Verum (4 page)

T
here is
a whispering in the hall, and I pull on my clothes, eager to leave this room behind. I throw open my doors to find Sabine in the hall, speaking with Jones.

They both look up at me, surprised at my abrupt appearance.

“Can we help you, Miss Price?” Jones asks, his tone so formal and stiff.

He belongs here
, I think.
Here in this stiff, stiff house.

“No, thank you,” I say. “I’m just restless.”

Sabine notices the book beneath my arm.

“We have a magnificent library here,” she tells me. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

We pass through the quiet halls and the silent rooms, and always, always, always, I feel watched. Invisible eyes stare through me, into me, and I hate it.

There is something here.

Something.

“Do you feel safe here?” I ask her abruptly as she pushes open the library doors. She turns to me, surprised.

“Of course, Miss Price,” she says throatily. “You don’t?”

“Please, call me Calla,” I tell her, avoiding the question as she leads me into the room.

Shelves of books surround me, lining the room, ceiling to floor.

“I’ll light the fireplace to get rid of the morning chill,” she says, crossing the room and kneeling in front of the beautiful stone.

I leave her as quickly as I can, to get away from her question, and I go from book to book, but of course she doesn’t forget and when I turn back around, she’s there.

“Let’s sit by the fire, child.”

It’s a suggestion, but she’s pulling my elbow and so I find myself beside the lapping flames. She sits next to me, and her gaze is magnetic.

“Why do you feel unsafe here,” she asks. “Has something happened?”

My brother and mother died.

That’s what I want to say.

But I don’t because that’s awkward, and so I swallow hard instead.

“Do you feel guilty for surviving?” she asks, her words direct and insightful.

I swallow again.

“Because things happen for a reason, the way they’re meant to happen. You survived them because you were meant to. There is no guilt in that.”

“I miss them,” I whisper. And it feels like a confession. I always felt I had to be strong for dad, to not show weakness. To hold up Finn.

But Finn wasn’t real.

He was gone all along.

I don’t have to be strong anymore.

Sabine nods and she gazes into the flames.

“I know,” she says. “I didn’t know your brother, but I miss your mother. She used to brighten my days, child. Whitley can be dark. Your mama was a light.”

For some reason, her words only make me sadder because that light has been snuffed, and there’s only darkness here now.

The fire warms my knees and my bones, and I cup my hands to my chest. I block out my emotions, because emotions only hurt.

Instead, I want to know about Dare.

“Dare grew up here?” I ask, trying to sound casual. “He must’ve been a light for you, too.”

Although even now those words sound ridiculous. Dare is beautiful, Dare is my heart, but Dare isn’t a light.

He’s my darkness.

Sabine smiles and her smile is sad.

“Dare did grow up here,” she confirms. “He was mine, as much as Laura was. He still is, child. I couldn’t help him once, but I’d protect him now with my life.”

She looks at me now defensively, as though she has to protect him from
me.

I’m confused, and I want to ask why, but I can’t.

Because Dare himself finds us.

“Sabby,” he says as he crosses the room, but his eyes are on me. “Jones needs you.”

She stares at him knowingly. He has come to save me once again, to rescue me from this situation and Sabine knows it. She creaks out of the chair and shuffles away.

She doesn’t look back.

“She loves you,” I offer, without looking up.

The flames are red and they lick at me.

“Yes,” he agrees simply and he takes her vacant seat.

He takes my book from my hands, staring at the cover.

“Jane Eyre,” he observes and he sifts through the pages. “Interesting choice. Are you my Jane, Calla?”

I swallow and look away.

Because that would make him Mr. Rochester.

“Jane saved Rochester, you know,” Dare continues, his voice smooth like the night. “Eventually.”

“I can’t save anyone,” I tell him helplessly. “Because I don’t know all the facts.”

Dare closes his eyes and he seems to glow from the flames.

“You do.”

I just can’t remember them.

He opens his eyes again, and the expression knifes me in the heart, because I’ve seen it before.

