Spirits of Ash and Foam (14 page)

Eyes focused down on the doormat, Rain saw a pair of men's brown loafers step out of the manor. She looked up.

Miranda said, “Oh, Dad. These are my friends. Renée, Charlie and Rain. Guys, this is my father, Pablo Guerrero.”

Charlie and Rain muttered greetings. Renée said hello clearly. Pablo Guerrero's response confused all three of them. “Twenty minutes.”

He paused, turning his head enough to reveal a small earpiece in his right ear. He continued, “Ariel's warming up the chopper … No, don't do anything … I'll be at the hotel helipad in twenty minutes. Or less.”

He paused again to listen. Pablo Guerrero was about 5'9" and in good shape. His light-skinned face was unwrinkled, and only a bit of salt in his otherwise jet black hair hinted at his fifty years on this earth. He was dressed in tan slacks, a pink oxford shirt and designer sunglasses. The one out-of-place note in the man's otherwise elegant and expensive design was a thick leather band around his left wrist with the word
DADDY
burned into the leather by a pyrographic stylus. Rain had done something similar for her own father when she was nine, but he never wore it.

“Right. See you soon. Twenty minutes. Twenty. Bye.” His manicured finger tapped the earbud, and then, finally, he seemed to take notice of his daughter and her companions. “Hello,” he said, with much more reserve than he had used on the phone.

Miranda wasn't sure if she should introduce her friends again—then decided there wasn't much point. “We're going to use the hot tub.”

Her father stared at her with an odd expression. Almost as if he didn't speak the language, or perhaps wasn't clear what a “hot tub” was. Finally, he seemed to give up. He shook his head a bit and said, “Ariel's flying me over to La Géante. I won't be home for dinner.”

“We'll manage,” Miranda said.

He nodded in response and departed without another word, descending the stairs and walking briskly around the corner and out of sight. Rain and Charlie exchanged another look. Renée camouflaged any reaction. Miranda took it all in stride and entered the house through the open front door.

It was noticeably cooler inside. During the renovation, walls had been removed from the interior of the house to create a single, immense great room out of most of the first floor. French doors along the far wall were open to a large patio, creating a cross-breeze to make the atmosphere notably more pleasant inside than out. It was elegant, airy, and light. There was a large chandelier hanging down from the rafters, a grand piano off to the side and almost nowhere to sit.

Rain and Charlie paused to drink it all in—but Miranda didn't, and they had to play catchup as she and Renée ascended the grand staircase to the second floor. They walked along a balcony, which passed over the full length of the great room before becoming a hallway that disappeared into the manor's South Wing.

Miranda paused in front of another open door to listen to the helicopter flying low overhead. It vibrated the crystal fixtures, which tinkled briefly like wind chimes. Once the noise subsided, she said, “This is my room. Charlie, that's a guest room across the hall. You can change in there. You can leave your stuff there too. It'll all be safe. Oh, and don't worry about towels; we've got plenty of them in the
cabaña
.”

Charlie swallowed and nodded and watched Miranda lead Renée and Rain into her room. Miranda waved good-bye and shut the door. He shook his head and opened the door to the guest room.

It was enormous. You could stuff his and Phil's bedroom, Lew and Hank's bedroom and probably his mom's bedroom into this one and still have a bedroom left over. There was a large and fancy four-poster bed, dressing tables with marble tops, porcelain lamps and crystal vases with cut flowers. The sum total effect: Charlie was afraid to touch anything, practically afraid to lower his backpack to the floor. He stood in the middle of the room to change. Changing, of course, consisted only of taking off his cargo shorts. He was already wearing trunks underneath. At home, he'd have left the shorts on the floor. Here that seemed like sacrilege, so he picked them up, folded them carefully in half and looked around for a place to put them. Ultimately, he stuffed them into his backpack and hid that behind the door—to minimize its presence in the room.

