“Do you remember it? Do you remember how bloody I was?”
I’m already shaking my head from side to side, slowly, in shock. Not because I don’t remember, but because I don’t want to.
“There was a lot of blood,” I recall, thinking about the way it’d streaked down Dare’s temple and dripped onto his shirt. It’d stained the t-shirt crimson, spreading in a terrifying pool across his chest. “I didn’t know if it was yours or… hers.”
“It was neither,” he says now, his face as grave as death. “It was Finn’s.”
But that’s impossible, because I’d only imagined that Finn died. It was my mother.
“You held me up,” my lips tremble. “When I was falling down. You held me while I waited for… Finn.”
I’d waited for Finn to call.
I’d waited and waited and waited.
The sirens wailed in the night, and I’d paced the floor.
Dare nods. “I’ve always held you up, Cal.”
“When my father came in, and said… when he told me about the accident, everything else faded away,” I recall, staring out at the ocean. God, why does the ocean make me feel so small? “Nothing else mattered. Nothing but him. You faded away, Dare.”
The truth is stark.
The truth is hurtful.
I lay it out there, like flesh flayed open, like pink muscle, like blood.
Dare closes his eyes, his gleaming black eyes.
“I know,” he says softly. “You didn’t remember me. For months.”
We know that. We both know that. It’s why we’re here, standing on the edge of the ocean, trying to retrieve my mind. It’s been out to sea for too long, absent from me, floundering.
I snatch at it now with frantic fingers, trying to draw all of my memories back. They’re stubborn though, my memories. They won’t all come.
But one does.
My eyes burn as I fix my gaze on Dare.
“You confessed something to me. It scared me.”
Dare’s lids are heavy and hooded, probably from the weight of guilt.
He nods. One curt, short movement.
“Do you remember what I told you?”
He’s silent, his gaze tied to mine, burning me.
I flip through my memories, fast, fast, faster… but I come up empty-handed. I only emerge with a feeling.
Fear.
Dare sees it in my eyes and looks away.
“I tried to tell you, Cal,” he says, almost pleading. “You just didn’t understand.”
His voice trails off and my heart seems to stop beating.
“I didn’t understand what?” I ask stiltedly. Just tell me.
He lifts his head now.
“It isn’t hard to understand,” he says simply. “If you remember all that I told you. Can you try?”
I stare at him numbly. “I’ve tried already. I… it’s not there, Dare.”
Dare’s head drops the tiniest bit, almost imperceptibly, but I see it. He’s discouraged, disappointed.
He shakes his head. “It is there. Trust yourself, Calla. Your memories are real. Finn was dead, and then he wasn’t.”
“My mom died instead. I thought I was crazy,” I murmur. “Because if it was real, then I somehow exchanged my mother for Finn.”
Dare sighs, a ragged and broken sound. He tries to touch my hand, but I yank it away. He doesn’t get to touch me. Not anymore.
“You don’t understand,” he says quietly. “But you’re not crazy.”
I stare at him. “No, I don’t understand.” And you have no idea what this feels like.
“You will,” he replies tiredly. “I swear to God you will.”
A lump lodges itself in my throat as the sea breeze rustles my hair. I take a deep gulp of it, filling my lungs with the clean scent.
“Did you ever love me at all?” I ask, the words choking me, because no matter what, it’s the most important thing to me right now.
Pain flashes across Dare’s face, real pain, and I brace myself.
Don’t.
Don’t.
Don’t.
Don’t hurt me.
“Of course I did,” he says quickly and firmly. “And I do still. Right now.”
He stares at me imploringly and I so want to believe him. I want to hear his words and clutch them to my heart and keep them there in a gilded cage.
But then he speaks again. “You’re not safe, Calla. You have to come with me now. There’s something you need to know.”
“I don’t know where I belong anymore,” I whimper and Dare grabs me.
