“Paint what?”
“Everything. What I see or feel. It depends on my mood.”
Ezra seems pleased, but not surprised. “Do you paint as well as you draw?”
“I guess.” I shrug.
“I’d like to see your work.”
“You mean like when hell freezes over?”
He looks at his watch. “I’m not particularly patient to begin with, Ruby. Don’t you think that’s asking a lot?”
Ezra’s mind is whip sharp, but his intelligence is understated. While he stares at me with an almost-smile on his face, I realize I’d be happy to sit with him forever. And I might have, but when I grab his arm and playfully peek down at his watch, I see it’s nearing seven o’clock.
“Crap. I told Liddy I’d be back by now.” I gather up my notebook and throw my books into my backpack haphazardly. “She hates it when I walk in the dark. Come to think of it, lately I hate walking in the dark.”
Ezra grabs my backpack and stands up. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride.”
“Thanks,” I tell him on the way to his truck. “In Los Angeles, there’s enough light pollution to power a small planet. I’m not used to how dark it gets in the pass.”
“You afraid of the dark?” he asks.
“Uh-uh. El Maldito. And haunted forests.” I laugh.
“Right. The Damned,” he says.
“What?”
“Maldito. It means ‘damned’.”
“You believe the stories?”
“Definitely.” He nods.
“Really?” I giggle. It’s not the answer I expected. “The way you talked about Montezuma’s snake god, I thought you thought it was crap.”
“New Mexico’s founded on folklore. Why not?”
“Because things like ghosts and snake gods don’t exist.”
“Maybe not in your world.”
“Ezra, you’re totally messing with me, right?”
Ezra hops in his truck, glancing at me peripherally as I buckle up. He grins as he pulls away from the curb. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I keep seeing the same mountain lion. And I swear I saw a horse in my driveway last night, so I’m not being totally paranoid. Angel saw the lion Sunday night too. He agreed—it’s a big sucker.”
Except for the slightest twitch, Ezra’s usually dynamic face is immobile. “You went out with Angel Sunday night?”
“No. Liddy invited Angel and Torrance over for dinner. I saw them after we went fishing.”
“Oh.”
Oh. That’s all he says. But it hits me as though he shouted.
Ezra pulls up my driveway and stops the truck, idling near my front porch. He smiles again, quietly speaking to the windshield. “I’ll see you on Saturday, Ruby.”
My stomach turns unexpectedly. Only this time, I kind of know why. “I didn’t tell you Angel was coming over later Sunday because I didn’t think it mattered.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Ezra …”
“I have to go.” Like the first time he drove me home, he leans across the cab and opens my door. “I’ll be here early Saturday. Around seven.”
Ezra waits for me to hop out. When I’m down, he drives backward down the driveway, taking off before I make it into the house. In the foyer, I slip off my flats and drop my backpack on the tiled floor before running to the window, trying to ignore the knots in my stomach as I watch his headlights disappear into the dark.
“I’m in here!” Liddy shouts when she hears me.
In the den, Liddy sits hunched over a stack of bills. She sees me standing in the doorframe and holds up an envelope, waving it in the air. “Your first payment to Stanford.”
“That’s almost a year away.”
Liddy pushes her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I’m trying to be a little more forward-thinking. Got a problem with it?”
“No. I just … I’m not even sure I want to go anymore.”
“Since when?”
“Since lately. I’m thinking about applying to UCLA or the UNM in Albuquerque.”
“You’re going. You got in, and we can pay for it. Ruby, you almost fainted when you got your acceptance letter. Whatever’s going through your head now, it’ll pass.”
Liddy’s face says it all. She’s already plotted out the rest of my life, starting with my graduation from Stanford. I’ll go there, and then on to graduate school at some Ivy fortress, and then secure some great science professorship, like she did. It’s pointless to argue. She’s made up her mind already.
“Sorry I’m late.” I sigh. “What’s for dinner?”
