The Color of Lies

by CJ Lyons

  I quicken my pace, ready to bolt if he’s mocking me. “I don’t hear voices. At least not ones that aren’t already there. They aren’t that kind of story. Not like ‘Once upon a time . . .’ or anything like that.” I pause. “More like pictures. When I see or hear words, they turn into light and colors.”

  He half turns away from me, scanning the sidewalk. Seeking out his escape route, I’m sure. I’m thinking I’ll never see him again, not after the way I’ve flubbed this—and he never even got a chance to tell me about the project he needs help with.

  But then he turns back and his eyes lock with mine, less aquamarine now, more azure. Set against his dark skin—I’m still trying to decide the right shade of brown to describe it—they almost glow. A stray gust of wind blows against us. I shiver and he angles his body to shield me from it in a move filled with old-fashioned gallantry that is too charming for words. But what I like even better is that he did it without thought—to him, it wasn’t a gesture guided by chivalry but simply his nature.

  He sighs a little, like he’s trying to shake off the intensity of our conversation. When he finally turns to look at me, he’s trying to smile. “So, tell me more about your—”

  “The medical word for it is synesthesia. My gram calls it our family gift.” Curse is more like it, but I don’t tell him that.

  “Does she have the same thing as you?”

  “No. She feels things whenever she hears sounds or voices.”

  “Feels things?”

  How to explain? “For Gram Helen, some sounds are like a dentist drilling or worse. Others are like a warm bubble bath, soothing. Some are so bad, she collapses, can’t even get out of bed for a day or two.”

  He pauses and I think I’ve lost him for good. But then he nods slowly. “No wonder she can’t leave the house. You’re like her lifeline to the outside world.”

  I’ve never thought of it quite that way, but he’s right. Not that Gram Helen doesn’t do a lot for me. We’re kind of partners, I guess. Darrin helps when he can, but he’s busy with Cleary and Sons, always traveling. And Uncle Joe—in some ways, he’s worse off than Gram, stays mostly up at the house on the lake, alone. It can be weeks between visits.

  Alec continues, “And you see colors when checks are wrong?” He frowns, shakes his head. “No. When someone is lying or upset?”

  “I see colors all the time—” I can tell he doesn’t understand. But his earnest expression says he’s trying. “The waitress. Her colors from when we first walked in were pulsing with anxiety. Then the manager was radiating anger—in him it was an ugly shade of neon green. Like he enjoyed making her feel bad.”

  “But you couldn’t hear what he was saying.”

  “No, but I heard the tone of his voice. Didn’t you? Before he shut the door to the office?”

  He appears to think about that. “Yeah. I blocked it out—”

  “That’s what most people do. But once I hear someone’s voice, I can’t help it. I see everything they’re feeling in their auras.”

  “Auras? Not like a psychic?” He sounds doubtful, and I don’t blame him.

  “No. It’s just my name for the colors and pictures I see.”

  He slowly nods his head, though I can tell he doesn’t really understand.

  “That’s okay,” I tell him. “I’ve been living with this all my life and I don’t really understand it, either.”

  “I want to.” He sounds wistful. “You make the world sound magical.”

  “It is. People are so busy rushing around, faces buried in their phones or looking to the next thing on their to-do list that they don’t take the time to see—really see what’s all around them. The world is filled with magic. You just have to look and listen.”

  “So my aura.” He stumbles a bit over the word. “It must not be too ugly—I mean, for you to hang out with a total stranger and share all this with them.”

  I can only smile and shake my head. How can I explain to him that he has no aura when I’ve only just convinced him that they exist? We reach the parking lot behind the natatorium where my car’s parked. His too, I’m guessing. “I’m sorry. I started talking about me and we never had the chance to talk about your project, this true-crime story. I’m assuming you need some design formatting? Maybe a map or graph?”

  Suddenly, I feel off-balance, like the first time I went skating, my ankles wobbly and the ice slick with surprises. Because I can’t believe that I’m about to invite an almost total stranger to go out with me. Even if it is just for a school project.

