Lux (21 page)

“You’re dying,” Dare whispers into my neck. “If you don’t wake up, you’ll be lost.”

The water slides down my cheek into my neck and a hand holds mine and blackness is here and I slip into oblivion.

Oblivion is real.

That much I know.

It’s warm and comforting like a blanket.

It hugs me, and I’m gone.

And all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

T
he world slows to a stop
.

It’s dark.

There is no ocean.

There are no waves.

There is no sun or rain or moon.

I stay this way for so long, suspended, alone, unafraid.

And then,

A breath.

From my lips.

Suddenly, without warning.

I gasp, and there is only my breathing, and beeps, and fingers wrapped around my hand, and I’m in a bed. I’m not in the ocean or on the cliffs.

“Come back to me, Calla,” Dare whispers, and angst laces his words, and his words impale my heart. “Please God, come back to me. Time is running out. Don’t do this, please, God, don’t do this. They’re going to take you off the machine, and if you don’t breathe on your own, you’ll die. Please God. Please.”

He begs someone, whether it is God or me, I don’t know.

“We’ve already lost everything else,” he whispers. “Please, God. Come back to me. Come home to me. Come home.”

I try to open my eyes, but it’s too hard.

My eyelids are heavy.

The darkness is black.

Dare keeps talking, his words slow and soothing and I might float away on them. It would be so easy.

Death waits for me,

Only it’s not death.

It’s Olivia Savage.

I can see her face now, and she waits in the light behind Dare’s shoulder.

She nods.

It’s time.

But it can’t be. Because Dare is here, and still holding my hand. He talks to me, he tells me everything that’s happened, and when he gets tired of talking, he hums.

The same wordless, tuneless song I’ve been hearing all along.

Death moves closer, one step nearer.

I try to cry out, but nothing comes.

I try again to open my eyes, but I can’t. And I can’t move my fingers.

It’s all too much.

Too much.

I think about getting frantic,

And I almost do.

But to keep calm,

I replay the facts in my head.

My name is Calla Price.

I’m eighteen years old, and I’m half of a whole.

My other half, my twin brother, my Finn, is crazy.

Finn is dead.

My mother is dead.

Dare’s mother is dead.

I’ve spent every summer at Whitley my entire life.

I’ve loved Dare since I was small.

I’ve been floating in a sea of insanity, and I can’t wake up.

I can’t wake up.

Dare is my lifeline.

He’s still here.

I focus every ounce of strength I have, trying to force my hand into gripping his, the hands that I love so much, the hand that has held mine for so long.

But I’m helpless.

I’m weak.

Olivia, takes another step, but I can’t scream.

It’s when she touches Dare that I bolster my strength.

She puts his hand on Dare’s shoulder,

And I can’t take that.

Don’t touch Dare
, I want to scream.
You died, but you’re not taking
him
! He’s innocentHe’sInnocentHe’sInnocent!

But her fingers drum on Dare’s skin,

And everything in me boils,

And screams.

And somehow,

Some way,

I harness my energy,

And my finger twitches.

Dare’s humming stops.

“Calla?” he asks quickly, hope so potent in his voice. “Wake up. If you don’t wake up, you’ll die.”

I move my finger again, and it’s all the strength I have left.

I can’t move again, but I think it was enough.

Dare’s gone,

Gone from my side,

Yelling for someone,

For anyone.

Other voices fill my room,

Circling my bed,

And Dare’s voice is drowned.

He’s gone,

but others have replaced him.

I’m poked,

I’m prodded,

My lids are lifted and lights are shined into my eyes.

“It’s a miracle,” someone announces. “It took. She’s not rejecting it anymore.”

I can’t stay awake.

My strength is gone.

I fall asleep wishing Dare would come back.

I don’t know how long I sleep.

I only know that I dream,

And now, when I dream,

They’re lucid.

I’m no longer insane.

I don’t know why.

Olivia sits in front of me, her smile gentle and soft.

“My boy wasn’t meant for you, but you took him anyway. I thought you’d be each other’s downfall, but maybe you saved each other.”

I swallow hard because I did take him.

“You have to know that’s the way of things,” I offer. “Boys can’t stay with their mothers forever. It wasn’t my fault you died.”

“I killed myself,” she says simply. “I’m a child of Salome, and I thought my blood was bad. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t take any more pain. I made sure you were all three safe, then I just let go. I drifted away and the darkness came, and it was soft and warm. And I let go.”

I understand pain.

I nod.

“If you’re choosing to be dead, then can my brother live?”

Hope surges through me, but the look on Olivia’s face shuts it down. And my chest hurts and hurts and hurts as she shakes her head.

