The Year of the Great Seventh (36 page)

The room was musty and smelled like old carpet. This was about the smallest room I’d ever seen. There was only a single bed, which literally touched three walls. A tiny window on top of the bed let artificial light in from the corridor. The walls hadn’t had a coat of paint in years. The bare bed was covered with a red-and-green striped blanket.

We’d fled the last hotel in a rush in the middle of the night. Nate had come back to my room and said we should get out in case Preston came back.

I had time only to ball up my clothes and stuff them in my suitcase. I dumped the bag on my new bed.

For a second, I wished I could talk to Megan and Emma about what happened with Nate. I felt so lonely.

I knew Nate was just on the other side of the wall, but I felt so distant from him. That taxi ride felt like an eternity. It was as if we were two strangers sharing a ride. Nate was alienating me, and he was breaking my heart by doing so.

I stuffed my suitcase in the only space available, behind the door, so I could sit down on the bed. I pulled out my folder with the prophecy from the Ceasareum and the copy of the four crab symbols.

Taking my shoes off and crossing my legs, I sat in the middle of the bed with the pieces of paper aligned in front of me. I was emotionally exhausted, but I wasn’t planning to give up on Nate yet. I wasn’t going to move from here until I understood what those symbols meant and how they related to Cleopatra. I stared at the pieces of paper for about an hour, but my eyes were closing. I couldn’t think straight. I was too tired.

I wanted to focus on my research, but I couldn’t stop playing in my mind the images of Nate kissing me and unbuttoning my blouse on the sofa. It was almost as though I could relive the moment over and over. I missed his touch, his lips, his presence. What happened to him? Why was he pretending it didn’t happen? Why was he refusing to even acknowledge it? Why had he run away? After all, it was my decision, too.

The truth was Nate had expressed his wish of wanting to wait.

Still I ignored his words and let myself go.

I wanted to think that right now he would be replaying in his mind each moment as I was, but that probably wasn’t the case. It was more likely he was regretting having let himself get carried away by his instincts.

*

The light that filtered through the window woke me up. I must’ve fallen asleep lying on top of the papers that I’d spread on the bed the previous night. It was already noon! Why hadn’t Nate woken me up? Was he still sleeping too?

When I saw all the papers wrinkled on top of the bed, I remembered I hadn’t made any progress the previous night. Probably, the best option was to go back to the Met’s Egyptian exhibition now that we knew what the crab symbols were. And maybe I could get Nate to talk about what had happened the previous night.

There was no phone in the room. I tried dialing Nate from my cell, but his phone was off.

After brushing my hair, I put on a pair of jeans and a hoodie and went over to his room. I knocked on his door and waited, but there was no reply. My instincts told me Nate was in there and he was avoiding me. I knew he wouldn’t leave me alone in the middle of Spanish Harlem.

I knocked again, frustrated with his attitude. “Hey, I know you’re in there.” I was beginning to lose my patience, although I suspected maybe he didn’t want to see me.

The silence stretched, making me think maybe he’d really gone out.

“Sophie, I… I want to stay in today,” Nate mumbled from the other side of the door with an irritating tone of indifference. I didn’t have a clue what game he was playing.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I… I… I just need a bit of time on my own.” He tried to explain as if this was something normal. “Why don’t you take the day to visit the city?”

I was furious now. He was treating me like I was some random girl he met the night before.

“Okay, but open the door. I want to see you before I go,” I insisted, trying to hide the anger in my voice.

“I’m… I’m still in bed. We’ll catch up this evening.”

He didn’t seem to care that I’d be wandering around the city on my own, that Preston was out there somewhere. I could feel my blood boiling. Why was he doing this to me? Why now? We certainly didn’t have time for silly games. I needed him to stop this.

After taking a few seconds to calm myself down, I decided to just give in to his nonsense. “I don’t believe you, but it’s okay. If you need time on your own, I guess I’ll go.”

That didn’t really change how angry I was. I guess I knew how to look after myself, and I didn’t need him as my permanent bodyguard. Or, at least, that’s what I wanted to think.

