Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3 (44 page)

“My face?” My hand involuntarily flew to my cheek. “I got burned.”

“How did this happen?”

“I was on a bus a few years ago and a crazy man threw a bucket of acid into the air and some of it splashed on me. Even after it healed, it left these scars.”

She listened carefully and translated what I’d said to the two men.

“Tell me, Nadia, can you fly?”

“Fly? Like on a plane?”

“No, like this.” She stood up and held her arms out like kids do when they play airplane.

“Well, no.” I felt flushed and overheated, but I didn’t want to take my hooded sweatshirt off. A bead of sweat dribbled between my shoulder blades. “No one can fly like that. I mean, not without a jet pack, or a parasail or something.” Now I was babbling.
Shut up, Nadia, you’re making it worse
.

“So you cannot fly,” she said and then, turning to the men, said a few words in Spanish before addressing me again. “And do you bring fire storms with you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Fire storms. Like, when it rains, but instead of water, there is, what do you call it?” She snapped her fingers. “Sparks? Bits of fire that come down?”

I shook my head slowly. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“And do you know a man who heals the sick and injured?”

“A man who heals the sick and injured? No.” What was this all about? Trick questions?

Mario started speaking persuasively, pointing to my face and gesturing wildly, making his point. Again I heard the words ‘an-hill k-ma-da.”

“What is he saying? What is that—an-hill k-ma-da?” I asked.

“Ángel quemada,” she repeated. “Burned angel. He says his grandmother used to tell him a story of a burned angel. Some say she is the angel of death, while others say she is a savior. She makes the firestorm and always travels with a man who makes the lame walk and the sick well.” She widened her eyes to show how ridiculous the whole thing was. “She appears in the shape of a human girl who can turn herself invisible.”

I let the idea sink in. “And they think I’m the Ángel quemada?” I asked, pointing to myself.

She tapped the desk with a pencil. “It is just a story.”

“But why did they think I was the one in the story?” I asked.

“The angel has half of her face burned,” Ana said. “And one of her eyes is…,” she jiggled her fingers, trying to think of the right word, “… like yours. Like I said, it is just a story. An old legend that makes no sense. There are many of these stories. Who knows where they come from.”

I reached up to touch the eye, my bad one. I’d gotten used to the droopy lid, and the protrusions below the eyebrow that resembled earthworms. At the hospital, they’d said this would be the hardest part to fix when I had plastic surgery. But then my mother had said no to the surgery and the difficulty of fixing my eyelid didn’t seem to matter. “I can’t help how I look,” I said. “I was the victim of a crime. It was horrible what I went through.”

“I am sorry,” she said, shooting angry glances at the two men. “I apologize for having detained you, Nadia. You are free to leave now and join your group. Enjoy your stay in Peru.”

Nadia

When I walked out of Ana’s office, I was relieved to see the rest of the group in the distance, right where I’d left them, the only difference being that Russ and Mr. Specter apparently made it through customs in my absence. They stood in a cluster, their backs toward me, so I was able to come up from behind, tap Russ on the shoulder and get the kind of reaction everyone wants to get when they think they’re going to be arrested in a third world country, but then aren’t, and can finally join their friends.

“Nadia!” Russ yelled, grabbing me around the waist and swinging me around. The others were equally enthused. When he put me down a few seconds later, I was brought into a circle of hugs and exclamations.

“What happened?”

“I was so worried!”

“They wouldn’t tell us anything. We didn’t know where they took you.”

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” Russ said, relief washing over his face. The truth was that I knew exactly how happy he was to see me, and it was an incredibly mind-blowing amount of happiness.

“What happened?” Jameson asked, and I realized he’d been asking the same thing over and over again, but all the commotion had drowned out his inquiries.

“They wanted to ask me a few questions,” I said. “About my face.”

“What about your face?” Mallory tilted her head in concern.

“How I got burned, stuff like that.” I really didn’t want to go into it. I just wanted to get to the hotel. Later I would tell them about the legend, when the time was right.

“Well, that’s kind of rude,” Mrs. Whitehouse said. “Your face looks fine. Just a few tiny scars. I barely noticed anything different when I first met you.”