“You belong with me,” he tells me, his lips moving against my hair. “You don’t hate me, Calla. You can’t. I didn’t lie to you. I tried to tell you.”
His voice is afraid, terrified actually, and it touches a soft place in me, a hidden place, the place where I protect my love for him. The place where my heart used to be before it was so broken, and the emotions, the feelings… they trigger a memory. What he told me to do that night.
“You told me to run,” I say suddenly, and Dare is sadder now than ever.
“I wish you would’ve,” he answers. “Because now it’s too late. We have to ride this out, and if you don’t stay with me, you’ll be lost.”
“You’re my own personal anti-Christ,” I whisper into his shirt. His hands stroke my hair frantically, trailing down my back and clutching me to him.”
“I’m not,” he rasps. “Things are complicated, and I don’t want you to think I’m a monster. I’ve failed you, but I’ll fix it. I swear I’ll fix it.”
“How?” I whisper, and don’t think I want to know. “How have you failed me? What have you done?”
My hand is anchored by Dare’s.
His fingers shake, and it scares me.
“I’ve done a terrible thing,” he confesses, and each word is staccato. “I don’t expect your forgiveness. But I have to fix it. And to do that, I need your help. You have to help me, Calla. Help me save you.”
Save me, and I’ll save you.
That’s in Finn’s journal. Those are Finn’s words, not Dare’s.
Right?
I feel… I feel… I feel.
I feel a wave of déjà vu. I feel a wave of emotion, of sensation, of things I should know but don’t, like there are holes in my brain and details have fallen out and scattered in the wind and blown away.
“What have you done?” I ask him through fractured thoughts. “What do I need saving from? Because I don’t think I can be saved. I’m broken, I think.”
“You’re wrong,” he insists, and his eyes beg me. “I can save you.”
I shake my head and the movement is painful.
“You love me,” he tells me, his stare cutting me into pieces. “You just haven’t realized it yet.”
“I know,” I whisper, throwing those pieces away. “But…”
But
But.
But I have to protect myself from him.
From Dare.
I feel it now, stronger than I’ve ever felt anything.
It’s a heavy foreboding, centering my chest and spreading through every blood vessel in my body. It’s real and it’s tangible and it’s a warning.
It’s intuition.
I draw my knees to my chest and look away, taking a deep shaky breath.
“I know I sound crazy,” I admit. “I know it. But I can’t help what I feel. I have to protect myself from you. I know that much is true. My heart is telling me to be afraid of you.”
And it is. It’s telling me there’s a reason.
I feel it in my bones, in my hollow reed bones.
Dare closes his eyes, and it is minutes before he opens them, and when he does, they’re so empty, so lost.
“Fine,” he says simply. “Protect yourself from me. Hell, I’ll protect you from me. But come with me to Whitley. That’s where you’ll find the answers. There are answers to questions you haven’t even thought of yet.”
“At Whitley? Is
that where you’re from?”
I stare at Dare, at the body I love, the eyes that I can fall into, the heart that has held me up… and hidden so many secrets.
He nods like I should know that already, and it’s like the movement is painful for him. He doesn’t want to go to there, to Whitley, but he’s willing to go for me. I see that.
“Your dad wants you to go,” he adds. “Can you do it for him?”
Why would my dad want me to go to England?
Nothing makes sense.
That’s the story of my life.
The ominous feeling cripples me, almost sending me to my knees. I don’t know. I only know… if I don’t find answers, I might lose my sanity and end up just like Finn, back where I started.
The answers are at Whitley.
I exhale, realizing that I’d been holding my breath.
“Ok. I’ll go. But only if Finn comes too.”
Dare agrees immediately.
“Of course. Obviously. He needs my help, too.”
Obviously.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“We live a little ways from Hastings. It’s close to Sussex,” Dare tells me, after we land at Heathrow and drive through the country. He speaks of England as though I know anything at all about it. I nod like I do, because so much of what we say is a pretense now. We go through the motions.
