Anastasia did not react, of course. Lexi took a deep breath. “Pappou made us pancakes for my birthday. He was going to come along today, but wanted to finish a camera for one of the new cars. I caught a glimpse of it in the shop today. God, it’s awful. It’s like a coffin on wheels. Seriously, it’s terrible. Who would buy such a thing?”
Lexi forced out a laugh, pretending that her mother laughed too.
“You remember how I told you that Pappou opened a little vehicle inspection company this year, right? He’s tinkering with the cameras and GPS systems that guide the windowless car trend. All the car companies have the anti-reflective film option for their windows, and it’s the cheaper option. We upgraded the pick-up like that. But there are some companies—like General Motors and Google, you remember them—which cater to deeper pockets. I guess the more fanatical advocates of the Ruling seem to enjoy driving blind.”
Lexi visited Pappou’s shop sometimes. Yin always greeted her enthusiastically, tail whirring like a propeller, as if making up for the lack of attention from her grandfather. He’d once mentioned that the former employees of El Greco stopped by occasionally, just to check on him, but they were never there when Lexi stopped by. Depression, Lexi’s university counselor had explained when she’d asked him once. Masking pain with productivity. He misses your parents. He’s keeping himself busy. Maybe he’s doing it for your father—to make sure he has something to do, once he… gets out.
Don’t take it personally, the counselor had added.
For Lexi, there was no other way to take it. She began to spend more time with her mother than with her grandfather. The irony would have cracked her up if it hadn’t threatened to crack her apart.
“Sophia says she wants to be an engineer,” she said instead. “You can bet Pappou and Dad will be thrilled. I’m sure you’re proud, too.”
The doctors had told Lexi her mother could hear things. They said sharing familiar stories would rouse something in Anastasia’s long-term memory, helping to quicken her recovery. It’s like emerging from anesthesia, they said, as if comas were as normal as sleeping. So Lexi came, bringing neighborhood gossip, university admittance letters, text messages from her crushes, excerpts of her life.
Anastasia never stirred.
Lexi had begun to lose hope. She watched the color fade from her mother’s cheeks. Every visit broke her a little bit more, the tubes and wires writhing like adders that reared up from her mother’s bed and bit into her hands. Some days Lexi wondered if the computer beeping was unreal—if it only simulated a comatose woman’s pulse rate. What if the doctors enjoyed playing sick mind games and had looped the heart rate monitor screen? Once or twice, Lexi came close to breaking the screen and attacking the wires. But she didn’t. Because what would Anastasia say?
Hope didn’t wait to be attacked, though. Hope was a suicidal creature.
“Oh, and I met a guy.” Lexi forced a smile just in case her mom could hear it in her voice. “Today, actually—on my way here. Gosh, it was awkward. I wish you could see how handsome he is. The day you wake up, I bet he’ll be the one standing over your bed, his face beaming above his clipboard and his stethoscope.”
Lexi sighed and stood up. Her hand smoothed the sheets, erasing the dent that indicated her presence. She kissed her mother’s forehead and whispered that she loved her. Goodnight, Mom. You just fell asleep, didn’t you? You were listening the whole time.
Weren’t you?
Had she been able, Anastasia would have opened her eyes. She would have raised her hand to grab at Lexi’s.
I had the strangest dream, she would have said. I saw you flirting with the Devil.
18 / Mask
“When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.”
–Maya Angelou
Dominic refused to speak of horns or halos again. A week after Lexi had opened his eyes to the truth of his reflection, he’d smashed the mirror, realizing the horns just grew back seconds after they’d been sawn off (the old ones, appearing once they were no longer attached to him, soon disappeared from the trash where he’d thrown them and went Heaven knew where). Whenever she brought it up in the weeks that followed, he’d stop her. Initially he’d kiss her or tickle her until she’d relent. Later, losing patience, he’d grab her mouth with his hand—his fingers clenching around her jaw—and he’d squeeze hard enough to force tears from her eyes. She covered the bruises with make-up as he apologized for not realizing his own strength.