“He chose,” she answers, and her words her words her words. “He chose to die to keep you safe.”

And I think about the blackness and how I stopped breathing, and how I suddenly was alive. Finn did that.

Save me, and I’ll save you.

A lump a lump a lump forms in my throat and I can’t swallow it.

“I can’t live without my Finn,” I say limply. But Olivia is firm.

“You have to. He’s gone, but you’re not. He chose you, Calla. He chose to protect you.” In my head, I remember him handing me his medallion and I cry because she’s right. Finn chose for me to live.

Olivia gets up and her form is so slight, so small. She’s dark like Dare and her eyes gleam like the night.

Black, black eyes that examine my soul.

She cocks her head, in the same way that Dare does.

“History can’t keep repeating itself. Mr. Savage killed himself to protect his children. He chose himself rather than them because sons shouldn’t have to pay for the sins of their fathers. But his son Richard was evil and it should’ve been him. Laura sacrificed Finn because that’s the way it had to be. Let it be now, Calla. It is as it should be. You’re descended from Judas, and it’s in your blood, but don’t betray this.”

“Wait,” I suck in my breath. “What about Dare?”

He was by my bed,

He’s been here the whole time,

humming to me.

“Is Dare safe?” I ask her breathlessly.

“A sacrifice has been made,” she answers. “It’s been accepted. Don’t change it.”

Her voice is small because the sacrifice was Finn.

“Our story is so sad,” I tell her, because it is. The saddest thing I’ve ever heard, because it makes everything seem hopeless, as though our own actions don’t matter, because we pay for the sins of those who came before us. Olivia shakes her head knowingly.

“It’s not. The saddest thing is if everything was in vain and if history keeps repeating. Don’t let that be, girl. Save my son. Save yourself. Don’t sink into the oblivion. You’ve got to open your eyes. Open your eyes.

Open your eyes.

Open your eyes.”

I startle awake, the insistence of her voice shocking me into lucidity.

My eyes open.

The light is so bright it’s blinding.

The humming stops.

T
he room swirls
white and medicinal, filled with beeps and blank walls and cold skin. Goosebumps chase each other in confusion up my arm, and I gulp hard.

I’m in a hospital.

I’m cold.

I’m afraid.

But.

Dare is.

Dare is.

Those are the words in my head, and the words sound like Finn’s voice. And at first I think it’s an interruption in the sentence, but then I realize. It’s not
Dare is…
it’s a statement.
Dare is.

Dare exists.

Dare is alive.

I exhale, and I think about where I am.

I wiggle my fingers and they’re heavy, and there’s pain, and I can breathe.

Slowly

Slowly

Slowly,

I open my eyes.

I’m alone, and even though the echo of Finn’s whispers linger here, I know that he’s not.

My body feels heavy and I can’t lift my arms, and a nurse comes in and when she sees my eyes open, she’s startled, then she rushes to my side.

“Ms. Price! You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

I don’t know. My thoughts are murky and my chest hurts so much. I try to lift a hand to rub at it, at my chest, but I can’t. There are too many tubes, too many wires.

“Don’t,” the nurse tells me as she watches my attempt. “You’ve been through a lot. You’ve got to rest to recover.”

“Where is Dare?” I ask and my voice is hoarse and my throat is sore, like I haven’t spoken in a hundred years.

“He’s in another room,” she tells me. “He’s fine. He’s going to make it.”

Joy leaps at me, lapping at my face, and then I picture my brother and everything falls around me.

“Finn?” I ask, and even I can hear the fear in my voice.

“I think it’s best if the doctor explains everything that happened,” she tells me. “I’ll be right back with her.”

I close my eyes because I’m exhausted and afraid, and it isn’t long before the doctor comes and when she speaks with her raspy voice, I know immediately who it is and I try to leap from the bed.

Sabine stands there, calm as can be in a white lab jacket, and she places a hand on my arm to restrain me.

“Ms. Price,” she says, her dark eyes staring into mine. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal. I’m Dr. Andros.”

“I know who you are,” I hiss at her and she stays calm, because she knows who she is, too.

“You were in a car accident. Mr. DuBray drove off the road. You suffered extreme trauma to your chest and your heart. Your brother suffered massive injuries that unfortunately, he wasn’t able to recover from. He remained alive on life support until a transplant could be made. Your brother’s heart saved your life.”

My hand fingers my chest and there is a fresh scar from my collarbone to my belly, swollen and warm.

“My brother is dead.”

My words are deflated.

Sabine nods.

“I have his heart.”

“You do.”

Save me, and I’ll save you.

I’m supposed to save you, Calla.