“Let’s fry up that fish,” she chirps, also signaling that the topic—Stanford—is officially off limits. “Give me a minute, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Family photos plaster the den’s burnt umber walls, of my grandparents, and my mother and Liddy, and Mom and I together at various stages in our lives. The den is cozy, and I want to stay and talk with Liddy about Ezra, but instead, I go and wash up.
Twelve
Falling to Ruin
Sitting outside with Las Gallinas, watching the Pecos football players collide like steam engines on the football field, I still can’t stop thinking about Ezra. About what he said to me at Margarita’s, and how I felt it physically when he gave me the cold shoulder in his truck.
“Earth to Ruby.” Racine snaps her fingers in front of my face. “You meeting Leo this afternoon?”
I drop my sandwich—leftover fried trout between two slabs of wheat bread—and answer yes. But that’s all I have to say about it. Ezra confuses me. And because of it, I’m not as excited as I was to meet Leo up at the ruin.
“Pop quiz. You’re alone together in the woods.” Ashley smirks. “What do you do?”
“What do I do, or what do you do?” I answer politely.
“Oh, we all know the answer to that one,” Marta squeals.
“Marta!” Ashley snaps. “Bitch!”
“And you wouldn’t, Marta?” Racine says. “Toma uno saber uno.”
Marta pulls back her long hair and giggles. “A lady never tells.”
Ashley gives me the once-over. She grabs a five-dollar bill out of her purse and smacks it on the table. “I’ll bet you five Ruby’s not like that.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Easy,” they say in unison, breaking into giggles.
“It’s not like I haven’t thought about it.”
There’s no way I’d tell them about kissing Leo in Apache Canyon. Racine knows, and with Racine alone, it will stay. I trust the rest of them about as much as I like doing laundry.
“Would you?” Ashley’s eyes pop. “I mean, up the mountain, all alone?”
“Probably not.”
Marta looks at me as if staring down a dim child. “Of course she wouldn’t.”
“That’s a good thing,” Racine cuts in. She purses her lips, maintaining an expression so serious she reminds me of someone’s mother. “You’re crazy enough hiking alone in that forest to begin with.”
Marta clicks her tongue. “Ray, enough of the spooky forest thing.”
That they think I’d consider sleeping with Leo in the middle of the woods almost makes me laugh. I mean, I have considered it, in some detail. But chances aren’t good that I’d lie down in a pile of leaves with anyone.
“It’s kind of exciting,” Ashley says. “I mean, what if he’s the ghost of a Confederate soldier?”
“Union,” Marta corrects her. “If Ruby’s gonna mack on a ghost, he better be Union.”
“He’s not a ghost.”
“How do you know?” Ashley’s playful eyes grow. “I mean, what if he cast a spell on you?”
“He’s not a ghost.” I laugh. “I can’t see through him.”
“Then bring him to my party,” Marta challenges.
“A ghost would be better than bringing Ezra,” Ashley mumbles under her breath. “That jerk broke Cassie’s heart.”
I clear my throat. “Ezra
isn’t a jerk.”
“Except for his face, the dude was a total waste of space before his accident,” Marta sniffs. “Without it, he’s nothing.”
“I’m not dense. I know none of you like him,” I tell my sandwich. I drop my head into my hands and rub my eyes. Defending Ezra all the time tires me out. “But people change.”
“At least with Ezra, you know what you’re signing up for.” Racine waggles a finger at me. “I mean, this Leo guy, for all you know, he’s a serial killer.”
Racine is right. Leo is completely inscrutable. Worse, no one knows him.
Just what are you signing up for, Ruby? Why did you agree to meet Leo alone in the middle of a haunted forest? Staring past Racine, I shake my head at the sky. Prudence is my MO. Back in LA, I’d almost always been careful.
After school, the same questions dog me all the way up the mountain. Puzzling out Leo’s enigmatic effect on me gives me a headache, and it doesn’t help that the buzzing on the plateau is at an all-time high. I walk slowly, and by the time I enter the clearing, my head is spinning.
