The Evolution of Mara Dyer

  He was so close, but too far away to touch. My fingertips ached with the need to feel him, solid and warm and real under my hands.

  I said his name, but Noah gave a single shake of his head. I bit my lip. I could scream from frustration and I wanted to. I felt like I was drifting and needed him to tether me to the earth.

  But then he scribbled something on a napkin with a crayon—he must have stolen it from the art studio they had here—and handed it to me.

  I glanced up, then around, then down at the message as discreetly as I could.

  Music studio. 1 a.m.

  “But—” I whispered.

  Trust me, Noah mouthed.

  I did.

  I wished the sunlight away as I finished dinner that evening across from a silent, unusually sullen Stella. She picked at her food and every now and then, her eyes would sweep the room. When I asked her what was wrong she excused herself, leaving me alone.

  I couldn’t wait for night to fall and I gazed out the thick, distorted windows at every opportunity. The darkness nipped at the heels of the sunset, waiting to swallow it.

  The sounds of silverware clinking against ceramic dishes died away as the sun sank below the horizon. Counselor Wayne came around with everyone’s evening meds in tiny little paper cups, just like in Miami.

  Stella swallowed hers in front of me, her white T-shirt riding up slightly with the movement. I glanced up and saw Jamie, who downed the contents of his makeshift shot glass too. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and Wayne moved on.

  Then it was my turn. There were two additional pills inside my cup today. Oval and blue.

  “You know the drill, Mara,” Wayne said.

  I did. But I couldn’t have been more unenthused about taking them. What if they made me tired? My eyes flicked up, trying to find Noah in the small sea of faces in the dining room. He wasn’t there.

  “Mara,” Wayne said, warmly but with a touch of impatience.

  Damn it. I took the cup in my hands and swallowed the pills, chasing them with a gulp of water.

  “Open,” he said.

  I opened my mouth and showed him my tongue.

  Wayne smiled and moved on to the next person. I grudgingly stood and brought my dishes over to the counter, then followed the line of girls walking down the hallway to their respective rooms. I grabbed my little tote with my shampoo and soap in it, helpfully packed by my mother as if she’d sent me off to summer camp, and headed to the girls’ bathroom for a shower. There were stalls, thankfully, but we had to avail ourselves of the spa-like bathroom in groups or pairs. My other half was Phoebe, of course. At that point, I was too used to my life sucking to care.

  When I finished, my limbs felt weak with exhaustion and I almost dropped my towel before slipping on my robe. I managed not to embarrass myself, barely, then followed Phoebe’s stupid steps out of the bathroom and back down the hall. She opened the door to our unadorned white room, occupied by a pair of identical white twin beds. Phoebe sat on one at the far end of the room, leaving me the bed closest to the door.

  Perfect.

  Phoebe was quiet. She hadn’t said anything to me all day, in fact, and I counted myself fortunate. She watched me for a minute, then stood and turned out the main light while I rummaged in my recently-filled dresser for something to wear to bed, even though I had no plans to sleep. I shot her an annoyed look, which she either didn’t notice or ignored. Then she slipped under her covers and I changed and slipped under mine.

  Each room had a schoolhouse clock positioned on the wall between both of the beds. Ours read ten o’clock, then ten thirty, then eleven. The seconds ticked away as I listened to Phoebe snore.

  Then, in the darkness, two words:

  “Get up.”

  A harsh, female voice reached into my brain. I wanted to stab it.

  My eyes opened slowly. Phoebe hovered near my bed. I started to sit up, but was surprised to find I was already sitting.

  I was more surprised to find that my feet were on the floor, the slick tile surface cool beneath them.

  “You were getting out of bed,” Phoebe said mechanically.

  “What?” My voice was thick with sleep.

  “You woke up,” she said to me. “You were going to get out of bed.”

  I rested my forehead in one hand. My eyes traveled to the clock.

  Four a.m. I missed it. Missed Noah. I was too late.

  “Want to get some water?” Phoebe asked.

