Darkest Fear

  “Actually, yes, I’m about done. You can sit up.”

  I couldn’t help groaning as I slowly uncurled my back and arched it in the other direction. Every muscle screamed, and I imagined all the little sinews knitting and unknitting, being stretched. Rafael had gone back to work, looking at the sketch pad so intently he didn’t seem to notice me staggering to my feet and stretching again. I was so tired, and I still had to drive home.

  “Can I see it?” I asked.

  It was a minute before he answered. “Hang on. One more minute . . .”

  Well, at least I didn’t have to sit here any more. I got my purse from the employees’ room and went to the bathroom. My hair was fuzzy and messy-looking, I was of course wearing no makeup, and had dark circles under my eyes and colorless lips. I had let Rafael immortalize this forever. Excellent.

  He was standing in front of the easel when I came out, leaning over to finish some small lines in one corner.

  “Can I look now?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He added another small line and smudged something with his pinkie.

  Time to see the truth. I had been curious as to how Rafael saw me, but now was scared to find out. If he saw me as ugly, I would feel awful. But it wasn’t like I planned my days around making sure I looked fabulous all the time. There was an uncomfortable contradiction here that I needed to figure out.

  Turning, he saw me hesitating, walking as slowly as possible. His green eyes were intent as he said, “If you hate it, we won’t put it up, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, then realized it would have been more polite to insist that I wouldn’t hate it, no matter what.

  I got very near the easel before I let my eyes focus on the drawing. Then my mouth dropped open and my fingers reached out to touch it. Only Rafael’s warm hand, touching mine, reminded me not to smudge it.

  Was this me? Was this how he saw me? It looked like me, but an impossibly optimistic version. It was bigger than I expected, maybe eighteen inches by twenty-four, and on the same mustard-colored drawing paper as all the others. He’d used pencil and charcoal, and white pencil for the highlights; with that limited palette he’d created a drawing that was so real-looking that it was almost sculptural.

  Instead of slumping gracelessly, I was arched sinuously over the table. Instead of looking tired, I looked thoughtful. My shirt wasn’t lumpy—it defined my body without looking skintight. I saw the breadth of my shoulders, the smooth muscles of my arms, the delicate arch of my collarbones. Because of the dumb position I’d chosen, my body was bent and angled in an oddly provocative pose, as if I’d wanted to call attention to my boobs and waist. At the bottom of the drawing you could even see my skirt riding up on my thighs. What had I been thinking, sitting like that?

  But it was my face that was so shocking. I’d hoped I hadn’t drifted off enough to actually drool, but in this drawing I gazed out at the viewer, my dark, almond-shaped eyes half-closed as if it were a hot day and the heat were making me sleepy. My nose was straight and finely carved, my mouth fuller than I’d thought. My lips were slightly parted as if I were about to say something. And my hair—my thick rat’s nest spilled over my shoulders and across the table like dark syrup, flowing and silky, framing my face and trailing halfway down my back.

  I looked . . . incredibly feminine and sexy, not in a porn-star way, but with a strong, womanly attitude, as if I knew how beautiful I was, knew that any man who saw me would fall under my spell. It was bizarre and stunning—and yet it really did look like me.

  Minutes passed as I stood there staring, and then I saw something that made me inhale sharply. I’d been sitting at the table closest to the mural wall. Rafael had sketched in part of the mural behind me, making it subtle and shadowed but unmistakably there.

  The eyes of the jaguar stared out right over my shoulder. My back blocked the branch he lay on so it looked as if he were curling over me, staring at the viewer. If one got fanciful and imagined it at an extreme perspective, it could look as if I were prey, and the jaguar had caught me and was holding me as his.

  “Um . . .” Rafael’s quiet voice brought me back, and I realized I hadn’t said anything in several minutes. My hand felt warm—Rafael was still holding it. Gently I tugged on it and he let me go.

  “Wow,” I said finally, my throat dry. “Gosh.”

  “That isn’t how you see yourself,” he said.