Thirty minutes later, our car is still gliding over the winding ribbons of road, but I finally see a rooftop in the distance, spires and towers poking through trees.
Dare stirs, opening his eyes, and I know we’re almost there. Finn is still sleeping, so I nudge him awake, and he rubs at his eyes.
I crane my neck to see. When I do, I’m stunned beyond words, enough that the breath hitches on my lips.
This can’t be my family’s home.
It’s huge, it’s lavish, it’s creepy.
It’s ancient, it’s stone, it’s beautiful.
A tall stone wall stretches in either direction as far as I can see, encircling the property like an ominous security blanket. It’s so tall, so heavy, and for one brief moment, I wonder if it’s meant to keep people out… or to keep them in.
It’s a foolish notion, I know.
As we pull off the road, large wrought iron gates open in front of our car as if by magic, as if they were pushed by unseen hands. Puffs of mist and fog swirl from the ground and through the tree branches, half concealing whatever lies behind the gate.
Even though the grounds are lush and green, there’s something heavy here, something dark. It’s more than the near constant rain, more than the clouds.
Something that I can’t quite put my finger on.
I’m filled with a strange dread as the car rolls through the gates, as we continue toward the hidden thing. And while the ‘hidden thing’ is just a house, it feels like so much more, like something ominous and almost threatening.
I catch glimpses of it through the branches as we drive, and each glimpse gives me pause.
A steep, gabled roof.
Columns and spires and moss.
Rain drips from the trees, onto the car, onto the driveway, and everything gleams with a muted light.
It’s wet here, and gray, and the word I keep thinking in my head is gothic.
Gothic.
Despite all the beauty and the extravagance here, it still looks a bit terrifying.
I count the beats as we make our way to the house, and I’ve counted to fifteen before the limousine finally comes to a stop on top of a giant circular driveway made of cobblestone.
The house in front of us is made from stone, and it sprawls out as far as I can see. The windows are dark, in all sizes, in all shapes.
Rolling, manicured lawns, an enormous mansion, lush gardens. Stormy clouds roll behind the massive setting of the house, and one thing is clear. Ominous or not, this estate is lavish, to say the least.
“Is our family rich?” I ask dumbly.
Dare glances at me. “Not in the ways that matter.”
He pauses, and there is a rope between us, pulling us together, but at the same time, coiling around us, holding us apart.
“Calla, don’t let your guard down,” he tells me quickly. “This place… it isn’t what it seems. You have to…”
Jones opens the door, and Dare stops speaking abruptly.
I have to what?
“Welcome to Whitley,” Jones tells me with a slight bow. We climb out and suddenly, I’m nervous.
I’m in a foreign country, getting ready to meet a family consisting of strangers, and I know nothing about them.
It’s daunting.
Dare squeezes my hand briefly, and I let him. Because here, I’m alone.
Here, Dare and Finn are the only familiar things.
Here, they’re the only ones who know me.
Of course, maybe they always were.
Jones leads the way with our bags, and before we even reach the front doors, they open, and a small wrinkled woman stands in the doorway. She’s slightly bent, barely a wisp of a woman, with an olive complexion and her hair completely wrapped in a bright scarf twisted at the top. She looks like she might be a hundred years old.
“Sabine!” Dare greets the elderly woman. The little woman’s arm close around him, and her head barely reaches his chest.
“Welcome home, boy,” she says in a deep gravely voice. “I’ve missed you.”
Dare pulls away and glances at me, and I can see on his face that Sabine is important. At least to him. “This is Sabine. Sabine, this is Calla Price.”
Sabine stares at me, curiously, sadly.
“You’re the spitting image of your mother,” she tells me.
“I know,” I tell her, and my heart twinges because my mother is gone. “It’s nice to meet you.”
I offer her my hand, but she grasps it instead of shaking it. Stooping over, she examines it, her face mere inches from my palm. She grips me tight, unwilling to let me go, and I feel my pulse bounding wildly against her fingers.
