The Evolution of Mara Dyer

PREFACE

YOU WILL LOVE HIM TO RUINS.

The words echoed in my mind as I ran through clots of laughing people. Blinking lights and delighted screams bled together in a riot of sound and color. I knew Noah was behind me. I knew he would catch up. But my feet tried to do what my heart couldn’t; they tried to leave him behind.

I finally ran out of breath beneath a leering clown that pointed to the entrance to the Hall of Mirrors. Noah caught up to me easily. He turned me to face him and I stood there, my wrist in his grasp, my cheeks wet with tears, my heart splintered by her words.

If I truly loved him, she said, I would let him go.

I wished I loved him enough.

1

LILLIAN AND ALFRED RICE

PSYCHIATRIC UNIT

Miami, Florida

I WOKE UP ON THE MORNING OF SOME DAY IN SOME hospital to find a stranger sitting in my room.

I sat up gingerly—my shoulder was sore—and studied the stranger. She had dark brown hair that bled into gray at the roots, and hazel eyes with webs of crow’s feet at the corners. She smiled at me, and her whole face moved.

Good morning, Mara, she said.

Good morning, I said back. My voice was low and hoarse. It didn’t sound like my own.

Do you know where you are?

She obviously didn’t realize that the floor directory was positioned directly outside the window behind her, and that from the bed, I had a clear view. I’m at the Lillian and Alfred Rice Psychiatric Unit. Apparently.

Do you know who I am?

I had no idea, but I tried not to show it; she wouldn’t have asked me if we’d never met, and if we had met, I should remember her. Yes, I lied.

What’s my name?

Damn. My chest rose and fell quickly with my breath.

I’m Dr. West, she said evenly. Her voice was warm and friendly but not at all familiar. We met yesterday, when you were brought in by your parents and a detective by the name of Vincent Gadsen.

Yesterday.

Do you remember?

I remembered seeing my father lying pale and wounded in a hospital bed after he was shot by the mother of a murdered girl.

I remembered that I was the one who made her do it.

I remembered going to the police station to confess to stealing my teacher’s EpiPen and releasing fire ants in her desk, which is why she died of anaphylactic shock.

I remembered that it wasn’t true—just a lie I would feed the police so they would keep me from hurting anyone I loved again. Because they wouldn’t believe I wished my teacher dead and that not long after, she died. Choked to death on a swollen tongue, exactly the way I imagined she would.

I remembered that before I could tell anyone any of this, I saw Jude at the Thirteenth Precinct of the Metro Dade Police Department. Looking very much alive.

But I did not remember coming here to the hospital. I didn’t remember being brought. After Jude appeared, I remembered nothing else.

You were admitted yesterday afternoon, the stranger—Dr. West—said. The detective called your parents when they couldn’t get you to stop screaming.

I closed my eyes and saw Jude’s face as he walked by me. Brushed past me. Smiled. The memory stained the backs of my eyelids, and I opened them quickly, just to see something else.

You told them that your boyfriend, Jude Lowe, who you thought died in a building collapse in December, is alive.

Ex, I said quietly, fighting to stay calm.

Excuse me?

Ex-boyfriend.

Dr. West tilted her head slightly and employed her carefully neutral psychologist expression, one I recognized well since I’d seen it often on my psychologist mother. Particularly in the past few months.

"You said that you caused the abandoned asylum in Rhode Island to collapse, crushing your best friend, Rachel, and Jude’s sister, Claire, inside. You said Jude sexually assaulted you, which is why you tried to kill him. And you said he survived. You said he’s here."

She was perfectly calm as she spoke, which magnified my panic. Those words in her mouth sounded crazy, even though they were true. And if Dr. West knew, then so did—

Your mother brought you here for an evaluation.

My mother. My family. They would have heard the truth too, even though I hadn’t planned to tell it. Even though I didn’t remember telling it.

And this was where it got me.

We didn’t begin yesterday because you were sedated.

My fingers wandered up my arm, beneath the short sleeve of my white T-shirt. There was a Band-Aid on my skin, covering what must have been the injection site.