Lexi lost count of the number of times he’d turned down her invitations to the Tzami. He still hadn’t met her friends. He had an excuse for every occasion. A hospital shift. An all-nighter. An emergency call. A dying patient.
Lexi figured she could forgive all that. He was training to be a surgeon, for God’s sake—he underwent more pressure than she’d ever know. He still made time for her, after all. The same hands that dabbled in death had the power to shield her from her own fears and demons.
He took her into his arms one evening in bed, ten months to the day they met. She rested her back against his chest as he stroked her hair. It had been a long day for both of them and she’d jumped at his invitation for a sleepover at his apartment. Lexi relished his gentleness, the kisses along her shoulder and throat. His soft voice soothed her. She looked over her shoulder at him. The warm glow of the lamp on the nightstand lit his face, highlighting the redness of his cheeks and the dark curls of his hair. His hazel eyes shone with a warmth that could not be faked.
“You have to assimilate to this society,” he said.
Lexi blinked. “What?”
“You have to leave behind these childish ways. Stop dabbling with fire. Stop tricking yourself into believing what does not and should not really exist. We aren’t kids, Lexi. We can’t believe in magic.”
It took her a moment to realize he’d actually breached the subject. “It’s not a trick. It’s not magic.” Lexi didn’t want to change. She didn’t want to forget about everything her family had all but died for. “You saw something that day.” Her body instinctively stiffened, bracing for a blow that did not come. “You saw yourself, in all your beauty and glory. Why won’t you admit it?”
Dominic’s hands tightened around her—protectively, not painfully. “You have to guard yourself. Prying eyes, prattling tongues. You could die for what you stand for. You have to be stronger than that. Mask your weaknesses. Trust no one. Not your coworkers. Not your so-called friends. You shouldn’t even trust me.”
That’s what all good people say. Lexi snorted. His was just a polite way of saying: I believe myself to be trustworthy, but I can’t sell that to you like a cheapskate, so I’ll work to earn your trust and will meanwhile throw this self-sacrificial bullshit line at you. “Of course I trust you.”
“Don’t be naïve. Listen. This is how to survive in this world. Don’t you want to survive?”
“Yes, but—”
“You can’t deal with them if you don’t get them. Understand them. Mirror them, if you will. Wear their mask.”
And Lexi realized that Dominic was attempting to explain his side of the story. She rolled over until she could see him, her face near his, sharing his pillow and studying his fear.
“I don’t like masks,” she said. “I don’t like those games and I suck at acting. Ignorance and apathy are not the same. You’ve seen the truth. You just want to throw it away?”
A devil sprawled on the bed beside her, the angel within him fighting to emerge. “It’s a mask you’ll learn to put on and take off,” he admitted. “You must conform. With them, you are one of them. With me, you are the woman I know and admire. That is why I fell in love with you. You must not change.”
Dominic spoke in paradoxes, but the metaphor upset Lexi the most. His warning struck a nerve. That was what the agencies wanted: to mask everyone, to blindfold and brainwash them until habit became the new truth. Yes, rebels suffered. They were abused, wounded, locked up, and killed. Their families were broken apart like shattered clocks
that could no longer tell time. History had a way of finger-painting every revolution with blood. Yet to what end would blind obedience lead? What was the purpose of blinding them all?
Lexi’s hand reached up and stroked Dominic’s face. Beneath his scruff, above the webbing of nerves and veins, she thought for a moment that her fingers brushed against string. “You put it on and take it off, my love,” she whispered. “Until one day that mask might not come off. What then?”
He shoved her away and switched off the light.
19 / Dragon Tea
“You tell me you love me, but I’m not sure you know what love is, or how fast it flies, or how much it resembles a UFO, or what kind of weapon you’d use to shoot it down.”
–Jarod Kintz
At Dominic’s request, Lexi made reservations for Saturday night, a week before her birthday. They had a date at the new bar in town. He was supposed to swing by her apartment and pick her up.
He’d stood her up for two hours.
