“All right.” I inhale sharply. “You want crazy, how’s this?” My brain yells, Don’t do it, Ruby! Don’t tell him! But my mouth has a mind of its own, and it takes off running. “I told you about Leo. The guy I met hiking?” I clear my throat, unable to dislodge the lump that’s grown from a pea to a golf ball. “Yesterday, when I saw your yearbook, when I saw Ezra … the picture of Ezra, Angel, I’m telling you he’s Leo.”
Angel hasn’t actually concluded I’ve lost it yet, that much is clear. But he really doesn’t understand what I’m telling him either. “They look alike?”
“No,” I whisper. “They’re the same person.”
His face cracks, breaking into a smile. “So, Ezra and this Leo guy … you’re saying they’re one person?”
“Yes.”
“Nice metaphor.” He grins, crinkling his eyes and nose in delight.
“It’s not a metaphor!” I shout. “They are literally the same person!”
Angel pulls back abruptly. “All right.” He frowns. “That is crazy.”
“I’d never seen a picture of Ezra before his accident. I freaked out Saturday when I realized it was him. And I went up to the ruin today because I knew Leo would be there. I can’t explain how he does it, but when I watched him, really watched him, I knew. They are the same person.”
Angel blinks a few times, then bobs his head. “Ruby.” He puts his hands over mine. “You know that’s not possible. I don’t blame you for wanting to believe it but listen to yourself.”
I’ve been listening the whole time. Until I said it out loud, I hadn’t realized how insane it sounded. “Who is Leo, then?”
“There’s an explanation, I’m sure. But not that one.”
I pull my hands away and bury my face in them. “Not one person knows Leo. And I only see him in the forest. Mostly near the ruin. How can he look so much like Ezra but not be him?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “But I promise, I’ll help you get to the bottom of it.”
“They have the same tattoo, of the same thing, in the exact same place on their arm.”
Angel drops his head, fiddling with his class ring. “That is weird.”
“But not weird enough?”
“Maybe Ezra has a twin?”
“That none of you knew about?”
His brows come together; I can tell he’s seriously mulling it over. We sit together quietly, both unsure what to say. Now Angel knows everything I do.
“Can you stay?” I finally ask, disturbing the quiet hum in the still kitchen. “Liddy probably won’t be back until late, and I’m too freaked out to be alone.”
“Stay over?”
“Yeah—on the couch.”
Angel agrees, and I head upstairs to change into pajamas before bringing him down one of Torrance’s sweatshirts. We build a fire in the kiva fireplace in the living room, lying across from each other on separate couches, but we don’t say much. Angel stares at the ceiling while I watch the flickering flames cast shadows on the wall. Neither of us mentions Ezra, or Leo, or mountain lions.
When Liddy and Torrance get home just past twelve, they walk in quietly, startling when I sit up. “Ruby!” Liddy gasps. “What are you doing on the couch?”
Torrance does a double take when he sees Angel. “You having a sleepover?”
“I asked him to stay,” I answer. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
Angel clears his throat. “I can leave,” he says softly. “I don’t want to be a problem.”
“It’s fine,” Liddy answers. She walks over, kisses my cheek, and whispers in my ear, “Are you okay?” When I nod, giving her a quick hug, she walks toward the hall and hooks her arm in Torrance’s, nudging him toward the stairs before turning back to shoot Angel a look. “Just stay on your couch.”
They go upstairs, and I pull the blankets over my head. My eyes are heavy, but my body feels weightless.
“That how you always sleep?” Angel whispers.
“No,” I mumble under the covers. “I’m hibernating.”
“Won’t you get lonely after a while?”
“No,” I grump.
“Don’t you want to stick around and see if Ezra comes back?”
“If he even left.”
I hear Angel shift on the couch. “Wouldn’t it be weird if you were right?”
The near dark makes it easier to speculate about things that go bump in the night. Exhaustion is the worst kind of catalyst; it makes anything seem possible.
“Weird is an understatement,” I answer softly.
