Lux Read online

  We do?

  I look at Finn, and he looks excited, as though he’s looking forward to going to England, as though we’ve done it every summer for all of our lives. The problem is… I don’t have any memories of this at all.

  “I really am crazy,” I tell myself softly. “I’m as crazy as they say. I’m crazy.”

  Finn grabs a plate and hands it to me, stacked with steaming maple pecan pancakes, drizzled in syrup.

  It’s heaven on porcelain.

  I know that.

  I take bite after bite, but by the third one, I can’t move my tongue.

  For a second, I think it’s my mind playing tricks on me again, making me think that I’m paused while everyone else is fast-forwarding, but then I watch my hand fall limply to the table, and my mom lunges to grab me and I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.

  “Calla!” she says sharply, and she bangs on my back with her hand because she thinks I’m choking. I’m not choking. I just can’t breathe.

  I claw at my throat, claw at my face, claw at my tongue.

  The air

  The air

  It won’t travel down into my lungs.

  The light

  The light.

  It surrounds me and I think I’m dying.

  This is what it feels like, I realize.

  To die.

  It’s warm and soft and inviting.

  It’s comforting, like home.

  It doesn’t smell like embalming fluid and stargazers, the way it does in the funeral home. It smells like rain, like grass, like clouds.

  The light surrounds me, and my throat doesn’t hurt anymore.

  Nothing hurts.

  I’m light as a feather.

  I’m light as a cloud,

  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.”

  This perks my ears up. Because we can’t have a dog back home. Dad is allergic.

  “A dog?”

  Finn nods, the happy bearer of good news.

  This place is looking up.

  A little.

  My brother helps me unpack and put away my clothes, and I stare at the giant bed. “I’m going to be afraid to sleep here,” I muse.

  Finn shakes his head. “I’ll come sleep with you. Then we won’t be alone.”

  I’m never alone. That’s the best thing about having a twin. I smile, and we find our way to the dining room together, because when we’re together we’re never alone, and because we aren’t supposed to be late for dinner.

  It is here, seated around the biggest table that I’ve ever seen, that we meet our grandmother.

  Eleanor Savage is seated at the head of the table, her hair pulled back severely from her face. She’s wearing pearls and a dress, and she doesn’t seem happy, even though she says she’s pleased to finally meet us. She emphasizes the finally, and glances at my mother as she says it.

  My mother gulps but doesn’t reply. This interests me. My mother is scared of my grandmother. But then again, as I look at the severe old woman, I’m guessing that everyone is scared of my grandmother.

  Eleanor looks at me.

  “We’ve always kept a pair of Newfoundlands here on the Whitley estate. We’ve recently had our old dogs put down. You and your brother will choose a new pair. The neighbor’s bitch whelped.”

  I have no idea what whelped means, and I thought bitch was a bad word. But I nod because she wants me to, because she acts like she’s bestowing an honor. She doesn’t say Welcome to Whitley, I’m your grandmother and I love you. Instead she allows us to pick out the new estate dogs.

  I don’t say anything because I do want a dog, and I’m afraid if I ask questions she’ll change her mind.

  Instead, I focus on my dinner, which is an odd thing called Steak and Kidney pie. I shove the internal organs around on my plate, but my mom catches my eye and raises a stern eyebrow. I reluctantly put a bite in my mouth. It tastes meaty, but the texture is rubbery and turns my stomach. I swallow it without chewing.

  “Where is our cousin?” Finn asks abruptly, and I realize that I had forgotten about him, the boy we met last year. The boy with the dark eyes, so dark they’re almost black.

  Dare.

  My grandmother looks down her nose at us.

  “Adair is eating in his father’s wing, although you should know that children aren’t allowed to ask questions here at Whitley.”

  I gulp because this stern atmosphere is scary, and because Whitley must be enormous. It’s so big that we all have separate wings and rooms and suites. It’s like an island floating in the middle of England.

  I am on edge because I can see that my grandmother doesn’t like Dare. It’s in her voice, dripping with resentment and distaste. I briefly wonder why, but then put it out of my mind as I make my way back to my giant bedroom. It’s not my business. He’s a step-cousin who I don’t even know. Like my father would say, it’s not my circus, not my monkeys.

  In the morning, Sabine wakes me from my sleep with a gentle rap on the door.

  “Come with me, child,” she says, her voice like a gnarled piece of driftwood. “We’ve got to go get the pups.”