  “Noooo,” I said slowly. “Not really.” Not at all.

  “That’s how you look.” He sounded quite sure.

  Oh, what I wouldn’t have given for that to be true, for me to truly be strong, confident, and beautiful. Like . . . my mother had been. “Hm.”

  “Do you hate it?”

  “No—of course not. It’s beautiful. It’s amazing. No. Just . . . not used to it.”

  “Should I put it on the wall with the others? Or rip it up?”

  My eyes flared and I turned to him. “Don’t rip it up!”

  He didn’t say anything—it was almost three in the morning and he looked as tired as I felt. A buzzing from inside my purse made us both jump. I tore my eyes away from him and pulled out my cell phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Vivi? Are you okay?”

  “Hi, Aly—yeah, I’m fine. How come you’re awake?”

  “Téo just realized your car wasn’t here,” she said, then yawned. “It’s fine if you’re out. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m on my way home now,” I said.

  “Okay. Drive safe.”

  By the time I slipped my phone back in my purse, Rafael had put his drawing things away and was locking the back door. He clicked the lights off one by one, and once again we were in darkness in the big front room. The mural jaguar’s eyes glowed at me, and I looked away from it. Something unusual and intimate had happened here between us tonight, and I didn’t know how to act, or if I was the only one who’d felt it.

  Rafael set the alarm by the front door, punching in numbers on a keypad. “No one’s ever made my grandmother coffee she liked.” I smiled as we went out through the front door and he locked it. “All these years she’s been hysterically angry about the coffee, but I didn’t realize it was because she wanted local coffee with chicory. She didn’t actually say so.”

  Maybe I was the only one who had felt it. “You and your highfalutin bilgewater.”

  He laughed. He actually laughed, putting back his head. It was wonderful to hear, to watch, and I wished I’d had more dating experience, enough to deal with this overwhelming attraction. The three failures I’d experienced had only made me more uptight and anxious. On top of that I was now terrified of accidentally changing in case of strong emotion, or of someone being able to tell that I was Not Normal.

  Even now, I realized that Rafael was the only guy I’d met in the last two years who’d even made me question my dating ability, and that made me wonder if I should risk it. Could I kiss him without changing? How far could I go before my whole system short-circuited, turning me into a lethal predator?

  My mind was whirling with these thoughts as we headed to the parking lot, and it took me a second to process that Rafael had said something.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I said, you’re eighteen, right?” Under the parking-lot lights his hair was shiny and black. I wondered why he kept it so short, almost militarily short. All the same, he was one gorgeous guy.

  “Yeah. How old are you?” Talia had told me, but I asked anyway.

  “Twenty-one. Twenty-two next February.”

  “I’ll be nineteen next—” On the first anniversary of my parents’ deaths. They had died on my birthday. I would never be able to have a happy birthday again.

  “What’s the matter?” His voice was soft.

  “Nothing,” I said unconvincingly, unable to look at his sharp beauty in the warm night air.

  He touched my chin, put two fingers beneath my jaw and very, very gently tilted my head so I had to look at him. “You k
now, sometimes you’re right there, and sometimes you’re far away. And the faraway place is . . . broken.”

  My eyes widened at his devastatingly accurate description, and to add to the general awkwardness of my social skills, tears welled up, making my lashes spiky and my vision blur.

  “I think . . . I’m broken too.” So not what I had meant to say. So not strong and confident and beautiful.

  “No.” Maybe I imagined him saying that. But I didn’t imagine Rafael leaning closer, bending down slightly, and slowly, gently, pressing his lips against mine.

  I hadn’t kissed a boy in well over two years. I’d only ever kissed three boys, if you counted Jennifer’s fourteenth birthday party when we played spin the bottle. Now I was kissing the hottest guy I’d ever seen. Jennifer was going to freak.

