Interest?
Promise?
Darkness.
I don’t know.
All I know is that when he is with me, I feel invincible. I feel strong. I feel like me, but a better version.
So I do the only thing I can think of to do. I slide my grandfather’s ring off of my thumb and give it to him.
“I can’t take this,” he protests softly, but he’s so so touched, I can see it.
“It will remind you of where you are,” I tell him. “And who you are. I want you to have it. You’re a Savage, too. As important as anyone else.”
He slides it onto his middle finger and the movement is mesmerizing, and the sheen of the ring the sheen of the ring the sheen of the ring shines in the light and the world swirls.
It swirls
It swirls
It bends
It breaks.
The pieces drift around me and form pictures and I feel I feel I feel like I’ve been here before.
I stare at Dare, and he’s different, he’s older. My hand is older, too. Long and slender and strong, as I reach out to touch Dare’s face.
“Do you want to turn back, Dare?” I ask, and my voice is flirty, and we’re here in Joyland but it’s older and dirtier.
“Not on your life.” Moonlight shines upon his face, and drenches us, illuminating the dark stubble outlining his jaw.
“Let’s do it then.” I smile, and my heart is full and we disappear into Nocte.
The darkness swallows us, then blends together, then falls away, and then I’m once again standing in the sun, and Dare is staring at me, confused, bewildered.
“Calla?” There’s concern in his voice, and there is no stubble on his clean-shaven face.
I shake my head, shaking all of the confusion away, because it’s notrealnotrealnotreal.
“I’m ok,” I whisper, but I’m not really. Because sometimes I’m here, and sometimes I’m not.
Keep his ring. It will hold you to the ground, and make you always remember where you are. Eleanor’s words echo through my head and I focusfocusfocus on them.
I’m here.
Dare’s here.
Yet a minute ago, as real as anything, I wasn’t here. I was somewheresomewheresomewhere else.
We go home, back to the funeral home, and the days inch, fly, swirl past. They turn into weeks, and the weeks turn into months, confusing wonderful beautiful months.
Dare spends my birthday with me, then two. He spends Christmas. He spends every day in between. Every day, he becomes more and more unsettled.
Because he’s not real.
Because I don’t know what he is.
“If I could fix everything, I would,” I tell him one day as we stand on the cliffs. The wind whips at my hair and I shove it away. Dare stares at me and there’s sadness in his eyes.
“I know, Calla Lily.”
He’s so vulnerable, and sad, and he’s seventeen now and I’m fourteen.
I lean up, because I need to kiss him more than anything in the world.
“Kiss me,” I whisper, looking hungrily into his eyes. He looks away and the warmth the warmth the warmth. It warms my belly and floods my heart.
“I shouldn’t,” he answers, low and husky, and he’s unsure because he might be a figment of my imagination, or we might be related, and he shouldn’t he shouldn’t he shouldn’t.
But he wants to. I can see it see it see it. His eyes are cloudy and tormented.
“Do it anyway,” I reply, hoping, praying, holding my breath.
So he does,
He lowers his dark head and his lips press into mine, hard, warm, firm, real.
My first kiss.
Kissing him is like taking a fresh wintry breath. It gives me life, it fills me up, filling all of my darkest, most emptiest places.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” Dare mutters, yanking away, and I don’t want him to leave, but he does it anyway.
He stalks away and I trail behind, my fingers on my lips, still in too much wonder to care that he’s regretful. I know why… because I’m fourteen and he’s seventeen and he’s my cousin and he thinks that creates a chasm.
But it doesn’t.
It’s not a chasm,
It draws us closer together.
He’s mine. He just doesn’t know it yet.
After dinner, I find him down at the woodshed, punching at it like a machine.
“Dare, stop!” I plead, holding onto his hands, trying to prevent him from injuring himself further. There is blood on his shirt, blood gushing from his knuckles. His face is so tormented, so pained.
“Do you know what it’s like not to be able to change something?” he asks, and his voice is so ragged, so painful to hear that it tears my heart into ripped pieces.
“Of course,” I tell him. And I lead him to the Carriage House where I clean up his wounds.
He strips his shirt off and muscle ripples from the top of his back to the bottom, and LIVE FREE is bold and strong. I can’t breathe because he’s beautiful and warm and vibrant, and he’s right here.
So close.
So close
So far away.
He studies me, my face, my eyes. And when he sighs, it’s such a lonely sound. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he says and he’s resigned. “Not like I do. Because you don’t remember everything, but I do.”
I open my mouth to reply, but he doesn’t allow it.
“I’ll be sleeping here in the Carriage House,” he tells me. “Instead of in the funeral home. It’s for the best. Maybe things aren’t going to change after all, this time. Maybe this will always be how it is, and if that’s the case, then I just want to let go, Cal.”
“Let go?”
He nods and I’m dying dying dying inside, because he can’t do that. I need him.
He won’t let me argue because he thinks it’s the right thing. My soul is crushed, but I leave anyway, because that’s what he wants. For now.
