Lux (10 page)

“No buts. We’ve said everything we need to say. I need to go. The rain is bad, and the time is right…” She interrupts her own sentence with a scream.

A shrill, loud, high-pitched shriek. It almost punctures my ear-drums with its intensity and before I can make heads or tails of it, it breaks off mid-way through. And I realize that I heard something else in the background.

The sound of metal and glass being crunched and broken.

Then nothing.

“Mom?”

There’s no answer, only loaded pregnant silence.

My hands shake as I wait for what seems like an eternity, but is actually only a second.

“Mom?” I demand, scared now.

Still nothing.

Then

A

Whisper.

“Oh, God.
Finn.”

It’s my mother.

Her voice is hoarse and cracked and terrified and weak.

“My baby. What have I done?” Before the phone goes dead, before I can ask, she screams a haunting, shrieking wail, the torment of a mother.

“Finnnnnnnnnnnnnn!”

The line goes dead

And my heart goes dead

Because

FINN.

FINN.

FINN.

Chills run up and down my back, and goose-bumps form on my arms because somethingsomethingsomething terrible has happened to my brother.

My other half.

My heart.

I feel it.

I
know
it in my heart as I race out to the porch, as I stare at the smoke winding its way into the night sky, just a little ways down the mountain.

Finn is down there. I know it.

I know it

I know it.

I know it as I sink to a heap on the steps, gripping the phone.

I know it as I try to breathe and can’t.

I know it as Dare limps across the lawn, his forehead bloody.

I know it as he stands in front of me, battered and raw.

“Calla?” he whispers, his hand on my shoulder.

There’s blood on his fingers.

“Calla?”

I somehow manage to move my head, to look up at the boy I love, the man I hate, the man I’m afraid of now. I don’t know why, I just know I do. All of these emotions swirl in me and I don’t know where they’re coming from and it doesn’t matter right now. Only one thing matters.

“Where’s Finn?” my lips move.

Dare stares at me, his dark eyes guarded and urgent.

“We’ve got to call an ambulance.”

I’m frozen, so Dare grabs my phone and punches at the numbers, crimson blood staining the keys.

His voice blends into the night as he speaks to the dispatcher, but one phrase penetrates the fog of my consciousness.

“There’s been an accident.”

I wait for him to finish, I wait as he calls my father, I wait until he hangs up and stares down at me before I finally speak.

“Was it?” I ask him, my voice shaking and frail and thin. “Was it an accident?”

He closes his eyes.

I close mine too.

Because I know it wasn’t.

I know my mother killed my brother.

And it wasn’t an accident.

Dare sees it in my eyes, he knows that I know, and I hear his phone drop to the porch, and I hear it shatter.

Just

Like

My

Heart.

T
he world is
black

The world is punishing

The world is mine

The world is black

The world is punishing

The world is mine

It’s mine

It’s mine

It’s mine.

Forgive me, St. Michael

Protect me, St. Michael.

Forgive me forgive me forgive me.

The world is a dark dark tunnel.

It’s swirling and falling and crushing and

Forgive me, St. Michael.

I’ll do anything to save my brother.

Words from somewhere, words I’ve seen before, float into my head, in Finn’s scrawling writing.

Serva me, servabo te.

Save me, and I’ll save you.

Save me, Calla.

Save me.

“
H
e’s gone
, honey.”

I open my eyes and I’m staring at the wall, my phone in my hand. The darkness is gone, and I can see, and Dare’s arms are wrapped around my shoulder, holding me up. He’s not bloody now. His shirt is clean as new.

My dad stares at me, and he’s shocked, and how did he get here?

“Calla?”

I turn my face to look at him, but looking at him makes it feel too real, so I close my eyes instead.

I can’t do this.

“Calla, they found Finn’s car. It’s in the bay. He drove off the edge… your mom was in the ravine, but Finn’s car plunged the opposite way. Down the rocks, into the water.”

No, it didn’t.

He couldn’t have.

“No,” I say clearly, staring at my father dazed. “He was wearing his medallion. He was protected.”

My father, the strongest man I know, turns away and his shoulders shake. After minutes, he turns back.

“I want to see,” I tell him emptily. “If it’s true, I need to see.”

Because he’s died before in my dreams, and then he was alive. I never know never know never know when I’m crazy.

My father is already shaking his head, his hand on my arm. “No. Your mother is on her way to the hospital. We have to go. You can’t see Finn like this, sweetie. No.”

“Yes.”