Without steaming over it further, I went to my room, grabbed my warm gear, and fled. Before walking out onto the street, I decided to recount the money I had left while I was still in the warm hotel lobby.

I had only forty dollars in cash. The most sensible option was to take the bus. I couldn’t afford a taxi and it was way too cold to walk. The icy wind slapped me in the face the moment I pushed open the lobby door.

I pulled down my wool hat to cover my ears and stuffed my hands—already protected by gloves—inside my jacket pockets. The cold in December was utterly unbearable.

Christmas lights hung from the fire exit of the apartment block across from the motel. There was a Christmas tree by a window on the second floor. The lights all blurred together into one. I wiped the tears out of my eyes. It wasn’t just that Christmas was around the corner and I was stranded in New York with Nate, who, on top of everything that had happened, was now refusing to talk to me. It was also that the Christmas season reminded me of my birthday. Every year, for the last sixteen, I celebrated with Mom and Dad. And this year was the first one I was going to be on my own.

Nate had no clue I was turning seventeen tomorrow, and I wasn’t planning to tell him. I hadn’t told him before because I didn’t want us to waste any time with celebrations while we were here. Anyway, thinking about how he was behaving today, I don’t know that it would have made any difference.

The street was covered with snow from the previous night. It wasn’t the beautiful, immaculate white snow that appears on postcards. The sidewalk had been cleared, and the snow piled up next to the road was melting and gray. The sky was darker gray, making me wonder whether I was ever going to see the sun. There was a bus stop right across from the motel, but the traffic was heading north.

Assuming that the traffic direction probably alternated between avenues, I realized that I had to get to Second Avenue. Crossing the street should normally be an easy task. After so much snow, however, it became almost impossible. Every intersection was a puddle of slush. I had no choice but to step back and get some momentum to jump over the pool of freezing water, knowing that my foot could land in it. Skipping over puddles of water and ice, I managed to get to Second Avenue.

While I was waiting at the bus stop, I thought my feet were going to freeze. I could feel the cold pavement through the soles of my wet sneakers. Thankfully, the jacket was warm enough, but my mobility inside it was limited and I felt like a stuffed sausage.

It occurred to me that I took the weather in L.A. for granted. Being able to spend your Christmas holidays by the beach was priceless.

As I scuffed my feet together and looked at the ground, I was aware of other people at the bus stop openly staring at me. Continuing to avoid eye contact, I came up with several hypotheses.

The first was that I was way overdressed compared to everyone else. Now that I thought of it, my attire was more like that of a skier than a New Yorker. The second was that everyone else in the bus stop was African-American or Latino. I was about the palest person you could see on the entire block. The last hypothesis was that I was so scared and lost that people could smell it.

I climbed on the bus and it careened past the Metropolitan for twenty blocks, schooling me in New York 101. In this city, there are two types of buses, local and limited ones; the second type only stopped at some stops.

Once I managed to get off at the corner of Central Park South, I had to take another bus going up Madison Avenue to 81
^st
Street. By the time I arrived at the Met, it was past 2:30 p.m., and I was going to need to have my toes amputated. This was proof that I had a long way to go before I could call myself a New Yorker.

Being back at the museum felt like déjà vu. This was my second time in only a couple of days. As I already knew the drill, I found a map and located the parts I wanted to visit. Today, I conducted a more thorough investigation, as I had three full hours to visit the museum.

Last time we had only visited the Egyptian Art wing, but today I also wanted to check out the Greek and Roman art. Especially Roman art from around 69 BC to 30 BC—the years Cleopatra had been alive. I wanted to see if any other pieces of art from that period—jewelry, paintings, furniture, or sculptures—had the same symbols as the crabs from the obelisk.

There were several terracotta sculptures and jars on display in the Roman Art Pavilion. Also on display were cases with pieces of jewelry, vases, and bowls. The walls were covered with paintings.