But my room is empty and I’m empty and I want nothing more than for him to come back and sleep on my floor where I can wake up in the night and make sure he’s safe.
I curl onto my side in my cold sheets, and again, I press my fingers to my lips where his glorious mouth had been just hours ago.
I’d give anything for him to be back. In my room, in this world. Just here.
I fall asleep and my slumber is restless and dark.
The dreams
The dreams
The dreams.
The boy is back, in his hood, and he stands in the middle of the road.
“You weren’t supposed to give the ring to him,” he tells me. “You were supposed to give it to me. I could’ve saved them, Calla.”
“Saved who?” I demand, but then I know.
“You know who,” he nods. “You must change it. You must change it. You must change it so I can have the ring.”
Because if I don’t, there is water and burning rubber and fire. There is screaming and it’s my mother, I think. There’s sand, there’s a white sheet, there’s sobbing, wailing, dying.
My mother’s eyes are lifeless
And Finn
Finn
Finn.
A voice is whispering, chanting.
St. Michael the archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O prince of heavenly hosts,
By the power of God,
Thrust into hell Satan,
And all the evil spirits prowling the world
Seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
The wordsthewordsthewords.
Protect me St Michael, Protect me St Michael, Protect me St Michael.
Over and over and over, and I wake, sitting straight up in bed, a sense of loss so profound that I can’t stand it. I feel crushed under the weight of it and there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can do,
But run t
o Dare.
I run through the dark house,
Out the door, through the night,
And into the Carriage House.
I leap onto the couch next to him, wrapping the sheet around us both.
He stirs, but he doesn’t push me away.
“The nightmares, Dare,” I whimper. “Make them stop.”
“Shh, little mouse,” he says quietly and his arms wrap around my waist, pulling me close. “You’re safe now.”
But I don’t think I am.
I don’t think I am.
“I don’t want to be alone,” I tell him, turning into his chest. He lets me.
“You aren’t,” he promises. “Not ever.”
This can’t be my life. It has to change. It has to be normal.
I’m determined to fix it
Fix it
Fix it.
I fall asleep finally, since Dare is so near, and I fall asleep twisting his ring round and round and round, because it is somehow a key, and the boy in the hood wants it, and because of that, because of that…
I know he probably shoudn’t have it.
I sleep uneasily,
Restlessly.
And when I wake,
Finn is in the window.
His face is startled,
And he clutches a St. Michael’s medallion in his hand.
Protect me, St. Michael.
The voices, the words…. They swirl around me so loudly that I can hardly focus on Finn’s horrified face, but I do. I concentrate and look and see him.
Finn looks from me to Dare.
Wait.
To Dare.
To Dare.
Does he see Dare?
I race after my brother, my sheet trailing behind me.
I reach him only when we get to the porch of the house, and my mother is coming out the door.
Finn opens his mouth to say something, but my mother looks at me, at my sheet and at something behind me.
Before I turn, I already know what it is.
Who it is.
Dare.
I’m stunned, floored, because she can see him and Finn can see him and he’s real. This is real.
This is real.
The tension snaps around me like a whip and I don’t mind because he’s real.
“Adair DuBray,” my mother snaps, taking the scene in for what it looks like. “How could you have done this? You’ve ruined everything to seduce my daughter?”
I don’t know what to be… appalled, defensive, or grateful that the universe has righted itself and everyone can see Dare.
He’s real.
He’s real.
I’m not crazy.
But he’s ruined everything?
“You can see him?” I ask stupidly, and everyone looks at me like I’m insane because I am.
“It’s not what you think,” he mutters to them, and he doesn’t seem confused. He doesn’t seem surprised that they can see him at all, and he doesn’t seem to be happy with me.
“Then get in here and tell me what it is,” my mother snaps. “And I’m calling your father.”
“Step-father,” Dare corrects, but no one is listening by this point. My mother has already spun around and stalked into the house, presumably to call Richard.
“What is going on?” I ask Dare bewilderedly as we follow my mom and brother.
He glares at me, disgruntled.
“You got drunk last night,” he tells me. “That’s what. I took care of you, cleaned you up, and now your family thinks I’m some sort of freak who seduced you.”
I’m shocked now, completely still.
“I didn’t get drunk last night,” I say stiltedly. “I’ve never been drunk. I had a nightmare and didn’t want to be alone.”
“No,” Dare raises an eyebrow. “You were drunk and puking everywhere. Now they all think I’m a sex-crazed guy who has sex with children. Brilliant.”
He’s pissed and I’m becoming that way because this doesn’t make sense and that didn’t happen.
“I’m not a child,” I snap. “And I wasn’t puking last night.”
But he’s no longer listening.
He follows my mother and takes his proverbial medicine as she hands him the phone. He nods and I can hear the yelling voice from halfway across the room, through the phone. He takes the phone and he paces outside, and I wait wait wait to figure this out.
