He grins, his familiar, ornery grin and I love it. Because it always seems like he’s daring me when he smiles.
Daring me to…what?
He leans over.
“I’m going to the garden tonight after dark. Wanna come?”
I hesitate.
It’s dark out there. And the moors. And at night, they growl.
Dare notices my hesitation.
“Are you scared?” he whispers mockingly.
No, of course not. I shake my head. Accusing someone of being scared is the worst insult possible, I think.
He smiles again.
“Then sneak out and meet me at midnight. You know Finn will be surrounding himself with his Latin books. I know you won’t want to join that.”
No, of course I don’t. Latin annoys me, but Finn has developed a fascination for it, and spends every free second studying it.
“You know you want to,” Dare adds.
“Fine,” I agree, trying to sound grudging, but chills run up and down my arms in anticipation, because what does he want to do out there in the dark?
He’s so… rebellious. It’s hard to say.
True to my word, I sneak out of my bedroom and slip out of the house at midnight. I run as fast as I can down the paths because I swear there’s something chasing me.
Something dark,
Something scary.
But when I glance over my shoulder,
There’s never anything there.
I burst through the garden gates, and Dare is already here.
He smiles, and his teeth are pearls in the night.
“Hey,” he greets me casually, like it’s not midnight and we’re not breaking rules.
“You’re not supposed to leave the house,” I remind him.
He shrugs. Because he’s Dare and he’s a rule-breaker. “So?”
It’s a challenge and I don’t address it. Mainly because I don’t have a good answer.
I don’t know why he’s not supposed to leave the house. It’s never made any sense to me. It’s not fair. But then again, Uncle Richard has never been fair to Dare.
“You and I are alike, Calla,” Dare tells me, and the night is quiet and his voice is soft. “I’m in prison here, and you’re in prison in your mind.”
“No, I’m not,” I protest stoutly. “I’m medicated. I’m fine.”
Dare shakes his head and looks away. “But you know what it feels like.”
I do. I have to admit that I do.
“No one knows what it’s like to be me,” I whisper. “Not even Finn. It’s lonely.”
“I know what it’s like,” Dare finally answers. “You’ll never have to explain it to me. You’re not alone.”
While we sit and examine the stars, our shoulders bump into each other and absorb each other’s warmth, and I think that might actually be true.
Dare and I are the same. When I’m with him, I’m not alone.
“Why are you a prisoner?” I ask after a few minutes, broaching a forbidden topic, hesitant and afraid that he’ll snap at me. But he doesn’t.
His shoulders slump and he closes his eyes and he lifts his face to the moon.
“It’s not anything you should worry about,” he says with tired words. “They don’t want you to know.”
“But why?”
“Because.”
“Because isn’t an answer.”
“It is right now,” Dare tells me. “Someday, you’ll probably know. But for now? All that matters is this. We’re breathing, and there are stars, and we had chocolate cake for dinner.”
He’s right. It was a good dinner.
And it’s a good night.
I’m alone with Dare in the garden.
We’re breaking rules,
And that feels good.
Water creeps up around me, over me, drowning me. I twist and turn, fighting to break the liquid bonds encircling my hands and feet. I can’t move, I can’t breathe, and there are black eyes staring at me from the surface.
I see them, peer into them, fear them, as they blur then disappear.
Down,
Down,
Down I go.
Away from him.
My savior.
My anti-Christ.
“It’s your fault,” I whisper, and the words are swallowed by the water, stuck in my throat. Am I talking to him or to me? It doesn’t matter. My lungs fill and fill and fill, and there isn’t any air. There is only a void where my heart should be.
“This isn’t real, Calla.” I hear Finn’s voice, but I know he’s not here. No one is, I’m submerged and the water is murky and dark. My fingers clutch at something, at nothing, at everything.
Focus.
I narrow my eyes and I breathe, a deep breath like they taught me. I fill my body with air like I’m filling a chalice, starting at my belly, then my diaphragm, then my throat, then my mouth. I exhale slowly, like I’m blowing through a straw, I push it at out, expelling it until there’s nothing left, just me and my withered empty lungs.
I do it again.
And again.
And when I’m done, I can see again. I’m in the hospital, and I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m Calla Price, and Finn is gone, Dare is gone and I’m alone.
I close my eyes because this is not a reality I want.
The darkness behind my eyelids flickers and wavers and moves, and I know that I’m not in a hospital at all. I’m in a box, a casket. I’m alone and there is a satin sheet pulled up to my waist and there are calla lilies in my hands. White ones. They smell like they’re wilted because they are. Dying flowers smell the sweetest.
I release them and push my lifeless hands against the pleated silk lid, pushing with all of my strength. It doesn’t budge. I hit it, over and over and over, but to no avail. I’m locked in. I’m stuck, I’m stuck, I’m stuck.
I’m buried alive, I’m alone, I’m cold, I’m dead.
Images flash around me, in front of my eyes, in my eyes, behind my eyes.
Tires squealing in the rain, screaming, metal.
Water.
Drowning.
Me.
Finn.
Dare.
Everyone.
Are we all dead?
My eyes startle open and I am in the hospital.
The walls are white, my hands are warm, I’m alone,
And I must be
Crazy
Crazy
Crazy.
Chapter Seven
Dare stares at me from across the library and I have to physically stop my feet from twitching.
His mouth turns up. He’s thirteen and I’m ten and he thinks he’s so much bigger.
“Calla, are you paying attention?”
My mother draws my attention away from Dare, and I try to focus on her words. What had she been saying? She sighs because she knows I have no clue. What she doesn’t know is that even now I feel Dare’s stare on me, it’s on my skin, it’s warming me, it’s warning me, it’s…
“Calla, you have to listen to Sabine more. She’s here for your benefit. She knows what is best for you. She’s been telling me that you hide your pills, that you don’t want to take them.”
I gag from the mere memory of how my pills get stuck in my throat, their waxy coating sticking on my tongue.
“They taste awful,” I say defensively.
My mother looks sympathetic, but she is still firm.
“Calla, do you know that if you’d been born even a hundred years ago, you’d be the village lunatic? You’d run raving your madness down the streets and no one would be able to help you. But since we have the benefits of modern medicine now, you’re going to be able to live a completely normal life. Don’t piss that away, my darling.”
Her voice is kind, which softens the sharpness of her words, words in which I can hear the striking influence of my grandmother Eleanor. Mom bends to hug my shoulders, and I inhale Chanel and cashmere. I want to cling to her, to linger in her thin arms, but I know that’s impossible. She’s got a lot to do. She always does when we’re at Whitley.
She pulls away and pushes her shoulders back, looking at my brother.
“Finn, I want you to come to town with me today. Father Thomas wants to speak with you about being an altar boy.”