Verum (5 page)

I
’m so lonely
.

I know I’m here to mend, to fix what’s broken, to remember what I forgot.

But being alone is lonely.

I write my dad another letter, and give it to Sabine.

I’m fine
, I assured him in print. I lied but maybe he won’t know that.

If Whitley holds any answers, I certainly haven’t found them yet.

Picking up my medallion, I find myself whispering.

“St. Michael, protect me. Protect me from what I don’t know. Guide me to what I need to find.”

I drop the necklace back into my shirt, and the metal is cold on my skin. The coolness reminds me of Finn, of how he isn’t alive, and I’m devastated all over again.

Every time I remember, it rips the band-aid off.

Being without him is excruciating, and it hits me at the strangest times.

There are hours until dinner, so I creep through the halls, intent on distracting myself, on discovering something.
Anything.

I find an old nursery, with two bassinets and a creepy rocking horse. Its wooden eye watches me lifelessly as I idly stare around the room.

The walls are pale yellow and old, the floor is gleaming hardwood, the ceilings are high. There are chandeliers even in here, in a place where children were supposed to flourish.

But the toys are scarce and the formality is abundant.

The silence is unnerving.

A nursery without babies is haunting.

“This was your mother’s nursery,” Sabine says from behind me. “And your uncle’s.”

“Were they close in age?” I ask because I know nothing of my own family.

She nods. “But they weren’t close. Dickie was troubled and your mother was not. Are you homesick, child?”

Of course I am.

And of course I’m not.

Home was frightening.

But I still miss it.

The nanny smiles, her teeth dark.

“Come with me, then,” she urges, and I do.

We climb into an old pick-up truck and we drive for what seems like hours.

But eventually, eventually, we pull to a stop and we’re by the coast, and the sun sparkles on the water.

I peer into it, and I’m unprepared for the relief that flushes through me at the sight of the sand and the water.

“It looks a bit like the pictures your mother sent me,” Sabine says quietly. “From your home in America. These are the Seven Sisters Cliffs, and I thought you might like it here.” She hands me a basket, containing a blanket, my book, and some water.

“I have shopping to do at a few local farms. I’ll be back here in a couple of hours to retrieve you.”

I nod, touched by her thoughtfulness, and guilty that I hadn’t expected it from her. Her truck leaves me alone, and I’m so small next to the ocean.

I walk up and down the beach, my feet sinking in the damp sand.

The foam slides back and forth and I skirt it, heading away from it to the jagged white edges of the cliffs.

I’m at home here in this rugged place.

I’m at home on the edge, where any minute I can fall.

I climb and climb, and when I’m on top, I stare down at the world.

I’m big and it’s small, and the ocean is my buffer.

I spread my blanket, and open my book, and I lose myself in it.

I lose myself in a world that isn’t mine and for a while, that’s for the best.

I suck in my breath at the end, when Jane finally saves Mr. Rochester.

She saves him from loneliness and despair.

Is that what Dare needs saving from?

I drop the book in the basket and lift my face to the sun.

It bakes me, warms me, soothes me.

It’s when my eyes are closed that I see them.

The visions.

The memories.

Finn shouts.

Glass breaks.

Tires skid.

The water pounds the shore.

Metal bends and shrieks.

“Are you ok?” Dare asks, and his voice is afraid.

He wasn’t supposed to be there.

I can’t get away from that fact.

But I can’t, for the life of me, figure it out.

I can’t come to the truth.

A wall stands in my mind, blocking me,

Protecting me.

But I can’t be protected forever.

I have to tell you something.

It’s new.

A new memory.

From before the accident.

I startle, and focus.

Calla, I have to tell you something. You won’t understand. Please just listen before you decide I’m a monster.

My breath… it won’t come, and I try and try to inhale, and I try and try to remember more.

But that’s all.

Dare’s face is gone.

He’s afraid he’s a monster, and maybe he is.

I don’t know.

But being here, in the wind and the air, perhaps even at Whitley, is freeing me to remember. Everyone was right, the answers are here.

I feel it.

I just don’t like it.

The water crashes below me and it’s like a lullaby or a song, until it turns into sort of a snarl…then my name.

Calla.

It’s a whisper carried on the wind.

I open my eyes, and someone is staring at me.

The boy in the hood.

He’s on the edge of the water, his feet buried in the foam, and I can’t see his eyes.