The museum was quiet. There were only a couple tourists looking around the room and a guard standing by the entrance. Most people had probably decided to stay in after the snowstorm. Also, it was already toward the end of the day at the museum.

I unzipped my coat and shoved my wool hat in one of the pockets. I pulled the paper with the copy of the four symbols out of the back pocket of my jeans and went around the room, trying to see if I could spot the symbols anywhere else.

First, I checked painting by painting, scanning each of them from top to bottom. Then I went around surveying the display cases with the jewelry pieces.

Small groups of people came into the room and saw the entire exhibition while I was still standing in front of the same painting. After a few minutes observing every little part of the print, I moved to the next, always with the hope that this one was going to be the one.

I could tell the guard watched me out of the corner of his eye.

The more time went by, the more hopeless I felt. Maybe the most sensible decision was to go back to L.A. and let the doctors do whatever they could. He had to tell his parents everything. This time it was tangible. They couldn’t pretend that the gray stain wasn’t there.

Maybe we could still take the last flight back today. I grabbed my phone and called Nate, but he didn’t pick up. Instead of leaving him a voicemail, I decided to send him a text. It was more likely that he would get back to me right away.

Would you be willing to go back to L.A? It’s time to get real help. Maybe we can make the last flight today. Please call me ASAP.

The Greek and Roman sections were as disappointing as I expected. Not one mild hint or connection related to the symbols.

As the museum wasn’t closing for another half hour, I walked around the Egyptian art section while I waited for Nate to get back to me. Maybe we missed something last time.

I looked around, but deep inside, I knew I wasn’t going to find anything. I missed Nate so much, and I didn’t understand why he was alienating me this way. I’d done everything in my power to get to the bottom of this mystery, and he’d shut me out.

Maybe the cause of the stain was obvious. It had started appearing since I’d been around him and, specifically, since I started wearing the Syenite stone necklace.

Nate claimed the stone made him feel different, and it must’ve been true because as long as I was wearing the stone he was able to control his episodes. I suspected the Syenite stone had a side effect and was causing the stain. I had no way of proving it, and I didn’t have the luxury of time to start formulating new hypotheses.

Time was gold now. I decided that I couldn’t hang around the museum waiting for him to come to his senses. I walked over to the bus stop right across from the museum on 5
^th
Avenue. Darkness had almost fallen, even though it was only a quarter to six.

Waiting at the bus stop, I called Nate again to let him know that I was on my way. Maybe he could call the airline and get our tickets changed. But his phone was now off. Nate always left his phone charged. He’d obviously seen my text message and switched off his phone.

The cars flew down 5
^th
Avenue, splashing puddles onto the sidewalk. I didn’t feel comfortable hanging around New York City on my own after dark, but I wasn’t sure if I should spend the few dollars I had left on a taxi ride.

It was freezing waiting for the bus. There was no one else. I was probably the only person crazy enough to stand on the street in this cold. The parts of my face that were exposed to the wind were burning. I tried covering my cheeks under my scarf, but it was still unbearable.

A taxi with the “available” light on cruised down 5
^th
Avenue and without thinking about it twice, I raised my hand to hail it. I only had forty dollars left, but I didn’t care. If I stayed here waiting for the bus, I was going to freeze to death.

In the taxi, my anger began to transform into worry. My sixth sense warned me that maybe something had happened to Nate, regardless of what happened with his phone. What if Preston had found him? What if he’d hurt him?

As the taxi stopped in front of the motel, I gave the driver a twenty-dollar bill, and, without waiting for the change, I ran out.

Moving as fast as I could, I rushed past the shabby lobby. The man at the reception desk was watching TV, looking away from the door. I don’t think he even noticed me running past.

I climbed the steps two-by-two while unzipping my jacket and taking off my hat. Catching my breath, I pounded on the door and waited for a few seconds. I didn’t get any answer so I knocked again. I knew he was in there.

Just to let him know that I didn’t want to play this stupid game anymore, I knocked again, but this time slamming my fist on the door. The thuds resonated in the corridor.