Where is she? I asked, picking at the Band-Aid.

Where is who?

My mother. My eyes scanned the hallway through the glass, but I didn’t see her. The hall looked empty. If I could just talk to her, maybe I could explain.

She’s not here.

That didn’t sound like my mother. She didn’t leave my side once when I was admitted to the hospital after the asylum collapsed. I told Dr. West as much.

Would you like to see her?

Yes.

Okay, we can see if we can work that out later.

Her tone made it sound like that would be a treat for good behavior, and I didn’t like it. I swung my legs over the bed and stood up. I was wearing drawstring pants, not the jeans I last remembered myself in. My mother must have brought them from home. Someone must have changed me. I swallowed hard. I think I want to see her now.

Dr. West stood up as well. Mara, she isn’t here.

Then I’ll go find her, I said, and started looking for my Chucks. I crouched to look under the bed, but they weren’t there.

Where are my shoes? I asked, still crouched.

We had to take them.

I rose then, and faced her. Why?

They had laces.

My eyes narrowed. So?

You were brought here because your mother thought you may be a danger to yourself and others.

I really need to talk to her, I said then, struggling to keep my voice even. I bit down hard on my bottom lip.

You’ll be able to.

When?

Well, I’d like you to speak with someone first, and have a doctor come in, just to make sure you’re—

And if I don’t want to?

Dr. West just looked at me. Her expression was sad.

My throat wanted to close. You can’t keep me here unless I consent, I managed to say. I knew that much, at least. I was a lawyer’s daughter and I was seventeen years old. They couldn’t keep me here unless I wanted to be kept. Unless—

You were screaming and hysterical and you slipped. When one of our nurses tried to help you up, you punched her.

No.

It became an emergency situation, so under the Baker Act, your parents were able to consent for you.

I whispered so I wouldn’t scream. What are you saying?

I’m sorry, but you’ve been involuntarily committed.

2

WE HOPE THAT YOU’LL ALLOW A DOCTOR TO DO a physical examination, she said kindly. And that you’ll consent to our treatment plan."

What if I don’t? I asked.

Well, your parents still have time to file the appropriate papers with the court while you’re here—but it would be really wonderful for you, and for them, if you cooperated with us. We’re here to help you.

I couldn’t quite remember ever feeling so lost.

Mara, Dr. West said, drawing my eyes to hers, do you understand what this means?

It means that Jude is alive and no one believes it but me.

It means that there is something wrong with me, but it isn’t what they think.

It means that I’m alone.

But then my racing thoughts trailed an image in their wake. A memory.

The beige walls of the psychiatric unit evaporated and became glass. I saw myself in the passenger seat of a car—Noah’s car—and saw my cheeks stained with tears. Noah was next to me, his hair messy and perfect and his eyes defiant as they held mine.

There is something seriously wrong with me, and there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it, I said to him then.

Let me try, he said back.

That was before he knew just how deeply screwed up I was, but even when the last piece of my armor cracked on marble courthouse steps, revealing the ugliness beneath it, Noah wasn’t the one who left.

I was.

Because I killed four people—five, if my dad’s client never woke up—with nothing more than a thought. And the number could have been higher—would have been higher, if Noah hadn’t saved my father’s life. I never meant to hurt the people I loved, but Rachel was still dead and my father was still shot. Less than forty-eight hours ago, I thought the best way to keep them safe was to keep myself away.

But things were different, now. Jude made them different.

No one knew the truth about me. No one but Noah. Which meant he was the only one who could possibly fix this. I had to talk to him.

Mara?

I forced myself to focus on Dr. West.

Will you let us help you?

Help me? I wanted to ask. By giving me more drugs when I’m not sick, not with anything worse than PTSD? I’m not psychotic, I wanted to say.

I’m not.

But I didn’t appear to have much of a choice, so I forced myself to say yes. But I want to talk to my mother first, I added.

I’ll give her a call after your physical—okay?