  My own aura betrays me, blossoming with magenta hope and gushing over with non-academic feelings. But Alec is so different from anyone I’ve met before. He’s obviously smart, but also able to listen without judging, and he’s so easy to talk to. I’ve never told anyone so much about myself—and never, ever about my synesthesia—on a first meeting. Something about Alec makes me trust him. As if, somehow deep inside, I know he’ll never let me down. I’m not sure I can trust that feeling, not without seeing his aura, but somehow I find the courage to try. “Maybe we could talk some more? Tomorrow?”

  His body twists away from me so I barely catch the dip of his chin as his shoulders hunch almost to his ears. A sigh empties his chest and his shoulders sag back down. And my own hope withers, turning to ashes. How could I be so naïve as to think he might be interested in me?

  “Ella.” His mouth twists the syllables of my name as if they’re foreign, uncomfortable to shape. “I’m sorry for the confusion. I don’t need any graphic design help.” He turns back to face me, his gaze as heavy as a sodden wool blanket. His eyes have gone gray, the color of a winter lake before the ice forms. “I wanted to interview you about your parents. About how they died. Specifically about your mother’s murder.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Ella

  I skid to a stop so fast, my backpack falls from my shoulder. Alec reaches for it, for me, but I back away, dragging it along the pavement. Suddenly, I want to run to my car and get far, far away from here.

  “What did you say?” I haul the bag up, pressing it against my chest like a shield.

  He opens his mouth to answer but I hold my hand up to stop him. I’m shaking my head, taking baby steps backward, putting distance between me and Alec’s words.

  “No. You’re wrong.” Each syllable leaks black ink, slithering through the air around me. “My parents died in an accident.” Last thing I want is to explain the fire. Accident is vague, a much safer word.

  He’s watching me. Behind him, the November sky is the strange gold-violet that lies in limbo between sunset and complete nightfall. It’s the closest thing to an aura I’ve seen around Alec, clinging to him like a shroud.

  “Accident?” His voice echoes my own confusion. “Mia Cleary, she was your mother, right?”

  “Don’t you say her name,” I snap. Electricity crackles through my body, a weird sensation of wanting to touch a live wire, if only to push it away and make the world safe again.

  Run! Now, before it’s too late, my brain screams. At first my body doesn’t obey. My eyes are locked on his, across the blacktop separating us, our lungs exhaling ghostly mists as the air grows chill.

  “But . . . she was your mother.” He hasn’t taken a step closer, yet his voice feels as if it’s right in my ear. Intimate. Seductive. The temptation of wanting, needing to know . . . the temptation that he might be speaking the truth. Ridiculous; I know how my own mother died.

  “You have the wrong girl.” The words break the spell and I spin away, heading toward my Subaru.

  The cheerful little red Impreza, battered and bruised but never beaten by its eleven years of Pennsylvania potholes, is my escape from this madness. I lurch toward it, fumbling in my pocket for my key, to get the door open. As I twist to toss my bag behind the front seat, I keep my eyes on Alec. Keep the threat in sight. He hasn’t moved. Still stands in the exact same spot. Still watches me with that look of concern. Still with a silent, invisible aura, unreadable, u
nknowable.

  “Just stay away from me.” I slam the door on him, my fingers jabbing the key in the ignition, and screech toward the exit, leaving him alone in the gathering dark.

  A stop sign blares up, a flash of neon red. I slam my brakes, the Subaru skidding to a halt. I’m jolted forward, my body tense with anger and sorrow and confusion. Flames swirl around me: blazing red, raging orange, searing yellow. Finally, I give in to them and collapse, my body quaking and my arms hugging the steering wheel, wishing they held someone real. Alec is wrong. A fire at an old beach cottage, a faulty heating system, a random spark—there’s no murder in that.

  Why would he think my mother was killed? And murder? Impossible. Insane. The very way he’d phrased the question shows how very wrong he is.

  A different Mia Cleary, that must be it. Somewhere out there is another woman with another tragic story that anchors her life, spinning out an iron chain binding past to present. No other possible answer.

