NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1)
Read NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) Online
Authors: Courtney Cole
NOCTE
A Novel
by
Courtney Cole
***
Nocte
:
Latin;
Noun; ablative singular of
nox
(night)
Adverb;
by
night
Pronunciation:
Knock-tay
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***
Copyright
Ó
2014 by Courtney Cole
Names, characters and incidents depicted
in this novel are products of the author’s imagination and are used
fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, organizations or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental and
is beyond the intent of the author or publisher.
No part of this book may be reproduced
without written permission from the author or publisher. If you are
reading this book and you did not purchase it from the author/publisher, or it
was not given to you directly by the author/publisher, then this book is
pirated.
Piracy is a crime.
Please delete any pirated book and
purchase it through an authorized distributor.
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
I
once considered not writing this story.
It was too dark, too twisted, too much,
too, too, too.
Obviously, I changed my mind.
But I re-wrote in four different ways
first, trying to make it different, more easily palatable,
softer
.
It didn’t work.
So I went back to my original idea, the
idea that I loved. The idea that I dreamed about and lived and breathed until
it was done the way I wanted it, the
way
it has to be.
I know you’re capable of reading it. I
know you’re capable of putting yourselves back together again when it’s all
over.
I have faith in you.
Is this story dark?
Yes.
It is twisted?
At
times.
Will it slap you in the face?
Absolutely.
Will it have you flipping the pages,
trying to figure it out, trying to get to the climax, trying to breathe?
God,
I hope so.
I wrote this story the way it needed to
be written.
I couldn’t sugarcoat
it.
I couldn’t water it down.
It is this way because the story demands
it.
I’m not sorry.
Insomniacs know that there is something
about the night.
A darkness
, an energy, a mystery that shrouds
things.
It hides things at the same time as it
illuminates them.
It is
this
thing
that
allows us to examine our thoughts
in
a way that we can’t during the day,
It is
this
thing
that brings truth and clarity.
This book is for Tristan.
My son who I’ve passed
insomnia to.
Always trust your own mind.
You know it best.
“By night, I am free.
No one hears my monsters but me.
My freedom is fragile, though,
Because every morning,
Over and over,
The night is broken
by
the sun.
It’s a good way to die.”
--An early entry from the journal of Finn
Price
I can’t I
can’t I can’t
Hear.
I can’t
see
light
anymore
.
Calla calla
calla calla
Save me,
save you.
Save me.
Serva me,
servabo
te
.
Save me and
I will save you.
-- A later entry from the journal of Finn
Price
There is nothing quite so terrifying as
the descension of the human mind into insanity.
-Calla Price
“Secrets.
Everybody’s got ‘em.”
-Dare DuBray
My
name is Calla Price.
I’m eighteen
years old, and I’m one half of a whole.
My other half-- my twin brother, my
Finn-- is crazy.
I love him.
More than
life, more than anything.
And
even though I’m terrified he’ll suck me down with him, no one can save him but
me.
I’m doing all I can to stay afloat in a
sea of insanity, but I’m drowning more and more each day.
So I reach out for a lifeline.
Dare DuBray.
He’s my savior and my anti-Christ.
His arms are where I feel safe, where
I’m afraid, where I belong, where I’m lost.
He will heal me, break me, love me and hate
me.
He has the power to destroy me.
Maybe that’s ok. Because I can’t seem to
save Finn
and
love
Dare
without everyone getting hurt.
Why?
Because of a
secret.
A secret I’m so busy trying to figure
out, that I never see it coming.
You won’t either.
UNUM
Calla
-BEFORE-
Outside,
a starless night sky yawns far and wide against a full moon that creates
shadows. Inside, those shadows seem to morph into each other, creating twisted
hands that drag their broken fingers along the darkened walls of the salon.
My mother insists on calling the formal
living room a salon.
Since she
learned the term when she was in France years ago, it makes her feel
sophisticated.
And since we live in
a funeral home on the top of an isolated mountain in Oregon, my dad lets her
feel sophisticated in any way she chooses.
She’s not here tonight, though, sophisticated
or otherwise. She’s on her way to her book club, to drink wine and gossip,
oblivious to the fact that my entire world just imploded.
And since my father and brother are both
gone too, I’m alone for now.
Alone and with a broken heart.
Yet not
exactly
alone.
I’m here in a dark funeral home with two
dead bodies down in my father’s embalming room.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a big
deal.
When your father is a
mortician, you learn to sleep under the same roof as dead people.
But tonight, with the storm causing the
trees to bend and hiss against the house, and the electricity knocked out from
the wind, it’s alarming and dark and a bit terrifying.
My foot thumps against the side of the
chair, an obvious sign that I’m agitated.
I’m annoyed by my agitation, but honestly I deserve to be annoyed.
Everything in my life was just turned
inside out.
I turn my gaze out the windows, and stare
at the cliffs. Jagged rock juts into the sky, which creates a haunting picture
and only serves to remind me that I’m very isolated here at the top of our
mountain.
Also, it’s lighter
outside than it is in here, which is ridiculous.
I don’t know why I’m scared of being
alone, but I am.
A therapist might
say that it’s because Finn and I are twins, and I’ve never had to be alone in
my whole life.
I even shared womb
space.
It’s why my parents just told us at
dinner that they think Finn and I should go to separate schools.
And I must say, I don’t agree.
I
strongly
disagree, in fact.
Finn needs me
because he’s not like me.
The mere
thought of being apart gives me heart palpitations and I know I have to try
talking to my mother about it.