  I was freaking. Was I even doing this properly? Rafael made a little sound and put his hand on my back, holding me a bit closer. He tilted his head to make our mouths fit together better, and I reached my arms up and looped them around his neck. He was only three inches taller than me, and we fit together very well. Soon I felt his warmth the whole length of my body, and we were kissing and kissing, slanting our mouths this way and that to get as close as possible. I wanted our chests to melt together, my arms to fuse around him, his hands to leave their imprints on my skin as if I were clay.

  Rafael broke our kiss first and was quiet for a moment, pressing our foreheads together. “I know you—but why—why are you—” he muttered, then took a deep breath and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  He stepped back, putting distance between us. I looked up into his eyes, allowing myself to get lost in them as surely as I would get lost in a jungle.

  “I don’t understand you. I don’t know why—” His face was tight.

  “Why what?”

  He shook his head, looking frustrated. “Never mind. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Not what any girl wants to hear, especially after taking an extremely infrequent chance of kissing someone. I took a step back myself, trying to think of a snappy response. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been dumped by nearly enough guys to develop a worthy arsenal, and my mind was scrambling.

  “It’s all so . . . complicated,” Rafael said, running a hand through short black hair, making it stand up.

  Oh please, how lame is that? I mean, yes, it was horribly complicated on my side, but he didn’t know that. He was trying to tell me his life was complicated? I cocked one eyebrow, sighed, and opened my car door. Well, now we knew: He was an incredible artist. Period. That didn’t make him an incredible guy.

  “It’s okay,” I said, striving for casual. “It was just a kiss, Rafael. I don’t need you to put my face on your home screen.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” he began, but I slid into my car and shut the door with a satisfying bang.

  Yes, I did. I understood that the kiss I had reveled in was a big mistake in his eyes. I understood that it wouldn’t be happening again. I understood that the guy who had drawn me with such exhilarating vision was just a small part of an unworthy total.

  I started the engine without looking at him directly, but glanced in the side mirror as I pulled out. He stood there watching me, his haunting, angular face looking more upset than I would have thought. Almost tortured. His jaw muscles clenched; his hands made fists. He really did look upset. What in the world was going on with him?

  I drove carefully, my brain bombarded by questions, fears, embarrassment, doubt . . . and fortunately made it home without running into a streetcar or mowing down a tourist. I parked between Coco’s van and Tink’s SUV and went inside, the warm night air seeming to encase me.

  The light was on over the side steps. To my surprise Matéo opened the door for me.

  “Hey, prima,” he said. “Thought I heard your car. You’re back late. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, whatever.” I just made out with my boss who then rejected me. “Listen, Matéo . . .”

  “Yeah?” My cousin’s hair was wine-colored in the dim light from the lamp on top of the fridge.

  “I need you to teach me how to change. And how to not change.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AS THEY HAD TOLD ME, it took more than five minutes to learn. My parents had tried more than once—the first lesson was on my thirteenth birthday. We all know how that went.

  My cousin and I started the next morning. Matéo asked me if Dana could help too, and I’d said yes even though I was going to be embarrassed enough to have Matéo witness my ineptitude. For convenience’s sake, we decided not to go out in the woods somewhere but instead practice upstairs in the attic. Besides the six small bedrooms (formerly for servants), there was a larger room on one side where people stored stuff. One small window in the gable let in light, and the ceilings sloped dramatically to end in knee walls.

  “This is my heavy bag,” Dana said, patting the large punching bag hanging from the ceiling. “Feel free to use it.”

  Yeah. That wasn’t going to happen.

  “Are these your weights?” I asked, pointing at a bench and a large set of free weights.

  “Uh-uh. Those are Tink’s,” she said. “But I use them too.” She made a fist and curled her arm to show off impressive muscles. I grinned and tapped her bicep—it was rock hard.

  “Let me know if you want to go running sometime,” I said. “I like running.”

  “Oh, that would be great,” Dana said. “No one around here runs.”

  “Stuffy up here,” Matéo said, and opened the small window. Air moved, but it wasn’t any cooler.

