Lux (3 page)

W
hitley Estate

Sussex, England

T
he flight is
God-awful long.

We get to ride in First-Class, but I had to leave my dad and my room, and even though the flight attendants come to check on us frequently, and bring me apple juice and cookies and a blanket¸ it’s not worth it. I know it’s not worth it.

My legs cramp and I rub at them, glancing sideways at Finn.

“I don’t want to go to England,” I tell him. He shushes me with a finger to his lips, staring at our mom across the aisle. She sleeps heavily, thanks to a sleeping pill. I roll my eyes.

“She hasn’t moved in three hours.”

“So what? She could still hear you.”

“She doesn’t have bionic ears,” I argue. But then I drop it, because what difference does it make?

“I just don’t want to go,” I continue, a little bit quieter. “Dad didn’t want us to leave¸ I could tell. I don’t see why we have to.”

Finn glances over his shoulder at mom, then peers at me. “I heard them talking last night. Mom said that we have to go, so that her family can help you.”

I yank my head back, startled. “Help me with what?”

My brother’s blue eyes are guarded. “I don’t know. Do you?”

I shake my head adamantly. “No. I have no idea. I don’t need help.”

I don’t say anything else for the rest of the flight, and finally, finally, we arrive in London. My mother awakes easily, freshened from her nap. I’m exhausted, and it’s on weary legs that I trudge through the busy airport.

A driver in a dark suit and cap is waiting for us and he leads us to a long sleek limousine.

“My name is Jones,” he tells me seriously, and he has a giant nose. “I’ll be helping with you while you are here at Whitley.”

Helping with me?

Finn and I exchange looks as we pile into the fancy car.

My mother doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, she seems nostalgic as she chats while we drive through town and into the countryside. She points out the window.

“See over there? I learned to swim in that pond.”

I follow her finger and find a dismal little body of water, murky and black. Nothing like the Pacific Ocean, the water that I learned to swim in. I feel sorry for her for that, but she doesn’t seem sad.

Now that we’re here, her accent is sharpened, cutting the air like a scalpel, like the British person she is. She says
bean
instead of
been
, and pronounces
schedule
like
shhedule
. Why haven’t I ever noticed it before?

Finn reaches over and grabs my hand, squeezing it. “I think we’re almost there,” he says quietly, and I follow his gaze.

Towers erupt through the trees on the horizon, spires of stone, and a cobbled roof. I’m mesmerized as we pull through gates, gliding along a stone driveway and pulling to a stop in front of a giant house. A mansion, actually.

“Kids, this is Whitley,” my mother says, already opening her door, her foot on the stones. I stare around her at the house that looms over her shoulder.

It’s imposing and grand, ominous and beautiful, dark and bright.

All at once.

It’s many things, but mostly, it’s intimidating.

As is the tiny woman waiting to embrace my mother.

She stands in the front doorway, like a little bird. She’s got dark skin and a bright scarf wrapped around her hair, and dark eyes that gleam, eyes that seem to see right through me. I shiver from her gaze, and she smiles crookedly, like she knows. Like she knows all about me, like she knows everything about everything.

She’s introduced as Sabine, although my mother calls her Sabby. Like mom knows her oh-so-well, even though I’ve never heard her name before today. All of this makes no sense at all, and I wonder if Finn is as confused and overwhelmed as I am.

He doesn’t seem to be as he shakes Sabine’s hand. He smiles seriously at her, saying politely, “It’s nice to meet you.”

It’s my turn next and Sabine stares through me, like she’s reading my thoughts, her dark eyes drilling into mine.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I murmur obligatorily, like I’ve been taught.

Her mouth turns up at the corners, her wrinkled hand curled like a claw around my own. Her skin is cold, like ice, and I shiver again. She smiles in response and something puts me on edge, the hair standing up at my neck, and every vertebra in my spine straightens.

“The die has been cast, I see,” she says quietly, almost to herself, and I’m the only one who can hear.

“What?” I ask in confusion, because her words make no sense. But she shakes her scarf-clad head.

“Don’t trouble yourself, child,” she tells me firmly. “It should be of no worry to you right now.”

But it is, because her words stay with me.

She leads us to our bedrooms and on the way, she turns to me.

“You will listen to me while you are here,” she tells me, and her voice is matter-of-fact, as though I’d never dream of arguing. I open my mouth, but her steely gaze closes it for me. “I will provide you with medicines and methods to control your…illness. I have your best interest at heart, always. And the best interest of this family. You will trust me.”

It’s a directive, not a question. She pauses at Finn’s door and allows him to enter, before we continue on to mine.