He went out into the hallway, but Miranda's door was still closed.
Now what?
He thought about the fact that the girls were changing clothes on the other side of the door.
Don't! Down that path lies head explosion …

Miranda's bedroom was also quite large, but Rain had a pretty big bedroom now herself, so she was less impressed. Still it struck her as odd. It appeared to be the room of a much younger child. It was wallpapered with a pattern of strawberries. Of course, there were no faux-antique maps or World War II photographs or anything like that, but there were also no posters on the wall and no family pictures anywhere. The furniture, including Miranda's own four-poster, was pink and white and pretty and clean—and impersonal.
Well, she only just moved back from like Spain. Maybe she hasn't had a chance to really
live
here yet.

Miranda dropped her backpack on her bed, crossed to her dresser and pulled out a tankini. Rain noticed it was the same style as the one she had worn when they had gone water-skiing last Friday, but that one had been peach; this was tangerine. Immediately and without the slightest embarrassment, Miranda pulled off her top and started to take off her bra. Rain glanced at Renée, who was doing the same, having pulled a metallic gray bikini out of her backpack. Rain quietly lowered her own backpack to the floor. Like Charlie, she was already wearing her swimsuit (the
same
royal blue one-piece she had worn water-skiing) under her T-shirt and shorts. For no good reason, she was suddenly embarrassed about being prepared—and yet simultaneously glad, as it was immediately clear she was the least developed of the three girls, and she didn't really want the other two to see her naked. Rain usually didn't think much about her body, even when changing among
twenty
girls in P.E. After all, she had boobs, little ones anyway, and she
usually
wore a bra. She definitely wasn't the flattest girl in the eighth grade. Besides, she didn't really care all that much about what other people thought of her. Here and now, though, she felt incredibly self-conscious, and she couldn't help thinking,
They're both so much prettier than me.
So while Miranda and Renée stripped and changed, Rain quietly slipped out of her shorts and kept her T-shirt on.

Charlie felt like he'd been out in the hall for a long time. He had finally made up his mind to knock when he heard Renée speak and Miranda respond. He couldn't make out the words, and he didn't hear Rain's voice at all. He leaned in closer, and the door opened. He jumped back and only barely managed to restrain himself from saying something stupid, if not pervy.

Miranda and Renée joined him in the hallway. Both were wearing two-piece suits—and nothing else—and looked to Charlie like they could fit in nicely with the cast of any teen sitcom on Disney or Nick. Rain followed them out, wearing her oversized Cacique Charters T-shirt over her suit. She didn't look like a T.V. star, but he thought she was beautiful. There was something else, too, something in her eyes. Something he didn't see in Rain all that often. Vulnerability. It only made her more beautiful. He smiled into Rain's almond eyes. He couldn't help himself, though he worried his smile gave something away. Then her eyes smiled back, and it was all worth it.

As for Rain, she was relieved Charlie was still wearing his T-shirt over his trunks.
That was how they rolled.
She immediately felt like less of a freak, and when he smiled at her, she guessed he felt the same. Her confidence instantly restored—Rain was nothing if not resilient—she actually led the way down the hall.

Downstairs, Miranda pointed to a door off the great room. “The Jacuzzi's in back. We'll just take a shortcut through my dad's study.”

Unsurprisingly, it was a very large study. Lots of dark wood and open space. Facing the door was a huge glass and steel desk with a gunmetal gray laptop on it and not much else. On the wall behind the desk was a floor-to-ceiling portrait of one of the most striking women Rain had ever seen. She had café-au-lait skin and long chestnut hair, big brown eyes, and full red lips. She was wearing white and looked to be about six months pregnant. The artist had given the woman the subtlest of halo effects: a white glowing aura against the dark background. To Rain, the woman looked like a ghost. Suddenly, the thought occurred that Miranda occasionally referred to her father but never to her mother. Looking at the painting now, Rain could definitely see the resemblance to her new friend.

“Was that your mom?” Rain asked, already sure it was and confident the woman was long dead.

Miranda nodded. “Antonia Guerrero. Oh, and that's me in there too, kind of.”

“She's very beautiful,” Renée said.

“She was,” Miranda said. “I don't remember her, though.”