Near the ruin, I spread out a wool blanket, hoping to equilibrate before facing him. Laying down, I close my eyes and think about mountain lions and ghosts, and the story Leo told me about the Otherworld, until the hum turns to more of a crackle. A whispering sound emanates from the ruin walls. Faint singsong syllables form drawn-out nonsense words that taper off without ending, raising the tiny hairs on my neck and arms.
Unnerved, I poke a finger in my ears, rubbing while I swallow.
Cicadas? The wind? What the hell?
“Ruby, what is this fascination you have with the ground?” Leo asks from above me.
Startled, I snap up, focusing on Leo’s brilliant face. My mind is full of steel wool, and in the few moments it takes to slip into gear, Leo could probably get me to do anything. He’s like a Siren; I feel like a ship following him straight to the edge of the planet.
“Everything okay?” he grins.
I smooth my hair, which has spread out around the blanket and collected its own little pile of sticks and leaves. “Yes,” I whisper. “I was just listening to the wind.”
Leo sits down on the blanket next to me and crosses his legs. He lies back, partially resting on his elbows. “What did it tell you?”
“Nothing that made sense.”
His brown arms are strong and defined beneath a tight black T-shirt that flexes in all the right places. My earlier conversation with Las Gallinas comes to mind, about being reckless, and I quickly look away, red like a tomato.
“You’re a funny girl,” he says. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Act like you don’t notice me?”
The contents of my stomach turn, making a hard right in search of my esophagus. I swallow and answer him the best I can without stuttering. “I notice you. Obviously. We’re sitting here having a conversation, aren’t we?”
Leo smiles wickedly, raising both his eyebrows.
“What?”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re beautiful. I enjoy looking at you. I’m not embarrassed to admit it.”
“Oh, I see. You’re asking me if I think you’re good-looking. Or wait. No. You’re telling me that you’re good-looking and wondering why I don’t slobber all over you.”
“Something like that.”
I shake my head forcefully, but truthfully, I’m trembling inside. Even at his cockiest, I can’t pretend I don’t find Leo unbelievably, almost unbearably, attractive. “A girl could do worse, I guess.”
“You’re so transparent. But if you want to pretend,” he throws his hands up in the air and falls back on the blanket, “then be my guest.”
“You’re full of yourself, you know that?”
“Yes.” Leo grabs my wrist, pulling me off-balance. He tugs me down flat on my back.
“Leo …”
“Tell me what the wind said.”
“I just did. Don’t be mental.” Leo’s grin is infuriatingly smug. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Fine. It said, ‘Ruby, what the hell are you doing in the middle of nowhere with such a conceited boy?’ Then it called you something I can’t repeat.”
Leo’s brusque laugh surprises me. “Okay, Ruby. Now tell me about the boys you knew back in Los Angeles.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Make it up then.”
“Seriously? I dated a boy named Tyler for, like two minutes.”
“What happened?”
I grimace. “I drank too much at a party and jumped his best friend.”
Grinning, Leo turns on his side, leaning slightly over me. “And since then?”
“There isn’t more to tell. For the most part, I avoid the lesser species.”
“Lesser species?”
“It’s a challenge just to speak your language.”
“We’ll see about that.” He snickers.
Leo lowers his face above mine, and his hair brushes my cheeks as his strange golden eyes memorize my features. His smell, like cut wood and wet earth, drives me crazy.
When Leo’s lips touch mine, and he runs a calloused hand along the side of my face, down my neck, and over my shirt, the contact sends electric shivers through my entire body. But when he bunches my shirt, tracing a finger up my bare stomach to my rib cage, I stop him.
“Hey.” My heart is beating so fast it’s difficult to speak. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I don’t … you know why,” I swallow.
“But you want me.”
I stutter, shocked by his confidence. “I do … but … there has to be more.”
“There’s more.” He smirks. “Trust me.”
“I mean more, like, more between us.”