  My throat was sour, my mouth and tongue coated with film. I nodded, not quite sure why Phoebe was being so uncharacteristically nice but not really with it enough to ask. I stood on unsteady feet and followed Phoebe out into the dimly lit hallway. We made our way soundlessly to the bathroom, passing Barney who was now at his console desk.

  “We’re going to the bathroom,” Phoebe announced. He nodded at us, smiled, and returned to his book. Silence of the Lambs.

  Once inside, Phoebe turned on the faucet. I was desperate for water; I lurched forward to the sink and cupped a handful, raising it to my mouth. I drank deeply, though most of the liquid spilled through my fingers, and quickly darted to catch another mouthful, and another. I didn’t think I could ever drink enough until, finally, the staleness in my throat softened, and the burn died away. I looked up in the mirror.

  I was pale and my skin was damp. My hair hung limply around my face, my eyes staring blankly into the silvered glass. I didn’t look like myself. I didn’t feel like myself.

  “Bloody Mary,” Phoebe said.

  I jumped. I’d almost forgotten she was next to me. “What?” I asked, still focused on the stranger in the glass.

  “If you say ‘Bloody Mary,’ three times after midnight, she’ll come to you in the mirror and scratch your eyes and throat out,” Phoebe said.

  I stared at her in the mirror. She was looking at the ceiling.

  “I just said her name twice.” She smiled. The faucet dripped.

  “She had miscarriages,” Phoebe continued. “They said it made her crazy, so she would steal other women’s babies. But then they would die too. She killed them.” Phoebe met my eyes in the mirror, thoroughly creeping me out.

  What was I supposed to say? I cupped one last handful of water and splashed it on my face instead of in my mouth.

  “Who did you kill?” Phoebe said. Her voice was chilling and clear.

  I froze. The water dripped from my face and my fingers onto the tiled floor.

  “When you got out of bed, you said you didn’t mean to kill Rachel and Claire. But you weren’t sorry about the others. That’s what you said.”

  “It was a nightmare.” My voice was shaky and hoarse. I turned the faucet off.

  “It didn’t seem like a nightmare,” she said.

  I ignored her and turned to leave. Phoebe stepped in front of me.

  “Who are Rachel and Claire?” she asked, piercing me with her eyes. They looked hollow in her white moon face.

  “It was just a nightmare,” I said again, staring back at her. I tried hard not to give any outward sign that what she repeated had any basis in reality, but inside?

  Inside I was crumbling.

  “You said you were glad you killed the man, that you wished you could have crushed his skull with your own fingers.”

  “Stop it,” I said, starting to tremble.

  “You told me about the asylum,” she said, backing up slightly. “You told me everything.” The corners of her mouth turned up in a disturbed smile. “I know about him,” Phoebe said, her grin spreading. “How much you want him. How much you love him. How desperate you are. But he doesn’t love you back,” she said in a singsong voice.

  Did I tell her about Noah? I closed my eyes and my nostrils flared. I wanted to scream in her face, to tell her to shut her too-wide mouth, but I couldn’t. Not without giving myself away. “I’m going back to bed,” I said, stepping around her. My voice trembled when I spoke. I hoped she didn’t notice.

  Phoebe followed close behind me. Too close.
/>
  We made our way back to our room without speaking. Phoebe climbed into bed, wearing a satisfied smile. I wanted to smack it off of her face, but in the back of my mind, I knew that the person I was most furious with was me.

  Losing time, writing in notebooks—it was frightening, yes, but it hadn’t hurt me. Not yet. And as long as I didn’t tell anyone, maybe this would just be temporary, and I could get out.

  And find Jude. Make sure he could never hurt me again.

  But Phoebe couldn’t know those things she said unless I told her. Which meant that my already tenuous self-control was slipping.

  I drew the blanket up to my chin and stared at the wall. My mind wouldn’t quiet, and I couldn’t sleep.

  And so I laid awake until the darkness turned to daylight, and then at seven a.m., stood up to face the day.

  Phoebe started to scream.

  “What is wrong with you?” I hissed at her.

