He’s part Roma, and I know that now.
“When I realized, as I got older, what it all really meant, I’d already fallen for you. I can’t let it be you. I’ll do anything to stop it.”
“But we’re cursed,” I say quietly, and it feels like the only answer. “You’re Finn’s brother, and I’m Finn’s sister, and I’m a child of incest. Everything has been orchestrated because of some grand belief in Roma magic.”
“It’s not just a belief,” Dare sighs. “I wish it were, but it’s not. Cal… you change things. You’ve changed them over and over your whole life, without even knowing it. You loved your brother so much that you’ve literally changed time to bring him back. It’s because you’re descended from Abel. God made him the Judge of Souls and so are you. You know what is right. You know.”
Sabine watches us and she’s serious and silent.
“I don’t believe you,” I say and it sounds like a whimper.
“You don’t understand anything yet, do you?” Sabine is snide. “Time is fluid and malleable, and you yourself wield the power to change it. It’s a tapestry and we’re the pieces.”
I’m confused and I’m stunned, and Dare is silent and strong and he stares at me.
“This is real,” he tells me. “All along, you’ve known it, but you were afraid you were crazy.”
“The déjà vu, the memories…” I whisper.
“Real,” he nods, and he’s sad and his eyes are stormy. “The déjà vu was real. Everyone gets it because everyone has the extent to change things with their dreams, but not like you. You’re stronger than most because of your blood.”
“This is impossible,” I say, but I know I’m wrong. It’s possible. I feel it in my bones in my bones in my bones.
I hesitate, but something Sabine said comes back to me. “It has to be me or Finn in order to bring things to a close.”
Dare’s silence is his agreement.
“And you chose Finn,” my words are slow. “You chose Finn, you let him die. Over and over and over.”
“Finn chose to die over and over and over,” Dare insists. “He chose things to be the sacrifice, but you kept changing things back. You’re like Castor and Pollux. You love each other to a fault, and the universe will make everyone pay for it. You have to let the cycle end.”
Dare’s face is tortured, pained, and it looks like my heart, it’s shattered, it’s broken.
“But my brother….” I whisper. “You were willing to let Finn die. You love Finn.”
“I do,” he agrees. “But it couldn’t be you,” he says simply and he reaches for me, but I shirk away.
“And somehow, I changed it, I kept bringing him back because I love him, I love him more than life, and every time, you somehow managed to undo it and kill him again.”
“I didn’t,” Dare protests. “Finn did. Because he knows that Fate is real. Kismet is real. That is his fate.”
Sabine’s eyes are knowing and dark.
“You must let it happen, girl,” she says. “When you change it, you just prolong the torment.”
“I don’t care,” I say coldly. “I don’t care if you are tormented forever and the entire universe burns. Nothing matters but Finn.”
Dare is stunned, but he understands, finally finally finally.
Finn is my other half. I can’t live without him.
“Everyone must pay a price in this family,” Sabine says, driving her point home. “The universe demands it, to set things right. One for one for one. Olivia already paid her price. Now you must pay yours.”
I’m numb
I’m alone
I’m afraid
I’m determined.
It won’t be Finn.
I love Dare and I love life, but my brother is life. He’s everything. He’s always been everything.
Dare falls back and watches as I touch Sabine’s fingers. His dark dark eyes are the last thing I see as the room spins and spins and it makes me so dizzy that I close my eyes.
When I open them, I’m alone.
I’m walking across Whitley, across foggy moors, breathing in the wet morning air, and something is pulling me pulling me pulling me to the mausoleums.
I open the door and the musty smell and the dark, and Dare’s name.
On the wall.
Adair Phillip DuBray.
There are flowers there and I’m not alone.
A hooded woman stands, weeping, her head against the stone.
She turns to me, and her eyes are black and she’s sobbing.
“You did this,” she tells me. “You killed him. It should’ve been me. It should’ve been me.”
Sabine comes in and takes Olivia’s shoulders and guides her to the door. She looks over her shoulder at me, though and Sabine smiles and it stretches from ear to ear. And I sob.
I sob at Dare’s grave because even though he knew, even though he was willing to risk Finn, he was a pawn, just like me and I love him I love him.
The mausoleum grows dark and I cry until I can’t cry anymore, until there are no tears left, until I’m limp.
Then I sleep and the oblivion takes me into its arms and I’m spinning spinning and when I open my eyes, my memories have been taken again by oblivion, and something has changed and everything has changed.
I’m staring at Sabine.
In her mystical room, and I’ve been here before, I’ve been here before.
She sits me down and takes my hands and stares into my eyes.
“Finn is alive,” I’m saying slowly, and the words the words the words.
I’ve said them before,
I’ve been here before.
I cling to that knowledge as the old woman nods.
“But he was dead.”
She nods again, and my next words spill out without my consent, like I’m playing a part in a play.
“The hooded boy I kept seeing… all my life… it’s been Dare’s brother all along.”
The words
The words.
I’ve been here.
I remember. I remember.