The words chant in my head and the voice is Finn’s and the world tips and swirls.

I saved him so long ago, and now he saved me.

And now he’s gone forever.

My loss is profound and unexplainable and the void is enormous. A chasm that I don’t think I’ll ever come back from.

The heart that beats in my chest is not mine. It’s my brother’s. My dear, sweet, perfect brother. My Finn.

Good night, sweet Finn.

“I need to see Dare,” I tell Sabine, because she and I both know who she is, who she really is.

She shakes her head and she’s firm, and her eyes are vicious because her daughter is gone and never coming back, and Dare and I are both here instead.

Somethingsomethingsomething is off though, something is off and I look out the window and there is a peaceful pond, and benches, and someone is feeding the ducks. Someone who is wearing a hospital bracelet, just like mine.

“Where are we?” I ask Sabine and she smiles and it’s grotesque.

“Oakdale Sanitorium,” she grins.

No. A mental hospital?

That can’t be.

“But it is,” Sabine answers, and I don’t know if she read my thoughts or if I said them aloud.

“You’re disturbed, poor girl,” she says. “And so is Adair. Growing up the way you did, it’s no wonder. Your mother was with her own brother, Dare’s step-father molested him and abused him… obviously you’re both from bad blood.”

“We’re not crazy,” I shout, but I’m not sure and I struggle and she smiles. There’s a sharp pain in my arm and she leaves and everything goes beyond black to oblivion and I’m in a sleep so so deep that I can’t dream.

Days pass and finally, finally, Dare comes to see me, when he’s strong enough.

He’s paler, but he’s the same. His dark dark eyes penetrate me and he grasps my hand.

“We’re not crazy. We’ve fixed it before, we’ll fix it again,” he tells me. There’s promise in his voice but I’m so tired. “You have Finn’s heart, so he’s not really gone.”

“Is this even real?” I ask him, groggy from the medicine they pump into my veins. “Maybe we’ve been crazy all along.”

Dare smiles and his smile is real and it’s bright and it penetrates my fog.

“You don’t believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Believe in
me
,” he instructs, and I do.

Because Dare is mine and he lives free.

“I want to live free, too,” I tell him.

“And you will,” he promises.

Days pass with nurses coming in and out, to make sure I take my pills, the colorful pills that will keep my body from rejecting Finn’s heart. I’ll have to take them forever and their waxy residue gets stuck on my tongue. But I take them, because I have to keep Finn’s heart alive. It’s the only part of him I have left, and he’s my brother and I love him I love him I love him.

Oakdale and its grounds look so much like Whitley. The halls, the rooms, and one day, one gray day, I find Finn’s journal.

It’s hidden in one of my bags and I know it’s his because it says.

T
he Journal of Finn Price
.

T
he end is the beginning
, one of the pages says. I don’t know about that, but I know the middle was jumbled up and changed and changed and changed.

But it can all be changed back.

I have to believe that.

Destroy the ring
, it says.
You have to you have to you have to.

And I have to believe that I can save my brother in the end, because
serva me, servabo te.
Save me and I’ll save you, Finn.

Destroy the ring.

How does one go about destroying a ring?

Dare and I sneak away into the forest, and burn the journal before anyone can see, before anyone even realizes we’re gone. They can’t see his words, they can’t see our story.

If they do, we’ll never get out of here.

We’ll never be free.

And we have to.

We have to live free.

“I can’t live without Finn,” I tell Dare on the way back in.

He holds my hand and looks at me, and smiles a sad sad smile.

“I know.”

We walk and walk, and Dare turns to me.

“I love you more than life, and I’ve been doing some research. Salome married her brother, and she became a necromancer. She wanted to live forever, but Phillip didn’t. Phillip has been trying for centuries to end the curse, while Salome wants it to continue. They’ve been at odds, and that has been born into twins in your family for generations. That has to be it.”

I’m dubious, but intrigued.

“Are we related?” I ask, and it’s a question I’ve been afraid to ask, afraid to know the answer.

Dare stares at me with his black black eyes. “I don’t know. But you can undo
anything
. Perhaps the answer is not to destroy the ring, but to change things so that it was never created in the first place. If you can do that… you can prevent everything from happening. You won’t have to change it. Surely that will end the cycle.”

“But what if it ends us?” I ask and I’m afraid. “If I prevent events from happening, maybe we’ll never be born.”

Dare shakes his head. “I don’t believe that. I believe in Fate, and we’re fated, Calla. We’re fated. I feel it.”

“But I won’t remember,” I tell him. “When I change things and I wake up, I never remember. What if I forget you?”

“Then I’ll find you, Calla-Lily. I’ll always find you.”