Leo’s lips twitch. “What’s wrong with having fun?” He leans into me again, pressing me backward as I try to sit up.
“Leo, stop!”
Leo snaps away from me. He looks at me like a fly in his soup, wrinkling his nose. “If that’s what you really want.”
“It is what I want,” I say out loud, reminding myself as much as anyone. I adjust my shirt and straighten my hair. “You really are full of yourself.”
“And?”
“And? God. Remind me what it is I like about you?”
“My wit and charm?” He grins.
Leo stands up and holds out his hand, but I refuse it, making a show of standing on my own. My mind is a ball of confusion, and Leo’s behavior is only making it worse. I’m not sure if I like him, but it’s hard to keep my hands off him, even though not keeping my hands off him goes against everything I know about myself.
“It’s not the end of the world, Ruby.” His face is completely unemotional, bringing home the casualness of his statement. “But I have to ask, what were you expecting?”
Leaning over to gather the blanket and my backpack—and to hide my face while I speak—my answer comes out wobbly, which makes me hate myself. “I didn’t expect anything, except maybe to get to know you better.”
“Then we want the same things,” he answers lightly.
“No. You want to sleep with me. Big difference.”
“It’s just sex. Don’t make a capital crime out of it. If you don’t want to do it, you don’t. Either way, it has nothing to do with whether I want to know you better.”
“You really believe that? That it’s just sex?”
He looks at me blankly, then shakes his head. “Yes.”
When sunlight hits his face, highlighting features so achingly beautiful I could die, I wonder if there is some force in La Luna that sent Leo to me out of spite—for being a bad person, or niece, or daughter.
“I don’t think we should meet like this again.”
“But you still want to go out with me,” he sort-of asks.
I swallow, staring at Leo’s strong arms and sturdy hands, which he’s tucked into his pockets. God, I think, what’s wrong with me? Please don’t answer yes.
�
��I don’t think so.”
“How about Saturday?”
“I just said no, Leo.”
“You said, ‘I don’t think so.’”
“Fine. No. I can’t.”
“Like I said, you’re a funny girl.” Leo pulls his hands out of his pockets and puts them behind his head. “First you want me to take you out, then you turn me down.”
“I already have plans, this Saturday.”
“Then break them.”
I stare at him incredulously. “I don’t want to.” And the truth is, I don’t. I’ve really started looking forward to my camping trip with Ezra.
Leo gives me the once-over, clearly not accustomed to people turning him down. “What are you doing this weekend that’s so important?”
“Camping.”
He shoots me a larger-than-life grin, showing off polished enamel. “Maybe I could come along.”
Looking at him, I’d swear on a Bible that the men in the pass are all crazy. “Are you insane? First, you have, like no time for me, and then you go and invite yourself on my camping trip. Forget it.”
“Who are you going with?” He shoves his hands back into his pockets and steps backward. “Maybe I know her.”
“His name is Ezra.”
“Okay, Ruby. Now I get it.” He grins even wider. “You want to have your cake and eat it too, don’t you?”
Leo’s words drip with innuendo, and I hate him for it. “Are you serious?” I gape at him.
“As a heart attack.”
“You’re so frustrating!” Seriously pissed, I whip away fast enough that my head spins.
Suddenly, a flash like an explosion lights the sky, followed by a radiant purple hue that expands overhead, billowing across the forest like an inkblot. Disoriented, I push my palms against my lids and close my eyes.
When I open them again, Leo is gone, but my mother is standing in front of me. A blur of ephemeral wavy features, she moves her mouth, rippling while she speaks. She yells, and I hold an arm over my face as her words cull up a gust of wind that whips my hair into a frenzy.
Watchers are forbidden to mix with True of Heart!
Her body flickers, fading against a now-black sky as cascades of tiny violet sparks light the dark spaces between each tree, vanishing, then pulsing back to life. They expand, swallowing me in blinding light. Until Leo’s voice brings me back, and I look up and see his panicked face and realize I’m on the ground and that we’re still in the clearing.
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