I remember what happened in Sabine’s room, and her part in everything, how she’s pulled the strings and controlled Dare, and all she cares about is fulfilling some strange Roma prophecy and Finn is supposed to die because I’m supposed to betray him and let it happen.
Dare bursts through the door like I knew he would, and he’s alive.
He’s alive.
“We’ve got to go, Calla,” he says and I go with him this time. There is guilt in his eyes and in his heart, but I don’t care. I go with him anyway. Because he’s a pawn and I’m a pawn, and we’ll be pawns together.
He pulls me to the door and Sabine clings to me and her eyes her eyes they burn me.
“You can’t get away,” she tells us as she falls behind. “The die has been cast. Know this, child. Your brother was meant to die long ago. You were brought into the world on purpose, as a descendent of Judas. You were meant to offer your brother, to betray him. But you haven’t. Over and over, you’ve betrayed the universe instead and saved your brother. Death wants your brother, and you can’t stop it.”
Dare pulls me along, through the halls, and through the dark and his hand is warm and I’m so scared.
“We’re lost,” I tell him, because it seems to be true.
“No, we aren’t,” he argues. “I’d die for you, Cal. I’ll do it.”
But God, my heart pounds at the thought of that.
“I can’t be without you again,” I tell him, and it’s true. And it’s also true that I can’t be without Finn. And Sabine says one of us must die, and that Finn is supposed to be dead already.
“The die has been cast,” I add, and that sounds so bleak.
Because it is.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I don’t understand how this is happening,” I say as we race through Whitley, through the halls, through the rooms.
“No one does,” Dare says as we burst into Finn’s room. “R
omani ways are mysterious. Your mother knew, though. Even though you kept changing things, she knew in the beginning, and she did try to change things by running to America. But it didn’t work. Fate had a plan.”
“I really change things?” I ask, and Finn wakes up and I hold his hand.
“At night, your mind is free,” Dare explains. “That’s what I’ve figured out so far. “You and Finn. Your minds wander in sleep, and for whatever reason, you can change things without even trying, or without knowing how. Something happened to you that night so long ago in Sabine’s room. She tried to sacrifice you, but something went wrong. It must have something to do with Cain and Abel’s blood.”
I think about this. How Finn has died several times, and each time I went to sleep wanting him back. And each time, when I woke he was there.
“We’re stuck in a loop,” Dare says and the words sound crazy, but crazy is my life and it’s the only thing that makes sense. “We’re in a loop, reliving different scenarios until the right one happens. The one where the cycle ends, and Finn is accepted as the sacrifice, because Cain’s sacrifice was rejected so long ago. Sabine can’t affect the changes,” he finishes. “Only you, or Finn. I don’t know why.”
Finn stares at us and he acts like he knows.
“You knew?” I whisper.
“I did,” he answers. “But then I thought I was crazy, because all of the déjà vu and things happened over and over, and my memories didn’t seem real.”
“Maybe we’re all crazy,” I say, and Dare shakes his head.
“No. They think we are, because it doesn’t seem plausible. But we’re not. Sabine knows the truth, but she’s been using their perceptions against us. They’re making people think that we’re sick, that we are insane. But we’re not.”
“What do we do?” I ask and the future seems bleak. “The past is a prison.”
And we’ll never break free.
“We have to stick together,” Dare says, and he’s resolute. “We’ll get this sorted. We’ll figure out what to do. Sabine needs us. We just have to control our dreams. That’s how we spin out of the moment and into another.”
“But how can we control dreams?” Finn asks doubtfully.
It’s an excellent question.
“We’ll have to figure it out,” Dare says, and he’s tired. “My mother died, and I don’t agree with Sabine that it was a mistake. I think things happen for a reason and if we try and change it, that is the mistake.”
I agree.
Dreams aren’t real. They’re only real if we make them that way.
“I need to talk to you,” I tell Dare, and he knows what I need to say. He’s hesitant but he walks with me through the gardens, away from the house, away from people who can hear us.
“You betrayed me,” I tell him and my whisper is broken with sadness.
“I tried to tell you,” he says sadly, and I know I know I know when it was. The night my mother was killed, one of the many times I re-lived that moment. “You tried to tell me, but we spun. It changed.”
Dare nods and his eyes glisten and my heart breaks.
“I love you, Calla. I couldn’t bear to lose you. I thought it was hopeless. Sabine let me believe that it had to be you or Finn, and she convinced me that Finn was already lost. He was supposed to die when he was small.”
He was, I know that’s true. “But I can’t live without him,” I manage to utter, and my words are hot, my eyes are hot.
Dare nods. “I know that now. I know.”
My heart freezes in pain, frozen at the mere thought.
“I’ll die without Finn, Dare.”
“I know. I’ll sacrifice myself. Perhaps that will work.”
“No,” I almost scream, because the panic the panic the panic. “No. I can’t lose you, and they say it has to be Finn. So your sacrifice would be for nothing, just like your mother’s. There has to be another way. I’ll change it in my dreams. We’ll do something.”