“Completely insane then. How’s that?”
My stomach sends tremors through my body. Because I don’t know how to think about Ezra in any way that ends in some sensible argument, I don’t want to think about him at all. Even though it would take an atomic bomb to completely erase him from my thoughts. So, I let my heart ache and keep my mouth shut.
“Ruby?”
“Can you maybe just come over here and lie down with me?” I ask. “I mean, platonically.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to make Liddy angry.”
I shake my head under the covers before I realize he can’t see me and throw them off. Angel gets up and comes over, dragging his blanket with him, and I wriggle forward, patting the space behind me on the couch. Angel settles in, sandwiched between my body and the cushions. He winds an arm underneath my head and tucks the other around my waist, pulling me tightly against his chest.
“This work?” he asks.
“It does. Are you okay with it?”
When he answers, I can tell he’s smiling. “I’m good—as long as you are.”
Angel’s arm is like a seatbelt protecting me from the unknown, securing me to something real and safe, if only for the night. Between us I feel an enormous amount of affection but no awkwardness. “I am. Stupid as it is, I feel protected.”
“It means a lot that you trust me,” he whispers into my hair.
I nod my head, snuggling as far into him as I can. Maybe the world is tearing at the seams; at least I can count on Angel to mend its fabric. My heart may be breaking, or broken, or completely wasted away already, but between Angel, Liddy, and Racine, I know I still have constants. For the next few hours at least, that’ll have to be good enough.
Twenty-One
Paper Heart Cut from Stone
I make myself go to first period. After Mom died, I learned the hard way that when things go south, I can’t just drop out of life. But my concentration is at an all-time low, and by third period I’m obsessed; I have to know more about Ezra and his Pecos heritage.
By lunchtime, I’ve morphed into a basket case. The lunch bell rings, and I hide out in the girls’ bathroom until Las Gallinas are safely holed up in the cafeteria. Then I sneak off campus and hop on a bus to the library.
Luckily, the same librarian who told me about the Pecos the first time I went looking for information is at the circulation desk. When she sees me, she waves me over. “Girlie,” she says, “your book’s been waiting here awhile.” Her eyes twinkle as she holds up a finger and disappears below the circulation desk. She pops up again and hands me The Enchanted Pecos. “Only one copy left in Albuquerque. You lucked out.”
“Thank you.” I want to study the book in private, but she looks at me expectantly, so I take it from her and flip it open. Near the book’s middle, a collection of pictures catches my eye. I browse them casually, stopping on a small reprint of an old woodcut. Half-lion, half-man, the woodcut jumps off the page at me. Beneath it, a caption reads, “Shiankya—Mountain Lion. Watchers and Guardians of the Mountain.”
As the words sink in, I struggle to swallow, and when the librarian shifts, I jump, sending the book to the carpet with a thud. A soft squeak escapes my lips, following a tremor that treks up my spine. Ezra wasn’t joking when he told me Shiankya means mountain lion.
Shaky, I pick up the book. “Last time we talked, you told me some of your grandmother’s stories,” I say quickly. “You called th
e Otherworld a Bone Closet. What is it, exactly?”
“The way my grams told it, we go there to give back our terrestrial spirit and reunite with the spirit gods. But the way she described it, the place sounds like Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory all rolled into one.”
“Did she ever say anything about Pecos Indians who could be two different people at the same time?” I ask breathlessly.
“Two people at the same time? I don’t follow.”
“I mean, like, maybe being able to switch back and forth between different bodies?”
“Shape-shifters?” She raises an eyebrow.
I shake my head and point to the picture of the half-man, half-mountain lion. “Yeah. I guess. Like this.”
“No. Can’t say she did. But shape-shifters aren’t uncommon in native lore. The Hopi and Navajo have their skin-walkers, and plenty others speak of men in their tribes who turn into women, women who turn into mythical creatures, people who’re half-man/half-beast. Given Grammy’s Bone Closet,” she chuckles. “I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Listening, my head swims with nonsense—nonsense that makes sense, especially when I put two and two together. But it’s incredibly hard to let my mind go there. Ezra’s clan dates back more than a thousand years. Watchers? Mountain lions?
