It’s nine thirty,” my mother said. “Enough time for you to eat something and shower before Noah picks you up.” She brushed a strand of hair out of my face. My eyes wandered to Daniel. He winked at me. Then my gaze shifted to my father, who didn’t look as thrilled with this plan. Joseph beamed and waggled his eyebrows. He didn’t look tired. He didn’t look afraid.

  And my shoulder didn’t hurt.

  Did I dream it?

  I wanted to ask Joseph, but I didn’t see how to get him alone. If it had happened, if he had been taken, I couldn’t let my mother know—not until I spoke to Noah. And if it hadn’t happened, I couldn’t let my mother know. Because she would have me committed for sure.

  And at this point, I would be completely unable to argue with her.

  I hovered on the edge of the dream and the memory, unable to tell which was which, as I accepted my family’s kisses and my present, a digital camera. I thanked them. They left. I pushed one leg out of bed, then the other, and planted my feet on the floor. Then one foot, then the next foot, until I reached my bathroom. Rain lashed the small window and I stared straight at the shower door, hovering between the vanity and the toilet. I couldn’t look in the mirror.

  I remembered that night. Only when I was unconscious, apparently, and only in pieces, but they were taking on the shape of something enormous and terrifying. Something ugly. I rooted around for the rest of the memory—there was Jude, that asshole, that coward, and what he tried to do and then, and then—nothing. Blackness. The memory slipped away, retreating into the inscrutable vastness of my frontal lobe. It taunted me, niggled at me, and I was angry with it and the world by the time Noah knocked on the front door to pick me up.

  “Ready?” he asked. He held an umbrella, but the wind unsteadied his arm. I examined his face. The bruise was gone, and there were only the smallest traces of the lacerations above his eye.

  They couldn’t have healed that much in one night.

  Which meant that last night had to have been a nightmare. All of it. The asylum. The Everglades. Had to have been.

  I realized then that Noah was still standing there, waiting for me to answer. I nodded, and we made a break for it.

  “So,” Noah said once we were both in the car. He pushed back his damp hair. “Where to?” His voice was casual.

  That confirmed it. I stared past him, at a plastic bag caught in the neighbor’s hedge across the street, being battered by the rain.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, studying me.

  I was acting crazy. I did not want to act crazy. I swallowed the question I wanted to ask about the Everglades last night because it wasn’t real.

  “Bad dream,” I said, and the corner of my mouth curved into a slight smile.

  Noah looked at me through rain-jeweled lashes. His blue eyes held mine. “About what?”

  About what, indeed. About Joseph? About Jude? I didn’t know what was real, what was a nightmare, what was a memory.

  So I told Noah the truth. “I don’t remember.”

  He stared at the road ahead of us. “Would you want to?”

  His question caught me off guard. Would I want to remember?

  Did I have a choice?

  The sound of the doors rang in my ears. I heard the tug of my zipper as Jude pulled it down. Then Rachel’s voice echoing in the hall, in my skull. Then she was gone. I never heard her again.

  But maybe … maybe I did. Maybe she came for me, and I just didn’t remember it yet. She called for me, and maybe she came before the building crushed her—

  Before it crushed her. Before it crushed Jude who crushed me. My mouth went dry. Some phantom memory teased my brain, announcing its presence. This was important, but I didn’t know why.

  “Mara?” Noah’s voice reunited me with the present. We were stopped at a red light, and rain pounded on the windshield in waves. The palm trees on the median swayed and bent, threatening to snap. But they wouldn’t. They were strong enough to take it.

  And so was I.

  I turned back to Noah and focused my eyes on his. “I think not knowing is worse,” I said. “I’d rather remember.”

  When I spoke those words, it hit me with exquisite clarity. Everything that had happened—the hallucinations, the paranoia, the nightmares—it was just me needing to know, needing to understand what happened that night. What happened to Rachel. What happened to me. I remembered telling as much to Dr. Maillard just a week and a half ago and she smiled at me, telling me I couldn’t force it.

  But maybe, just maybe, I could.

  Maybe I could choose.

/>   So I chose. “I need to remember,” I said to Noah with an intensity that surprised us both. And then, “Can you help me?”

  He turned away. “How?”

  Now that I knew what was wrong, I knew how to fix it. “A hypnotist.”

  “A hypnotist,” Noah repeated slowly.

  “Yes.” My mother didn’t believe in it. She believed in therapy and in drugs that could take weeks, months, years. I didn’t have that kind of time. My life was unraveling, my universe was unraveling, and I needed to know what happened to me now. Not tomorrow. And not Thursday, at my next appointment. Now. Today.

  Noah said nothing, but dug into his pocket for his cell phone as he drove with one hand. He dialed and I heard it ring.

  “Hello, Albert. Can you get me an appointment with a hypnotist this afternoon?”

  I didn’t comment on Albert the butler. I was too excited. Too anxious.

  “I know it’s Saturday,” he said. “Just let me know what you find out? Thanks.”

  He hung up the phone. “He’s going to text me back. In the meantime, did you have anything you wanted to do today?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well,” he said, “I’m hungry. So how about lunch?”

  “Whatever you want,” I said, and Noah smiled at me, but it was sad.

  When we turned on to Calle Ocho, I knew where we were going. He pulled into the parking lot of the Cuban place and we darted into the restaurant, which was still insanely busy despite the epic flood.

  I felt well enough to smile at the memory of the last time we ate here as we waited near the dessert counter to be seated. I heard the hiss and spit of onions meeting hot oil, and my mouth watered as I scanned the bulletin board next to the counter. Ads for real estate, ads for seminars—

  I moved closer to the board.