Now.
No matter what else is going on with me,
or what else I found out tonight, Finn
will
always
take precedence.
I grab my phone and punch in mom’s number
because she’s in her car alone, with no distractions.
She’ll have nothing to focus on other
than what I’m saying.
Maybe that
means she’ll finally hear me.
The phone rings once, then she picks
up.
“Hi Calla.
Is everything okay, hon?”
After the bombshell she dropped on us
tonight, she’s surprisingly cheerful.
“It’s fine.
The storm knocked out the power, but I’m
ok.
Hey, mom…
Finn
can’t be alone.
He needs to
come to with me.
I mean it.
You don’t understand how important it
is.”
Because I can’t tell you over the phone.
I eye his journal, lying on a nearby
table.
If mom and dad knew some of
the stuff in there, the weird Latin phrases, the scratched out words, the
craziness, then they truly wouldn’t be giving me so much pushback.
But they don’t know because they respect
his privacy, and because of that, they’re resolute in their desire to force
independence on us.
Mom sighs now because this is a tired
argument, and she’s tired of having it.
“You know our feelings on this,” she says
firmly.
“I get that you want to
protect Finn. And I love that you’re so protective, but Calla, he has to learn
to live without that and so do you.
You’ve got to have a life of your own, without constantly watching over
your brother.
Please trust us to
know what’s best.”
“But mom,” I argue.
“After everything that happened tonight
with… Something happened tonight.
And more than ever, I know I can’t leave Finn.
I know him better than anyone.”
“What happened tonight?”
mom
asks,
quickly and curiously.
“Did
something happen with…”
“It’s nothing I want to talk about over
the phone,” I interrupt her tiredly.
“I just… I want you to promise me that you’ll think about letting Finn
and me stay together.
Please. I’m
part him, and he’s part me and that’s what being a twin is all about.
He might be different than me in one
way, but we’re the same in a million others.
No one gets him like I do.
He needs me.”
Mom sighs again.
“That’s the whole point, honey,” she
says gently.
“The
one difference
between you.
Think back to that day, the day that we
first knew about it.
Tell me again
what happened.”
I’m the one sighing now because my heart
is aching and I don’t want to talk about this now.
Maybe calling her was a bad idea.
“You know what happened,” I say
limply.
“Humor me,” she directs me. Firmly.
“We were playing Capture the Flag in
Kindergarten.”
I tell her
reluctantly, like I’m reciting from a book.
If I close my eyes, I can still smell
the hot, dirty gym floor.
“Finn had
the flag. He was running.”
His
skinny arms and legs were
flying,
his hair was damp on
his brow.
“And then?”
My chest hurts a little.
“Then he started screaming. And running
in the other direction.
He wasn’t
playing anymore.
He was screaming
about demons chasing him.”
“And what else?” My mom’s voice is
sympathetic, but still very firm.
“And my name. He was screaming my
name.”
I can still hear him shrieking my name,
his voice boyish and shrill and desperate.
Caaaaaallllllllaaaaaaa!
But before I could do anything that day,
he climbed the hanging rope all the way to the ceiling to get away from the
demons.
The
demons.
It’d taken four teachers to get him down.
He wouldn’t even come down for
me.
He was hospitalized for two weeks after
that and diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder, which is a nasty cross
between Schizophrenia and Bi-Polarism and very appropriately referred to as
SAD.
He’s been medicated ever
since.
He’s been chased by those
effing demons ever since, too.
That’s why he needs me.
“Mom,” I murmur desperately, because I
know where she’s headed with this.
But she’s unrelenting.
“Calla, he called for
you.
Because he
always
calls for you.
I know it’s a twin thing, but it’s not
fair to either of you.
You’ve got
to be able to go to college and figure out who you are outside of being Finn’s
sister.
He’s got to do the
same.
I promise you, we’re not
doing this as a punishment.
We’re
doing it because it’s best.
Do you
trust me?”
I’m silent, mostly because my throat
feels hot and constricted and I can’t speak from the mere frustration.
“Calla?
Do you trust me?”
My mom is so freaking insistent.
“Yes,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I trust you. But mom, it’s not a
problem for me.
Because when Finn’s
on his meds, he’s almost normal. He’s fine.”
Almost.
There’s
only
been a few break-through episodes.
And a few periods of depression.
And a few delusions.
Other than that, he’s been fine.
“Except for the times that he’s not
fine,” my mom answers.
“But…”
“No buts, Calla,” she shuts me down,
quickly and efficiently.
“Honey,
we’ve talked this into the ground.
Now, I’ve
gotta
go.
I forgot my reading glasses so I’m on my
way back to get them. But the rain is bad so I need to focus on the
road—“
She interrupts her own sentence with a
scream.
A shrill, loud, high-pitched shriek.
It almost punctures my
ear-drums
with its intensity and before I can make heads or
tails of it, it breaks off mid-way through.
And I realize that I heard something
else in the background.
The sound of metal and glass being
crunched and broken.
Then nothing.
“Mom?”
There’s no answer, only loaded pregnant
silence.
My hands shake as I wait for what seems
like an eternity, but is actually only a second.
“Mom?” I demand, scared now.
Still nothing.
Chills run up and down my back, and
goose-bumps
form on my arms because I somehow know that she
won’t be answering.
And I’m right.
Mom died as she was screaming, as the
metal crunched and the glass broke.
The EMTs say that when they found her at the bottom of the ravine, the
phone was somehow still in her hand.
