“Why are you looking for my mother?” Matéo asked.
Here we were—the crux of the matter. My throat tightened. “I wanted to tell your mom . . . that her sister is . . . dead.” My voice trailed off. “My parents died . . . a month ago, at the end of May. Juliana knows. I wanted to tell Donella myself.” A month ago. In some ways it felt like just last week, and in some ways it felt like two years. A lifetime.
“I’m so sorry,” Aly said, and put her hand on mine briefly. I gave her a thin smile and saw that she was younger than I’d first thought—maybe twenty or twenty-one. Matéo looked about the same age.
It was all so surreal—the truth that my parents were actually dead, that I had driven all this way by myself, that I was now sitting talking to a cousin I’d never known I’d had. I thought of my other cousins, Juliana’s son and daughter, who were eight and ten years younger than me. They lived in Brazil, but I still knew them better, had seen them more, than this cousin just a few states away from Florida.
“I’m sorry too,” Matéo said. “I thought—the way my mom talked, I thought your mom had died a long time ago. But it was recent?”
“Uh-huh.” My voice was tiny. “So you were . . . that jaguar outside.”
Matéo looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Yeah, of course. I found a stranger sleeping in my yard.” His eyes narrowed as he regarded me. “Did you say both your parents died? Was it an accident? A car wreck?”
“No,” I said. “They were . . . attacked. Someone killed them.” My eyes felt hot and started stinging.
Matéo frowned. “Oh, no.”
I nodded, a minuscule movement. “My dad’s heart.” I let out a deep breath. “His heart was cut out. Someone took it. They tried to take my mom’s. But I came back and saw her, and she was alive. For a minute. She looked at me—she looked at me and said, ‘Donella? I’ve missed you.’ Then she died. So I wanted to know who Donella was.”
“Oh, how awful,” Aly said softly. “You do look like her, you know. Donella. How did you find out who she was?”
My face was wet with tears, which I barely noticed. “I found this same picture in my dad’s safe. Later, in my mom’s desk, I found an empty envelope—a letter your mom had sent to my mom. It had this return address on it.”
“How did you get here? Where do you live?” Matéo asked.
“I drove. My mom’s . . . my car is out front. We live—I live—in Sugar Beach, Florida. A little town by the Everglades, on the west coast.”
“Hm,” said Matéo. He and Aly exchanged a look. Leaning forward, he traced around the picture frame with one finger. He seemed to be thinking about something, and I didn’t interrupt him. All I wanted to do was lie down somewhere and cry.
Aly put her hand on Matéo’s shoulder and rubbed it gently. “It’s weird that your parents were killed, and your dad’s heart was taken,” she said to me, watching Matéo. His face didn’t change. I wondered if Aly was a haguara—if not, she was incredibly accepting of our affliction. “Donella and Patrick—Téo’s dad—were killed too. At first it looked like a car wreck, but there was an explosion and a fire, so the police investigated it. Téo’s parents were inside.”
“Oh, no,” I said again. “I’m so sorry.” Was our family cursed?
“They did autopsies,” Matéo broke in. “Because it was a suspicious death. Their hearts were missing. We figured it must have been some psycho. If there was any evidence, it was burned up.”
“Wait—their hearts were missing?” I asked. I took a deep breath. “You know what? Two nights ago, someone tried to break into my house, my parents’ house. I hit his hand with a baseball bat, and the cops chased him but didn’t catch him. But I couldn’t help wondering if it was the same person who killed my parents. I mean, I don’t know why they were killed. I don’t know why someone would be coming after me. I guess I thought it was something about us, my family. But now, with your parents—I don’t see how their deaths, their missing hearts, could be a coincidence. It’s too weird. But what’s going on? Is our family in particular being targeted?” My shoulders drooped. I’d come here hoping for answers—not more questions. My brain was barely stringing sentences together—I didn’t want to think about it anymore. Tomorrow. I could think about it tomorrow.
“I don’t know,” Matéo said. “But it’s definitely suspicious.”