I could feel the lie radiating off her, and I didn’t know what to say. Obviously my face didn’t look fine, since some guy in a foreign country thought I was the burned angel from a legend. I nodded, at least acknowledging that she’d spoken to me.

“I guess all’s well that ends well,” said Mr. Specter with a jovial chuckle. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

We gathered up our suitcases and followed him, weaving through the crowd until we came to the airport exit. I saw the glass doors ahead; to our left was a roped-off area, where a crowd of people waited to claim travelers. They held signs and balloons and flags to stand out from the throng, and several of them waved and called out when they spotted their respective parties. Mr. Specter paused to look for our guide. I spotted him right away.

He looked to be about twenty, although he might have been older. He had soft coal-black hair, and intense dark eyes that almost looked black. His well-worn jeans dragged on the ground, almost obscuring his athletic shoes. Like me, he favored a hoodie, but his was white and unzipped to reveal a brown v-necked t-shirt. This guy was easy on the eyes, I thought. “Are you looking for Alejandro?” I asked Mr. Specter.

“Yes. I hope he’s still here.” Mr. Specter rose up on his tip-toes to get a better look.

“Isn’t that him?” I pointed. “The one holding the sign that says ‘Edgewood’ on it?”

Mr. Specter smacked his forehead. “Of course! Thank you, Nadia. You’re very observant.”

Once we’d claimed Alejandro, he was able to cross over to our side. “You must call me Alex,” he said with a charming smile. His English was excellent. “It is my American name.” As he went from one person to the next, he repeated our names and shook hands, using a different expression as if practicing his language skills.

“Welcome to Peru, Russ.”

“Happy to make your acquaintance, Mallory.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Señora Whitehouse.” This made her giggle like a third-grader.

“Pleased to finally meet face to face, Mr. Specter.”

“Such a pleasure, Jameson.”

“Mr. Adams, I am honored to shake your hand.”

And then there was me. I said, “I’m Nadia,” and held out my hand, but he didn’t take it. Instead, his face took on a stunned expression. He took a step back, and raised his hand to wave. It wasn’t even a good wave, but a lame hand-flapping wave. That’s all I was going to get, apparently. Embarrassed, I dropped my hand and looked down at the floor. I’d made the mistake of thinking I was like everyone else.

“Nice to meet you, Nadia,” he said with some effort. And then, to cover his social faux pas, he said, “We should get going. The driver is waiting.”

We drove to the hotel in a large white van, Alex pointing out buildings and landmarks along the way. I only half listened. In the past ten hours, I’d hopped continents. I’d been in a taxi, a commercial airliner, a private jet, and now a van. It was a lot for one day. I looked out the window trying to fathom that we were in Peru. Tomorrow I would take it all in, I thought. Right now it was overwhelming. The others had weeks to get used to the idea of traveling here, when I’d been pulled out of my bed and whisked away without any notice at all. Not that I was complaining. But I would have learned a little Spanish and read up on the country ahead of time if I had known.

Mallory squeezed my arm. “Isn’t this amazing?” In the dark it was hard to see much besides the traffic and some buildings, but I knew what she meant. Just knowing we were here was amazing.

Our hotel turned out to be an American hotel, one of a large chain geared toward business travelers. Nothing about the lobby said we were in another country, except for the Peruvian staff. Even then, they spoke English as well as most Americans. Kevin Adams said they picked this hotel for the first night because they didn’t want us to have too much culture shock right away.

We checked in and were given key cards. All of our rooms were on the fifth floor. Just like in the plane we were paired up, with Mrs. Whitehouse the odd man out. Our guide, Alex, lived in the city, so he was going home for the night. Once we’d traveled out of the Lima area, he’d be staying in hotels along with the rest of us.

“If you girls need anything, you just let me know. I came prepared,” Mrs. Whitehouse said in the elevator on the way up. “I have extra electrical adaptors in case you fall short. I know how important it is to have your hair dryers and flat irons and such ready when you need it.” She winked at Kevin Adams. “We’re not like you guys. Girls like to keep up with appearances, you know.”

