I giggle at the look on Finn’s face because we hate mass.
Absolutely without any kind of equivocation.
Hate.
It’s so gloom-filled and harsh, so repetitive and boring.
I know Finn wants to be an altar boy about as much as I want to take my meds every day, but he obediently disappears with my mother and Dare and I are left alone. He looks away from me almost pointedly, and I feel cold because of it.
“What do you want to do today?” I ask him, shivering, my fingers tracing out the design of the elaborate oriental rug beneath me.
Dare looks away. “Nothing.”
He’s stretched out in a window seat, his head resting against the glass. He stares aimlessly at the grounds he’s been forbidden from.
I refuse to take no for an answer, because I’m bored, because I know he’s bored, and because if we don’t get out of this stuffy house, I might die.
“Wanna go out to the garden?” I ask hopefully. “Sabine put new koi in one of the ponds. We can go feed them.”
“You know I’m not supposed to,” Dare tells me roughly, without even looking in my direction.
“Since when do you care about that?” I ask him in confusion, and I see that his hands are curled into fists at his sides. What in the world? We’d only arrived here two weeks ago for the summer, but Dare has been acting like a completely different person than he was last summer, more subdued, quieter. I don’t like it.
“I care about it today,” he snaps, and I’m hurt by his tone. He’s so abrupt, so…mean.
“What’s wrong with you?” I whisper, almost afraid to know because he seems like he’s angry with me, like he doesn’t like me anymore.
His fist seems to shake as it rests against his leg, his face pale as he so adamantly avoids looking at me.
Finally, he sighs and turns his face, his dark eyes meeting my own.
“Look, Calla,” he says tiredly. “You’re just a kid, so you don’t get it. I’m not the same as you. If I mess up, I pay for it. It’s not worth it to do what I want anymore. It’s easier to just do what they say. It doesn’t matter anyway. None of it will matter.”
The complete look of resignation on Dare’s face startles me, because that’s never been him. He’s always been rebellious his whole life. He’s always given me hope, he’s always made me believe that my opinion matters, that my dreams matter, that anything is possible.
But now?
He looks so sad and alone and hopeless.
“Don’t say that,” I tell him. “Of course it matters. You can do what you want to do. You don’t have to listen to them.”
“Don’t I?” His question is soft. “Did anyone ask me to be an altar boy like Finn? No. Because I don’t matter, because my last name is DuBray and not Savage. I only matter that I have a purpose, and that purpose isn’t going to be good for me. I’m a lost cause, Calla, and they know it.”
He’s right about that.
I’ve heard them whispering. Just last night, I heard Grandmother Eleanor and my mother whispering in the shadows.
Should we bring in another tutor?
I don’t see the point.
It’s all for nothing. Richard is right.
I’d wanted to spring out of bed and confront them, because they weren’t being fair.
Yes, Dare bucks the rules. But why shouldn’t he? Richard is horrible to him for no reason. His rules are too strict, too impossible, and any other kid Dare’s age would rebel. It doesn’t make him a lost cause.
It’s too unfair for words.
And now Dare’s new despondent attitude?
It’s too much.
“Get up,” I announce, walking toward him and grabbing his hand. I yank him until he has to get up, and then I pull him toward the door.
“Let’s ride into town.”
That’s against all the rules and we both know it. If we got caught, we’d be in serious trouble, both of us. Dare’s not supposed to leave the house, but I’m not supposed to leave the grounds. It’s forbidden.
Dare starts to shake his head automatically, but I hold up my hand.
“Are you scared of them?”
He pauses and I’m delighted to see an old familiar gleam in his eyes.
There it is.
The Dare Me stare.
My heart flutters because the real Dare is back, even if only for a minute. He’s not afraid of anything. He can’t be.
“Okay,” he agrees. “Scooters though, not bicycles. I don’t want you to wear yourself out.”
It’s annoying because everyone is always saying things like that…. like I’m an invalid instead of crazy. But when Dare says it, I don’t argue.
“Fine,” is all I say.
We sneak out the back doors and down to the garages, where we grab the motorized scooters.
As we ride into town with the wind in our faces, I turn to Dare.
“Why don’t you talk like the rest of them? Only every once in a while do you say things in the English way. It’s weird.”
Dare stares at me drolly. “My father was French. I refuse to speak like Richard.”
“But you’re English now,” I point out. “And sometimes, you do sound like it.”
“That’s the meanest thing you’ve said to me all day.”
I haven’t said much to him today yet, but I don’t point that out. Instead, I pay attention to the road so that I don’t hit a pot-hole and bend a wheel like last time. We have to be like Ninjas, in and out of the village without our family knowing.
Or there will be hell to pay, especially for Dare.
“Why is my uncle Richard so mean to you?” I ask him as we stow our scooters on the village sidewalk. He shrugs.
“Lots of reasons, I guess,” he answers, pointing at the ice cream parlor. “Want some?”
Always. He knows that.
He buys me a dish of chocolate and he gets vanilla, and we sit in the shadows of the alleyway, nursing our ice cream. I watch mine begin to melt, as condensation forms on the cup in my hand.
“Your uncle doesn’t like me because I make him think of things he doesn’t want to,” Dare finally says.
“What things?”
Dare shakes his head. “Grown-up things, Calla. Nothing you need to worry about.”
But I do. I worry about it. I can’t stop worrying about it, about him. I’m so tired of things being kept from me, tired of being treated like a little girl.
“Who screams at night?” I ask tentatively, and Dare turns his head and I know that he knows. But he shakes his head.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s ok,” I whisper, because I know he’s lying. “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
For a second, for one second, I think he’s going to. He looks at me like he’s speculating, like he’s pondering and I think he’s going to confide in me, but then…he doesn’t. He just takes a bite of ice cream and moves further away from me, edging down the pavement.
“There’s nothing to tell,” he says blankly, and I know the matter is closed. He doesn’t trust me. Not yet.
“Fine.”
I eat my ice cream until it’s gone and when it is, I turn to him.
“I don’t want to go back,” I say.
“We have to,” he replies, taking my cup and throwing them both in the trash.
“Because we’re both prisoners?” I ask, remembering his words from long ago.
He stares at me for a long time, his dark eyes hardening, hiding his pain.
“Yes.”
“You could leave, you know,” I suggest hesitantly. “You could run away. If you hate it so much here, I mean.”
Dare stares into the distance, his eyes so very dark. “And where would I go? There’s nowhere I could go that the Savages wouldn’t find me.”
He’s so bleak as he climbs to his feet and reaches down to help me up. Our ride back to Whitley is silent.
When we roll back through the gates, Richard is waiting.
His car is parked halfway down the driveway, and he’s leaning against it, waiting for us like a tall, coiled snake….a snake poised to strike. My heart pounds and leaps into my throat and I’m frozen.
“Go to the house, Calla,” my uncle tells me, his eyes hard and focused on Dare, and they contain a strange gleam, something that turns my stomach to ice.