“What does Aly do?”
“Customs,” he said, as if that explained anything. “Alyna Cortez, official U. S. Customs and Border Protection agent. New Orleans is a huge port, close to South and Central America. There’s a lot of drugs, a lot of smuggling. She can explain it better than I can.”
“Oh. What were you doing in your workshop?” Stupid, mundane questions, instead of Who do you think killed your parents? Who do you think killed my parents? Why in the world would someone steal people’s hearts, for gods’ sake?
“I’m a luthier,” Matéo said. “I repair stringed instruments, like guitars, violins, basses. Then some nights I’m a bartender at the Fortress, in the Quarter.” He smiled and drank the last of his coffee. “You should come with Aly—it’s a cool place, and a lot of our people hang out there.”
“Our people?”
“Haguari,” he said, smiling.
I blinked. “Are there more of us here? You know more haguari?”
Matéo grinned. “Yeah, of course. We’re everywhere.”
This was astonishing—I’d never met more than maybe eight haguari in my whole life, besides the ones I was related to.
“Last night when you changed, I wondered if you worried that your friends would see you,” I said.
“The friends here? Nah. Everyone who lives here is one of us.”
“All the people here? All of them are haguari?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Matéo. “Couldn’t you tell? Were there many of us in—where? Sugar Beach?”
“Yeah—I mean, no, I couldn’t tell, last night. But in Sugar Beach—I mean, my parents had a few friends. There are others in Florida, I think. It doesn’t seem like a lot, though. I guess I thought that we were rare. I knew there were some in other countries. But not many anywhere.”
“No, cousin,” said Matéo with a smile. “There’s tens of thousands of us, all over the world. Maybe even a hundred thousand. Maybe more. It’s not like we have conventions. There’re a lot here in New Orleans—you’ll be meeting them.”
While my brain tried to absorb this amazing fact, Matéo went on: “Did the police ever come up with anything, about who killed your folks?”
“No. I think they’re still looking. I guess. What about you? Did the police discover what happened? How much did they investigate?”
“They got nowhere,” Matéo said. “When the cops first told me that their hearts had been taken, I wondered if it had been an organ harvester, someone who killed people and harvested their organs and sold them on the black market.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.
“I asked the cops to check hospitals everywhere, anywhere they do heart transplants. But they found nothing—no hearts suddenly becoming available. It didn’t occur to me that someone was collecting haguari hearts in particular.”
“No, of course not.” I hesitated, then went on. “You know, I was there, when my parents were killed.”
Matéo looked dismayed. “You mentioned that you saw your mom—she said my mom’s name.”
I shuddered. I hadn’t talked about the actual event since Tia Juliana had left. “Right. I told you that. Yeah. We were picnicking for my birthday. Then we heard a snarl, a big cat snarl, coming from the woods.” I could tell Matéo things I hadn’t even told Jennifer.
Matéo leaned forward, his eyes intent. “Wait—you heard a snarl? It was a haguaro who attacked your parents?”
“Yes, it had to have been,” I said. “Or a haguara. Some of their injuries were definitely caused by claws. Some by a knife. You mean . . . did you think a regular person killed your parents?”
“Yeah,” Matéo said, looking stunned. “I mean, there was no evidence except ash. I guess starting a fire seemed pelado, as opposed to having your skull bitten. But if it was a haguaro . . .” He shook his head. “Okay, tell me everything.”
“Um, so we heard this ugly snarl, and my parents jumped up.” Would it ever not be searingly painful to remember that day? “Mom told me to run; she pushed me. My dad was already changing, turning into a jaguar. I just ran. Later, I don’t know how much later, I went back. My dad was dead. His heart was gone. My mom was still . . . a jaguar. I held her, and she changed back. I asked who did this, and she just looked at me and said, ‘Donella? I’ve missed you.’ Then she died.” I didn’t need to share the “perfect baby” part. It was enough that I’d gotten through the telling of it.
“My gods, how awful,” Matéo murmured. “What a nightmare.”
