Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sabine picks me up from the floor and she leads me to her room, her dark mystic room, where the walls are covered in darkness.
She sits me down and takes my hands and stares into my eyes.
“Finn is alive,” I say slowly, and the words the words the words.
She nods.
“But he was dead.”
She nods again.
“The hooded boy I kept seeing… all my life… it’s been Dare’s brother all along, and his brother is dead.”
Sabine nods.
I’m numb, I’m confused, and I’m so so tired of being this way. I tell her and she looks away, then back into my eyes.
“I’ll get you some tea.”
“I don’t want your tea.”
My voice is rigid and sharp. “I feel like I’m a pawn, and I’m being played.”
“Always trust your instincts, girl,” she tells me throatily.
And
Suddenly
Suddenly,
I feel the danger.
It laps around me, igniting in the air and crackling in my hair and Sabine’s eyes are as cold as death and she’s the danger.
My instincts are on fire, crackling, popping, snapping, and my eyes scan the room, quick, quick, quicker. My gaze comes to rest on something
Something
Something.
A photo, sticking out of a drawer. Just the corner, just the edge, but I’m drawn to it.
It’s important.
I know it.
I lunge to it, I grab it, I pull it out and peer at it.
And it’s Olivia.
And her eyes
Her eyes
Her eyes.
Black as night, black as coal,
Black as Sabine’s.
Black as Dare’s.
Jagged pieces of ice form in my heart and pump through my veins,
Ripping them
Ripping them.
“You,” I breathe. “You’re doing this. Somehow. How are you….”
My voice trails off because the look on Sabine’s face… I’ve seen it before.
“She was yours,” I realize aloud. “Olivia was yours.”
Sabine nods. “She was my daughter. My only child. I trained her, raised her as Roma, taught her the old ways. That girl was everything to me. Everything. And you took her. You and your brother and Adair.”
I don’t know what to say because the realization is overwhelming.
Sabine has been related to Dare all along?
The familiar feeling continues to grow and grow, and spread, and this room.
This room.
It swirls and twirls and it’s familiar. From before, from a time I don’t remember.
“There was fire here,” I say aloud, looking around, trying to retrieve the memories. “In all the corners. And Dare. And your voice.”
We invoke you.
We invoke you.
Restore my daughter, and I offer you
These lives,
Always
Yours.
Allow them to change the patterns,
Change the events.
I invoke you.
I invoke you.
Restore my daughter.
I invoke you.
End the cycle.
Take them as the sacrifice.
Her voice, like always, was a raspy whisper and I remember it now. I remember holding Dare’s hand, but he let go, and he stepped back, and Finn was there with me.
One for one for one.
There was fire, and we burned.
Finn and me.
Sabine burned us to death,
For something
Something
Something.
Something that didn’t work,
And we’ve spent the rest of this time
Cycling through.
Over
And
Over.
“You killed my daughter,” Sabine says simply. “All of you.”
She touches my hand, her own like a claw, and the events the events the events of that night flood me.
It was dark.
It was so long ago.
Dare’s mom was taking us for a midnight swim. We were so small and she was crazy. Schizoaffective disorder and she hadn’t taken her medicine and no one knew. We were going to dance on the beach, she said. But the car rolled off the cliffs
And
We
Fell.
The water filled up the car, and the windows the windows held us in. And then suddenly, Olivia broke us free, and we drifted to the surface, but she didn’t because she drowned.
“My daughter drowned saving you,” Sabine says, and there’s something akin to hatred in her eyes.
“Dare is your grandson,” I say stiltedly. “Olivia was Richard’s wife. But Dare wasn’t Richard’s.”
I remember that. I remember hearing the whispers and not knowing what they meant. Olivia was unfaithful. Olivia was unfaithful. Dare had a lot in life and I didn’t know what it was. Dare can’t leave the grounds because he’s an embarrassment. Dare is a bastard. What’s a bastard, mom? Nothing you should worry about, my darling.
“Of course he wasn’t,” Sabine hisses. “Olivia was in love with Phillip, who was Salome’s. Olivia is Salome, Calla. And Dare is Salome. We’re all of her blood, and Phillip has always loved her, he was her brother, her twin. No one knows that of course. History has changed and says that he was her uncle. Either way, our bloodline is pure.
“It is pure so that we could offer a pure sacrifice, to end the cycle. It wasn’t supposed to be Olivia. It was supposed to be Finn. Olivia’s death was in vain, because she’s not from Cain and Abel, like Finn. But Olivia died saving you and Dare and Finn instead. Finn was supposed to die. The universe gives back what you put into it, girl.”
“Olivia had SAD,” I say slowly. Sabine’s smile is eerie, and it stretches from ear to ear.
“Yes, she did. And now you and Finn pass that very thing back and forth, after you killed her. Do you find that to be a coincidence?”
Her voice her voice her voice is knowing and I know she’s right. It’s not a coincidence.
“We didn’t kill her,” I say weakly. “Not on purpose.”
“Either way, it happened. The Universe always has its way, child. You were supposed to have a heart condition. You were born with it. But you gave it to Dare, and now it seems to be gone. But it’s not. Things never are. Fate is what it is, and it will always have its way. Dare knows that.”
“Has Dare known all along?” I ask and my words are pieces of wood just like my heart.
Her smile stretches wider.
“Of course he has,” she says and she is heartless, her heart is black, her heart is gone. “He was trying to save his mother, after all.”
The fire
The fire. Dare led me to the fire, and he let go, and he left me with Finn to die.
Only we didn’t.
“You tried to kill us,” I say aloud. “So long ago. It didn’t work.”
She looks away now, disgruntled. “It should’ve worked,” she snaps. “It should’ve been easy. But nothing in this life ever is, I suppose. You’ve fought and fought against us, but you can’t fight forever.”
“Us?” I want to melt into a puddle and stay there, because I know who she means.
“Dare and I, of course.”
That’s what I thought, and it kills me kills me kills me.
“It has to be Finn,” she explains with her heartless tongue. “And Dare knew that. To sacrifice, to set things right, it has to be Finn. Olivia tried. She offered up one son, but that offering was rejected. It wasn’t her fault.”
All I can think of is one thing.
Dare is with Sabine.
Dare is with Sabine.
“How have you done this?” I ask her. “How are you making us crazy? How are you doing it? Is it your tea?”
She laughs and it’s like a cackle. “Of course not, child. I have my old Rom ways, and I adhere to them. Everything will come to pass as it should. Time is fluid and it can change. You can change it. You can change it to the right thing if we just wait long enough.”