continued, “is that we’re like the Wonder Twins, except with lips instead of rings. And you know, not related. Not at all related. Because that would be disgusting.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Alternately, and more likely, it has nothing at all to do with who I am. I could be anybody. You’re transferring your magic to me, and then I’m using it. You’re the only special one.”
Eve looked back at the rock. A snake slithered down the face of the boulder and disappeared into the underbrush. “Can we walk faster?” Continuing to look backward, she didn’t notice that they’d reached the edge of the woods until Zach stopped.
He pointed across a street. “That’s my house.”
Zach’s house could have been plucked from the cover of a beautiful-homes magazine. On the left and right, the yards were parched yellow, but his was vibrant green, mowed to look more like carpet than a live plant. The house itself was pristine white and had a porch with two white rocking chairs and a wind chime that hung listlessly in the still air.
Eve took a step out of the bushes and then stopped as she heard a car turn onto Zach’s street. She retreated and crouched behind a tree.
A blue car drove past them.
She emerged again and checked to the right and left, aware that she was mimicking the way Malcolm always checked the street. Several houses down, a neighbor was mowing his lawn. A few houses beyond that, a brown dog slept on a porch. Eve didn’t see anything that seemed threatening or unusual. She started across the street.
Zach didn’t move.
“What is it?” Eve asked. She turned back to him and was rocked with another burst of memory: she’d been fleeing with her family. Or maybe it wasn’t her family, but she knew them well. At some point, she had fallen, and a man had picked her up and carried her over his shoulder as if she were as light as a jacket. She hadn’t been left behind.
Zach pointed to a silver car in the driveway. “My mom’s home.”
“Oh.” Eve tried to picture the people who had run with her. Family or not? The man who had carried her, had he been her father? Brother? Uncle? “Is that … bad?”
He still didn’t move.
“Back to the woods or to the house?” She felt too exposed outside the bushes. Anyone in any nearby house could see her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a red car speed past their street. She tensed, ready to run, but it didn’t turn.
Zach shook himself. “Sorry. House.”
Eve bolted across the street, down the slate walkway, and onto the porch. Zach’s house had an antique door knocker and two baskets of flowers that framed the door. Several long seconds later, Zach joined her.
Slowly, so slowly that Eve wanted to grab the key herself, Zach drew a key out of his pocket. As he slid it into the lock, the front door opened. A woman in a pink shirt and white capris was framed in the doorway. “Yes?” She had pearls around her neck and a faded bruise on her left cheekbone, mostly obscured by makeup. She wore a layer of makeup over her face, her eyelids, and her lips, as if it were a thin plastic mask. “Oh, Zach! You’re home! And you brought a friend.”
“This is Eve,” Zach said. “She works with me at the library.”
“How lovely,” his mother said.
Eve checked the street as a blue SUV barreled by. For an instant, she couldn’t breathe. But the car didn’t slow, and she glimpsed a family inside it.
“I invited her to lunch.” Zach was peering over his mother’s shoulder as if he expected to see someone else with her.
“Delightful,” his mother said.
Another car, a black one, turned onto the street. She had to get inside, or at least out of sight. She inched closer to the door.
“I didn’t think you’d be home,” Zach said. “Is everything okay?”
Zach’s mother’s eyes brightened. “Of course, Zachary! Don’t be silly. Can’t I have a change in plans without causing concern? Come in, please, both of you.” She opened the door wider.
Eve darted inside. She flattened against the wall and watched through the window as a black car with tinted windows crept down the street. It rolled past the house without stopping. Her rib cage loosened, and she took a deep breath.
“I thought you had your museum meetings today,” Zach said, coming inside too.
“Oh, I couldn’t. Your father has some business associates coming for dinner. I need to prepare.” His mother shut the door behind them, and Eve sagged against the wall.
Zach frowned at her. “You’ve been preparing for those meetings all month.”
“I can catch up on the meeting minutes later.” His mother dismissed his words with a wave. “Let’s see what I can whip you two up for lunch!” She beamed at both of them, and her cheeks shifted shape as if they were molded plastic.
For the first time, Eve looked at the inside of the house. A staircase with white carpet swept up in a curve to a second floor, and a brass chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling. To her right, she saw a living room with stiff chairs that faced an immaculate fireplace. To her left was a dining room with a banquet-style table decorated with a linen tablecloth, crystal candlesticks, and a bowl with orchid blossoms floating in water.
“I’ll make us sandwiches,” Zach said to his mother. “Don’t worry about us. Mom, you—”
Her plastic smile erased as quickly as it had appeared. “Don’t start, Zachary.” She kissed him on the top of his head. “You and your friend go sit on the sun porch. I’ll bring you something nice.” She scurried into the dining room and then through a white door.
Zach sighed. “And that’s my mother. Come on. We’d better sit on the back porch.”
Eve followed him past the staircase to a hall filled with framed photos. Slowing, she looked at them. One was a bride, a younger version of his mother with coiffed hair and a smile that looked exactly like Zach’s—a happy smile, not a plastic one. She wore a lace-encrusted dress and stood on a curved staircase. Another was a man in a suit, shaking hands with other men in suits. In another photo, the same man was in a boat on a lake in jeans and a plaid shirt. He held a fish that was as long as his forearm. Eve stared at the lake photo the longest. She knew this place. Another memory? Leaning closer, she peered at the shape of the evergreen-covered hills and the dock, all familiar.
“The fish that didn’t get away,” Zach said. “I caught a minnow that day, as Dad is very fond of reminding me. I threw it back.”
“Lake Horace,” she said, suddenly sure.
“You’ve been there?” Zach asked.
She felt herself deflate. “No.” She’d seen it in a photo on the mantel, one of the fake photos that the agency had made. “I mean … yes. I … spent a few summers there as a little kid.”
“You remember the bait shop on East Main? My father swears by their tackle. We’d stop there on the way up, buy Dr. Peppers and bait, and then we’d spend the afternoons on the lake.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. She didn’t know why her eyes suddenly felt hot. “Sounds nice.”
“Yeah, well, out of the four of us in that boat—me, Dad, his fish, and my minnow—I think the only happy one was that minnow. I set him free.” He guided her to another photo, a boy and a man with hats and goggles who were bundled in pillowlike coats and pants. “Another of Dad’s favorite activities, skiing. This shot is memorable as the ‘before’ image on the day I broke my arm.” He pointed to another. “And this was my first day of first grade. Clearly, I would not have acquiesced to the tie if I’d had any choice.”
From the kitchen, his mother called, “You looked adorable! And it was a hairline fracture.”
“I looked like a tool. Sheer luck I wasn’t saddled with horrific nicknames for all of elementary school. Do you have any nicknames?”
Eve shook her head. Aidan called her “Green Eyes,” but she didn’t want to think about him. She was safely inside Zach’s house, away from him, away from the agency, away from anyone who knew who she used to be.