I nodded and drank some coffee, wondering if I was going to fall to pieces, as usual.
“If it was a haguari who killed your parents, then maybe it was a haguari who killed mine,” said Matéo. “I hadn’t even considered that. This is New Orleans—if it wasn’t an organ thief, then I figured it was some bizarre voodoo weirdness.”
“Do people really do voodoo like that here?” I asked.
“Well, you hear about stuff,” Matéo said. “I didn’t know what to think.”
We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, drinking our coffee, both of us lost in thought. I gave Matéo some time to absorb the probability that haguari were attacking their own kind. Or at least one haguari.
After a while, Matéo said, “Aly was right—you do look like my mom, at least when she was younger. She had gained weight, gotten older. But pictures of her when she was your age . . . I can see how your mom mistook you for her.”
“It’s just . . . I never knew about her at all,” I said. “Only Tia Juliana. I’d never heard her name—not once. What about you? Did you know about my mom and Tia Juliana?”
“Yes—my mom told me about them. When I asked where they were, she said, ‘Gone.’ But she never explained. I saw how sad it made her, so I quit asking. I thought they’d died, so it didn’t occur to me to look for them. I guess I figured someday I’d go to Brazil and research them or something.”
“I wish we knew what happened between them,” I said.
“I wish we knew who killed them,” Matéo said. “They have to be linked, right? Don’t you think? But how? Why?” He pushed back his chair and went to the sink, his back rigid with frustration.
“Your folks died here, in New Orleans?” I asked gently.
He shook his head. “They were on a road trip. They were barely out of the city, just a bit north of the lake.”
I let out a breath. It was such a relief to have someone to talk to about this. When Tia Juliana had been with me, I’d been too much of a mess to even think about the hows and whys. I was still a mess, but functioning on a basic level.
“I can’t believe everyone who lives here is haguari,” I said. “That’s more than I’ve ever met, practically. And they’re all young.” This seemed amazing.
Footsteps in the hallway made me look up, and a second later a solidly built black girl came into the kitchen. She looked sleepy and was wearing running shorts and an old T-shirt. Her arms and legs were toned and muscled like an athlete’s, and her hair was cut quite short and dyed bright maroon. Her face was lovely, heart-shaped, with very full lips and slightly tipped light brown eyes.
“Coffeeeeee,” she moaned, her eyes half open, her hands sort of clawing at the air.
“Sit down,” Matéo said, fixing her a bowl. “Vivi, this is Dana LeFevre. She lives on the third floor. Dana, this is my cousin Vivi Neves, from Florida.”
Dana squinted at me. “Hi, Cousin Vivi. Welcome to Big Cats R Us.”
My face felt frozen as I managed a “Hi.” For the last five years, practically all my waking moments had been filled with keeping secrets and denying what I was—not only to the world, but to my parents and myself. To have someone be this open—actually make a joke about it—was shocking.
That was the irony. I’d completely and consistently rejected everything about the haguari side of my parents’ lives. Then I’d found this surprise aunt, had come here, was thrilled to meet a new cousin—only to find that I was immersed in much more haguari culture than I’d l
eft at home.
How did I feel about that? I liked Matéo and Aly so far. The idea of this—living in a big house in New Orleans with a bunch of cool people—sounded like fun, almost like the dorm I would have been living in, if things were different.
But they were all haguari. My cousin had changed into a jaguar and back last night, so he was obviously really comfortable with it. They probably all were.
I wasn’t. The night I’d changed, when my parents . . . it had been weird and scary. I hadn’t been myself, hadn’t thought like myself, hadn’t experienced things as myself. I’d felt not human, and it had been disturbing. How could I make actual decisions in that state? I was afraid that I could forget what being human was and just be . . . lost, forever. I never wanted to do it again.
If I stayed here, it would be like living in a nudist colony but insisting on staying dressed.
If I didn’t stay here, where would I go? Back home? Where people were breaking into my house to kill me? Somewhere else? Brazil? What were my options?
