“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, and I don’t want him to go, but he has to. Because he’s part of this, I can feel it, and I can’t trust him. My heart says so.
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. She adds, “By night you are free, child.”
I don’t know what that means, but I take the box, which is unmarked, and she nods.
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. “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. “Sabine, why did my mother leave here? Why does my father have the same name as Dare’s?”
Sabine is so knowing as she sinks back into her chair.
“Your father as you know him isn’t your father,” she says simply, and I gasp, my hands shaking as they grip the chair.
“What do you mean?”
“Phillip has raised you as his own. But you are the child of Richard Savage.”
My breath
My breath
My breath.
“My uncle?”
I can’t
I can’t
I can’t.
Sabine nods, and she’s unhesitant, as though this is just another face of life, as though it weren’t unnatural.
“Yes. It was necessary. Your mother did as she was told.”
“Necessary for what?”
I’m still appalled, and sickened, and Sabine hands me a basin and I vomit into it.
“Your mother and uncle came together, and you were conceived,” Sabine tells me. “Your mother fled to France with her lover, and she conceived again. She gave birth to twins… you and Finn. But you don’t share the same father.”
“Phillip,” I utter. “Phillip is Finn’s father? And Phillip is Dare’s father?”
Sabine nods, pleased that I have grasped it. “Yes. They are half-brothers.”
“And Finn, my twin, is only my half-brother?”
She nods again. “It happens very rarely in life, child. But you are rare.”
I’m afraid to ask, but I do it anyway.
“Why?”
Sabine pours more tea and hands it to me, and I can’t help but drink it because it calms me it calms me it calms me, and I’m on the verge of hysteria.
“Because you are a descendent of Judas, and of Abel. Your blood is as powerful and old as is possible. Your brother is a descendent of both Cain and Abel. If he is sacrificed, the cycle will finally be broken.”
“What cycle?” I ask and my lips are numb they’re numb.
“Cain killed his brother,” she answers. “Abel made a sacrifice to God, and Cain was jealous so he killed him. God is owed another sacrifice from this family, a true sacrifice, one born of grief and torment, to pay for the sins of your fathers.”
“I don’t understand,” I whisper. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t,” she nods. “Dare understands, though, because Dare is of Salome. Salome harnessed the curse of Judas into a ring. The ring you gave back to Dare. You are all cursed, and only you can stop it by making the right choice, by not betraying what is right. The Rom believe curses are real, Calla. And surely by now, so do you.”
“I…”
My lips can’t move.
“It’s one for one for one, Calla,” Sabine adds. “That’s the way it’s always been. Make the right choice, and this will all end.”
Maybe her tea has valium in it, because I find myself agreeing. I find myself deciding that she is right.
But as I walk into my room, I decide I must’ve imagined the whole thing. Salome? Cain and Abel? Judas? Ancient biblical curses and Dare’s grave?
These things are impossible. Rom beliefs aren’t real.
I’m confused, like normal. I haven’t been sleeping well.
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, the flowers that were on Dare’s grave.
It was real.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“We’re related,” I tell Dare, and my voice is urgent and my hand is on his chest. “We can’t…we can’t…we can’t be together.”
Dare’s face is pained and he knew.
“You knew,” I whisper, and the pain in my heart pangs loud loud louder, and he looks at me, and his gaze is so sorrowful and real.
“Things change,” he tells me, and I snort with disgust because we were together and it was incest and I still love him more than anything but Finn. I still love him I still love him I still love him.
“God, I want to die,” I groan, and I push him away and he shakes me hard hard harder.
“Don’t you ever say that again,” he snaps. “Don’t you ever. We’ve been through worse and we will weather this storm, Calla. We’re not truly related. It’s just complicated.”
I look at him and my eyes feel like they will explode with pain and with sadness.
“I don’t want to live if I can’t be with you,” and my words are painfully raw with honesty. “I truly don’t.”
“It won’t be this way,” Dare insists, and he is hiding something from me.
Something
Something
Something.
“What is it?” I ask, and I’m hopeful for just a moment.
“I want to tell you everything, but it’s something you have to figure out for yourself,” he tells me. “You have to see it, or you won’t believe it. It’s complex, it’s complicated, it’s real.”
His fingers lace with mine and the touch doesn’t feel wrong, it feels right.
He pulls me to him, and he kisses me, and his lips are warm and his breath is hot and his body is hard against mine.
“This isn’t wrong,” he tells me, and his lips move against my cheek. “Does it feel wrong to you, Calla-Lily?”