Charlie looked down at his father's watch, hanging loosely on his wrist. He turned away.

“How long ago did she die?” Rain asked matter-of-factly.

“Rain,” Charlie said.

Rain ignored him, and Miranda seemed unfazed by the question. “Thirteen years ago. On my birthday. On my
birth
day.”

“Oh, wow. Sorry. That must be awful.”

“Rain,” Charlie repeated with a bit more edge.

“It's okay,” Miranda said. “Really. I
wish
I had known her. But I never did. So I can't exactly miss her, can I?”

Rain didn't think that sounded right. More like something Miranda had practiced to convince herself. “You know you don't have to—”

“Rain…” Charlie interrupted, his voice low but tense.

Rain rolled her eyes—positive she hadn't said anything
too
insensitive—and turned around to face him. Then she saw what he was looking at. The entire wall, on either side of the door, was covered with close to a hundred pre-Columbian artifacts. There were idols and gourds, necklaces, anklets, bracelets and armbands, headbands and masks, musical instruments, tools and weapons. Some were made of stone, some of wood, some of turquoise, some of gold. And every single artifact was decorated with human or animal figures: men, women, bats, snakes, fish, crabs, birds, gods.

Rain felt a tingling on her left arm and looked down in time to see the eyes on the armband's Searcher snake briefly flare with blue light. She turned to Miranda. “What—what is all this?”

Miranda shrugged. “They're
zemis.
”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SEARCH AND RESEARCH

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

“
Zemis
…” Rain whispered.

“But there are like a hundred of them,” Charlie said. He turned to Rain. “I thought there were only supposed to be—”

Her look shut him up.

“What's a
zemi
?” Renée asked, unintentionally helpful.

“Well, it's … um. It's like a spirit,” Miranda said haltingly. “Or it contains the spirit or something like that. My dad collects them.”

Rain moved in for a closer look. There were multiple gourd jars all in a row. One was circled with fish, another with hermit crabs, a third with gulls. There was a clay mask composed of writhing snakes. A whistle or flute, as thick as her wrist, carved from driftwood—bleached nearly white from sun and sand and surf—to look like a bat with folded wings. And another right beside it, but carved to look like an owl instead. There was a belt of beaded black and red seeds that depicted a female figure amid the waves or maybe the wind. Though the image was simple and emblematic, Rain recognized Hurricane Julia immediately. “Who made these?” Rain asked.

“I, uh … don't remember.” Miranda laughed nervously. “If I had known there was going to be a quiz, I would have paid more attention when my dad droned on about them.”

“Can we find out?” Rain asked almost breathlessly as she moved to study the
zemis
on the other side of the door.

Miranda and Renée exchanged a
How weird is this?
glance. Then Miranda turned back to Rain. “But … what about the hot tub?”

Rain didn't respond right away. She examined a wooden spear. The inlaid carving of another bat was etched into its stone spearhead, which was secured atop the spear by two sinewy cords that then hung down half the length of the weapon. She moved on to a necklace with a bluestone amulet depicting another owl. Then a small ironwood statue of a man with a wide grin and a bowl atop his head. Beside that was a golden armband, inlaid with the mosaic of a dog formed from tiny gray and white shells. Drawn to that trinket, Rain reached out, and a panicked Miranda all but shouted, “I don't think you should touch that.”

Rain withdrew her hand but continued staring.

Seeing she was fully immersed, Charlie came to her aid. “Your, uh, dad's collection. It's pretty cool. And the hot tub'll still be there, right?”

Rain finally spoke up. “I really want to know more.”

Miranda was stunned. She could tell Charlie was only making an excuse for Rain, the girl who took Spanish—despite being fluent—so she wouldn't have to work hard in school. Now she wanted to forgo the Jacuzzi to study these stupid
zemis
? Even to Miranda, who was a studious child by nature, this did not sound like a fun way to start their weekend. On the other hand, she wanted Rain as a friend …

“Well, I guess just about everything you'd want to know is in those books,” she said, pointing to an entire wall of built-in bookshelves, perpendicular to the artifacts.