“Yeah,” I said. My thoughts were coming in fits and starts. I wanted to talk to Matéo for a whole month, nonstop, but another wave of fatigue came over me and I realized I was going to collapse. Reluctantly I stood up. “It’s been so great meeting you,” I said. “Both of you. But I’m more tired than I realized—I can hardly think straight. I just got to town—can you point me toward a hotel? Not too expensive. But safe?”
Aly patted my arm. “Did you see all the weirdos in the kitchen?”
“Yeah. I mean . . . I didn’t think they were weird,” I said awkwardly.
Aly laughed. “They are. Basically, most of them live here.”
I must have had my doglike head-cocked-to-one-side look, because Matéo explained. “This was my parents’ house. Now it’s mine. It’s really big and expensive to keep up. So we rent out rooms. Right now we have . . .” He paused and counted silently. “Five people, plus us. One of our friends just moved out last week, so you could have her room.”
I was embarrassed. “I wasn’t hinting—I really am fine with a hotel.” I didn’t know how I felt about suddenly staying with a bunch of strangers, even if one of them was my cousin.
Matéo stood. “No—it’s settled. You’re family. You should definitely stay here.”
I hesitated, thinking about how my parents always welcomed people into our house. Friends of friends, children of friends—they were glad to host them. Sometimes our guest room was occupied for weeks. Once, the daughter of someone my mother went to school with stayed for three months, while she worked to save money for college.
Despite the whole boarding-house thing, this felt familiar. Matéo looked like my family, was my family. And I was truly running on my last bit of adrenaline. The idea of getting in my car to drive to a hotel was more than I could face. I could stay one night. If things seemed weird tomorrow, I would have more energy and could find a new place to stay.
“Okay. Thanks,” I said.
Aly got to her feet. “Let’s move your car into the yard.”
Walking back out through the large, old-fashioned kitchen was a little easier because only three people were still there. Aly introduced me to two girls and a guy, all of whose names and faces went right out of my head a second later. Matéo showed me how to drive around the corner and pull in through a side gate. This led to a larger area covered with crushed oyster shells where four other cars were parked. I left my mom’s Honda next to a pickup truck, and Matéo shut the gate behind me.
I only needed my smallest case, just for one night. Matéo grabbed it. Too weary to feel self-conscious, I fished my parents’ sheet out of the backseat, and then we crunched over the shells to the side door. This time the kitchen was empty.
Inside, Matéo said, “I’ll give you the full tour tomorrow. Right now we’ll just go upstairs—you look wiped.”
I gave him a wan smile and wondered if I could make it up a flight of stairs. I’d noticed the staircase when we’d walked past it before—it was wide and beautiful, rising upward in a graceful curve. Faint music drifted down from above. I felt vibrations as people walked on the floor overhead.
“There are five bedrooms on the second floor,” Aly said as I followed the worn places on the wooden stair treads. The handrail was as smooth as marble, worn down by a hundred and fifty years of hands stroking it, gripping its sides. “And then six more on the third floor—they used to be servants’ quarters.”
Matéo had snapped off lights as we’d left the downstairs and didn’t bother turning any on as we reached the second floor. Moonlight and light from the streetlamp shone through tall windows, casting pale, slanted rectangles acr
oss the wooden floors and patched plaster walls. As with the downstairs, everything looked run-down, in need of paint. I heard a toilet flush, heard hushed conversation and low laughter. Maybe I shouldn’t stay here. But as soon as I had that thought, I knew that I couldn’t possibly make it anywhere else. I felt barely conscious, swaying on my feet.
“That’s our room,” Aly said, pointing toward the back of the house. “This one in front is where Coco sleeps. You’ll stay in this other front one—it’s nice and big and has its own bathroom.” She smiled at me, and I tried to smile back. “There’s a hall bathroom,” she went on. “Three people share it: Coco, James, and Suzanne. James and Suzanne are in the room next to yours. Then Dana and Tink live upstairs.”
Matéo, walking ahead, opened a tall door leading to the right-hand front bedroom. He set my case on the floor. “Here you go. The bathroom is tiny—it used to be a closet—but it’s all yours.”