It wasn’t. Not at all. But I nodded and Dr. West grinned, deepening the folds in her face, looking for all the world like a warm, kindly grandmother. Maybe she was.

When she left, it was all I could do not to fall apart; but I didn’t have time. She was immediately replaced by a penlight-wielding doctor who asked me questions about my appetite and other wildly mundane details, which I answered calmly with a careful tongue. And then he left, and I was offered some food, and one of the staff—a counselor? A nurse?—showed me the unit. It was quieter than I imagined a psych ward would be, and with fewer obvious psychos. A couple of kids were quietly reading. One watched TV. Another talked with a friend. They looked up at me when I passed by, but otherwise, I went unacknowledged.

When I was eventually led back to the bedroom, I was shocked to find my mother in it.

Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed what a mess she was. Her clothes were unwrinkled. Her skin was still flawless. Not a single hair was out of place. But hopelessness trampled her posture and fear dulled her eyes. She was holding it together, but just barely.

She was holding it together for me.

I wanted to hug her and shake her at the same time. But I just stood there, cemented to the floor.

She rushed up to hug me. I let her, but my arms were chained to my sides and I couldn’t hug her back.

She pulled back and smoothed the hair from my face. Studied my eyes. I am so sorry, Mara.

Really. My voice was flat.

I couldn’t have hurt her more if I had smacked her. How could you say that? she asked.

Because I woke up in a psychiatric unit today. The words were bitter in my mouth.

She backed up and sat on the bed, which had been freshly made since I was last in it. She shook her head, and her lacquer-black hair swung with the movement. When you left the hospital yesterday, I thought you were tired and going home. So when the police called? Her voice cracked, and she held her hand up to her throat. Your father was shot, and then to pick up the phone and hear the police say, ‘Mrs. Dyer, we’re calling about your daughter?’ A tear fell from one of her eyes and she quickly wiped it away. "I thought you’d been in a car accident. I thought you were dead."

My mother wrapped her arms around her waist and hunched forward. "I was so terrified I dropped the phone. Daniel picked it up. He explained what was happening—that you were at the police station, hysterical. He stayed with your father and I rushed there to get you but you were wild, Mara, she said, and looked at me. Wild. I never thought . . . Her voice trailed off and she seemed to be staring right through me. You were screaming that Jude is alive."

I did something brave, then. Or stupid. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

I decided to trust her. I looked my mother in the eye and said, without any trace of doubt in my expression or voice, "He is."

How would that be possible, Mara? My mother’s voice was toneless.

I don’t know, I admitted, because I didn’t have a clue. But I saw him. I sat down next to her on the bed, but not close.

My mom pushed her hair away from her face. Could it have been a hallucination? She avoided my eyes. Like the other times? Like the earrings?

I had asked myself that same question. I’d seen things before—my grandmother’s earrings at the bottom of my bathtub, even though they were still in my ears. Classroom walls collapsing around me, maggots squirming in my food.

And I had seen Claire. I saw her in mirrors. I heard her voice.

You two kids have fun.

I saw Jude in mirrors. I heard his voice, too.

You need to take your mind off this place.

But now I knew that I had heard them say those same words twice. Not just in mirrors at home. In the asylum.

I didn’t imagine those words. I remembered them. From the night of the collapse.

But at the precinct it was different. Jude spoke to an officer. I strained to remember what he said.

Can you tell me where I can report a missing person? I think I’m lost.

I never heard him say those words before. They were new. And he said them before he touched me.

He touched me. I felt him.

That was not a hallucination. He was real. He was alive, and he was here.

3

MY MOTHER WAS STILL WAITING FOR AN answer to her question, so I gave her one. I shook my head fiercely. No. Jude was alive. He wasn’t a hallucination. I was sure.

She sat there immobile for just a beat too long. Then, finally, she smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Daniel’s here to see you, she said and stood. She bent to kiss the crown of my head just as the door opened, revealing my older brother. The two of them shared a glance, but as Daniel entered the room he expertly masked his concern.