  She wouldn’t stop.

  Residents began to cluster by the door. A counselor broke through just as I met Noah’s eyes.

  Wayne squeezed by until he stood just inside the doorway to our room. “What’s going on here?”

  Phoebe somehow seemed to shrink back against the wall and lurch forward with her accusation at the same time. “She was standing over me while I slept!”

  Wayne’s shifty eyes shifted to me.

  I raised my hands defensively. “She’s lying,” I said. “I was just getting up to change.”

  “I woke up and she was standing right there,” Phoebe keened.

  I fought off a wave of fury.

  “She was going to hurt me!”

  “Calm down, Phoebe.”

  “She’s going to hurt me if you don’t stop her!”

  “Can everyone just back up a second? Barney! Brooke!” Wayne called, his eyes on me the whole time.

  “We’re here,” Barney’s deep voice boomed from somewhere behind me.

  They entered. I was rooted to the spot, just a foot away from my bed.

  “All right, Phoebe, try and relax,” Brooke said, floating over to her and sitting beside her on the bed. Phoebe had started to rock back and forth. “I want you to do the breathing exercises we talked about, okay? And the counting.”

  I heard Phoebe begin to count to ten. Meanwhile, Wayne and Barney were both focused on me. Wayne had taken a step closer.

  “What happened, Mara?” Wayne asked.

  “Nothing happened,” I said, and I was telling the truth.

  “I can’t live with her!”

  “Phoebe,” Wayne said, “if you don’t stop screaming, we’re going to have to take you to the room.”

  She shut up instantly.

  Brooke looked up at me from Phoebe’s bed. “Mara, please just tell me what happened last night? In your own words?”

  I fought the urge to lift my eyes to the doorway and search for Noah. I swallowed. “I ate dinner with everyone else.”

  “Who did you sit with?” she asked.

  “I—” I didn’t remember. Who did I sit with? “Stella,” I said finally. I looked to the doorway and she edged in next to Noah. He looked down at her and a strange expression passed over his face.

  Brooke said my name and drew my eyes back to hers. “So you had dinner with Stella. Then what happened?”

  “I took a shower and then we came back to our room. I put on my pajamas and went to bed.”

  “Both of them got up at about four,” Barney said.

  I nodded. “Phoebe came with me.”

  “Don’t say my name,” she murmured quietly. I rolled my eyes.

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever sleepwalked before?” Brooke asked me.

  I didn’t answer her, of course, because the answer was yes.

  58

  AFTER A STRICT INSTRUCTION TO speak to Dr. Kells at my next appointment with her, Brooke left us to change before meeting up in the common room for an impromptu group session.

  I rounded on Phoebe once we were left alone. “Why are you lying to them?”

  She smiled at me. I wanted to hit her so badly.

  I almost did.

  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply instead, trying to shake her off. When I left the room, Noah was hanging back near one of the studios that flanked the hallway.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice low and wary.

  “I overslept,” I said. I wanted to kick myself. “Phoebe woke me up in the middle of the night. She says I—I told her about Rachel and Claire. About everything.”

  Noah didn’t comment. He just asked, “Who is that girl?”

  I followed his eyes until they landed on Stella, who had folded herself into a chair in the common room. She cracked her knuckles and then rubbed absently at the faded left knee of her jeans.

  “Stella,” I said. “She’s nice. A little moody sometimes, maybe. Why?”

  “I saw her,” Noah said.

  “Saw her—”

  “Someone hurt her.” His gaze dropped to my hands. “Grabbed her wrist. Nearly broke it.”

  My throat felt dry. “Why her?”

  Noah rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s how many?” I asked him.

  “Five, now.”

  “Me, Joseph, the two you don’t know, and now—”

  Stella.

  “Come on in, everyone!” Brooke called.

  Noah and I shared one more look before settling into the room. I sat down next to Jamie, who was oddly quiet.

  Brooke nodded to Wayne and they drew nearer to the periphery of the circle. “Okay, everyone,” she said to us. “We all know there was a little event this morning. Not a big deal, but we decided that it would be a good day to do some trust exercises.”

