Michelle Hodkin - The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

The anchors then cheerily transitioned to discussing some new literacy initiative in the Broward school district. Mom handed the remote back to me.

“Can I change it?” I asked, careful to keep my voice even. Seeing my dead friends on television had left me shaken, but I couldn’t let it show.

“Might want to turn it off. Dinner’s ready,” she said. She looked anxious, more so than usual. I was starting to think she was the one who should be taking medication, and not for the first time.

My brothers pulled up to the table and I pasted on a lopsided grin as I joined them. I tried to laugh at their jokes as we ate, but I couldn’t blot out the images of Rachel, Jude, and Claire I’d just seen. No, not seen. Hallucinated.

“Something wrong, Mara?” my mother asked, snapping me out of my trance. The expression on my face must have matched my feelings.

“No,” I said breezily. I stood up, tilting my head forward so that my hair veiled my face. I picked up my plate and made my way to the sink to rinse it off before putting it in the dishwasher.

The dish slipped in my soapy hands and broke against the stainless steel. In my peripheral vision, I saw Daniel and my mother exchange a glance. I was a goldfish without a castle to hide in.

“You okay?” Daniel asked me.

“Yeah. It just slipped.” I picked the shards out of the sink and threw them in the trash before excusing myself to do homework.

As I walked back down the hallway to my bedroom, I shot a look at my grandmother’s portrait. Her eyes stared back, following me. I was being watched. Everywhere.

THAT SAME CREEPING, WATCHFUL FEELING escorted me to school the next day. I just couldn’t shake it. As Daniel pulled into the school parking lot, he said, “You know, you should think about getting some sun.”

I shot him a look. “Seriously?”

“I only mention it because you’re looking a little peaked.”

“Duly noted,” I said dryly. “We’re going to be late if you don’t find a spot, you know.”

Rachmaninoff floated softly from the speakers, doing nothing to settle my jangled mood.

Or Daniel’s, apparently. “I am seriously itching to start playing bumper cars, here,” he said, his jaw clenched. Even though we left early, it still took us forty minutes to drive to school, and there was already an egregiously long line of luxury cars waiting to pull into the entrance.

We watched as two of them vied on opposite ends of the lot for the same space; one of the waiting vehicles, a black Mercedes sedan, squealed its tires as the driver propelled it forward into the spot, cutting off the other car, a blue Focus. The Focus driver pounded one long, sharp note on the horn.

“Crazy,” Daniel said.

I nodded as I watched the driver of the Mercedes exit the car along with another passenger. I recognized the immaculate sheet of blond hair on the driver even before I saw her face. Anna, naturally. Then I recognized the sour expression of her omnipresent companion, Aiden, as he emerged from the front passenger seat.

When we finally found a space, Daniel smiled at me before we parted.

“Just text me if you need me, okay? The lunch offer still stands.”

“I’ll be fine.”

The door was still open when I arrived at AP English, but most of the seats were already filled. I sat down at one of the only available desks in the second row and ignored the snickers of a couple of students I recognized from Algebra II. The teacher, Ms. Leib, was busy writing something on the board. When she finished, she smiled at the class.

“Good morning, guys. Who can tell me what this word means?”

She pointed to the board, where the word “hamartia” was written. My confidence grew, having already had this lesson. Point one for the Laurelton public school system. I briefly looked around the class. No one raised a hand. Oh, what the hell. I raised mine.

“Ah, the new student.”

I really, really needed that uniform.

Ms. Leib’s smile was genuine as she leaned against her desk. “Your name?”

“Mara Dyer.”

“Nice to meet you, Mara. Have at it.”

“Fatal flaw,” someone else called out. In a British accent.

I half-turned in my seat and would have recognized the boy from yesterday immediately even if he hadn’t looked as distinctly rumpled as before, with his collar open, his tie knotted loosely around it and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He was still beautiful, and still smiling. I narrowed my eyes at him.

The teacher did the same. “Thank you, Noah, but I called on Mara. And ‘fatal flaw’ isn’t the most precise definition, anyway. Care to take a shot at it, Mara?”

I did, particularly now that I knew that British Boy was the notorious Noah Shaw. “It means mistake or error,” I said. “Sometimes called a tragic flaw.”

Ms. Leib gave a congratulatory nod of her head. “Very good. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you’ve read the Three Theban Plays at your previous school?”

“Yep,” I said, fighting self-consciousness.

“Then you’re ahead of the game. We’ve just finished Oedipus Rex. Can someone—not Mara—tell me what Oedipus’ tragic flaw was?”

Noah was the only one to raise his hand.

“Twice in one day, Mr. Shaw? That’s out of character. Please, demonstrate your dazzling intellect for the class.”

Noah stared straight at me as he spoke. I was wrong yesterday—his eyes weren’t gray, they were blue. “His fatal flaw was his lack of self-knowledge.”

“Or his pride,” I volleyed back.

“A debate!” Ms. Leib clapped her hands. “Love it. I would love it more if the rest of you would look alive, but hey.” The teacher turned back to the board and wrote my answer and Noah’s on the board, under “hamartia.” “I think there are arguments to support both claims; that Oedipus’ failure to acknowledge who he was—to know himself, as it were—caused his downfall, or that his pride, or more correctly, his hubris, led to his tragic fall. And for next Monday, I want a five-page paper from each of you with your brilliant analysis of the subject.”

There was a collective groan from the class.

“Save it. Next week we start antiheroes.”

Then she continued on with her lecture, most of which I’d heard before. A bit bored, I took out my thoroughly dog-eared and well-loved copy of Lolita and hid it behind my notebook. The air conditioner in the class must not have been working, and the atmosphere grew increasingly stuffy as the minutes ticked by. When the bell finally rang, I was fiending for some fresh air. I sprung out of my seat, knocking it over. I crouched to lift it and set it right, but my chair was already in someone’s hands.

Noah’s hands.

“Thanks,” I said as our eyes met.

He gave me the same familiar, knowing look as yesterday. Slightly ruffled, I broke the stare and gathered my things before hurrying out of the classroom. A throng of oncoming students jostled me and my book fell to the ground. A shadow darkened the cover before I could reach for it.

“You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, in order to discern, at once, the little deadly demon among the wholesome children,” he said, his British accent melting around the words, his voice smooth and low. “She stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.”

I stood there staring, openmouthed and speechless. I would have laughed—the whole thing was sort of ridiculous. But the way he said it, the way he was looking at me, was shockingly intimate. Like he knew my secrets. Like I had no secrets. But before I could think of a reply, Noah crouched and picked up my book.

“Lolita,” he said, turning my book over in his hands. His eyes wandered over the pink-lipped mouth on the cover, then handed it to me. Our fingers brushed, and a warm current coursed through them. My heart thundered so loud he could probably hear it.