His thick black hair was uncharacteristically messy and dark circles ringed his dark eyes. He smiled at me—it was too easy, too quick—and leaned down to wrap me in a hug. I’m so glad you’re okay, he said as he squeezed. I couldn’t quite hug him back either.

Then he let go and added too lightly, And I can’t believe you took my keys. Where’s my house key, by the way?

My forehead creased. What?

My house key. It’s missing from my key ring. Which you took before driving my car to the police station.

Oh. I had no memory of taking it, and no memory of what I did with it. Sorry.

It’s okay. Not like you were getting into any trouble or anything, he said, squinting at me.

What are you doing?

Giving you the side-eye.

Well, it looks like you’re having a stroke, I said, unable to help my smile. Daniel flashed one of his own—a real one, this time.

I almost had a heart attack when Mom almost had a heart attack, he said, his voice quiet. Serious. I’m—I’m happy you’re okay.

I looked around the room. Okay is a relative term, I think.

Touché.

I’m surprised they’re letting you see me, I said. The way the psychiatrist was acting, I was starting to think I was on lockdown or something.

Daniel shrugged his shoulders and shifted his weight, obviously uncomfortable.

Which made me cautious. What?

He sucked in his lips.

Out with it, Daniel.

I’m supposed to try to convince you to stay.

I narrowed my eyes at him. For how long?

He didn’t say.

How long?

Indefinitely.

My face grew hot. Mom didn’t have the guts to tell me herself?

That’s not it, he said, sitting down in the chair beside the bed. She thinks you don’t trust her.

"She’s the one who doesn’t trust me. She hasn’t since . . ." Since the collapse, I almost said. I didn’t finish my sentence, but judging by Daniel’s expression, I didn’t need to. She doesn’t believe anything I say, I finished. I hadn’t meant to sound like such a child, but I couldn’t help it. I half-expected Daniel to call me out but he just gave me the same look he always gave me. He was my brother. My best friend. I hadn’t changed to him.

And that made me want to tell him everything. About the asylum, Rachel, Mabel, my teacher. All of it.

If I told him calmly—not panicked, in a police station, but rationally, after a full night’s sleep—if I explained everything, maybe he would understand.

I needed to be understood.

So I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, like I was preparing to launch myself off a cliff. In a way, I guess, I was. Jude is here.

Daniel swallowed and then asked carefully, In the room?

I shot him a glare. No, you ass. In Florida. In Miami.

His expression didn’t change.

"He was in the police station, Daniel. I saw him. He was there."

My brother just sat there, mirroring our mother’s neutral expression from just a few minutes before. Then he reached for his backpack and pulled something out of it. It’s the security footage from the precinct, he explained before I had a chance to ask. Dr. West thought it would be good for Mom to show you.

"So why are you showing me?"

"Because clearly you don’t trust Mom, but she knows you trust me."

I gave him a narrow look. What’s on it?

He stood and popped the disc into the DVD player beneath the ceiling-mounted television, then switched it on. Tell me when you see him, okay?

I nodded, and then both of our heads turned toward the screen. Daniel fast-forwarded it and tiny people scurried in and out of the police station. The counter sped forward and I watched myself walk into the frame.

Stop, I said to Daniel. He pressed a button and the footage slowed to a normal speed. There was no audio, but I watched myself speak to the officer at the front desk—I must have been asking where I could find Detective Gadsen.

And then I watched Jude appear in the frame. My heart began to race as my eyes lingered on the image of him, on his baseball cap, on his long sleeves. Something on his wrist caught the light. A watch.

There was a shiver in my mind. I pointed at Jude’s figure on the screen. There, I said. My hand trembled annoyingly. That’s him.

We watched as Jude spoke to the officer. As he brushed right by me. Touched me. I started to feel sick.

Daniel paused the image before Jude left the frame. He said nothing for a long while.

What, I said quietly.

That could be anyone, Mara.

My throat tightened. Please tell me you’re kidding.

Mara, it’s a guy in a Patriots cap.