I don’t wait for him to agree, I just bolt from the house, down the steps, down the paths, to the beach. I hear Dare behind me, but I don’t stop. There are firemen and police and police tape and EMTs congregated about, and one of them tries to stop me.

“Miss, no,” he says, his voice serious, his face aghast. “You can’t go over there.”

But I yank away because I see Finn.

I see his red smashed car that they’ve already pulled from the water.

I see someone laid out on the sand, someone covered by a sheet.

I walk toward that someone calmly, because even though it’s Finn’s car, it can’t be Finn. It can’t be because he’s my twin, and because I didn’t feel it happen. I would’ve known, wouldn’t I?

Dare calls to me, through thick fog, but I don’t answer.

I take a step.

Then another.

Then another.

Then I’m kneeling in the sand, next to a sheet.

My fingers shake.

My heart trembles.

And I pull the white fabric away.

He’s dressed in jeans and a button-up, clothing for a concert. He’s pale, he’s skinny, he’s long. He’s frail, he’s cold, he’s dead.

He’s Finn.

I can’t breathe as I hold his wet hand, as I hunch over him and cry and try to breathe and try to speak.

He doesn’t look like he was in a crash. There’s a bruise on his forehead and that’s it. He’s just so white, so very very white.

“Please,” I beg him. “No. Not today. No.”

I’m rocking and I feel hands on me, but I shake them away, because this is Finn. And we’re Calla and Finn. He’s part of me and I’m part of him and this can’t be happening.

I cry so hard that my chest hurts with it, my throat grows raw and I gulp to breathe.

“I love you,” I tell him when I can breathe again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I’m still crying when large hands cup my shoulders and lift me from the ground, and I’m pulled into strong arms.

“Shhh, Calla,” my dad murmurs. “It’ll be okay. He knew you loved him.”

“Did he?” I ask harshly, pulling away to look at my father. “Because he wanted me to go with him, and I made him go alone. And now he’s dead. I called mom and they’re both dead.”

Dad pulls me back into his arms and pats my back, showing a tenderness that I didn’t know he possessed. “It’s not your fault,” he tells me between wracking sobs. “He chose this. He knew you loved him, honey. Everyone knew.”

I choke back another gasping sob, because how could he have chosen this? My mother killed him on purpose. I feel it in my bones in my bones in my bones.

This can’t be happening.

This can’t be happening.

This isn’t my life.

I shake off my father’s arms and walk woodenly back up the trails, past the paramedics, past the police, past everyone who is staring at me. I walk straight up to Finn’s room and collapse onto his bed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his journal.

I pick it up, reading the familiar handwriting written by the hands that I love so much.

Serva me, servabo te.

Save me, and I will save you.

Ok.

Ok, Finn.

I close my eyes because when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll find that this was all a dream. This is a nightmare. It has to be.

Sleep comes quickly and when I wake up, I’ll save Finn.

Because really, he’s all that matters.

If he’s dead, I want to be dead.

He can’t be dead.

I’ll give anything for him.

I’d give my life.

“You could,” the hooded boy says, and he’s here on the edge of my bed. “You could give your life. You could jump, you could sacrifice yourself, and then it would all be over. Or… you could offer your mother instead.”

“What?” I ask stiffly.

“You heard me. You’ve heard me all along. You have the power to change it. You always have, and you always do. Change it to the way it should be. Do it.”

I’m appalled, I’m frozen, I’m filled with dread, because I would rather. I would rather give anything than my brother.

I fall asleep with the sheets wrapped like a rope around my hands, and I dream the dreams of the tormented.

I
dream
.

I dream of Sabine and her raspy voice, and of words that she said to me.

“You must choose,” she’d said, and she says it now in my dream and I don’t know what she wants me to do.

So I ask her.

“You know,” she nods.

But I don’t.

She nods again, and all I know is that if I could choose anythinganythinganything in the world, it would be for my brother to be with me, to be alive. I’d give anything.

“Anything?” Sabine asks, and I nod.

“Anything.” My answer is firm.

Sabine nods once more, and light streams in my window, and into my eyes as I open them.

I’m fine for a minute, until I remember.

Finn.

I close my eyes again, and the heavyheavyweight presses on my lungs again, and I can’t breathe, and I don’t want to.

I trudge down the hall to my brother’s room and I stand in front of the door.

I stare at the wood, at the grain, at the indention, at the handle. I don’t want to open it because I know what I’ll find.

But I have to. I have to see it.

Reaching down, I turn the knob.

The door creaks open, revealing what my heart knew I’d find.

An empty room.

