He sighs and it’s loud up here, on the top of this cliff by the sea.
“Where should I look for the answers?” I ask him, and I hear the desperation in my voice because I’m tired of the unrest.
I’m tired of the secrets.
I’m tired of nothing being clear.
He blinks.
“You should look at Whitley,” he finally says. “But you’ve got to be careful. You won’t like what you find.’
I nod because I know I won’t.
Because it might make me think Dare’s a monster.
He holds my hand as we walk to his car, and I let him.
Because I need his light to live, Because a monster lives in us all.
That’s what I tell Finn later when I’m alone in my room.
My brother stares at me with imaginary pale blue eyes.
“Maybe,’ he muses. “But that doesn’t take away the fact that Dare was on our mountain that night, Calla.”
“The night you died,” I nod. He looks away and I know he doesn’t like being dead.
“Was he there?” Finn asks, and I can tell from his tone, that he knows. “Or are you confused?”
I sigh, long and loud, because I’m so tired of being the only one hidden from the truth.
“Just tell me,” I demand.
“I can’t.” His answer is simple.
“But you want to.”
“Yes.”
He gets up and paces the room, a slender lion in a cage. “Think, Calla. You know this one.”
I do.
I do know it.
It’s on the tip of my mind, dying to find its way in.
I close my eyes.
I spoke to Dare that night. I can hear his words.
Anxious, afraid.
Concentrating, I see the cliffs, the funeral home, the moon.
I see my brother,
And he’s alive,
Then he’s not.
My mother,
My father,
The flashing lights.
The beach.
And then…
There’s something.
A flicker.
I crane my neck, trying to see more.
A flash of dark hair,
And a name.
I open my eyes.
“Who’s Olivia?” I ask limply.
Finn smiles.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Chapter 10
If I stay inside too long, the walls start closing in on me.
I hate the silence, I hate the height of the ceilings, I hate that I’m alone.
I hate that I long to call Dare, to tell him to find me in this Godforsaken place, to take me away…because to be honest, I don’t really have anywhere to go.
I can’t go home.
I can’t face it without Finn.
But God knows I can’t stay in this house.
The breeze is slightly chilly as I make my way deep into the grounds. I’ve come to believe that it never truly warms up here. The rain makes the lawns lush, though. Green and full and colorful. As Finn would’ve said in his endless quest to learn Latin… it’s viridem. And green means life.
The cobbled path turns to pebbles as I get further away from the house, and after a minute, I come to a literal fork in the road. The path splits into two. One leads towards a wooded area, and the other leads to a beautiful stone building on the edge of the horizon, shrouded in mist and weeping trees.
It’s small and mysterious, beautiful and ancient. And of course I have to get a closer look. Without a second thought, I head down that path.
The closer I get, the more my curiosity grows.
I can smell the moss as I approach, that musty, dank smell that comes with a closed room or a wet space. And with that dark scent comes a very oppressive feeling. I feel it weighing on my shoulders as I open the heavy door, as I stare at the word SAVAGE inscribed in the wood, as I take my first tentative step into a room that hasn’t seen human life in what looks like years.
But it has seen death.
I’m standing in a mausoleum.
Growing up in a funeral home, I’m well versed in death. I know what it looks like, what it smells like, even what it tastes like in the air.