Hope leaps into my heart and his eyes are so sincere, so true.

“Do you promise?” I ask, and he smiles at me, and I’m afraid to hope.

“I do,” Dare says as he puts the ring in his pocket. “We’ll get this sorted.”

“What a British thing to say,” I say.

“That’s the meanest thing you’ve said all day.”

As we laugh, I feel like we’ve been here before, in this time and place and with these same words. But I’m getting used to that feeling. Because by night we are free, and things change, because we change them, and déjà vu is real, and we’re stuck in it.

Because of that, we’ll change things again, because time is fluid and malleable and it never stays the same. We’ll save my brother. I feel it I feel it I feel in my bones, in my hollow reed bones.

“Nocte liber sum,” I whisper to Dare.

He nods. “Keep dreaming, Calla Lily. And one day, we’ll be free.”

I squeeze his hand because I know.

After lights out, after the nurses have made the last rounds and given us all our medicine, I sneak from my room and into Dare’s.

“You can do this,” Dare whispers into my hair. “Think back to the beginning. Imagine it, imagine what happened. Let Salome die without creating the ring, without creating the curse. Let Phillip be her uncle, not her brother. Let them die without re-living over and over. Keep your mother from being with her brother, keep us from being related. You can do it. You can.”

His words empower me, and I believe him. I
can
do it, and I imagine what he says and I snuggle into his chest because his arms are home, and I close my eyes, knowing that I’ll dream.

And when I dream, I change things.

I sleep

And sleep

And sleep.

And when I open my eyes, it’s a beautiful Oregon morning, and my brother wants to go to group therapy.

I stretch and yawn and grouse, but he’s right. We should go. I roll out of my bed, get dressed.

“Drive safe!” my father calls out needlessly when we leave. Because of the way my mom died, among twisted metal and smoking rubber, my father doesn’t even like to
see
us in a car, but he knows it’s a necessity of life.

Even still, he doesn’t want to watch it.

It’s ok. We all have little tricks we play on our minds to make life bearable.

I drop into the passenger seat of our car, the one my brother and I share, and stare at Finn.

“How’d you sleep?”

Because he doesn’t usually.

He’s an insufferable insomniac. His mind is naturally more active at night than the average person’s. He can’t figure out how to shut it down. And when he does sleep, he has vivid nightmares so he gets up and crawls into my bed.

Because I’m the one he comes to when he’s afraid.

It’s a twin thing. Although, the kids that used to tease us for being weird would love to know that little tid-bit, I’m sure.
Calla and Finn sleep in the same bed sometimes, isn’t that sick??
They’d never understand how we draw comfort just from being near each other. Not that it matters what they think, not anymore. We’ll probably never see any of those assholes again.

“I slept like shit. You?”

“Same,” I murmur. Because it’s true. I’m not an insomniac, but I do have nightmares. Vivid ones, of my mother screaming, and broken glass, and of her cellphone in her hand. In every dream, I can hear my own voice, calling out her name, and in every dream, she never answers.

You could say I’m a bit tortured by that.

Finn and I fall into silence, so I press my forehead to the glass and stare out the window as he drives, staring at the scenery that I’ve been surrounded with since I was born.

Despite my internal torment, I have to admit that our mountain is beautiful.

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 absentmindedly.

“Viridem,” he answers. “Why?”

“No reason.” I glance into the side-mirror at the house, which fades into the distance behind us.

Huge and Victorian, it stands proudly on the top of this mountain, perched on the edge of the cliffs with its spires poking through the clouds. It’s beautiful and graceful, at the same time as it is gothic and dark. It’s a funeral home, after all, at the end of a road on a mountain. It’s a horror movie waiting to happen.

Last Funeral Home on the Left
.

Dad will need a miracle to rent the tiny Carriage House out, and I feel a slight pang of guilt. Maybe he really does need the money, and I’ve been pressuring him to give it to Finn or me.

I turn my gaze away from the house, away from my guilt, and out to the ocean. Vast and gray, the water punishes the rocks on the shore, pounding into them over and over. Mist rises from the water, forming fog along the beach. It’s beautiful and eerie, haunting and peaceful.

We arrive at the hospital early, so we decide to get coffee and breakfast in the cafeteria while we wait.

I grab my cup and head to the back, slumping into a booth, while Finn buries his nose in a Latin book.

I close my eyes to rest for a minute longer because the perpetual rain in Astoria makes me sleepy.

The sounds of the hospital fade into a buzzing backdrop, and I ignore the shrill, multi-pitched yells that drift down the hallways. Because honestly, I don’t want to know what they’re screaming about.