Outside of the large wooden door, she turns to me. “If you need anything, let me know.”

She leaves me alone and the room is cavernous.

“The die has been cast,” I repeat to myself as I stare at my suitcase. It’s waiting for me to unpack it, but my bedroom is too large to feel comfortable, and all I want to do is go home, away from this strange place with their strange words and ways.

“What did you say?” Finn asks from the doorway. He’s staring at me, waiting for my answer as he comes in and looks around my room.

“I like mine better,” he continues, without waiting for an answer.

I haven’t seen his yet, so I can’t argue, although I’m just happy that he didn’t ask me again what I’d said. The words don’t make any sense, and I don’t need for him to tell me that.

The die has been cast.

What does that mean?

Finn bounces across the room and tumbles into the blue velvet chair by the window. He squeaks the springs in the cushion, and stares out the giant windows.

“This place is huge,” he says, as if that isn’t obvious. “And Sabine told me that we get to have a dog.”

This perks my ears up. Because we can’t have a dog back home. Dad is allergic.

“A dog?”

Finn nods, the happy bearer of good news.

This place is looking up.

A little.

My brother helps me unpack and put away my clothes, and I stare at the giant bed. “I’m going to be afraid to sleep here,” I muse.

Finn shakes his head. “I’ll come sleep with you. Then we won’t be alone.”

I’m never alone. That’s the best thing about having a twin. I smile, and we find our way to the dining room together, because when we’re together we’re never alone, and because we aren’t supposed to be late for dinner.

It is here, seated around the biggest table that I’ve ever seen, that we meet our grandmother.

Eleanor Savage is seated at the head of the table, her hair pulled back severely from her face. She’s wearing pearls and a dress, and she doesn’t seem happy, even though she says she’s pleased to finally meet us. She emphasizes the
finally
, and glances at my mother as she says it.

My mother gulps but doesn’t reply. This interests me. My mother is scared of my grandmother. But then again, as I look at the severe old woman, I’m guessing that everyone is scared of my grandmother.

Eleanor looks at me.

“We’ve always kept a pair of Newfoundlands here on the Whitley estate. We’ve recently had our old dogs put down. You and your brother will choose a new pair. The neighbor’s bitch whelped.”

I have no idea what
whelped
means, and I thought
bitch
was a bad word. But I nod because she wants me to, because she acts like she’s bestowing an honor. She doesn’t say
Welcome to Whitley, I’m your grandmother and I love you
. Instead she allows us to pick out the new estate dogs.

I don’t say anything because I do want a dog, and I’m afraid if I ask questions she’ll change her mind.

Instead, I focus on my dinner, which is an odd thing called Steak and Kidney pie. I shove the internal organs around on my plate, but my mom catches my eye and raises a stern eyebrow. I reluctantly put a bite in my mouth. It tastes meaty, but the texture is rubbery and turns my stomach. I swallow it without chewing.

“Where is our cousin?” Finn asks abruptly, and I realize that I had forgotten about him, the boy we met last year. The boy with the dark eyes, so dark they’re almost black.

Dare.

My grandmother looks down her nose at us.

“Adair is eating in his father’s wing, although you should know that children aren’t allowed to ask questions here at Whitley.”

I gulp because this stern atmosphere is scary, and because Whitley must be enormous. It’s so big that we all have separate wings and rooms and suites. It’s like an island floating in the middle of England.

I am on edge because I can see that my grandmother doesn’t like Dare. It’s in her voice, dripping with resentment and distaste. I briefly wonder why, but then put it out of my mind as I make my way back to my giant bedroom. It’s not my business. He’s a step-cousin who I don’t even know. Like my father would say,
it’s not my circus, not my monkeys.

In the morning, Sabine wakes me from my sleep with a gentle rap on the door.

“Come with me, child,” she says, her voice like a gnarled piece of driftwood. “We’ve got to go get the pups.”

Excitement leaps in my chest and I charge from the bed, pulling on clothes as I go.
A dog.
Dogs don’t judge you, they love you no matter what, and they never act like you’re crazy. I can hardly wait to get one of my own.

Finn and I chatter as we ride with Sabine in an old truck, down the road to a neighbor’s. A herd of fat fluffy black puppies surround us when we get out, and it isn’t long before I pick one with big sad eyes, and Finn picks one with a wriggly body and wagging tail.

“They look small now,” Sabine warns us. “But they’ll be bigger than you someday. They’ll have to be carefully trained to be obedient.”

“What should we name them?” Finn wonders aloud as he holds his squirming puppy on the way back to Whitley.

Sabine glances at us. “Their names will be Castor and Pollux. It is fitting.”