  But he called me Nora . . . The whisper slithers through my mind. No one calls me Nora. Not since my parents died.

  “No.” The word startles me, echoing through the dark and empty car. “He’s wrong.”

  Then why did his words hurt so badly? Wounding some part of me I didn’t even know existed. Is it simply because he chose this day of all days to find me?

  Even though I can’t remember my parents and have pretty much gotten used to the idea of their not being around, I still think of them all the time. But that doesn’t mean every time I remember them I curl up in a quivering mass of tears. My life is happy, filled with love and fun and joy.

  When I think of my parents, it’s not because I miss them—how can I miss what I never knew? Rather, I wonder what life would have been like if they had been here with me. When I was little, I used to imagine them hovering over me, watching and smiling like angels or ghosts. Then I got older and realized that instead of wondering what could have been, life was more about enjoying what I had. And what I had, what I have, is pretty fantastic, despite all of life’s quirks. A home that shelters me from every storm, a family who loves and needs me.

  So why am I now hyperventilating in my car? All because of a boy who’s wrong, wrong, wrong . . .

  A hesitant tap on the opposite window jerks me out of my sob fest. I look away, swipe my face with the back of one hand, sniff and swallow, then glance to the passenger side where Alec is leaning forward, his face pressed against the glass.

  “Are you all right?” He cups his hands to see inside, then vanishes. The night envelops us the way winter nights can, falling so hard and fast you can almost pinpoint the precise moment the day surrenders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I thought you knew.”

  I fumble for the headlights. By the time I turn them on, he’s now at my side of the car. The lights reflect from his glasses, hiding his eyes.

  No aura to read, I can’t see his face clearly in the dark; how can I trust anything he says?

  CHAPTER 8

  Ella

  Alec taps on the glass. “Please, roll down the window. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  His voice is kind, gentle—it almost makes up for his having no aura. I want to tell him to go away, that I’m fine, that I don’t need him, I don’t need anyone . . . but somehow I find my finger stabbing the button to lower the window. The temperature has dropped but it’s not too cold, not for November. Still, I’m shivering.

  “Who are you?” I ask. “Why do you think you know anything about my mother or how she died? Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  Cold, so very cold that I can’t feel my hands, my lips tingle, my breath comes short and fast. I’m a marionette whose strings have been cut, strangely disjointed from my body as it slumps in the seat. Not limp—lifeless. Cold and numb and far, far away from where I really am . . . imagining, like I always do on this day, worrying at what I’ll never know . . . What if I’d been there? Would anything be different? Would they still be alive?

  Or would I have died with them?

  I had just turned three that day, so I would have been walking—no, running—excited by my first trip to the beach, first view of the ocean. Sand beneath my bare feet, though cold, because it would have been night by the time we arrived and it was November. Walking, walking, walking, the fog so thick it curled around me like a cat taking a nap, soft as fur and warm as well, but it didn’t purr. Instead there was another sound, a soft rush of water lapping at my feet . . .

  “Nora?” Alec’s voice brings me back to the present and I almost automatically tell him to call me Ella. The wind gusts through the open window—that must have been the rushing noise I imagined—not water, of course not. “Should I call someone? I’m sorry, I never meant to—I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?” My voice is a ghost of its normal self, barely makes it through the window to reach him on the other side. “I know what happened to my parents.” That’s better, a little life returning, like thawing out after walking in the sleet or rain. “You’re the one who doesn’t know anything.”

  “Right. Of course. I must have gotten my facts wrong.” I don’t need to see his aura to know he doesn’t believe a word—he’s that transparent. “I never should have—I do that sometimes, I’m sorry. I just get so caught up in things, I forget to think about the people . . .”

  “Why would you even say that to me? You don’t know me, don’t know my family.” My words whip through the space between us, crackling and snapping, sparks flying free. “Is that why you came to find me today? Not for a project, but to . . . to tell me some insane, horrible theory about my mother and how she died?”