There will be hell to pay and I know it’s my fault, and I don’t know why.
What the hell is going on?
Nothing makes sense.
The rest of the day is awful, as my father looks at me in disappointment, and my mother glares at Dare.
“You’re going to be on the next flight to London,” she tells him. “It leaves in the morning.”
He nods and doesn’t argue. I do, but no one listens.
“Mom, we can’t be separated,” I tell her earnestly, as I watch Dare from the window. He disappears into the Carriage House without even turning around. I know he probably feels me watching, but he doesn’t check to see. He’s on his phone and I don’t know who he’s talking to, and everything scares me.
The idea of being separated makes my heart pound.
“He understands me,” I tell my mother.
“Calla Elizabeth,” she turns to me, her face stern. “You are sixteen-years old. I’m your mother. I understand you. Dare is going home to Sussex.”
Sixteen? I’m fourteen. Aren’t I?
I open my mouth.
“But…”
“This is for the best,” she interrupts firmly.
I don’t want this.
But no one cares, and I seem to have lost a large chunk of time.
After dinner, Finn approaches me. He’s dressed in a button-up shirt and his hair is freshly washed.
“What were you thinking?” he asks, and he honestly can’t tell. He knows me better than anyone and he believes this nonsense too.
“I didn’t sleep with Dare,” I tell him. “I wasn’t drunk. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not what it looks like.”
He doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t argue.
“I’m going to a concert,” he tells me. “I still have your ticket. You’re coming right?”
His words.
He says them tiredly, like he’s said them a hundred times before.
My memory is murkymurkymurky, but I remember Quid Pro Quo. A concert. I was supposed to go, and I am sixteen because we have driver’s licenses. But this will be Dare’s last night here, and I have to see him. I have to talk to him. I have to fix this.
I shake my head and turn toward the wall. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Fine,” Finn sighs. “I’ll go alone. I just don’t know what’s going on with you, Cal.”
“That makes two of us,” I snap.
Finn leaves and I’m alone.
Alone is my least favorite thing to be.
“Calla,” my mom calls. I find her in the salon downstairs. I approach her carefully and she’s stern when she speaks to me.
“I’m going to book club. You will stay here and out of trouble.”
My eyes fill with tears and hers soften for a minute and she grasps my hand.
“You’ll be fine,” she tells me. “There are just things you don’t understand.”
“I’m so tired of being told that,” I answer. “So tired. Just tell me already. Make me understand.”
“You can’t be with Dare,” she says helplessly. “You can’t. It could only end in heartbreak for all of us. He’ll be your undoing.”
“My undoing?”
She looks away, at the floor, out the windows. “The undoing of us all. There is so much about our family that you don’t understand, that I don’t want you to understand. It’s ugly and complex and even tragic. All I need you to know is that I would rather die than let you be with him. That’s how important this is. You have to choose your brother, or else all of this will be for nothing.”
Her w
ords whirl around me, round and round and round.
I would rather die. Choose my brother?
“But why?” I ask her and I’m limp, and I’m breathless. “Choose Finn how?”
I can’t breathe, and I’m scared and my mom sees that.
“Are you all right, Calla?” she asks quickly, and she sits me in a chair and leans me back, rubbing my temples and of course I’m not all right.
“Breathe, my love,” she tells me. “Breathe.”
She takes a pill from her pocket and gives it to me and I swallow it, and I’m so inexplicably sad.
She stares at me, just stares and stares and stares, and then she holds my hand.
“He’s going to die for you, Calla,” she finally says and her words are so soft, her voice so thin. “One of them will die for you. You have to choose Finn.”
“What?” my voice is a screech and I don’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll be given a choice, and you can’t fail.”
This
Doesn’t
Make
Sense.
But I remember Sabine saying the same thing… you’ll have to choose, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
“I don’t understand,” I tell her. “Why do I have to choose between Finn and Dare?”
“Because I didn’t make the right choice,” she says weakly. “I chose wrong, and you’ll have to pay for my sins, or this will go on and on and on.”
“Did Sabine tell you this?” I ask her, “Because Sabine is crazy. That old gypsy stuff isn’t real. It can’t be.”
“I used to believe that,” she says, and her face is so sad. “When I was a little girl. But time tells everything, Cal. Time is everything. Once upon a time, in the very beginning, there were two brothers. They were both supposed to offer a sacrifice to God, but only one brother’s was accepted. Then, in a jealous fit of rage, his brother killed him. They are our family, Calla. Our blood. We have to make everything right, we have to sacrifice, or this will go on forever.”
“This is crazy,” I tell her. And I know crazy. “I’m dreaming.”
“You’re not,” she answers simply. “Stay here and rest. I have to take Dare to the airport. You will be fine. I’ve sacrificed everything to make sure of it.”
I feel sick and she leaves, and I sink to the floor and rock, my tears streaming down my face and staining my shirt.
This can’t be happening.
“But it is,” the voice is back, and before I look, I know who it is.