I stopped in the doorway. Our house in Florida was a typical seventies one-story ranch, with eight-foot ceilings, plain doors, small windows, and a peaked roof in the family room. This house was enormous, with fourteen-foot ceilings on both floors, nine-foot-tall French windows everywhere, and ornate plaster and wide, fancy molding on the baseboards and around the ceilings.
It was one of the grandest rooms I’d ever been in. The tall double bed with a half tester was draped in coral-colored watered silk. The mattress came up almost to my waist. In one corner of the room, an oval full-length mirror on a stand reflected our shadowy selves. Between the two French windows that led to the second-story porch was an enormous armoire, maybe seven feet tall and six feet wide. Its wood was dark and shiny and its fittings were brass. Heavy silk curtains that matched the bed hangings gave off little puffs of dust as Aly closed them, and she sneezed.
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t think Miranda ever cleaned in here. We’ll hit it tomorrow. I’ll get some fresh sheets.”
“It’s fine. Beautiful,” I said, but Aly had already gone.
When Matéo clicked the bedside light on, we blinked—it seemed almost too bright, after the darkness. “There’s the bathroom,” he said, pointing to a door on the other side of the bed. “There should be towels and stuff in there.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, overwhelmed. “This is gorgeous. I really appreciate it.” My eyes started burning, and I blinked several times. I’d felt very alone since Tia Juliana had left, and that last night in my parents’ house I’d felt the most alone ever, waiting in the darkness with my baseball bat. Which I now remembered was down in my car. Damn it. I was sure I didn’t need it, but still.
Anyway, to be here now with family was comforting.
Aly came back, her arms full of folded linens. “Do you want me to help you put them on?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, thanks, I can do it.”
“Okay, well, we’ll talk tomorrow,” said Matéo.
“If you need anything else, there’s a cupboard in the hallway where we keep spares and extras,” said Aly, and I nodded. “Sleep well.”
“Thank you,” I said inadequately, and they left, closing the door behind them.
I peeked in at the bathroom. It was small and narrow, with a shower, sink, and toilet—no bathtub, which was fine. Overhead, someone walked almost silently in an attic room. The tall windows showed the darkness outside, and I went over to them, wondering how sturdy the locks were. We were on the second floor, but I remembered how easily I’d jumped fifteen feet up into a tree, and shivered. Surely the attacker hadn’t followed me here. Guiltily I wondered if I was exposing my cousin—and everyone else here—to danger. But Matéo’s parents had been killed a year and a half ago, and he hadn’t mentioned any ensuing attacks on himself. So maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe trouble hadn’t followed me.
I kicked off my shoes, pulled back the covers on the tall bed, and climbed in. Flopping down onto the pillows felt like dropping into a bowl of marshmallow fluff. Holding my parents’ sheet like a stuffed animal, I breathed in their scents until I fell asleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
I PULL MY MOTHER’S HEAD onto my lap. Her blood runs red and unexpectedly warm down the skin of my legs. I stroke her fur, look into the golden eyes. Beneath my fingers she begins to change, shrinking, fur disappearing, hair growing long and black. The change continues as I watch in horror—her skin melts away; her muscles wither and curl back from her shining white skull like drying apple peels. Her golden eyes stare at me from fleshless sockets, unable to blink. Screaming, I drop her skull, kicking to get away from it. Then I’m staring at a skeleton, lying on blood-soaked grass. A skeleton with my mother’s eyes and hair.
I jolted awake, skin clammy with sweat, heart pounding. Yet another nightmare, though this was a new one. Would I ever not have nightmares?
It took a minute before I remembered where I was, why I was sleeping in this tall, fancy bed. The room was dim, and I clicked my cell phone to see what time it was. Two thirty. Narrow blades of hot sunlight sliced through where the curtains met: It was light outside, so it was two thirty in the afternoon? When I’d collapsed last night, it had been barely ten. I’d slept for . . . sixteen hours? I hadn’t slept that much since—
Frowning, I went to the windows and pulled open the curtains. Bright light streamed in, making me blink and step back, warming my skin even through the glass. Summer in New Orleans.