  Loud groaning. Stella muttered a few of the only words I seemed to remember in Spanish, which were delightfully inappropriate.

  “It doesn’t matter how many we do,” Phoebe called out. “You can’t trust Mara.”

  Jamie began to chuckle silently. I stepped on his foot.

  “Phoebe, I think we got a sense of your feelings about this earlier, so unless you have anything specific you’d like to share, I’d like to move along.”

  Phoebe zeroed in on me as she spoke to Brooke. “I do have something specific I’d like to share.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “You all think Mara’s this innocent girl who’s just had really bad luck. She isn’t. She wants to hurt me. She wants to hurt all of us.”

  Jamie lost it completely. His laughter would have been contagious. But despite Phoebe’s melodramatic presentation, what she said was disturbing. Not because it was true.

  Because it was calculated. She was insane, but shrewd. Phoebe was saying these things on purpose for a purpose, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “Phoebe, why do you think Mara wants to hurt you?”

  “Because she says so in her sleep.”

  Shit.

  Brooke looked at me, and then looked back at Phoebe. “When was this, Phoebe?”

  “Last night.”

  Okay, it was possible. She was gross and annoying and limited, but smart in that evil, demon-child way. But while I might have muttered something about killing her, maybe, I didn’t actually want her dead. Not like the others. I didn’t envision it. Not consciously.

  Unconsciously?

  Could I have dreamed about her death? What would happen if I wanted it while I slept?

  Would she die?

  “I can’t room with her, Brooke,” Phoebe said softly. Her chin began to tremble.

  Here we go.

  “I’m scared,” she added, for good measure.

  “That’s why we’re going to do these trust exercises, Phoebe.”

  “They won’t help!”

  “They won’t if you don’t give them a chance,” Brooke admonished. “All right, everyone, I want you to stand up—Wayne, can you read the list of partners fo
r this?”

  Wayne read off the pairs. I was paired with Phoebe, to no one’s surprise. Jamie was with Noah. A girl I recognized from Horizons Miami was with Megan, and Adam was paired with a permanent. The pairings seemed like they were all roommate-roommate. Maybe to stave off a patient revolution?

  “Okay, guys. The first thing we’re going to do is called a trust fall. We’re going to start in alphabetical order—that means if your name begins with a letter that comes earlier in the alphabet than your partner, you get to “fall” first, and your partner will catch you.”

  Everyone started moving into their pairs. I noticed then that they’d moved floor cushions and yoga mats into the common room. Insurance, perhaps?

  “When I count to three, the first person from each pair is going to fall.”

  That would be me. I glanced at Phoebe behind me. She was smirking. This wasn’t going to go well. “You’d better catch me, Phoebe,” I whispered.

  She ignored me.

  “One,” Brooke began.

  “I’m serious,” I said, as I backed toward her.

  “Two.”

  Phoebe had her arms out, and still hadn’t answered me.

  “Three.”

  I fell. On my ass.

  “Motherf—!”

  “She said she was going to slit my wrists!” she wailed to Brooke. “She whispered it when you weren’t listening!”

  Brooke glanced at me and sighed. “This isn’t productive for your rooming relationship.”

  Phoebe began to cry. Big, fat crocodile tears. “I can’t stay with her. I just can’t.”

  I stood and glanced at Jamie, who shot me a sympathetic look. Noah was studying Phoebe. He knew something was up with her too.

  Brooke was frustrated herself. And then she said something I didn’t expect to hear.

  “Would anyone be willing to switch rooms and be Mara’s new roommate?”

  Crickets.

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Mara?”

  “I think I could manage without a roommate, Brooke.”

  “No dice,” she said, her eyes flicking to my wrists. “I’m sorry. Guys, are you sure none of you would be willing to switch? I think it would help things out a lot . . .”

  No one raised their hand. I tried to catch Stella’s eye, but she completely avoided my gaze and gave me the stare ahead in response to my visual pleading.