I hesitate, then lift my hand.

He’s in my mind.

But why?

Is he a memory?

He cocks his head and I’m not afraid, and then he walks away into the sunlight.

“
C
alla
!”

It’s Dare shouting, and when I look, he’s standing below on the beach.

His pants are rolled up and there is sun in his hair.

I smile before I can stop myself,

Because even though I shouldn’t,

I want him.

I want him now.

I want him always.

He climbs to me and sits on the blanket and when he stares at me¸ his gaze is black.

“Sabine sent me,” he explains. “She’s going to be late and didn’t want you here alone.”

I nod, and I’m so thankful he’s here, because I’m tired of being alone.

My mind is a deep ocean and I’m drowning.

“You were afraid I’d think you’re a monster,” I tell him softly, and I watch his face carefully. His mouth tightens, but that’s his only reaction.

“Yes. Do you remember why?”

I sift a handful of sand through my fingers, watching each tiny piece.

“No. Not yet.”

He sighs and it’s loud up here, on the top of this cliff by the sea.

“Where should I look for the answers?” I ask him, and I hear the desperation in my voice because I’m tired of the unrest.

I’m tired of the secrets.

I’m tired of nothing being clear.

He blinks.

“You should look at Whitley,” he finally says. “But you’ve got to be careful. You won’t like what you find.’

I nod because I know I won’t.

Because it might make me think Dare’s a monster.

He holds my hand as we walk to his car, and I let him.

Because I need his light to live,

Because a monster lives in us all.

That’s what I tell Finn later when I’m alone in my room.

My brother stares at me with imaginary pale blue eyes.

“Maybe,’ he muses. “But that doesn’t take away the fact that Dare was on our mountain that night, Calla.”

“The night you died,” I nod. He looks away and I know he doesn’t like being dead.

“
Was
he there?” Finn asks, and I can tell from his tone, that he knows. “Or are you confused?”

I sigh, long and loud, because I’m so tired of being the only one hidden from the truth.

“Just tell me,” I demand.

“I can’t.” His answer is simple.

“But you want to.”

“Yes.”

He gets up and paces the room, a slender lion in a cage. “Think, Calla. You know this one.”

I do.

I do know it.

It’s on the tip of my mind, dying to find its way in.

I close my eyes.

I spoke to Dare that night. I can hear his words.

Anxious, afraid.

Concentrating, I see the cliffs, the funeral home, the moon.

I see my brother,

And he’s alive,

Then he’s not.

My mother,

My father,

The flashing lights.

The beach.

And then…

There’s something.

A flicker.

I crane my neck, trying to see more.

A flash of dark hair,

And a name.

I open my eyes.

“Who’s Olivia?” I ask limply.

Finn smiles.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

I
f I stay inside too long
, the walls start closing in on me.

I hate the silence, I hate the height of the ceilings, I hate that I’m alone.

I hate that I long to call Dare, to tell him to find me in this Godforsaken place, to take me away…because to be honest, I don’t really have anywhere to go.

I can’t go home.

I can’t face it without Finn.

But God knows I can’t stay in this house.

The breeze is slightly chilly as I make my way deep into the grounds. I’ve come to believe that it never truly warms up here. The rain makes the lawns lush, though. Green and full and colorful. As Finn would’ve said in his endless quest to learn Latin… it’s viridem. And green means life.

The cobbled path turns to pebbles as I get further away from the house, and after a minute, I come to a literal fork in the road. The path splits into two. One leads towards a wooded area, and the other leads to a beautiful stone building on the edge of the horizon, shrouded in mist and weeping trees.

It’s small and mysterious, beautiful and ancient. And of course I have to get a closer look. Without a second thought, I head down that path.

The closer I get, the more my curiosity grows.

I can smell the moss as I approach, that musty, dank smell that comes with a closed room or a wet space. And with that dark scent comes a very oppressive feeling. I feel it weighing on my shoulders as I open the heavy door, as I stare at the word SAVAGE inscribed in the wood, as I take my first tentative step into a room that hasn’t seen human life in what looks like years.

But it
has
seen death.

I’m standing in a mausoleum.

Growing up in a funeral home, I’m well versed in death. I know what it looks like, what it smells like, even what it tastes like in the air.

I’m surrounded by it here.

