No
God
No.
It feels as right as anything.
His hands splay against my back and he whispers. “Don’t ever say that you want to die, Calla. It’s not your fate to sacrifice yourself. It’s not.”
“How do you know what fate has planned?” I ask him, and I pull away so that I can see into his face and he is so serious so serious so serious.
“Because I just do.”
“That isn’t an answer,” I tell him.
“But it is,” he says, and then his hands fall away and he walks into the house.
I’m alone, and the answers chirp from the trees, across the moors and I have to get them. I have to get the answers, because my sanity is slip slip slipping and if I don’t figure it out soon, I’ll be lost.
I know that.
I know that.
So I find my brother, and I insist that we seek out the truth. Finn loves me so he comes and he’s doubtful, but he’s here.
I stand at the mouth of the woods, and the trees bend and hiss and sway, and words form on my lips.
“One for one for one.”
“What does that mean?” Finn asks me, because he’s standing at my elbow.
He won’t leave me, not now that he thinks I’m as crazy as he is.
“We have to keep each other sane,” that’s what he said yesterday after I told him what happened in the mausoleum and in Sabine’s room.
I look at him now.
“I don’t know what it means,” I tell him honestly. “I just hear it in my head, over and over.”
Finn looks at me, and he’s scared and his pale hand grasps mine.
“That’s bad, Cal,” he tells me, and he doesn’t have to say the words because I already know. Of course I know.
I step into the mossy forest, and I’m surrounded by the cool ferns and shadows, and I don’t know why, but I know I’m supposed to be here.
“Don’t,” Finn urges me to come back, and he won’t follow. “I don’t like the way it feels in there.”
“I don’t either,” I tell him, but I keep going, one foot after the other, because I’m being pulled by an invisible tether or a cord.
Finn stays and his face is worried, but he’s unable to follow, and I don’t judge him for that. The feeling in the woods is oppressive, and dark, and terrifying.
There’s something here.
Something here for me.
Ahead of me, a shadow moves, it lurches, it glides.
I follow it, unable to remain still. It flits in and out of trees, and so do I.
And then finally, finally,
It’s gone, and I’m alone.
I feel the stillness, and I taste it with my tongue, and I’m alone.
I stare about, I whirl in a circle, and there are charred wooden pieces arranged in a circle, a bonfire.
I see something amid the ashes, something brown, something tattered, something old.
I bend and touch it, and it burns my finger.
The embers are still hot.
I rock back on my heels and prod at it with a stick until it falls away, out of the embers and to safety.
It’s a book and it falls open and the first page stares up at me, with my brother’s scrawling handwriting.
The Journal of Finn Price.
My eyebrows crimp and knit, and I take a breath, because why was Finn out here?
I wait while the breeze cools the pages, and even though they are charred, there are still some left that I can read.
NOCTE LIBER SUM NOCTE LIBER SUM
BY NIGHT I AM FREE.
ALEA IACTA EST. THE DIE HAS BEEN CAST.
The die has been cast.
The die has been cast.
Serva me, servabo te.
Save me, and I’ll save you.
Save me.
Save me.
Save me.
My breath comes in pants and I can’t I can’t I can’t.
Because Sabine said these words to me, these same exact words, in different times and places.
She said the same things to my brother?
What do they mean?
The pages are fragile and the edges come off in my fingers, black and charred, but I can still make out more of the words.
I’M DROWNING. DROWNING, DROWNING.
IMMERSUM, IMMERSUM, IMMERSUM.
CALLA WILL SAVE ME OR I WILL DIE I WILL DIE I WILL DIE.
SERVA ME, SERVABO TE.
SAVE ME AND I’LL SAVE YOU.
SAVE ME.
SAVE ME,
SAVE ME, CALLA.
AND I’LL SAVE YOU.
There are stick figures and symbols, and some of the faces are scratched out, and I don’t remember his journal being so morbid or nonsensical when I found it so long ago. If it had been, I would’ve taken it straight to our parents because this, this, this is crazy.
I stare at a picture, and it’s of two boys and a girl. One of the boys is scratched completely out, but I can still see his eyes and his eyes are black and I know the boy is Dare. Finn scratched out Dare.
ONE FOR ONE FOR ONE.
THE DIE HAS BEEN CAST, IT’S BEEN CAST.
ONE FOR ONE FOR ONE,
AND IT WON’T BE ME.
IT WON’T BE CALLA.
ONE
FOR
ONE
FOR
ONE.
I’m frozen as an ominous feeling builds in my belly, spreading to my chest where it threatens to stop my heart. Dark fingers seem to grab my shoulders and shake hard, harder, harder until my teeth chatter.
DEATH IS THE BEGINNING.
The beginning.
The beginning.
I need to start.
I drop the journal and take off running, back through the trees. The branches whip at my face and I slip around in the dew, but it doesn’t matter.
I know why Finn wouldn’t come with me.
He knew I’d find his journal, and he knew I’d stop him from whatever stupid thing he’s going to try and do. I can tell from his writing… he believes what Sabine told me. A sacrifice must be made, and he’s not going to let it be me.
DEATH IS THE BEGINNING. I NEED TO START.
A sacrifice.
A sacrifice.
The sacrifice is me.
We pay for the sins of our fathers.
I am the sin.
I am the sacrifice.
The words race through my head, over and over, as I burst from the trees, and I see him. I see Finn, and he’s running with the hooded boy, with Death.
I chase after them into Whitley, as I bound up the stairs, as I race to Finn’s room. It’s empty…except for Pollux and Castor. Finn had closed them up in the room, and there’s only one reason. So that they couldn’t follow him.
“Go,” I tell them firmly. “Go find Finn.”
They run from my room, their great bodies so loud as they thump down the halls. I follow as fast as I can, and I slam into Dare as he rounds a corner.
“What the devil…?” he asks, and he’s confused and I shove past him.
“My brother is in trouble,” I yell over my shoulder. He doesn’t ask questions, but I hear him behind me, I hear him running, I hear his breath. But I can’t pay attention to that. All I can do is follow the dogs. I chase them from the house, I chase them through the gardens, and I watch the tips of their black tails disappear through the gates of Whitley.