  Excitement leaps in my chest and I charge from the bed, pulling on clothes as I go. A dog. Dogs don’t judge you, they love you no matter what, and they never act like you’re crazy. I can hardly wait to get one of my own.

  Finn and I chatter as we ride with Sabine in an old truck, down the road to a neighbor’s. A herd of fat fluffy black puppies surround us when we get out, and it isn’t long before I pick one with big sad eyes, and Finn picks one with a wriggly body and wagging tail.

  “They look small now,” Sabine warns us. “But they’ll be bigger than you someday. They’ll have to be carefully trained to be obedient.”

  “What should we name them?” Finn wonders aloud as he holds his squirming puppy on the way back to Whitley.

  Sabine glances at us. “Their names will be Castor and Pollux. It is fitting.”

  I find it interesting that she has already named them, but it doesn’t really matter. Because I have a soft puppy sleeping on my lap and that’s really all I ever wanted. I just didn’t realize that until now.

  It isn’t until we’re back at Whitley and in the kitchen feeding our new pets when I think of our cousin.

  “Shouldn’t Dare have gotten a puppy, too?” I ask, pausing with my hand on Castor’s head. Sabine shakes her head and looks away.

  “No.”

  Her answer is so immediate and firm that it puzzles me.

  “But why?”

  “Because, my child, he doesn’t matter. Now remember what your grandmother said. Children don’t ask questions here.”

  It’s the first time that I truly see Dare’s place in this home, and he plays the role of insignificance. I don’t like it. Dare should have the same position as I have. He’s Eleanor’s grandchild, just like me. So why do they treat him like he’s different, like he’s disposable?

  It leaves me with a sense of dread and a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Try as I might, that feeling won’t go away.

  Finn and I sleep with Castor and Pollux snuggled at our feet, and still, I somehow feel alone for the first time in my life because I’m in a place where a living breathing person has no importance whatsoever.

  If it’s Dare today, it might be me tomorrow.

  Disposable.

  Chapter Five

  Whitley Estate

  Sussex, England

  I dream that I can’t breathe, that something something something is strangling me. I struggle and struggle to take a breath, to move, and I simply can’t. I startle awake to find Castor lying across me, with every ounce of his two-hundred pounds crushing me.

  “Ugh, Castor, move,” I mumble because his dog breath is rancid and his slobber is dripping down my neck. He pants harder, and doesn’t budge.

  I manage to roll out from under him and I fight hard to remember the little ball of fur that he used to be only one year ago.

  “You’re enormous,” I tell him lovingly, patting his giant head. We’d only arrived yesterday and Castor and Pollux seemed to remember us, as though we’d never left. “I didn’t even know a dog could get so big.”

  He seems as big as a small horse and his paws are bigger than my hands. I know that for a fact. I compared. He’s as heavy as Finn and I put together, maybe more, and I love him. I love him as much as last year, as much as I ever did. Maybe even more. He’s so big that I know he’d never let anything happen to me. Not ever. For some reason, that feels important.

  “Let’s go get some breakfast, boy.” Castor pants at my heels as we wind our way through the halls, and his nails click on the stone. He sounds like a moose walking behind me. Nothing about him is subtle.

  I pause at Finn’s bedroom and peer in, and I smile when I see Finn and Pollux sprawled together in the sheets. Pollux is every bit as large as Castor, and he makes the giant bed seem small. He perks his ears when he sees me, but doesn’t move.

  “Shh, boy,” I tell him. He closes his eyes as though he understands that I want my brother to sleep. We’re jetlagged and down seems like up right now.

  When I get to the kitchens, there is no one there. It’s unusual, but it’s far earlier than everyone else gets up on a normal day. Stupid jetlag. I grab a roll from the cabinet, pour some food for Castor, and eat my breakfast.

  When I’m finished, I’m still alone in the kitchen.

  So Castor and I head outside, stepping along the foggy paths as we explore.

  I immediately wish I’d worn a sweater. It’s chilly outside with the morning breeze and the sun only just now coming up. Goosebumps form everywhere on my body and scrape together on my legs as I walk, like prickly miniscule anthills.

  The horizon is laced with purples and pinks and reds as the sun begins to tip over the edge. It seems abnormally huge, but it is because Whitley’s grounds are so large, so vast. I’m marveling in the beauty of it when I hear a noise.

  A rock tumbling along the path, maybe. A skidding sound, something that interrupts the stillness of morning.