The light fills me up and makes me float.
I drift toward the ceiling, and I look down at myself, at my small body crumpled on the floor. My red hair spreads in a fan around me, like a pool of crimson blood and it fascinates me, the color. The endless color. The light distracts me though, shining as brightly as the sun from outside the house, glinting into my eyes. I suddenly realize that I’m ready to leave, I’m ready to let go, to drift away. I’m getting ready to glide through the window to touch it, when I see my brother’s face.
He’s as white as death,
He’s terrified, and he’s screaming my name, clutching at my hand, pulling at my body sprawled on the floor.
I falter, my feet on the windowsill, even as the light reaches my toes.
I can’t
I can’t
I can’t leave him.
I can’t leave him alone.
First he left me, but it turned out he really didn’t. He would never leave me alone, and I can’t leave him either.
With a sigh, I step down from the sill, and slip back into my body, and when I open my eyes again, I’m in the hospital.
“You’re allergic to nuts,” the nurse tells me solemnly, and my mom and my brother are sitting on the bed with me.
“You can never eat nuts again,” my mother tells me, and her eyes are filled with terror.
“You died for a minute and a half,” Finn announces, and he no longer looks afraid, instead, he looks intrigued. Because I’m safe now. Because I was dead, and now I’m not.
I should feel different, but I don’t.
It intrigues me, too.
Chapter Four
Whitley Estate
Sussex, England
The flight is God-awful long.
We get to ride in First-Class, but I had to leave my dad and my room, and even though the flight attendants come to check on us frequently, and bring me apple juice and cookies and a blanket¸ it’s not worth it. I know it’s not worth it.
My legs cramp and I rub at them, glancing sideways at Finn.
“I don’t want to go to England,” I tell him. He shushes me with a finger to his lips, staring at our mom across the aisle. She sleeps heavily, thanks to a sleeping pill. I roll my eyes.
“She hasn’t moved in three hours.”
“So what? She could still hear you.”
“She doesn’t have bionic ears,” I argue. But then I drop it, because what difference does it make?
“I just don’t want to go,” I continue, a little bit quieter. “Dad didn’t want us to leave¸ I could tell. I don’t see why we have to.”
Finn glances over his shoulder at mom, then peers at me. “I heard them talking last night. Mom said that we have to go, so that her family can help you.”
I yank my head back, startled. “Help me with what?”
My brother’s blue eyes are guarded. “I don’t know. Do you?”
I shake my head adamantly. “No. I have no idea. I don’t need help.”
I don’t say anything else for the rest of the flight, and finally, finally, we arrive in London. My mother awakes easily, freshened from her nap. I’m exhausted, and it’s on weary legs that I trudge through the busy airport.
A driver in a dark suit and cap is waiting for us and he leads us to a long sleek limousine.
“My name is Jones,” he tells me seriously, and he has a giant nose. “I’ll be helping with you while you are here at Whitley.”
Helping with me?
Finn and I exchange looks as we pile into the fancy car.
My mother doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, she seems nostalgic as she chats while we drive through town and into the countryside. She points out the window.
“See over there? I learned to swim in that pond.”
I follow her finger and find a dismal little body of water, murky and black. Nothing like the Pacific Ocean, the water that I learned to swim in. I feel sorry for her for that, but she doesn’t seem sad.
Now that we’re here, her accent is sharpened, cutting the air like a scalpel, like the British person she is. She says bean instead of been, and pronounces schedule like shhedule. Why haven’t I ever noticed it before?
Finn reaches over and grabs my hand, squeezing it. “I think we’re almost there,” he says quietly, and I follow his gaze.
Towers erupt through the trees on the horizon, spires of stone, and a cobbled roof. I’m mesmerized as we pull through gates, gliding along a stone driveway and pulling to a stop in front of a giant house. A mansion, actually.
“Kids, this is Whitley,” my mother says, already opening her door, her foot on the stones. I stare around her at the house that looms over her shoulder.
It’s imposing and grand, ominous and beautiful, dark and bright.
All at once.
It’s many things, but mostly, it’s intimidating.
As is the tiny woman waiting to embrace my mother.
She stands in the front doorway, like a little bird. She’s got dark skin and a bright scarf wrapped around her hair, and dark eyes that gleam, eyes that seem to see right through me. I shiver from her gaze, and she smiles crookedly, like she knows. Like she knows all about me, like she knows everything about everything.
She’s introduced as Sabine, although my mother calls her Sabby. Like mom knows her oh-so-well, even though I’ve never heard her name before today. All of this makes no sense at all, and I wonder if Finn is as confused and overwhelmed as I am.
He doesn’t seem to be as he shakes Sabine’s hand. He smiles seriously at her, saying politely, “It’s nice to meet you.”
It’s my turn next and Sabine stares through me, like she’s reading my thoughts, her dark eyes drilling into mine.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I murmur obligatorily, like I’ve been taught.
Her mouth turns up at the corners, her wrinkled hand curled like a claw around my own. Her skin is cold, like ice, and I shiver again. She smiles in response and something puts me on edge, the hair standing up at my neck, and every vertebra in my spine straightens.
“The die has been cast, I see,” she says quietly, almost to herself, and I’m the only one who can hear.
“What?” I ask in confusion, because her words make no sense. But she shakes her scarf-clad head.
“Don’t trouble yourself, child,” she tells me firmly. “It should be of no worry to you right now.”
But it is, because her words stay with me.
She leads us to our bedrooms and on the way, she turns to me.
“You will listen to me while you are here,” she tells me, and her voice is matter-of-fact, as though I’d never dream of arguing. I open my mouth, but her steely gaze closes it for me. “I will provide you with medicines and methods to control your…illness. I have your best interest at heart, always. And the best interest of this family. You will trust me.”
It’s a directive, not a question. She pauses at Finn’s door and allows him to enter, before we continue on to mine.
Outside of the large wooden door, she turns to me. “If you need anything, let me know.”
She leaves me alone and the room is cavernous.
“The die has been cast,” I repeat to myself as I stare at my suitcase. It’s waiting for me to unpack it, but my bedroom is too large to feel comfortable, and all I want to do is go home, away from this strange place with their strange words and ways.
“What did you say?” Finn asks from the doorway. He’s staring at me, waiting for my answer as he comes in and looks around my room.
“I like mine better,” he continues, without waiting for an answer.
I haven’t seen his yet, so I can’t argue, although I’m just happy that he didn’t ask me again what I’d said. The words don’t make any sense, and I don’t need for him to tell me that.
The die has been cast.
What does that mean?
Finn bounces across the room and tumbles into the blue velvet chair by the window. He squeaks the springs in the cushion, and stares out the giant windows.
“This place is huge,” he says, as if that isn’t obvious. “And Sabine told me that we get to have a dog.”