Startled, I wait.
I don’t know what else to do.
The little woman is surprisingly strong, her grip holding me steady as she searches for something in my hand. She traces the veins and the ridges, her breath hot on my skin. Her face is so close to my palm that I can feel each time she exhales.
Finn coughs, and abruptly, Sabine drops my hand and straightens.
Her eyes meet mine and I see a thousand lifetimes in hers. They’re dark as obsidian, and unlike most elderly people, hers aren’t cloudy with age. She stares into me, and I feel like she’s literally sifting through my thoughts and looking into my soul.
It’s unsettling, and a chill runs up my spine, putting me on edge.
She glances at Dare, and nods ever so slightly.
If I didn’t know better, I would almost think he cringed.
What the hell?
But I don’t have time to ponder, because Sabine starts walking, leading us into the house.
“Come. Eleanor is waiting for you,” Sabine tells us solemnly over her shoulder as she uses much of her strength to open the heavy front doors.
Dare sighs. “I think we’d better freshen up first. It’s been a long flight, Sabby.”
The nanny looks sympathetic, but is unrelenting. “I’m sorry, Dare. She insists on seeing all three of you.”
Dare sighs again, but we obediently follow Sabine through lavish hallways. Over marble floors and lush rugs, through mahogany paneled halls and extravagant window dressings, beneath sparkling crystal chandeliers. My eyes are wide as we take it all in. I’ve never seen such a house in all my life, not even on TV.
But even as it is opulent, it’s silent.
It’s still.
It’s like living in a mausoleum.
We come to a stop in front of massive wooden doors, ornately carved. Sabine knocks on them twice, and a woman’s voice calls out from within.
“Enter.”
How eerily formal.
Sabine o
pens the doors, and we are immediately enveloped by an overwhelmingly large study, painted in rich colors and patinas, encircled with wooden shelves filled by hundreds and hundreds of leather-bound books.
A woman sits at the heavy cherry desk, facing us with her back to the windows.
Her face is stern, her hair is faded, but I can see that it used to be red. It’s pulled into a severe chignon, not one strand out of place. Her cashmere sweater is buttoned all the way to the top, decorated by one single strand of pearls. Her unadorned hands are folded in front of her and she’s waiting.
Waiting for us.
How long has she been waiting? Months? Years?
For a reason that I can’t explain, I feel suffocated. The room seems to close in on me, and I’m frozen. Dare has to literally pull me, then pull me harder, just to make me move.
I feel like I can’t breathe, like if I approach her, something bad will happen.
Something terrible.
It’s a ridiculous thought, and Dare glances at me out of the corner of his eye.
We come to a stop in front of the desk.
“Eleanor,” he says tightly.
There is no love lost here. I can see it. I can sense it. I feel it in the air, in the formality, in the cold.
“Adair,” the woman nods. There are no hugs, no smiles. Even though it’s been at least a year since she’s seen him, this woman doesn’t even stand up.
“This is your grandmother, Eleanor Savage,” Dare tells me, and his words are so carefully calm. Eleanor stares at me, her gaze examining me from head to toe. My cheeks flush from it.
“You must be Calla.”
I nod.
“You may call me Eleanor.” She glances at the door. “Wait outside, Sabine.”
Without a word, Sabine backs out, closing the door. Eleanor returns her attention to us.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she tells me stiffly, but her voice lacks any sign of emotion, of sympathy or sadness, even though it was her daughter who was lost.
She looks at me again. “While you are here, Whitley will be your home. You will not intrude in rooms that don’t concern you. You may have the run of the grounds, you may use the stables. You won’t mingle with unsavory characters, you may have use of the car. Jones will drive you wherever you need to go. You may settle in, get accustomed to life in the country, and soon, we’ll speak about your inheritance. Since you’ve turned eighteen, you have responsibilities to this family.”