It’s hurt, it’s vulnerable, it’s anxious.

It’s hiding something.

Something I know.

Something that scares me.

Save me, and I’ll save you.

“I don’t like it here,” I murmur.

“I know.”

I
write my dad a letter
, and I give it to Sabine.

“He’ll want to know I’m ok,” I tell her. She nods because of course he will.

She hands me a cup of tea.

In England, tea fixes everything.

“Is Dare here?” I ask casually, because even now, he’s the sun and I’m the moon. I need his light to live.

She shakes her head. “No. He’ll be back though, child. He always comes back.”

What a strange thing to say.

But I don’t dwell on it.

Instead, I think about light.

I think about how the moonlight is really a reflection of the sun, of how the moon doesn’t create any light at all. So a thing that seems to radiate silvery, ethereal light is really the darkest of the dark.

I’m the moon.

And I have no light of my own.

I need Dare for that.

But if he’s the sun, he’ll burn me.

And my metaphors are making me sick.

I retreat to the gardens, where I’m surrounded by flowers and silence.

All I have are my thoughts here, and my mind is a scary place.

I close my eyes and will my memories to return,

But all I can see is the past.

The past I know.

Not the things that I don’t.

My mother’s screams haunt me.

Finn’s headstone, my tears.

His journal, which I left at home.

I wish I’d brought it.

At least I’d feel closer to him, even though his words were crazy.

I picture a page filled with scribble, with his familiar handwriting and scratched out words.

With perfect clarity, I remember it.

Calla will save me.

Or I will die.

I will die.

I will die.

Serva me, serva bo te.

Save me and I’ll save you.

A shudder runs through me because I couldn’t.

I couldn’t save Finn.

And no amount of words and consolation… from my father, from Dare, from Sabine… no amount of argument can change that.

You survived them for a reason.

Sabine’s nonsense comes back to me, and I ponder it.

For
what
reason?

I don’t know.

Is my reason to save Dare, like Jane saved Mr. Rochester?

I don’t know.

All I know is I have to uncover his truth if I am ever to save anything.

The truth will set us all free.

I
’m lost again
.

Whitley is so large that I find I’m perpetually lost. Somehow, I find myself outside of Eleanor’s study today, and I hear her voice coming from within.

Reaching out to grip the doorknobs, I pause because she doesn’t seem happy. With the door already cracked, I can hear the words loud and clear.

“She’s not well, Eleanor,” Sabine says in her creaky voice. “She needs rest and solitude, I fear.”

“Then she’ll get it here at Whitley,” Eleanor says impatiently. “I don’t see the reason for your concern.”

“She’s lost everything,” Sabine offers. “And you don’t offer her anything but shelter. Perhaps if you would just tell her…”

“Tell her what?” Eleanor snaps. “Remind her that…”

“Haven’t you heard it’s impolite to eavesdrop?”

Dare steps around me, studying me curiously. He’s handsome, he’s enigmatic, he’s in my personal space. He also doesn’t want me to hear what they’re saying.

I take a breath. “What is everyone hiding from me?” I ask him bluntly.

He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

It’s everything.
I feel it.

“I need to know,” I insist. He stares at me.

“You’re here to recover, Calla. To rest, to come back to yourself…”

“But you said that I’m not safe,” I remind him. “Shouldn’t I know from what?”

He’s uncomfortable now, and his dark eyes seem to shimmer. “So much has happened to this family. You don’t need to think about it right now. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

I wish I could.

“This is madness,” I whisper.

“We’re all a bit mad, I suppose,” he quotes Lewis Carroll for what, I assume, is a lack of a better answer. My fingernails dig into my palm because I’m so frustrated.

“I love you, you know,” he offers, and his face is suddenly gentle. “God, I hate this, Calla.”

He walks away, like standing near me is painful.

I do the only thing I can do. I retreat to my room, where I’m alone and no one is watching. The room is lonely and quiet, and I can’t take the silence.

“Finn, you’d hate this place.”

Of course there’s no answer, but it makes me feel better to talk to him, to pretend my other half is still living, still making me whole.