“I don’t think that will work,” he says doubtfully. “It’s going to take a sacrifice from Cain’s blood to finally make this stop. You’re not of Cain. You’re of Abel.”
“Please promise me,” I beg, clutching at his shirt. “It won’t be you. It won’t be Finn. We won’t give up.”
He’s wordless as we enter the secret garden,
Our place.
The angels stare at us with empty eyes, and I sag into Dare.
He’s so warm,
So strong, so strong,
So real.
“Is this really happening?” I ask him. “Because sometimes, I can’t tell the difference.”
He tilts my head back with his thumb, lifting my face to the sky. His eyes claim me, stroke me, ignite me.
I fold into his palms,
And he holds me up.
“I’m real,” he says into my hair. “You’re real.”
We’re standing in the moonlight,
There’s no reason to be afraid.
Right?
Dare kisses me and his lips are sunlight. He touches me and his fingers are the moon. It’s night somewhere, and by night we are free.
We come together like the stars,
Beneath the shelter of the gazebo.
Away from sight,
Away from everything.
Just us.
Our skin is hot,
Our mouths are needy.
We are alone.
But for the godforsaken angels.
“The angels scare me,” I whisper to Dare, and I clutch him close.
He holds me tight.
“I know,” he says. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, and it’s the truth. “Maybe it’s their eyes. They see me.”
“I see you,” he reminds me, and his eyes are black.
Black, black,
Black as night.
“Will you always?” I murmur, and his neck tastes like salt. My fingers find his LIVE FREE.
“Yes,” he promises.
“Repromissionem,” I tell him. “It’s Latin.”
“I know.”
That night, I sleep in my room and Finn sleeps with me.
“Have I died in your memories?” he asks me suddenly, just when I’m slipping into sleep. I’m hesitant, but I nod.
“Yeah.”
“More than once?”
“Yeah. How about me… in your memories, I mean?”
He shakes his head. “No. You lost your mind a few times, but you never died. You were sick once, and Dare was sick once. Something was wrong with your heart, but then I gave it to Dare in my dream. Then he was sick… but then it changed again. I don’t know how, but I saved you once. I’ll save you again.”
Save me, and I’ll save you.
“You lost your mind in my memories, too,” I tell him, and I think we must’ve passed the madness back and forth, taking it from each other, over and over. Because we never want each other to suffer. We’re twins. We’re closer than the very closest thing on earth.
“Calla,” Finn starts to say and I want to interrupt him because I think I know what he’s going to say. “What you said earlier, about not changing things… you were right.”
My heart sinks.
“And you changed things for me. I was supposed to die already.”
“You fell, in kindergarten. From the climbing rope at school,” I tell him. “How is that something that should be meant to be?”
He shrugs. “It just is. And I think changing it and changing it and changing it is just banging your head against a rock.”
“You’re not going to die, Finn,” I instruct him, and he laughs without humor.
“I’m not sure it’s up to us,” he answers. “Not in the end. I’m meant to save you, Calla. I feel it in my bones.”
I don’t know if he’s right. All I know is that I can’t live without him. I fall asleep holding his hand. In the morning, Dare is sitting in the room, waiting for us to wake up.
My eyes are groggy as
I stare at him, and the things from yesterday come back to me, and I sit straight up.
“Did anything change while we slept?” I ask him quickly, and he doesn’t know.
“All I know is that we’re going to Oregon,” he tells us. “I called your father and we’re leaving on the next flight.”
Finn and I pack because going home seems reasonable, because Whitley is filled with secrets and danger and because Sabine is here.
When we leave, when we drive away, I look over my shoulder and I swear I see the curtains move from a small room upstairs. Someone is watching us go, and the hair raises on my neck, because Sabine isn’t trying very hard to keep us from going… it’s almost as if she wants us to.
Dare drives, and I’m beside him and he grasps my hand.
“It’ll be ok,” he promises me. “Just stay awake. Stay awake for now, until we figure out what to do. Don’t dream.” Finn agrees from the backseat and we drive away away away away from Whitley. We drive to the airport, and we fly home, and when we get home, it’s night and we drive to the funeral home through the rain.
If we can just get there, it will be ok. I feel it in my heart, in my bones, in my soul. The tires crunch on the road, and the lightning lights up the sky, and cliffs are jagged and real. I’m so exhausted and my eyelids are heavy, but if I close them if I close them if I close them… I do. They’re too heavy to resist and the hooded boy is outside my window.
He’s next to the car window and he moves with us and his lips are moving and I hear his whisper.
“Go
to
sleep.”
His fingers are on the glass and I touch them because I can’t help it, and I feel my energy slip slip slipping away, and I can’t resist it and I drift away in sleep.
I think I’m only asleep for moments, but it might be years. I don’t know anymore.
But
When
I
Wake,
the road is humming beneath us and we are at a fork, and instead of turning left, Dare turns right, and the tires shriek in the rain.
There’s a fork in the road and even though I see it, I can’t avoid it.
One road goes left, one goes right, and neither of them ends well.