I studied the screen again. The camera angle only captured the top of Jude’s head. Which was covered by the Patriots cap he always wore. Which was pulled down low, shading his eyes.

You couldn’t see his face at all.

"But I heard his voice, I said. Pleaded, really. My brother opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. No, listen. I took a deep breath. Tried to calm down, to be less shrill. I heard him—he asked that officer something and the officer answered him back. It was his voice. And I saw his face. I stared at the screen, squinting as I continued to speak. You can’t see it so well on the tape, maybe, but it’s him. It’s him."

Daniel looked at me for a few silent seconds before he finally spoke. When he did, his voice was distressingly soft. Mara, it can’t be him.

My mind rushed through the facts, the ones I knew, the ones I was sure of. Why not? They couldn’t get to his body to bury it, right? The building was too unstable, I remembered, and it was too dangerous. They couldn’t get to him, I said again.

Daniel pointed at the screen, at Jude’s hands. My eyes followed his finger. See his hands?

I nodded.

Jude wouldn’t have any. His hands were all they found.

4

HIS WORDS DRAINED THE BLOOD FROM MY FACE.

"They didn’t find complete remains for any of the—for Rachel, Claire, or Jude. But they did find—they found his hands, Mara. They buried them. He swallowed like it was painful for him, then pointed at the video screen. This guy? Two hands. Daniel’s voice was gentle and sad and desperate but his words refused to make sense. I know you’re freaked out about what’s been happening. I know. And Dad—we’re all worried about Dad. But that isn’t Jude, Mara. It’s not him."

It would have been a relief to believe that I was that crazy, to swallow that lie and their pills and shake off the guilt that had hounded me since I finally remembered what I was capable of.

But I tried that before. It didn’t work.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. I’m not crazy.

Daniel closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his expression was . . . decided. I’m not supposed to tell you this—

Tell me what?

The psychologists are calling it a perceptual distortion, my older brother said. A delusion, basically. That—that Jude’s alive, that you have the power to collapse buildings and kill people—they’re saying you’re losing the ability to rationally evaluate reality.

Meaning?

They’re throwing around words like ‘psychotic’ and ‘schizotypal,’ Mara.

I ordered myself not to cry.

Mom is hoping that, worst case scenario, this is maybe something called Brief Psychotic Disorder brought on by the PTSD and the shooting and all of the trauma—but from what I think I’m hearing, the main differences between that, schizophrenia, and a bunch of other disorders in between is basically duration. He swallowed hard. Meaning, the longer the delusions last, the worse the prognosis.

I clenched my teeth and forced myself to stay quiet while my brother continued to speak.

That’s why Mom thinks you should stay here for a while so they can adjust your meds. Then they can move you to a place, a residential treatment facility—

No, I said. As badly as I had wanted to leave my family to keep them safe before, I knew now I needed to stay with them. I could not be locked up while Jude was free.

It’s like a boarding school, he went on, except there’s a gourmet chef and Zen gardens and art therapy—just to take a break.

"We’re not talking about Fiji, Daniel. She wants to send me to a mental hospital. A mental hospital!"

It isn’t a mental hospital, it’s a residential—

Treatment facility, yeah, I said, just as the tears began to well. I blinked them back furiously. So you’re on their side?

"I’m on your side. And it’s just for a little while, so they can teach you to cope. You’ve been through—there’s no way I could deal with school and what you’ve been through."

I tried to swallow back the sourness in my throat. What does Dad say? I managed to ask.

He feels like part of this is his fault, he said.

The wrongness of that idea sliced me open.

That he shouldn’t have taken on the case, my brother went on. He trusts Mom.

Daniel, I pleaded. "I swear, I swear I’m telling the truth."

That’s part of it, he said, and his voice nearly cracked. That you believe it. Hallucinations—that fits with the PTSD. But you knew when you had them that it was all in your head. Now that you believe it’s real, Daniel said, his voice tight, everything you told them yesterday is consistent with—psychosis. He blinked fiercely and swiped one of his eyes with the back of his hand.

I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. So that’s it, then. My voice sounded dead. Do I even get to go home first?