I find it interesting that she has already named them, but it doesn’t really matter. Because I have a soft puppy sleeping on my lap and that’s really all I ever wanted. I just didn’t realize that until now.

It isn’t until we’re back at Whitley and in the kitchen feeding our new pets when I think of our cousin.

“Shouldn’t Dare have gotten a puppy, too?” I ask, pausing with my hand on Castor’s head. Sabine shakes her head and looks away.

“No.”

Her answer is so immediate and firm that it puzzles me.

“But why?”

“Because, my child, he doesn’t matter. Now remember what your grandmother said. Children don’t ask questions here.”

It’s the first time that I truly see Dare’s place in this home, and he plays the role of insignificance. I don’t like it. Dare should have the same position as I have. He’s Eleanor’s grandchild, just like me. So why do they treat him like he’s different, like he’s disposable?

It leaves me with a sense of dread and a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Try as I might, that feeling won’t go away.

Finn and I sleep with Castor and Pollux snuggled at our feet, and still, I somehow feel alone for the first time in my life because I’m in a place where a living breathing person has no importance whatsoever.

If it’s Dare today, it might be me tomorrow.

Disposable.

W
hitley Estate

Sussex, England

I
dream
that I can’t breathe, that something something something is strangling me. I struggle and struggle to take a breath, to move, and I simply can’t. I startle awake to find Castor lying across me, with every ounce of his two-hundred pounds crushing me.

“Ugh, Castor, move,” I mumble because his dog breath is rancid and his slobber is dripping down my neck. He pants harder, and doesn’t budge.

I manage to roll out from under him and I fight hard to remember the little ball of fur that he used to be only one year ago.

“You’re enormous,” I tell him lovingly, patting his giant head. We’d only arrived yesterday and Castor and Pollux seemed to remember us, as though we’d never left. “I didn’t even know a dog could get so big.”

He seems as big as a small horse and his paws are bigger than my hands. I know that for a fact. I compared. He’s as heavy as Finn and I put together, maybe more, and I love him. I love him as much as last year, as much as I ever did. Maybe even more. He’s so big that I know he’d never let anything happen to me. Not ever. For some reason, that feels important.

“Let’s go get some breakfast, boy.” Castor pants at my heels as we wind our way through the halls, and his nails click on the stone. He sounds like a moose walking behind me. Nothing about him is subtle.

I pause at Finn’s bedroom and peer in, and I smile when I see Finn and Pollux sprawled together in the sheets. Pollux is every bit as large as Castor, and he makes the giant bed seem small. He perks his ears when he sees me, but doesn’t move.

“Shh, boy,” I tell him. He closes his eyes as though he understands that I want my brother to sleep. We’re jetlagged and down seems like up right now.

When I get to the kitchens, there is no one there. It’s unusual, but it’s far earlier than everyone else gets up on a normal day. Stupid jetlag. I grab a roll from the cabinet, pour some food for Castor, and eat my breakfast.

When I’m finished, I’m still alone in the kitchen.

So Castor and I head outside, stepping along the foggy paths as we explore.

I immediately wish I’d worn a sweater. It’s chilly outside with the morning breeze and the sun only just now coming up. Goosebumps form everywhere on my body and scrape together on my legs as I walk, like prickly miniscule anthills.

The horizon is laced with purples and pinks and reds as the sun begins to tip over the edge. It seems abnormally huge, but it is because Whitley’s grounds are so large, so vast. I’m marveling in the beauty of it when I hear a noise.

A rock tumbling along the path, maybe. A skidding sound, something that interrupts the stillness of morning.

I pause, but Castor bounds ahead without me, his giant body barreling down the path toward the stables, intent on finding the source of the noise.

“Castor!” I call, but he doesn’t listen, and doesn’t even look back.

“Castor!” A male voice barks through the stillness, and Castor skids to a stop at Dare’s feet. “Sit!”

Castor sits obediently and immediately, poised in front of Dare.

I stare at him in awe.

“How did you do that?”

Dare looks up at me and I decide that he must be…. eleven? His hair is a bit shaggy, almost touching his shoulders even. But his eyes… his eyes haven’t changed.

Dark

Dark

Dark as night.

“You have to be firm,” he tells me, his voice clipped and British. “You have to be the boss. They’ve been trained this year, but they’re still puppies. You have to control him.”

I’m hesitant, because Castor is twice, maybe three times my size. Why would he listen to me?

“Call him,” Dare tells me. “Do it firmly. Say,
Castor come
.”

I do it, trying to mimic the sternness of Dare’s voice.”

Castor looks at me without moving, and Dare snickers.