I looked around the room, seeing what I hadn’t noticed last night. The walls were a pale green, faded and uneven in color. Some of the plaster had cracked and been crudely repaired. The ceiling had cracks in it too. But the furniture was beautiful—I assumed real antiques. My small case sat on the floor, but I didn’t feel up to opening it and finding something to wear. Or taking a shower. Or brushing my hair. Instead, I realized I was hungry.
Before I opened my door, I listened, hoping to not hear voices. Facing a bunch of strangers would be a challenge. Maybe everyone was at work. I opened the door and found myself in a hallway that was wider than my room at home. Double French doors lit the hallway at each end, front and back. Through the window panes I saw porches; the one in the back of the house looked screened in. All the doors that opened off the hallway were shut, and I pulled mine shut too. Barefoot, I padded downstairs, the wooden steps cool and satiny. My eyes were again drawn to all the beautiful architectural details of the house. The woodwork was detailed in a way you don’t see in modern houses, and even the doors were well made and beautiful. Crystal chandeliers hung from flowery plaster medallions in the centers of the ceilings; the long panes of glass in the windows were wavy and old.
The house was quiet, but I felt weird about exploring without Matéo or Aly. I wondered where they were, then heard the sound of . . . maybe a drill? It was coming from the double parlors on the right-hand side of the house. I poked my head in the door. What had once been a formal dining room was now a . . . workshop? Rows of small hand tools hung neatly on one wall, and two large worktables were covered with table saws and drill presses and miter boxes. A fine layer of sawdust coated everything. Matéo was bent over a table, placing something carefully in a small vise. I must have made a sound, because he suddenly looked up.
“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Hey,” Matéo said. “I’m glad you finally woke up. I was starting to think you’d fallen into a coma.”
I laughed awkwardly.
“Come on, get some breakfast,” he said, putting his work down.
“This house is so beautiful,” I said. “Is it really old?”
“Nah, not really,” Matéo said, shrugging. Together we headed to the kitchen at the back of the house. “Maybe 1860 or so. There are much older buildings in the Quarter. You want an egg?”
My stomach recoiled. “Maybe just some toast?”
“You got it. First some coffee.”
I started to say I didn’t drink coffee, then thought it might be rude to reject everything he offered. When he placed the handleless bowl
of coffee with milk in front of me, it smelled really good. I took a tentative sip.
“This is great,” I said, deciding my mom hadn’t known how to make coffee.
“It’s hard to make bad coffee in New Orleans,” my cousin said. “But it has to be CDM. Café du Monde. Makes all the difference.” When toast popped out of a toaster, he spread it with butter, then put it in front of me. The warm bread melted the butter, and it was an explosion of flavor in my mouth. Not wanting to overwhelm my system with solid food, I forced myself to take small bites, waiting in between each one.
“Um, where is everyone?” I said.
“Most of them are at work or school,” said Matéo, sitting down with his own bowl of coffee. “Some are still asleep.” Leaning his elbows on the table, he closed his eyes and drank his coffee as if it were a ritual.
“It’s . . . fun that they all live here.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, opening his eyes. “It sort of happened without me planning it. I was at school in Colorado, and then I got the phone call from the cops.” Sadness shadowed his face. “There was a lot of stuff to deal with, you know.”
“Yeah. My tia—our tia Juliana did a lot of that for me.” What would Tia Juliana think if she knew I was here? Would she be angry? Shocked?
“I ended up just staying, moving back here,” said Matéo. “Aly was still here, going to Tulane. We’ve been going out since we were sixteen.”
“Wow.”
Matéo grinned a little bit. “So Aly moved in, and that was great. And gradually, friends started crashing here. There’s so much room. Finally I was like, I’m charging your asses.”
“How many people live here now?” I asked. “I know you told me.”
“Five, plus us. And now you. So eight.”
I wasn’t at all sure I was going to stay, but I didn’t need to decide right this second. So here we were, two cousins getting to know each other over coffee. Except that we were both members of a hidden, ancient race, for lack of a better word. A race that was neither human nor animal, but both. After years of not wanting to know, I now wanted information about our kind. Maybe I would get comfortable enough with Matéo to ask him about it. Someday.