• • •
“You made it there alive?” Jennifer’s face took up my whole laptop screen. She looked tanned, healthy, and concerned.
“Yeah. It was a hard drive, though.” I hadn’t told Jennifer about the break-in yet. She would only worry, and there wasn’t anything she could do. And what was one more secret piled on top of all the secrets I kept from her? “But I’m here at my cousin’s house. He seems nice. And his girlfriend is nice too.” I wished I could mull over all the haguari pros and cons with Jennifer, but that was never going to happen.
“Hm.” Jennifer didn’t sound convinced. “Hold up the computer so I can see your room.”
I pointed the laptop camera and did a slow three-sixty of the room I was staying in.
“Wow, it’s gorgeous,” said Jennifer. “One of those old New Orleans houses, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“But your aunt and uncle are dead? That’s awful,” she said. A big straw loomed on the screen, and she drank some kind of Israeli soda.
“Yeah.” There was so much I couldn’t tell her. I wanted to talk with her about the similarities between my aunt and uncle’s deaths and my parents’. It had been so comforting to talk about it with Matéo, to feel not so alone and freakish. And this was my best, best friend.
“So what are your plans?” Jennifer asked briskly. “I expect you to be home by August twelfth, which is when I get back. You can help me pack for college.” She made her usual wrinkled-nose face at the mention of college.
“Oh, I’ll be back long before then,” I assured her. “I don’t know how long I’ll stay here—probably just another day or two. Then I’ll go back home.”
“Good,” said Jennifer. “Can’t wait to see you.”
“You too, HD.”
CHAPTER SIX
I WASN’T BACK HOME BY August 12.
I didn’t deliberately decide to stay in New Orleans—it was more like I just never left. It was such a relief to be somewhere new, doing new things, talking to people who didn’t know me or my life in Florida. It was a relief to be away from that silent, empty house that would never feel safe again. Back home I had neighbors, friends, teachers, friends of my parents—all of whom knew about my parents, all of whom wanted to sympathize with me and help. Here, I was just Matéo’s cousin who was visiting.
Did I feel like a hypocrite, living with seven haguari and not fighting with them about it? Yes. In this house, with these people, it was natural and unremarkable, and every one of them reveled in their dual natures. For them it didn’t seem bad. Myself—I still had no interest at all in changing. I was 100 percent happy being 100 percent human. None of my housemates pressured me—none of them seemed that interested. It wasn’t a big deal. It was casual.
All of them changed frequently, sometimes in the house. A couple of times I was woken by growling or snarling—above me, or down the hall. I’d been scared, the first time; then I had realized they weren’t, ahem, fighting. One time I was heading for the stairs, and the hall bathroom door was open. Someone—I couldn’t tell jaguars apart—was on his or her hind legs, drinking from the sink. That was my life.
I was in a different universe: At home, being haguari had been the one single huge source of conflict, anger, and strife in my life. It had damaged, even destroyed, my two most important relationships. I would have rather died than acquiesce. Here, it was . . . no big deal.
The inconsistency made my head spin, made my guilt about my parents even more crushing. I didn’t know my own mind, my own feelings or beliefs. I was seriously adrift, with nothing tying my feet to the ground.
Which meant anything could happen.
After a week I started buying groceries for the house, and after two weeks I started paying rent. Matéo didn’t want to accept it, but I made him. I hated feeling like I was sponging, though he didn’t see it that way and neither did Aly. He insisted I accept a family discount, though.
The household became more familiar to me as we shared meals, hung out, watched TV together. Dana was from Mississippi and had lived here five months. She was a sixth-degree black belt in tae kwon do and often traveled to meets and demonstrations around the country and even overseas. The house joke was, “Don’t piss Dana off—she’s a black belt.” Because, ha ha, of course it was Don’t piss Dana off—she’s a haguara. Much more dangerous than a black belt.
“Girl. You do not do that to eggs.”