The bed is still there, neatly made. Finn’s posters are still on the wall, of Quid Quo Pro and the Cure. His black Converses sit next to the door, like he’s going to wear them again, but he’s not. His dirty laundry is still in his hamper. His books line the shelves. His favorite pillow waits for him, his CDs, his phone. All of it.

But he’s not coming back.

I grab his shoes, his smelly boy shoes and I clutch them to my chest and I sink into his smelly boy bed and I’m numb. I stare at the wall without seeing it, at the posters without registering the faces. I’m wood, I’m stone, I’m brick. I don’t feel. I don’t feel. Nothing can hurt me.

I’m like this for a while, until

Little

By

Little,

Sounds begin to filter into my consciousness, and there’s water. Running water, and I feel dew-like condensation on my skin, and for a second, I’m annoyed because Finn knows to turn on the exhaust fan when he showers, but he always forgets.

Wait.

My head yanks up as Finn’s bathroom door opens and he sticks his wet head out.

“Calla! What are you doing in here? And why do you have my shoes?”

I faint.

Or I think I faint.

When I open my eyes again, Finn is holding my hand.

“Are you ok?” he asks, and his blue eyes are worried.

“Yeah,” I manage to say, once I’m over the shock of being seated next to my dead but now alive brother. “I think so.”

Mybrotherisalive

Mybrotherisalive

He’s alive.

He’s holding my hand.

I shake my head and try to drive the nonsense out, and suddenly, everything is clear for the first time in a long long time. I can think without murk, without voices.

What the hell?

Sabine’s words come back to me
You have to choose, You have to choose.

Last night before bed, I’d chosen Finn, over anything, over my own life.

Did I do this?

It’s not possible.

Did I do this?

Finn looks at me. “Why aren’t you dressed? You’ve got to go get ready.”

“For?” I arch an eyebrow.

He’s quiet and still, I remember the accident, and a heavy sense of foreboding slams into me right before he answers.

“For mom’s funeral.”

Oh.

God.

My mother is dead and my memory has holes.

I somehow trip down to my room and put on a black dress, and I somehow trip down the stairs with my brother and sit in the family section of the chapel, and my dad holds my hand.

The casket is white and there are star-gazers on it, and the lid is closed.

Someone reads a poem, then another.

Someone else speaks about angels and Heaven.

My dad cries silently.

Finn is stoic, and grips my arm.

I’m numb.

Because I thought mom was in the hospital and Finn was dead.

Only Finn is here and mom is dead.

You

Have

To

Choose.

Reality isn’t real.

Like always.

The music plays as they roll the casket out, down the long aisle, as if my mother is on parade, her last parade.

We stand and the funeral-goers file past us, one by one by one.

I’m sorry for your loss.

Heaven has gained another angel.

If you need anything, just call.

All trite words from people who don’t know what else to say.

And then someone new stands in front of me. His eyes are dark, his hair is dark, his body is lean. He’s wearing a black suit just like all of them, but he’s wearing a silver ring, and it gleams in the sunlight, and something something something ripples through me, but I don’t know what it is.

“I’m so sorry,” he tells me, and he’s got a British accent.

I feel the strangest feeling in the pit of my stomach as he shakes my hand, as he touches me and there’s electricity, but I brush it away because I don’t know him and he doesn’t matter. Only Finn matters. And mourning my poor mother.

The stranger passes through the line and I turn to the next visitor, and the next and the next and the next.

The day is exhausting.

The day is never-ending.

I lean my head on the family car window as we drive home from the cemetery. We’re surrounded by all things green and alive, by pine trees and bracken and lush forest greenery. The vibrant green stretches across the vast lawns, through the flowered gardens, and lasts right up until you get to the cliffs, where it finally and abruptly turns reddish and clay.

I guess that’s pretty good symbolism, actually. Green means alive and red means dangerous. Red is jagged cliffs, warning lights, splattered blood. But green… green is trees and apples and clover.

“How do you say green in Latin?” I ask Finn absently.

“Viridem,” he answers.

And then something else occurs to me, something out of the blue.

“What does Quid Pro Quo mean?”

Finn stares at me. “It means
something for something.
Why?”

“No reason,” I answer, but my heart is pound, pound, pounding. Over and over. Because something for something. Did I give something to get something?

ThumpThump,ThumpThump.

I trudge up to my room and drop into bed without even showering.

I feel a thousand pounds of guilt on my chest because I only have one thought, one thought that makes my chest tighten and constrict and pound.

I love my mom,

I love my mom

I love my mom.

But thank God it wasn’t Finn.

Quid pro quo.