The floor is stone, but since it is deprived of light, soft green moss grows in places, and is soft under my feet. The walls are thick blocks of stone, and have various alcoves, filled with the remains of Savage family members. They go back for generations, and it makes me wonder how long the Savages have lived at Whitley.

Nearest me, are Richard Savage I, my grandfather, and Richard Savage II, my uncle. And next to him is Olivia.

Olivia.

The name from my memory.

Dare’s mother.

I run my fingers along her name, tracing the letters cut in the stone, absorbing the coolness, the hardness.

What do I know about her?

Why is she significant in my memory?

Did Dare have her eyes, or her hair? Was she the only spot of brightness in his world? Does he miss her more than life itself?

I don’t know.

All I know is her name was in my head yesterday…before I found this place.

It’s my first hard clue.

Trailing my fingers along the wall, I circle the room, eyeing my ancestors, marveling at the silence here.

It’s so loud that my ears ring with it.

The open door creates a sliver of light on the dark floor, and it’s while I’m focusing on the brightness that I first hear the whisper.

Calla.

I whip my head around, only to find nothing behind me.

Chills run down my spine, and goose-bumps form on my arms as I eye the empty room. The only people here are dead.

But… the whisper was crystal clear in the silence.

I’m hearing voices.

That fact terrifies me, but not as much as the familiarity in that whisper.

It can’t be my brother.

It can’t. He’s dead and I know it. I might’ve imagined him the other night, but even I know he wasn’t real.

“Hello?” I call out, desperate for someone to be here, for someone real to have spoken. But no one answers.

Of course not.

I’m alone.

I lay my hand on the wall and try to draw in a deep breath. I can’t be crazy. It’s one of my worst fears, second only to losing my brother.

A movement catches my eye and I focus on it.

Carnation petals and stargazers, white and red, blow across the floor. Funeral flowers.

Startled, I turn toward them, bending to touch them. I run one between my fingers, its texture velvety smooth. It hadn’t been here a moment ago. None of them had, but yet here they are, strewn across the floor.

They lead to a crypt in the wall.

Adair Phillip DuBray.

My heart pounds and pounds as I race to the plaque, as I trace the fresh letters with my fingertips.

This hadn’t been here either.

What the hell?

I gulp, drawing in air, observing the fresh flowers in the vase beside his name.

There is no moss here, because this had been freshly carved, recently opened, and very recently sealed. But there’s no way Dare can be here, because I just saw him last night. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine.

As my hands palm his name, as I reassure myself, pictures fill my head, images and smells.

The sea, a cliff, a car.

Blood, shrieking metal, the water.

Dare.

He’s bloody,

He’s bloody,

He’s bloody.

Everything is on fire,

The flames lick at the stone walls,

Trying to find any possible way out.

The smoke chokes me and I cough,

gasping for air.

I blink and everything is gone.

My hands are on a blank wall, and Dare’s name is gone.

The flowers are gone.

I’m alone.

The floor is bare.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I’m crazy.

It’s the only explanation.

I scramble for the door and burst out into the sunlight, away from the mausoleum, away from the death. I fly toward the house, tripping on the stones.

“Calla?”

My name is called and I’m afraid to look, afraid no one will be there, afraid that I’m still imagining things. Is this what Finn felt like every day? Am I starting down that slippery path? It’s a rabbit hole and I’m the rabbit and I’m crazy.

But it’s Dare, standing tall and strong on the path, and I fly into his arms, without worrying about pushing him away.

His arms close around me and he smells so good, so familiar, and I close my eyes.

“You’re fine,” I tell him, I tell myself. “You’re ok.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says in confusion, his hands stroking my back, holding me close. “Did you think something happened?”

I see his name, carved in the mausoleum stone, and I shudder, pushing the vision away, far out of my mind.

“No. I…no.”

He holds me for several minutes more, then looks down at me, tucking an errant strand of my hair behind my ear.

“Are you ok? You’ve been gone for hours.”

Hours? How can that be? The sky swirls, and I steady myself against his chest.

I hear his heart and it’s beating fast, because he’s afraid.

He’s afraid for me because he recognizes the signs, he’s seen them before.

“It’s ok, Cal,” he murmurs, but I can hear the concern in his voice. “It’s ok.”

But I can tell from his voice that it’s not.

Craziness is genetic.

I’m the rabbit.

And I’m crazy.

Dare’s arm is around my shoulders as we walk back to the house, and I can feel him glance at me from time to time.