I picture his face and he laughs.

“You’re such a goof, Cal,” he tells me, his pale blue eyes twinkling. “You were always the better half. You don’t need me.”

“That’s dumb,” I reply instantly. “I’ll always need you. I’m probably going to never stop talking to you, ok?”

He rolls his eyes and stands in the moonlight. “Fine. But there’s going to come a time when I stop answering. Because eventually, you have to let me go, Cal. For your own good.”

“Don’t tell me what my own good is,” I scowl, but he laughs, because that’s what Finn does. He laughs and he makes every situation better.

“Stay with me,” I urge him. “I feel so alone.”

He nods and he sits on the bed with me, and he watches me while I settle down to sleep. He hums, a song without words, a song that’s familiar, but I can’t place the name.

“Sleep,” he tells me. “I’m right here.”

So I do. I sleep while the memory of my dead brother watches over me, because that’s the only way I feel safe.

But even then, my dreams plague me.

“One for one for one.”

The whispers seem to come from the corners, from the shadows, from the halls. “One for one, Calla. One for me, one for me.”

It cackles and hisses and I run around the corners, into the dark.

As I escape, I realize something and skid to a halt.

I left Finn behind.

They have him now.

No.

No.

I have to go back. I turn, but I can’t move. My feet are enmeshed with the ground.

I hear him screaming and I force myself to move, but I’m suddenly stopped by Dare.

He grabs my arms and restrains me, his arms like steel bands, not letting me go.

“You can’t help him now,” he tells me somberly, his black eyes glistening. “I’m sorry.”

My screams wake me up and Finn is still sitting on the side of my bed.

“Are you ok?” My brother’s voice is anxious, and the moonlight shines onto his face. “You’re just having a dream. Wake up, it’s ok.”

I nod and grab his hand and he grins.

“Was it the bogeyman?”

I try to smile back, but the feeling of terror and loss is still too great.

I nod instead. “Yeah. The bogeyman.”

It’s a private joke, because Finn and I have always said that there’s no bogeyman in the entire world that we’re scared of since we sleep in a funeral home.

But my dream…. It preyed on the thing that
does
scare me, the thing that has always scared me the most.

Losing my brother.

But that already happened, and I survived, and I’m still here.

But the fear still owns me, because I can’t let him go.

“I’m fine,” I tell him confidently. Because it was just a dream.

Just a dream. The worst already happened.

He nods and starts to get up, but I tug at his hand. “Stay.”

Because maybe it was a dream, but it was so real.

There is understanding in my brother’s eyes and he curls up next to me without a word. There are no words needed, just his soothing presence. Real or not, he calms me and I’m not ready to give that up.

It’s not long before Finn’s breathing is soft and even and I know I’ve imagined him into sleep.

I watch him, the way his chest pulls deep breaths, the way his mouth is slack. The way he’s my other half and I have no idea what I’ll do without him, even though I know I have to try.

My chest is still aching from the dream, my heart still skipping beats. I’ve never had such a real nightmare before. It rattled me to my core.

It made me never want to sleep again, for fear of having the same dream again.

So I climb from my bed and roam the halls of Whitley.

Something about this house disturbs me. It’s as though there is darkness in its heart, as though it has a soul, and it wants to absorb mine. I realize just how crazy my thoughts are, and I fight to suppress them.

Treading lightly, I quietly pad over the marble until I get to the massive glass doors of the library.

I only hesitate a moment before I open them and head outside.

I don’t know why.

I just know that I need some air. I need to be away from the pressing confines of the house. Something in here stifles me.

It’s not until I’m halfway down the path to the stables that I realize I’m barefoot. I’d walked from the house without any shoes.

What kind of lunatic am I?

I’m just turning to go back to the house when two headlights appear down the driveway. They shine into me, illuminating me through my nightgown, exposing my every line and curve. I wrap my arms around my waist, attempting to conceal myself in vain. But the car, a dark Porsche, doesn’t stop. It rolls past me toward the garage, and as it passes, Dare’s dark eyes stare at me through the driver’s window.