I thank her profusely and run outside to call Angel, letting him know to pick me up at the library instead of school. While I wait, I ponder the possibility that my maybe-boyfriend-slash-shifter-slash-I don’t really know what he is, may also be my mountain lion. If Ezra is a Watcher, much less the Watcher Mom called out, what exactly is he watching? Could the ruin truly be a gateway to somewhere … different?
When Angel pulls up, calling me over when he sees me standing in front of the library shivering, I just about throw myself into his truck. He turns the radio down as I scurry into the front seat, trembling like it’s thirty below outside.
“What’s up?” he asks.
“I wanted to check out a book.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “It couldn’t wait?”
“No.”
Angel drums his fingers against the steering wheel to some country song as we drive. Otherwise, he’s completely silent until we pull into my driveway.
“What happened to school?” he asks almost paternally, letting the truck idle.
“Nothing. It’s still there.”
“Ruby.”
“Book,” I say, holding the book up. “Library.”
He snorts, nodding up the mountain. “You still want to go up there?”
“No,” I say adamantly. “But I need my backpack. If you don’t want to come with though, I understand.”
“Uh-uh. You’re not going up there alone.”
“Come on, then.” I pull the keys out of the ignition and toss them on his lap.
“Whoa.” He grabs my arm. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, I just want to get my stuff and be done with it.”
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
“No,” I say sharply.
Angel starts to say something, but I cut him off. “I’m sorry. I’m anxious. That’s all. I just want to go get it. All right?”
He grabs his rifle, nodding curtly. “All right. Let’s try to get back before dark.”
“That why you bringing Tess?” I ask. “In case we don’t?”
“Partly.”
I can guess the rest. It isn’t to shoot at ghosts.
Angel and I head up the mountain side by side. Holding his rifle against his chest, Angel walks deliberately, but at a quick enough pace to make my heart thump.
“It’s quiet up here.” He frowns. “Ever notice that?”
“Every time.”
He squints down at me. “You edgy about running into Leo or the mountain lion?”
“Both.”
Angel winds an arm around my shoulder protectively. I leave it there, letting it comfort me while we walk. After a while the trees thin, then change in variety, signaling we’re nearing the plateau. Huge cotton candy clouds hang in the air overhead, their grey bottoms filled with rain, and the forest smells sharp like wet soil. The day is so beautiful, so normal, I find it hard to believe the ruin is anything more than a pile of crumbling blocks.
When we finally walk through the clearing, Angel sucks in his breath. “Wow. It looks completely different in the daylight.”
“I think it’s going to storm,” I tell him. “We should hurry.”
“Probably,” he answers absently, staring at a crumbling wall.
“I left my backpack over there. Come on.”
Angel lets me drag him to the tree across the clearing. It’s like dragging a brick. He faces backward, staring at the circle like he’s hypnotized.
“There it is.” I point to my green sack, shaking him back to me.
Angel walks over to it and peeks inside, then picks it up and slips it over his shoulders. Mission accomplished, I nod toward the path, tugging him out of the clearing.
“You know, seeing the ruin in daylight, I almost believe what you said about Leo and Ezra. There’s something about it that’s … odd. I didn’t notice it last time,” he says on the way down.
“Do you think it’s possible? I mean, have you thought about it?”
“I have. All last night. All today. I just can’t bring myself to believe Ezra’s some—what? What would you even call him?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug, thinking about the book. “A shape-shifter?”
Angel clicks his tongue. “I stopped believing in things that go bump in the night a long time ago, Ruby.”
“Yeah, but are you still afraid of them?”
“Depends on what you mean.” He stops, looking up at the now-grey sky. “If we’re talking about the kinds that hide in your closet and slither through drainpipes or suck the life out of goats, no. But up here, I’m somewhat more open to things like ghosts and witchcraft. Though I doubt it.”