That was Coco, frowning at Suzanne. Coco Peréz Falto was a sous-chef at a fancy restaurant uptown, and Aly had told me that Coco’s girlfriend, Charlotte, was a waiter at the same restaurant. Charlotte didn’t live here, but apparently was often around—I hadn’t met her yet. Coco had been the first person to move in, more than a year ago, and was Aly’s best friend. Like the rest of us, she was unusually pretty, and had fair skin, blue eyes, and wavy, medium-brown hair that she kept above her collar. Like me, she never wore makeup and didn’t pay much attention to her clothes, unless she was wearing her white, crisply starched chef’s coat.
Suzanne made a face and whisked the eggs harder, which ensured that they would be tough and rubbery when she cooked them. Coco looked over at me, and I mouthed, I know. We shared mutual good-cook shrugs of pain. One morning a few weeks ago, I’d actually felt like baking and had made orange-cranberry scones, with homemade lemon curd to go with. Coco had loved them, and the next thing I knew, I was teaching her some of my baking specialties and she was showing me how to make a remoulade sauce.
The only couple who lived here besides Matéo and Aly was Suzanne and James, who slept in the room next to mine. Thank heavens we had closets in between us and thick, old-fashioned walls. Suzanne Edmunds was tall with black hair, very pale skin, and light blue eyes. She’d come here from Connecticut to go to law school at Tulane University, and she had what I secretly felt was a Northern chilliness, a sort of stuck-upedness. Her boyfriend, James Fortunato, was black, very tall and very slender. As a third-year med student, he was hardly ever here. His clean-cut good looks and preppy clothes made him look like someone in a J.Crew ad. He was sweet and laid-back, and often visited his parents uptown. Suzanne and James had lived here for almost a year.
With so much going on, I had minutes at a time when I forgot to be crushed by life and devastated by grief. One afternoon I noticed that I had smiled twice already that day. Another morning I realized that my clothes weren’t swimming on me as much. July melded into August, and life in general took on an easy, hushed quality, as if the heat and humidity muffled sounds, muffled thoughts, muffled fear.
• • •
“Why are you still there?” Jennifer cried. “I’m coming home tomorrow!”
“I . . .” My voice trailed off. I really wanted to see her. Jennifer coming home from Israel was always the highlight of any summer. Usually I would be waiting in her driveway with a helium balloon or flowers from the grocery store. She would be exhausted from the trip but so happy to see me, and we would go lie on her bed,
telling each other everything that we had already Skyped about the whole time she was gone. Then she would crash because of the time difference and I would sneak out.
“I’ve just . . . sort of settled here. I keep thinking about going home, and the thought of walking into my house—”
“You could stay with me,” said Jennifer.
“You’re leaving for college in two weeks.”
“Yes,” she said pointedly. “I’m leaving for New York in two weeks, and then I won’t see you till winter break. Therefore you should come home tomorrow so we can see each other.”
I hesitated.
“You don’t have to drive. You could fly. It would take an hour and a half,” she pointed out.
“I know.” I paused, finding the thought of going home frightening and oppressive. “I just . . . don’t want to be there,” I said lamely. “I didn’t tell you this before because I didn’t want you to worry, but someone tried to break into my house the night before I left. I was terrified, wondering if it was the same person who’d killed my parents.”
“You’re kidding!” Jennifer’s face was worried and too close to the screen camera. “Why didn’t you tell me? What happened?”
“I was sleeping and woke up when someone broke the glass in the kitchen door. I called 911 and then waited with my baseball bat.”
“Oh my god, sweetie. That must have been so scary!”
“It was awful,” I said honestly. “I totally freaked out. I was so glad to leave the next day, and every time I think of going back, I get scared all over again.”
“Of course you do,” Jennifer said. “That’s why you should stay with me.”
“It isn’t just that,” I said, sighing. “It’s like, when I’m here I can—”
“Pretend?” she said, but not meanly.
“I guess. I do want to see you . . . would love to see you. If we could meet in a bubble somewhere, where I wouldn’t have to see anything else.”