Lexi dialed Dominic’s cellphone twice and left three texts. Her phone never beeped back. Yang followed her as she paced into the kitchen and filled his bowl with the lunch she’d skipped and no longer felt like eating. She phoned the hospital in case he’d been called in for an emergency, only to be told Dominic hadn’t checked in all day. He’d been on Facebook these past two hours, she saw, checking her laptop; minutes ago he’d commented on a photo of a naked chick posing against a Harley, asking her to marry him.
Lexi’s first thought at seeing that image should have been: What the hell is his problem?
But it wasn’t.
Nearly a year in his presence, she’d been conditioned to react differently. Her first thought was: What have I done wrong? Why is he punishing me by avoiding me? What turned him off that he’d look somewhere else? When did I become so worthless? At least he isn’t kidnapped or dead.
The late November moon rose soon after. Lexi threw aside the novel she was failing to read. Who was she kidding? Ignoring her was becoming Dominic’s favorite game. She straightened her shoulders, determined that, this time, he wouldn’t ruin her night. She went to her room and stripped out of her little black dress. She pulled on her favorite jeans, a warm sweater, and the beloved red coat Dominic called gaudy. Reaching for her boots, her eye fell on the white shoebox in the closet corner. She hesitated, then grabbed that too.
At Lexi’s whistle, Yang bounded from the kitchen. “We’re going out for a drink,” she told him brightly.
The wolf wagged his tail. His human sounded more like herself.
. . .
A quick drive later, Lexi slipped into the dark warehouse and in moments was at the Tzami’s door with Yang at her heels. It was dim and warm inside, all smoke and mirrors. At one table, a handful of her friends shared a hookah pipe, playing a game of tarneeb and laughing uproariously at Ibrahim’s attempt to maintain his poker face despite a flurry of sneezes. George sat in a corner booth with a couple of friends, back in town for his brother’s wedding. He spotted Lexi and raised his glass with a grin. Behind the bar, Khalil shook up cocktails with one hand, his other hand hugging someone close to him as he kissed her. Sonya waved at Lexi from a table where she sat with her boyfriend, drinking shots and losing at backgammon.
Lexi breathed more easily. The air was different here, in this parallel universe beyond the red door. She picked a table near the fireplace and her friends knew what she needed: a bubble of space for herself and her wolf, alone but not lonely in a crowded sanctuary. She pulled the battered shoebox from her backpack. Lifting the lid, she smiled and extracted the notebooks she’d salvaged from El Greco, their pages smelling of dust and dreams. She burrowed her face in a book and gasped in the comforting scent. A wave of nostalgia swept over her for a moment and engulfed her, nearly cutting off her air supply.
Where were they now? Adam, Farhad, Marc, Evy? She knew only of Jerry—he’d taken a teaching position as a chemistry professor at the local university; she’d seen him once or twice from afar. After the house raid, there had been calls, text messages, emails. There’d been concern for Anastasia… and then silence. There’d been the fear of guilt through association. Lexi stopped leaving voicemails. She’d swallowed the pill of their betrayal; they probably felt betrayed first, forced to leave El Greco. Somehow, El Greco had been spared from the bombs; someone had been quicker, more vengeful, and had set fire to the factory before the agencies could bomb it.
Yang pawed at Lexi’s feet, breaking through her thoughts.
His jaws parted and his tongue lolled out in a special grin he reserved just for her. He’d finished his complementary sausages, licking the plate more thoroughly than a dishwasher. Lexi leaned down to pick it up and set it on the table.
“Lucky that Khalil has a soft spot for you, you beast.”
The wolf gazed at her adoringly and sprawled back under the table, warming her feet with his fur. Lexi ruffled his ears for a moment, absently, her free hand holding open a book against the table.
What will become of these? Lexi shuffled through the pages. These were notes passed down to her from Gabriel and Elias, back when she’d first started working in the factory, back when she’d been more interested in doodling in the margins—she’d drawn a fox at the bottom of this page—back when she thought these notes were disposable pieces of paper.
The government had already revised the dictionary. They’d blocked every respective image on the internet. The word mirror was an archaic term, censored in new books. They’d burned mirror manuals and glassmaking tutorials. The papers she held could very well be the last. Lexi shivered. In a few decades, will people even know mirrors existed?