  The child me had seen no benefit to knowing how to change, had been scared of changing, had emotionally rejected the world that included change. The slightly more grown-up me recognized that there was a benefit to knowing how to not change. Until I could trust myself, control myself, there was no way I’d be able to get close to anyone. If I ever had anyone to get close to. Apparently I still didn’t, because dark, lovely Rafael of the Searing Kisses had a “complicated” life. My life wasn’t exactly a Happy Meal, you know?

  “Okay,” said Matéo, rubbing his hands. “Let’s get started. First, we have to kill a squirrel.”

  “What?” I cried, horrified, even as Dana started laughing. “Oh, you butt.”

  “No, no squirrel,” Matéo snickered.

  “They’re delicious!” Dana said brightly.

  I groaned and covered my face. “I can’t do this.”

  “Okay, kidding aside,” said Matéo. “Now, how often have you changed?”

  “In my whole life? Four times.”

  “Four!” Dana was even more surprised than Matéo.

  I ticked them off on my fingers: “My thirteenth birthday, then the day my parents . . . then that night the jaguar attacked Tink, and then the very next night when I chased the muggers.”

  “Wait—you chased muggers? In New Orleans?” Dana shook her head at my idiocy.

  “It’s been pointed out that that was a bad idea,” I acknowledged. “Anyway, it seems that ever since my parents . . . died, extreme emotion seems to make me change, whether I want to or not. Like the Hulk. I need to learn how to not do that.”

  “You can learn that,” said Matéo. “Do you remember how you changed, the very first time?”

  “No. I have no idea. Is it like a genetic-timer kind of thing, where we’re programmed to change when we’re thirteen years old? Like thirteen full moons a year, times thirteen years . . .”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” said Matéo seriously. “But no, that’s not it. Do you remember what you did right before you changed?”

  “Had birthday cake.” The last one my mom had made for me.

  “What else?”

  “What do you mean, what else?”

  “Something to drink?”

  “Oh, yeah. Punch. Red punch.” I stared at him. “Oh jeez, was there some of that stuff in there?”

  “Cuvaje rojo,” Matéo confirmed
. “The same species of plant, but different. Cuvaje rojo causes haguari to become their jaguar selves. Cuva rojo causes haguari to become their human selves. Almost all parents help their kids change the first time that way. It’s easier and faster. Then you learn how to do it on your own.”

  “So they drugged me.”

  “Or . . . they shared with you some of our culture’s natural and traditional medicine,” Dana said pointedly. “Like matzo-ball soup, or boiled willow bark.”

  “Those don’t make people undergo a profound cellular metamorphosis,” I felt compelled to point out.

  “Moving on,” said Matéo. “The way my parents taught me is to start with meditation.”

  “Mine too,” said Dana. “Basically concentrating intently on everything your body is feeling. When you can isolate certain feelings, you can increase them, or call on them at will.”

  That was all we did that day: meditate, focus on our bodies, isolate muscles, control our breathing. I listened to my heart beat, my lungs fill with air, my stomach gurgle from breakfast. I saw the weird little lights behind my eyelids when I closed my eyes. When it was over, I felt very relaxed and calm, but not any closer to learning what I needed to know.

  But it was a start. I had started.

  • • •

  I had the next two days off from work, which I was glad about. It would give me some time to get a grip on my emotions. When I finally had to go back, I dressed with extra care. I didn’t know what to expect from Rafael—would he be standoffish? Mean? Ignore me? Lead me on again? In any case, I would feel less vulnerable if I looked okay.

  As it turned out, my awesome fifties-housewife dress was wasted: Rafael wasn’t standoffish or mean or anything, because he wasn’t there—and neither was my portrait. Despite everything, I had looked forward to seeing it join the others on the wall. To know that Rafael didn’t want to put it up hurt—like maybe he thought I would read too much into it or something.

  Talia and I worked till midnight and the evening passed quietly, with no one kissing me and nothing happening that would cause me to accidentally turn into a jaguar.