“Stop,” I tell him finally as we walk through the gardens. “I’m fine.”

“Ok,” he agrees. “Of course you are.”

But he knows better, and he knows that I’m not.

Sabine is kneeling by the library doors, digging through the rich English soil, and she looks at us over her shoulder. When she sees my face, her eyes narrow and she climbs to her feet.

“Are you all right, Miss Price?” she asks in her gravelly voice. I want to lie, I want to tell her that I’m fine, but I know she can tell the difference. In fact, as she stares at me with those dark eyes, I feel like she can see into my soul.

I don’t bother to lie.

I just shake my head.

She nods.

“Come with me.”

She leads us both to the back of the house, to her room. It’s small and dark, draped in colorful fabrics, in mystic symbols and pieces of gaudy jewelry, shrouded in mirrors and dream-catchers and stars.

I’m stunned and I pause, gazing at all of the pageantry.

She glimpses my expression and shrugs. “I’m Rom,” she says, by way of explanation. At my blank expression, she sighs. “Romani. Gypsy. I’m not ashamed of it.”

She holds her head up high, her chin out, and I can see that she’s far from ashamed. She’s proud.

“You shouldn’t be,” I assure her weakly. “It’s your heritage. It’s fascinating.”

She’s satisfied by that, by the idea that I’m not looking down at her for who she is.

Her dark eyes tell a story, and to me, they tell me that she knows more than I do. That she might even know more about
me
than I do.

It’s crazy, I know.

But apparently, I’m crazy now.

Sabine guides me to a velvet chair and pushes me gently into it. She glances at Dare.

“Leave us,” she tells him softly. “I’ve got her now. She’ll be fine.”

He’s hesitant and he looks at me, and I nod.

I’ll be fine.

I think.

He slips away.

Sabine rustles about and as she does, I look around. On the table next to me, tarot cards are splayed out, formed in an odd formation, as though I’d interrupted a fortune telling.

I gulp because something hangs in the air here.

Something mystical.

After a minute, Sabine shoves a cup into my hands.

“Drink. It’s lemon balm and chamomile. It’ll settle your stomach and calm you down.”

I don’t bother to ask how she knew I was upset. It must’ve been written all over my face.

I sip at the brew and after a second, she glances at me.

“Better?”

I nod. “Thank you.”

She smiles and her teeth are scary. I look away, and she roots through a cabinet. She extracts her prize and hands me a box.

“Take this at night. It’ll help you sleep.” I glance at her questioningly, and she adds, “Dare told me.”

I take the box, which is unmarked, and she nods. “Your mama used to have trouble sleeping. And she had bouts of nerves, too.”

Sabine has no way of knowing that my ‘bout of nerves’ included hallucinations and hearing voices, so I just smile and thank her.

I glance at her table again. “Are you a fortune-teller, Sabine?” It feels odd to say those words in a serious manner, but the old woman doesn’t miss a beat.

“I read the cards,” she nods. “Someday, I’ll read yours.”

I don’t know if I want to know what they’ll say.

“Have you read Dare’s?” I ask impulsively, and I don’t know why. Sabine glances at me, her black eyes knowing.

“That boy doesn’t need his fortune told. He writes his own.”

I have no idea what that means, but I nod like I do.

“You’ll be ok now,” she tells me, her expression wise and I find myself believing her. She’s got a calming nature, something that settles the air around her. I hadn’t noticed that before.

“My mother never mentioned you,” I murmur as I get to my feet. “I find that odd, since she must’ve loved you.”

Sabine looks away. “Your mother doesn’t have happy memories from here,” she says quietly. “But I know her heart.”

“Ok,” I say uncertainly, as I hover over the threshold. Sabine lays her hand on my shoulder.

“If you need me again, you know where to find me.”

I nod, and then I walk away. I feel Sabine staring at me as I do, but I resist the urge to turn around.

Instead, I focus on how much better Sabine made me feel, how much calmer.

Maybe the tea had valium in it.

As I walk into my room, I’ve decided that I must’ve imagined the whole thing. I haven’t been sleeping well. My mind was playing tricks on me, as minds are prone to do when they’re sleep deprived.

Obviously.

That’s the explanation.

I raise my hand to tuck my hair behind my ear, and that’s when I freeze.

My fingers smell like carnations and stargazers.