Days still pass because the world still turns, and each day turns into a week, which turns into a month, which turns into a year.
It is when my son is three that I begin to have vivid dreams of the past, and of the future.
I dream of a hooded boy, and his eyes are as black as night, as black as Phillip’s, as black as my son’s.
I dream of blood.
I dream of treachery.
I dream of bad, terrible things.
I dream of treachery and betrayal and deceit.
I try to tell my mother, and the Savages, but no one listens, and they think I’m crazy and maybe I am.
Laura comes to visit me one day, and she holds Dare in her lap as he tugs at her fiery hair. “You have to be strong for him, Liv,” she tells me, and her eyes are sad and I instinctively know why.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” I ask in sorrow and she nods.
“I’m not safe here,” she tells me and I know it’s true and I cry. She holds my hand and when she leaves, I cry again, because I know I won’t see her again.
But I’m wrong.
I roam the halls that night,
Because I think everyone else is sleeping.
But I’m wrong.
I turn the corner quietly into the library, and what I see startles me into freezing, and I press my hand to my mouth.
Richard and Laura are on the floor in front of the fireplace, and the flames lap at the stones, and Laura’s red hair glows as Richard moves above her, sliding into her. Her hands are grasping his back and her knuckles are white, but she doesn’t fight him. Her pale legs are limp and she’s limp and Richard is like an animal ravaging her, but she doesn’t fight.
Her eyes meet mine and she’s not afraid.
She’s accepting her fate,
Like I must accept mine.
“One for one for one,” she whispers and she’s whispering to me, and no one can hear it but me.
Eleanor stands in the shadows, watching this unnatural, heinous thing, and my mother is with her, her hand on Eleanor’s arm. They are surrounded in a haze and is this a dream?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
All I know is, in the morning, when I wake, Laura has gone, she’s fled Whitley and I can’t blame her. I would flee too, if I could.
My dreams persist and I dream of Mr. Savage.
He calls me his daughter.
But that can’t be right. If he’s my father, then I’m Laura’s half-sister. And Richard’s half-sister. But then Mr. Savage jumps from the cliffs and I don’t know what is real, all I know is that I dream it over and over and over. When I ask my mother, all she will say is that our sons must pay for the sins of their fathers.
My dreams continue
And continue
And continue,
Until
One
Day,
I dream of something different.
Instead of Salome or Phillip, I dream of the betrayer, I dream of Judas. I see his lips moving, I see him kiss the savior of the world, I see him slip into the crowds after the deed is done. His face is appalled at his own actions, but that didn’t stop him from doing it.
His one action, his one betrayal, condemned the savior of the world to die.
Night after night, I dream this, and night after night, I struggle to get to him, to try to stop him from following through with the kiss that doomed the world. Night after night, I fail, because his actions were written in fate, part of a plan larger than himself or me.
He was condemned from the beginning, doomed to play a treacherous part.
My dreams repeat
And repeat
And repeat, tormenting me into screams, Into sobs.
But one night,
I realize something that I hadn’t noticed before, because I had been so swept away in trying to prevent his treachery. My blood chills in my veins as I make the realization and draw the connection, and I sink sink sink into a black abyss of sorrow.
Judas’ hair is as red as flames.
As red as blood.
As red as Laura’s.
* * *
To see a sneak preview of LUX, the exciting series finale, please keep reading.
Preview of LUX
Prologue
There’s a fork in the road and even though I see it, I can’t avoid it.
One road goes left, one goes right, and neither of them ends well.