“Seat taken?” a voice asked.
“Nope.” Lexi unhooked her legs from the opposite chair’s rungs without looking up. Yang didn’t budge. “Take it away.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Suit yourself.” She took a sip of tea, eyes on her notes. Pappou’s handwriting was even worse than Khalil’s.
“What are you having?”
Lexi sighed. People who didn’t get bodily cues irked her. She raised her head, ready to politely send the stranger to Hell.
A pair of smoky green eyes glinted back at her. Their owner was tall and lean, with close-cropped dark hair and stubble softening his sharp features. His lips were thin but expressive, twitching as if he was biting back a smile.
“Tea,” she retorted.
“Are you sick?”
“No.” Her hand smoothed the page in front of her. “I just like tea.”
“Grandmothers and invalids ‘just like tea.’ Aren’t you special…”
“You have no idea.”
The young man didn’t seem fazed by her sarcasm. “Tea,” he muttered. Lexi pulled her notebook closer to make room for him as he sat across from her. He motioned over the waitress and pointed at something in the menu. “Is this available?”
“Oriental Dragon green tea,” the waitress confirmed, scribbling it down on her notepad. “Coming right up.”
“Thanks.” He transferred his gaze to Lexi.
“You enjoy joining strangers for teas you don’t care for, Dragon?”
“A nickname already. How flattering. Normally I go by Zach.”
“Lexi.” She shook his offered hand. His grip was warm.
“Have we met before? You look familiar.”
Lexi grimaced. (It wasn’t just a cheesy pickup line. People sometimes did recognize her in the street. “Hey… aren’t you the mirror-maker’s granddaughter?” they asked. Usually she smiled back and pretended she didn’t speak English. One time she’d snapped. It had been in a supermarket. “I’m no one!” she screamed at a tiny old Korean lady in the frozen foods section. Security told her she’d have to lower her voice if she wanted to continue with her purchases at Wegman’s.)
“Please don’t know me,” she replied. “I’m a failing accountant.”
“I just meant you’re probably a regular here. Surely I’ve seen you befor
e.” He peered at her notebook and studied her doodle. “And I doubt you’re failing at anything. Where are you from, Foxy?”
“From around here.”
“Me too. Grew up in South Astoria.”
Lexi tilted her head to the side, her eyes softening. “Shut up! You didn’t. I know everyone in South Astoria.”
“Apparently you don’t.” Zach grinned. It did wonders to his face, softening the trepidation, lessening the shadows. “I’ve seen you here before,” he added. “A little Red Writing Hood… in some corner by yourself, with your wolf and your red coat and your soup bowls caffeine, writing, writing, writing. You go through the motions of daily life because it’s a necessity, but you still need your hours of escape. You express yourself in writing, straining to sync with some other life you’ve known or lived, straining to find something special to share with the rest of us.”
Lexi kept her face guarded, hiding her surprise, refusing to admit to herself how much his description warmed her. He made her sound practically magical. “You’ve been stalking me?”
“I’ve been noticing you. But apparently you haven’t been noticing me noticing you.”
Another day, another year, Lexi may have blushed. Now her smile was a crooked line of mistrust. “Do those lines work on all the girls?”
“You really don’t remember me.” He feigned shocked dismay, and this time her smile was real. “Something else you didn’t know: we took a Drama 101 class together a few years back. I work at Lockheed Martin now because they’re paying for my Master’s—and what fool would say no to no student debts? I’m half-Italian, half everything else.” He tapped at her notebook, unfazed. “Your turn. What’s this?”
Lexi glanced over at the bar. Khalil’s eyes met hers, attentive. He offered a reassuring smile and she relaxed. Khalil wouldn’t have let in anyone sketchy. Then again, who could ever know for sure? Different people “sketched” in different ways.
Yang raised his head and sat up, feeling Lexi tense. That he hadn’t growled or moved so far had been a comforting sign. Zach did not show fear at Yang’s inspection. He held a hand out to the black wolf.
The Wake Up (The Seers Book 1) Page 10