The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3)(77)

“And the first time you cut yourself, when you were fifteen.”

When I had had enough.

“And in between, there was the smoking, the drinking, the drugs—exercises in contempt for the life your mother and I had given you.”

A refrain I have heard so many, many times before. Boring.

“Psychologists and psychiatrists insisted you were traumatized by your mother’s murder. At five you were too old to forget it—”

True.

“But too young to talk about it.”

False. No one tried.

“So you lashed out at the world, at me, at yourself. Your mother gave up her own life to have you, and you kept spitting on her memory.” My father’s eyes are thankfully missing that telltale maniacal glint, but still. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so furious. It’s oddly riveting.

This might be the longest conversation we’ve ever had.

He pauses to regain his composure and withdraws a kerchief from his pocket. Good God. He dabs it at the corner of his mouth. “I couldn’t look at her things after she died. I could barely look at you, you looked so much like her. But in time, I managed to force myself. She wrote about what she had done, what you were, what you would become. No wonder the psychiatrists and doctors were useless.” He shakes his head in disgust. “They couldn’t begin to comprehend your affliction. So I hired Deborah Kells.”

I realize, as my father confesses his involvement in the plot that has ruined the life of the girl I love, and my life by proxy, that I should feel a profound sense of betrayal. Righteous anger, perhaps. Shock, disgust, wrath—any of these would be perfectly normal.

That he hired Kells to experiment on the others and Mara, that he let Jude torment Mara, torture her—that much I could actually believe, monstrous and psychopathic though it was. If there were any profit to be had in it, my father would make it. That is a thing that makes sense. And the Lukumi bit is an interesting touch, I admit.

But the dragon business, this hero shit? Complete madness. My father is unhinged.

And yet he looks so normal. Particularly next to Jude, who is twitching, possibly drooling a bit, I can’t quite tell.

My father confirms my assessment with every word he speaks. “Deborah had theories about how to find others like you, and theories about how to cure them. I had her record her monthly progress and send the videos to me so I could keep up, but nothing in them promised to help you. Not until she found your Mara.”

I am repulsed by the sound of her name in his mouth.

“Deborah wasn’t sure Mara was the one. In Providence, Deborah thought it might be the older brother, actually. But after some birthday party, her foster daughter convinced her it was Mara. The asylum was chosen as a staging area, in the hope that the fear of spending the night there would trigger the beginning of Mara’s manifestation. And it did.”

It sinks in slowly, what he is saying. He is talking about Claire, Jude’s sister. He is talking about the asylum, the place where Jude nearly raped her. He is telling me how it was staged, planned, and my bemusement morphs into loathing. I don’t know how I’m still standing.

“Mara ended up teaching me as much about you as you taught me about her. More perhaps. I had no idea how your ability worked. How you heard things, what you saw. But it was hubris,” my father says. “If there is a way to arrest the anomaly, we haven’t found it. You might be the key to it, Noah, but we’ll never know as long as she’s alive. And you can’t stay away from her, and she can’t help what she is.”

I almost can’t wait to hear his answer. “And what is that?”

“Every generation someone along the affected bloodline develops an ability that parallels an archetype—”

Fucking hell. Time to go.

My father smiles, as if he can hear my thoughts. “My son, the skeptic. I was once too. But tell me, haven’t you ever wondered why she can’t wish for anything good?”

His words erase the snide comments that were on the tip of my tongue, and replace them with a memory. I wondered exactly that. And I wrote about it in the journal I kept for Mara.

My theory: that Mara can manipulate events the way I can manipulate cells. I have no idea how either of us can do either thing, but nevertheless.

I try to get her to envision something benign, but she stares and concentrates while her sound never changes. Is her ability linked to desire? Does she not want anything good?

“She is the embodiment of the Shadow archetype—destructive, harmful to herself and others. She embodies Freud’s death drive.”

“How dramatic.” I glance at Mara but she doesn’t meet my eyes.

“Mara can will what she wants,” my father continues, “and her desires become reality. But the nature of her affliction is that she will never create anything good.”

Even if what he says is true, I am simply out of f*cks to give. I had few to spare to begin with. But I watch Mara as he speaks these nonsense words—“carrier,” “anomaly,” “manifestation,” et cetera. What they mean doesn’t matter to me, but what they mean to her does matter. I haven’t seen one flicker of hate or fear in her eyes—if I had, we would be gone already. Instead I see something else. Understanding.

“Reluctant though you may be, Noah, you are the embodiment of the Hero. You don’t have to learn to become good at anything. You simply are the best at everything. Your telomeres don’t stop replicating. If you aren’t killed, you might actually live forever. You have every gift, Noah.”