“Thanks, but I think we’re good,” Mallory said.

I happened to be standing behind Mrs. Whitehouse while she made this offer, and the unmistakable whiff of lying emanated off her. I had no idea what she was lying about or why. The woman seemed to just say things that weren’t true on a regular basis.

As we all made our way into our rooms, Mr. Specter jiggled his key card in the lock and called out to the rest of us, “Everyone is in for the night. Stay in your rooms. We’ll meet for breakfast in the hotel restaurant tomorrow morning at eight. If there’s a problem in the meantime, call my room.” He pointed to the room number on the door.

“Okay, good-night,” Mallory said.

“See you in the morning,” Jameson said, running his key card through the slot. He caught my eye and gave me a wink like I was in on some secret, then pulled his suitcase into the room, with Russ trailing behind him.

When we got into the room, dragging our suitcases, Mallory opened the curtains and pulled back the blinds to look down to the street. I lifted my suitcase onto an ottoman to unpack the stuff I’d need for bedtime. “What do you see?” I asked. “Anything good?”

“A man walking a dog. Some people crossing the street.”

“So Peruvian,” I said. “You’d never see that in Wisconsin.”

She left the window and sat back on the bed with a bounce. “Do you care which bed I take?” When I shook my head, she said, “Then this one’s mine.”

“Okay.”

“So tell me, do you think Alex is totally hot?”

I knew it wasn’t a trick question, but I didn’t want to say something that could be quoted back to him later. “Why? Do you think he is?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, as if it were obvious. “How old do you think he is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe twenty?”

“Twenty, hmm… Are they hung up over the whole underage thing here, do you think?”

“Mallory Nassif, what’s on your mind?”

She laughed.”I’m going to make him fall in love with me.” She licked her lips. “Alejandro! What a romantic name. He’s going to be following me around by the end of this trip, totally begging for it.”

“I don’t doubt that, but if you think you’ll get some time alone with him, think again. They’re going to be watching us every minute.”

Mallory laughed. “You’d be surprised what a little mind control can do.”

“Well, I think he’s rude,” I said. “He wouldn’t even shake my hand at the airport.”

She looked pensive. For a second I thought she was going to make an excuse for his bad behavior, but she didn’t. “Okay, new plan. Since he wasn’t nice to you, I’ll make him fall in love with me and then once he’s declared he can’t live without me, I’ll crush his heart like a bug under my heel. Nobody’s mean to my friend.”

“Definitely a good plan,” I said.

We followed Mr. Specter’s instructions and stayed in the room, unpacking a few items and watching TV just to get a taste of South American flavor. Mallory figured out pretty quickly that on most of the cable channels we had the choice of watching American shows in English with Spanish subtitles or dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles.

While she channel flipped, I thought about my mom’s reaction when I’d called home from Miami. I thought she’d be angry, but instead she sounded defeated and upset. “I’m disappointed in you and your father for going against my wishes,” she said quietly. “I wanted to fly out there, just so I’d be close by, but your father talked me out of it. He thinks you are up to this trip and that it will be a good experience. I hope he’s right.” She sighed heavily. “I really hope he’s right. If anything happens to you…”

That’s when I jumped in to reassure her. “Mom, nothing is going to happen. This is an academic decathlon. It’s highly supervised and structured. They’ll keep us busy every minute. What could happen?”

“I don’t know.” And then she said nothing. When she was silent, like that, I knew what she was thinking. Losing control made her afraid and anxious. In her mind, something terrible was bound to happen.

“I’ll call you in a few days,” I said. The sheet Mr. Specter gave the parents said we’d be allowed to call home every three days. More often would distract us from our fictitious competition. “Wish me luck?”

She said, “You don’t need luck. You’re a smart girl. You will do well.” That was as close to a compliment as I was ever going to get. After that, I talked to my father, who was a little more upbeat.

I should have felt guilty that I deceived them into thinking I was in Miami attending an education-related event, but I didn’t. Being in a hotel room in Peru, watching TV with Mallory, just seemed right. I was due for freedom. I saw my opportunity and I took it. There was no turning back. Maybe my dad was right and I would develop a case of wanderlust.