“You’ve got to call him with authority, little mouse.”

My head snaps up. “Don’t call me that. I’m not a mouse.”

He laughs. “Then don’t act like one. Call him with purpose.”

My lip curls and I snap, “Castor, come.”

Castor gets to his feet and comes straight to me. He stands in front of me, waiting for my command. “Sit.”

He sits.

Like magic.

Dare smiles, and his teeth are very white. “See? He’s been trained. And I’m sure he remembers you. They were both trained with your scents.”

“Our scents?”

Dare nods. “Yeah, yours and your brother’s. Sabine kept a few of your shirts to use for them. It worked, didn’t it? He knew you?”

I nod and I can’t argue. He did know me. But it feels weird to know that my scent was being used without my knowledge this year, even though that’s dumb. My scent doesn’t belong to me. Not really. I put it out into the world, and once it’s released, it never comes back.

Dare walks to me, a little bit skinny, a little bit gawky, but he seems so sophisticated to me, so worldly. He’s three years older after all. The eleven-year olds at school won’t even look twice at me. Well, unless it’s to call me Funeral Home Girl. I cringe at the memory and Dare looks at me curiously.

“What?”

I swallow because I’ll never tell him of that particular shame. “Nothing. What are you doing out so early?”

He’s the one who seems to cringe now, but then he hides it. “It’s the only time I can come,” he shrugs, without explaining. “Don’t tell Sabine, ok?”

That seems like a dumb thing to ask because we aren’t doing anything wrong, but I agree. “Ok. What are you doing out here?”

Dare shrugs. “Nothing. Just walking around.”

He’s smart because he has a jacket on.

“Can I come with you? I don’t know my way.”

Dare hesitates, but finally nods. “Fine. But you have to be quiet. We don’t want to wake anyone up.”

“This place is so huge,” I answer. “No one will hear us out here.”

“There are eyes everywhere,” he tells me. “Don’t doubt it.”

“Ok,” I answer, because he wants me to agree. But I think he’s being paranoid.

We walk along the path toward the grounds, far away from the house, and Castor stays a few feet in front of us. Every once in a while, he lifts his giant nose to the breeze, checking checking checking for something.

“What’s he watching for?” I ask Dare curiously.

“Anything,” Dare guesses. “Everything. Who knows? Newfoundlands are known for their hero instincts. He’d probably die to protect you.”

“And you?” I ask quietly. Dare glances at me.

“Probably. But he’s not mine. He’s yours.”

I’m dying to ask why Dare couldn’t have a dog, because he so obviously loves Castor. But I don’t. Because I have a strange sense that it would offend him, that it would hurt his feelings, and I don’t want to do that. I have a strange fascination with this boy and his dark eyes.

Dare pauses on the path, and he seems to be trying to catch his breath. I suddenly notice that he’s pale, paler than the last time I’d seen him. I touch his elbow.

“Are you ok?” I ask quickly, and he yanks away in annoyance.

“Of course,” he snaps. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Because you can’t breathe.

I don’t say that though because obviously he doesn’t want me to notice. So I wait quietly with him, patiently. Finally, after minutes and minutes, he continues on his way, although his steps are slower this time. Castor slows too, determined to stay near us.

A boy in my class at school has something called asthma. He has to carry an inhaler, and oftentimes during recess, he has to stop playing so that he can breathe. I decide that Dare must have that too, although it’s stupid to me that he wants to hide it. Having asthma is nothing to be embarrassed about.

Dare points to a stone building in the distance.

“There’s the mausoleum. Every Savage has been buried there. You will be too.”

How depressing.

“And will you be?”

The question comes out before I can stop it.

Dare laughs, but there is no humor in it. “Doubtful, and I don’t want to be. My father was French, and I’ll be buried in France. They can’t keep me here.”

There is as much distaste in his voice now as there is in Eleanor’s when she speaks of him.
Bad blood
, my father would say. But why?

“You don’t like it here?” I ask, hopeful that he’ll tell me something, anything, to help everything make sense.

Dare is silent though, his dark eyes trained on the horizon.

“Please tell me,” I add. “I don’t like it here, either.”

“Why don’t you?” Dare glances at me and he seems almost interested.

“Because I miss my dad. I miss my room. I live in a funeral home. Do you remember that?”

Dare nods.

“I don’t like that part because the kids at school tease me, but I miss home. I miss the ocean. Whitley is too big. It’s scary here because it’s dark and everyone is quiet. It feels like everyone hides things from each other, but I don’t know what.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Dare mutters and I look at him sharply. He looks away.

“Tell me about living in a funeral home,” he says, redirecting my attention.