“The forest is the only place I’ve ever seen Leo.”
It starts to drizzle, and Angel flips the rifle’s barrel down. He shuffles his toe through a bed of wet pine needles, kicking them off his boot when they stick. “Ever think he might be a ghost?”
“Leo? Are you serious?”
“Partly,” he laughs. “I guess.”
“Yeah. I just … why? I mean, what would be the point? And how does that explain Ezra?”
“Since when do ghosts make sense?”
Hearing him say it makes me laugh. Since never. And here I am asking him to entertain the idea that Ezra can shift from one person to another.
“I’m a dumbass. You’re right.”
When Angel grins, little drops of rain glint off his eyelashes. “Maybe it’s the ghost of Ezra’s grandfather or great-grandfather.”
I shudder. “You’re creeping me out. You’re saying I made out with the ghost of his dead great-grandfather?”
“You made out with Leo?” he asks incredulously.
I frown-smile. “Mmmm, maybe?”
“Well.” He shrugs, stifling a grimace. “Yeah.”
We both crack up. Maybe because we’re so strung out to begin with.
“You think Ezra will consider it cheating?” I joke.
“I don’t know.” Angel clears his throat and rubs rain out of his eyes. “In my mind, cheating’s more about intent.”
“I’m totally screwed then.”
Angel pulls the rifle up and wipes the barrel with a shirtsleeve. When I frown, he points up at the denser canopy of trees covering the trail. “It’ll be fine. We’re sheltered. But we should get …”
Behind me the bushes crackle, distracting Angel. His almond eyes balloon as he slowly puts his hand out, nodding at me to stay put. Ignoring his warning, I twist around, searching for whatever it is that has him so distressed. Then I see it. Off to my left, an enormous mountain lion standing still as granite, watching us.
Angel’s hand slides down to the rifle’s trigger, but he keeps it lowered at his sid
e. “Walk slowly, Ruby. Toward me,” he says quietly. “I’m going shoot to its left.”
The lion growls low in its throat. It turns its head toward me and hunkers down. As it crouches, my heart speeds into overdrive.
“What if you hit it?”
“Ruby!” Angel barks. “Move.”
“Wait. Don’t,” I whimper.
“I almost have a clear shot.”
“It won’t hurt me.”
The lion meets my eyes. Its whiskers twitch, and in an instant, I realize it has Angel, not me, in its sights. I jump in front of it just as it leaps at Angel. We collide midair, the lion crashing down on top of my body.
My chest contracts when I hit the ground, deflating as the lion’s paw crushes my lungs. Pushing frantically, I tilt my head back and find myself looking upside down at Angel. He trains the rifle on the lion.
“Please,” I plead breathlessly. “Please don’t shoot it.”
Tears fill my eyes and mix with the light rain, blurring the lion’s face. I move to rub them away, and a low growl rumbles through the lion’s body. It places a huge paw on my shoulder, nearly giving me a heart attack, and looks down into my eyes.
Angel cocks the rifle’s barrel back. “Son of a bitch,” he mutters.
“Angel don’t provoke him,” I beg, nearly sobbing.
Briefly, the lion’s pupils contract, pulling threads of purple through its golden irises as it refocuses. It drops its head and growls fiercely near my face. The sound is deafening.
Terrified, I make myself meet its eyes, choking out, “Please, Ezra.”
Behind me, Angel commands me to stay put. “Do … not … move … Ruby,” he enunciates, spacing out each word for emphasis.
“Please,” I whisper. “Don’t do this.”
For the briefest moment, the lion’s eyes turn completely violet. Then they fade back, blazing a brighter gold in the grey afternoon light. The lion wavers, then bolts toward Angel, knocking him to the ground just as Angel fires off a shot.
I scream, scrambling on my knees across the dirt. Angel is flat on his back, struggling to sit up, but the lion is gone.
“Ruby!” He pulls me to him. “Are you all right?”
Shaking my head, no, I start sobbing.
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