It must be 3 am and he’s only just now getting home?

Where in the world has he been?

But with a sinking heart, I know that it’s not my business, because I told him I wanted space. Because he’s an adult and he can come and go as he pleases and this is what I wanted.

It starts to rain so I pick up the pace, but it’s a wasted effort. By the time I make it to the gardens, it’s pouring, and I have to stop in a gazebo to wait it out. The wet winds blow across the moors, howling in a hauntingly chilling moan, and chills run up and down my spine.

I’d thought living in a funeral home was creepy. This estate makes that seem like child’s play.

Shivering, I huddle under the roof, the wind cutting through my wet nightgown.

What was I thinking coming out here?

“You know, most people wear shoes. And clothes.”

Dare lunges beneath the roof for shelter, soaked from head to toe. Unlike me, he’s fully clothed, but exactly like me, he’s completely wet.

“It’s not doing you a lot of good,” I point out. “You’re soaked through.”

He shrugs as he leans against a column, barely out of the downpour, shaking the water from his hair. He’s long and slim, and something about him reminds me of a deadly cobra, coiled to strike.

“It’s ok. I won’t melt, trust me.”

He examines me, his eyes as black as night. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night, anyway?”

I think I see amusement in his eyes, amusement laced with concern, but I look away before I can be sure. This situation unsettles me, puts me on edge...wakes up every nerve ending.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

I don’t see the need to tell him that I
was
sleeping, but that a bad dream starring him woke me. No one needs to know that.

“You should go see Sabine tomorrow,” he tells me, his words helpful but his tone bored. “She’s a master at herbs. She’s got a tea that will put you down for the count.”

Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. Sabine, with her tiny twisted body and her dark mysterious eyes… it seems right that she would dabble in herbs.

“Ok. Maybe I will.”

Dare studies me, his eyes sweeping me from head to toe, watching my teeth chatter for a couple of minutes.

“If I had a jacket, I’d offer it to you.”

His words are quiet in the night, and offering a jacket is such a gentlemanly thing to do.

“Don’t look so surprised,” he chuckles. “I may not be as nice as you, but I have manners.” He straightens his body out, opening his arms. “Come here, Calla.”

To his warmth.

To his strength.

I want to.

I want to.

But I shake my head, determined.

Dare’s eyes cloud, and his arms drop back to his sides.

He pushes away from the column and approaches me, his long body lithe and slender. I gulp hard as he steps toward me, closer, then closer.

For a brief moment, I feel like prey and he’s the hunter, until reality hits me and I know that he would never want to hunt me. I’m night and he’s day. He’s whole and I’m broken.

“You’re going to catch your death out here,” he tells me, his voice gentle now, and this whole ‘I need space’ thing is killing me, killing me, killing me.

I wonder if it’s killing him, too?

“Come on, follow me,” he tells me, pushing ahead. For some reason, I do as he asks and I allow him to lead me through the gardens, up the paths, into the house and to a huge laundry room. He opens a cabinet and pulls out a large soft towel. As he turns to me, he pulls it around my shoulders.

“You’re not used to the rain here,” he tells me as he rubs my arms briskly. “Don’t go out at night again. You don’t know what’s out there.”

I don’t bother to remind him that Oregon rain is just as bad, that both places are wet and gray and dreary, and that I’m used to it. I don’t ask him what’s out there, because I don’t want to know. Not yet.

“I… um.” I fall silent. “Why are you being so nice?” I blurt. “I’m not being very nice to
you.”

“You’re doing what you have to do,” he tells me, a strange look in his dark eyes. “Things aren’t what they seem here, Calla. Don’t forget that and you’ll be fine.”

And with that, he walks out, leaving me alone in the room with a wet towel in my hand.

I make my way back to my room, through the quiet halls, and as I pass the windows, it feels like something growls.

Something waits,

Something sleeps in the dark.

I don’t know what it is.

But it knows
me.

Of that, I am certain.