“I never know what is real,” I tell him, and then I launch into my life story. I tell him everything, how Finn died but it turns out he didn’t, how my gym teacher died, but didn’t, how I see demons and black-eyed beings, how the moors growl at me, and how I’m always afraid to ask about reality. I tell him all the things that I’ve always been afraid to tell anyone but Finn, and I even tell him about the hooded boy.
“So basically, I’m always scared,” I finish, and Dare actually takes my hand. He reaches over, encloses my fingers within his own, and my heart threatens to pound right out of my chest.
His hand is warm and his eyes are soft.
“Don’t be afraid,” he tells me. “We’ll get this sorted.”
What a British thing to say. I tell him so, and he smiles.
“That’s the meanest thing you’ve said to me all day.”
He looks around me, still smiling, and whistles to the wind, beckoning it. He waits, then whistles again.
“Where are the dogs?” he asks me, confused. “Castor never leaves your side.”
Now I’m the confused one.
“What dogs? Who is Castor?”
He stares at me, his dark head cocked. “You’re not being serious. Right?”
I stare back, every bit as confused as he is.
“I’m being dead serious. What dogs?”
“Castor and Pollux. They’re your dogs. Yours and Finn’s.”
I shake my head. “We don’t have dogs. My dad is allergic.”
“You don’t have them in Oregon,” Dare answers impatiently. “You have them here.”
“You’re on drugs,” I announce. “That’s what this is all about. Or maybe I’m on drugs. One of us is definitely on drugs.”
“We’re not on drugs,” Dare answers. “If you don’t believe me, ask Sabine. She can tell you about the dogs.”
I stare at him doubtfully, but I trot indoors to find Sabine.
“Why isn’t anyone talking about Dare?” I ask her bluntly. She stares at me with her knowing eyes, and she doesn’t flinch.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says throatily.
You do. But I don’t say that.
Instead, I ask her about Castor and Pollux, and she looks at me as though I’ve lost my mind, but at the same time, there is somethingsomethingsomething in her eyes. Something strange, something that gleams as she looks at me, something dark
Dark
Dark.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she answers.
“You don’t know about Castor and Pollux?” I ask to clarify. “We didn’t have dogs?”
She shakes her head and I decline her tea and I feel her gaze upon my skin long after I’ve left the room.
That night, I find a long dark hair in my bed among my sheets.
A dog hair.
It terrifies me as I hold it in my hand, it’s long and thick and coarse, and I run from my room, running for Dare, and I can’t find him anywhere.
I search the house, I search the grounds, I search the stables, I search the garages, and when I’ve finally given up, when I’m finally trudging back up to the house in the dark, there’s a shadow on the path. I catch a glimpse of the boy, and he’s staring at me, and his face is hidden. He points up and I follow his finger, and there’s a room with a light on.
I chase the light, up the stairs, and when I finally see light underneath the door-crack of a lone door, I burst through it and come skidding to a halt.
I’m in an abandoned nursery.
It’s got 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.
There are no children here but something something something pulls me.
The silence roars in my ears and my feet move on their own accord, toward one of the bassinets. It’s still, it’s quiet, it’s eerie, and when I get to the edge, I pull on it with my fingers and it rocks toward me.
A hoodie is lying inside.
It’s a simple jacket, but it’s the one the boy was wearing and it fills me with dread, and I sink sink sink with it to the floor, and the floor seems to swallow me, seems to grab at me with barbed fingers.
“This was your mother’s nursery,” Sabine says from the door. “And Richard’s.”
Two bassinettes, which indicates that they were babies at the same time.
My heart pounds.
“Are they…I didn’t know… are they twins?” My words are limp, and Sabine doesn’t truly answer.
“Twins run in your family, girl.”
She trails her twisted fingers along the walls as she paces paces paces toward me, and with each step, her face seems to get more grotesque under the twisted scarf of her turban.
She drops something into my hand and it’s a locket and it’s inscribed with a calla lily. “Go ahead,” she urges me, and it comes open in my hands.
There are pictures inside.
One of Eleanor, when she was very young, and one of another woman.
They both look young, and dark-haired and dark eyed and
Oh
My
God.
“You,” I breathe. “It’s you. Are you and Eleanor… sisters?”
“Twins run in your family,” she says simply.
She sinks to her heels next to me, and she pulls me to her and hums, rocking rocking rocking me, and I think she’s singing a gypsy song and I’m confounded and stunned and still.
“Did you know that sons must pay for the sins of their fathers?” she asks, and then she hums again, and again and again. “Roma believe that, and it is true. Roma beliefs are different from yours, but we know. We know.”
“What do you know?” I ask her the question as I slightly pull away, trying to look at her face.
“We know what you don’t want to see,” she replies. “We know the things that aren’t explainable, the things that don’t seem possible. We know things happen that are bigger than us, more powerful than us. And sometimes, a sacrifice must be made for that.”
“What do you mean?” I ask and I’m afraid, so so afraid, so afraid that I want to break free and run.
“A sacrifice is something you give,” she looks at me, her dark eyes so cold and flat. “You give it willingly, to save something important.”
“I know what a sacrifice is,” I tell her. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“Everything, my girl. Everything.”
I break free from her grasp and I run, and she doesn’t follow.
Chapter Twelve
I summon all of my courage and I open the doors to Eleanor’s office.
She sits at her desk, sharp and stern in her tightly buttoned sweater and she stares over her reading glasses at me as I approach.
“Grandmother,” I say hesitantly, and she waits like a serpent on a rock.
“Yes?” her eyebrow arches.
“Will you tell me the story of our family?”
She is silent as she puts her book down and stares at me, examining me.
“You’ve been speaking to Sabine?”
I nod. “Is she your sister?”
Eleanor looks out the window and for a moment just a moment, I see the young girl in her face, the one that was in the locket. She looks softer for a second, then she hardens as she looks at me once more.
“Yes.”
“So we’re all related?”
“All?” She raises her eyebrow again.
“Me, Dare, Olivia, Finn….”
There’s something in her eyes something something something, but then it’s gone and she shakes her head and she denies everything.
“You’re still troubled, child. Olivia died when she was young. I don’t know who ‘Dare’ is.”
“He’s her son,” I cry out, and my fingers shake. “I know him. I knew him. I was raised with him.”
“You’re so troubled, girl,” Eleanor says, and her voice is softer now, softer.