  “It really is for school. Professor Winston. He’s the whole reason I came here for college, to study under him. He won two Pulitzers for his investigative reporting when he worked for the Baltimore Sun.” He continues, “I’m so very, very sorry. Rule number one of good journalism is to check your sources. I really thought I was right.” He thinks for a second. “June twenty-first—that’s your mother’s birthday, right?”

  I jolt upright in my seat. “How did you know that?”

  “It was in the file—” This time he stops himself, but the damage’s already done. “Never mind. In fact, let’s forget all this ever happened. I mean this conversation—don’t forget about having coffee, that was kind of nice.”

  It was, but any niceness has been ruined by this conversation. I reach for the gearshift but my fingers are still frozen. I calm my breathing, slow it down, then realize I’m in no shape to drive.

  “Could you drive me home?” I hate asking, it makes me feel weak—and I’m still not sure I entirely trust him. Except . . . something inside me already does. As if I’ve known him much longer than a single day. It’s weird and I can’t explain it—wish I could—but I don’t want to leave him.

  He nods and holds the door open for me as I climb out of the driver’s seat. He walks me over to the passenger side. My knees are wobbly, and I try to cover it by wrenching the door open myself before he can reach for it. Then I sink into the seat, gravity too great a force for me to fight.

  “Go left. Larchmont Street. Third house on the right, across from the park.” I huddle in my seat as he drives. He’s smart enough not to try to talk to me—the way my emotions are swirling around the car, filling it to the brim, if he added any more, we’d surely drown.

  He rocks his head against the headrest. I glance over and realize his knees are jutting up, braced against the wheel; he forgot to slide the seat back before he started driving. He slouches forward then back again, trying to get comfortable. Watching his contortions, I almost feel sorry for him.

  “It’s that one,” I say dully, pointing to my house.

  He pulls up in front of the small house my gram and I share. It’s technically called a bungalow, but I think it looks like one of those cute cottages you’d see at the beach. Or at least what I imagine a beach cottage would look like.

  “Nora—”

  “My n
ame is Ella.” This time, I do correct him. “And you’re wrong about my mother, okay? You’re just wrong. So thanks for the coffee and everything, but I have to go.” I wrap my fingers around the door handle.

  Alec turns to me, threatening to twist his spine into a permanent corkscrew. “Could we start over? Please? I didn’t mean to—I must have gotten the facts mixed up somehow.”

  I’m torn. I like him. At least the him I met before he got all weird, talking about mothers being murdered. What he said, the things he knew that he couldn’t know, calling me Nora, plus the other things he said that I know can’t be true . . . It makes me feel queasy, that sick feeling you get when you’re too close to the edge of a cliff and you can’t help but look down, and some small part of you wants to jump, just to see what flying feels like.

  Before I can say anything, the front porch light blazes on and Gram Helen appears, running down the steps wearing a conical birthday hat, ribbons streaming behind her, and carrying a rhinestone tiara in her hand.

  “It’s your birthday?” Alec says, slumping back in his seat, surrendering. “I must have the absolute worse timing in the whole wide world.”

  Gram Helen spies him, races to the driver’s door, and yanks it open. “You’re home! And you brought a friend!”

  Her words swirl through the air, a musty shade of bile green. I know she’s pretending to be happy, but isn’t—the stress of social gatherings even with family and friends she’s comfortable with will do that to her, much less introducing a total stranger to the mix.

  “I’m sorry,” I start to say, but Alec interrupts. “I’m Alec Ravenell,” he says as he climbs free of the car and takes Gram’s hand. “It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs. Cleary.”

  It’s actually Mrs. Crveno, since Helen is my mother’s mother. Mom’s side of the family is Croatian, originally from Sarajevo before they escaped during the war. Neither of us corrects Alec, but that’s when I realize his mistake: he’s looking for a murder victim named Mia Cleary. Because of her work, my mom used her maiden name—the only time I’ve seen her listed as Mia Cleary instead of Mia Crveno was in her obituary. Alec is looking for another woman altogether.