Well, once they admit you they have to keep you for seventy-two hours, and then they reevaluate you before they make a final recommendation to Mom and Dad. So I guess that’ll happen tomorrow?

Wait—just seventy-two hours? And another evaluation . . .

Well, yeah, but they’re pushing for longer.

But right now, it was temporary. Not permanent. Not yet.

If I could persuade them that I didn’t believe Jude was alive—that I didn’t believe I killed Rachel and Claire and the others—that none of this was real, that it was all in my head—if I could lie, and convincingly, then they might think my episode at the police station was temporary. That was what my mother wanted to believe. She just needed a push.

If I played this right, I might get to go home again.

I might get to see Noah again.

An image of him flickered in my mind, his face hard and determined at the courthouse, certain that I wouldn’t do what I did. We hadn’t spoken since.

What if I had changed to him, like he said I would?

What if he didn’t want to see me?

The thought tightened my throat, but I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t lose it. From here on out, I had to be the poster child for mental health. I couldn’t afford to be sent away anymore. I had to figure out what the hell was going on.

Even if I had to figure it out by myself.

A knock on the door startled me, but it was just Mom. She looked like she’d been crying. Daniel stood up, smoothing his wrinkled blue dress shirt.

Where’s Dad? I asked her.

Still in the hospital. He gets discharged tomorrow.

Maybe, if I could put on a good enough performance, I might get discharged with him. Joseph’s there?

Mom nodded. So my twelve-year-old brother now had a father with a gunshot wound and a sister in the psychiatric ward. I clenched my teeth even harder. Do not cry.

My mom looked at Daniel then, and he cleared his throat. Love you, sister, he said to me. I’ll see you soon, okay?

I nodded, dry-eyed. My mother sat down.

It’s going to be okay, Mara. I know that sounds stupid right now, but it’s true. It will get better.

I wasn’t sure what to say yet, except, I want to go home.

My mother looked pained—and why shouldn’t she? Her family was falling apart. "I want you home so badly, sweetheart. I just—there’s no schedule for you at home if you’re not in school, and I think that might be too much pressure right now. I love you, Mara. So much. I couldn’t stand it if you—I was throwing up when I first heard about the asylum. . . . I was sick over it. I couldn’t leave you, not for a second. You’re my baby. I know you’re not a baby but you’re my baby and I want you to be okay. More than anything I want you to be okay. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and smiled at me. This isn’t your fault. No one blames you, and you’re not being punished."

I know, I said gravely, doing my best impression of a calm, sane adult.

She went on. You’ve been through so much, and I know we don’t understand. And I want you to know that this—she indicated the room—isn’t you. It might be chemical or behavioral or even genetic—

An image rose up out of the dark water of my mind. A picture. Black. White. Blurry. What? I asked quickly.

The way you’re feeling. Everything that’s been going on with you. It isn’t your fault. With the PTSD and everything that’s happened—

No, I know, I said, stopping her. But you said—

Genetic.

What do you mean, genetic? I asked.

My mother looked at the floor and her voice turned professional. What you’re going through, she said, clearly avoiding the words mental illness, can be caused by biological and genetic factors.

But who in our family has had any kind of—

My mother, she said quietly. Your grandmother.

Her words hung in the air. The picture in my mind sharpened into a portrait of a young woman with a mysterious smile, sitting with hennaed hands folded above her lap. Her dark hair was parted in the center and her bindi sparkled between her eyebrows. It was the picture of my grandmother on her wedding day.

And then my mind replaced her face with mine.

I blinked the image away and shook my head. I don’t understand.

She killed herself, Mara.

I sat there, momentarily stunned. Not only had I never known, but . . . I thought—I thought she died in a car accident?

No. That’s just what we said.

But I thought you grew up with her?

I did. She died when I was an adult.

My throat was suddenly dry. How old were you?

My mother’s voice was suddenly thin. Twenty-six.

The next few seconds felt like forever. You had me when you were twenty-six.

She killed herself when you were three days old.