I smile because he doesn’t sound mean or judgy. He just sounds interested.

“It’s ok. It smells like flowers all of the time. The smell gets into my hair and my clothes.”

“Do dead people look like they’re sleeping?”

I snort. “No. They look dead.”

Dare nods. “I figured.”

We’re quiet now, and we walk, and Castor pants. The tiny pebbles tumble under my shoes and I once again wish I were home, on the cliffs of Oregon. But then again, Dare isn’t there, and he interests me.

The wind blows my hair and I raise my hand to shove it behind my ear, and as I do, something moves in the corner of my eye.

I turn, and what I see is the stuff of nightmares.

I see Castor and Pollux, broken and bloody, dragging themselves along the path, their legs broken, blood pouring from their eyes and their noses. Blood trails behind them, it fills the pads of their paws and leaves crimson prints on the ground. There is so much blood that I can smell it, I can taste it.

I scream and try to run to them, but my feet won’t move. They feel like they’ve been glued to the ground and I’m frozen frozen frozen. My heart pounds and pounds, the blood racing through my veins and I can’t move I can’t move I can’t move.

“Castor,” I whimper.

Castor tries to pick his head up, he tries to come to me because he’s obedient, he’s been trained, but his bones his bones his bones are splintered. He can’t walk and he falls to the ground with a loud boom, so loud and hard that it shakes the ground under my feet.

I scream

And scream,

My hands over my mouth.

Dare turns to me calmly, his eyes like lifeless pools, and it’s him, but it’s not him.

“You did this,” he says, his voice dead like a corpse. I try to breathe but I can’t

I can’t

I can’t.

I squeeze my eyes closed and fall to my heels, rocking on the path.

“Calla! Calla! Open your eyes! Shh! Everything is fine, it’s fine. What’s wrong?”

A voice is desperate and anxious and I focus on it, trying to come back to my body, trying to hear it.

“Calla!”

I focus on those two syllables, on the voice.

It’s Dare’s and it’s full of life this time, not like before.

I open my eyes and his face is in mine, his dark eyes panicked.

“What’s wrong?” he asks me, his hands closed around my arms. “Are you ok?”

I think he’d been shaking me, trying to get me to focus. But I don’t know.

I shake my head. “What happened to the dogs? Oh my God. What happened?”

Dare cocks his head, quizzical. “What do you mean?”

From behind him, Castor whimpers and I startle, sitting up so I can see.

Castor is sitting a few feet away, staring at me with canine concern, whimpering because I’ve unnerved him, wagging his tail hopefully. His bones are fine. There is no blood.

He’s fine

He’s fine

He’s fine.

I suck in a breath. It wasn’t real. Was it real?

“I thought… Castor was…” my voice trails off, because this is exactly what happened when I thought my brother had died. It wasn’t real.

It clearly wasn’t real.

“I need Finn,” I say finally.

Because Finn will help me understand. Finn is the only one who can know.

“Are you crazy?” Dare asks me as he helps me to my feet. “My step-father said you were.”

“No!” I snap. But I’m not sure. I probably am. “That’s a mean thing to say.”

“My step-father is mean,” Dare answers without apology.

From behind him, my mother rushes down the path, in a robe and her hair standing on end.

“What’s wrong, what’s happened?” she asks as she reaches me, pulling me into her arms. “I heard you scream.”

Finn is behind her, and Sabine. They are all watching me, because they know what I won’t admit.

I’m crazy.

“Nothing,” I tell them all. “I thought I saw something and I didn’t.” Clearly I didn’t. Pollux is with Finn and he’s fine.

Sabine looks at Dare. “You know you aren’t supposed to be out here,” she tells him. “You know there will be consequences.” He nods seriously and Sabine looks at me.

“You shouldn’t be out here, either,” she announces. “You shouldn’t invite trouble, little one.” She’s stern and I feel like I’m in trouble and I don’t know why. If anyone should be mad at me, it’s my mother. But mom doesn’t say a word, she just holds me in her arms.

“It’s my fault,” Dare interjects quickly before I can respond to Sabine. “She heard me and followed. It’s my fault.”

“It’s no one’s fault…” I start to say, but Sabine is already nodding.

“Don’t misguide her, boy,” she says. “Richard will hear about this, if he hasn’t already.”

Dare’s face pales and he’s silent, but it didn’t stop him from trying to save me from trouble. He stood up for me. I grab his hand, but he pulls it away without looking at me.

“Let’s go inside,” Finn tells me, guiding my elbow with his hand. My mother rustles us to the house and back to our rooms, and I don’t see Dare for the rest of the day.