Initium (The Nocte Trilogy 2.50)

But there’s something in her voice, something something something. Like she’s trying to convince herself, not me. It’s a fragile tone, an uncertainty.

But then she turns away and leaves me alone.

I turn onto my side and pull the covers up to my chin, staring out the window. A heavy fog descends upon me because of the pills, pulling my head under a current, a murky dark current, and I can’t fight the sleepiness. It’s here, it’s heavy, it blurs my vision.

But before I stop seeing and the darkness covers everything, I see Finn and Dare on the lawns. They’re playing and laughing and abruptly, Dare stops and tilts his head up, his dark dark eyes connecting with mine.

He stares at me, into me, through me.

My breath catches, because something feels off here, something feels odd.

Dare raises his hand and waves, and he runs off with my brother into the trees.

My brother.

Mine.

Resentment fills me again, because I’m in this bed and he’s outside with my brother, playing the games I should be playing, with my brother,

Mine

Mine

Mine.

I can’t stop the darkness though, and it arrives, covering up my resentment and my desire to play. It covers up everything, dulling it, deadening it. Sleep comes and I’m lost…in dreams, in nightmares, in reality.

Who can tell the difference?

Finn is there, and Dare is there and my brother reaches out his hand. Because I belong with Finn, not Dare. I should be playing, shrieking, laughing.

We run away, away from Dare, toward the cliffs, toward the sea.

When I look over my shoulder, Dare is watching us go,

with the saddest look on his face that I’ve ever seen.

He doesn’t move to chase us, and I know that he’s resigned.

He knows what I know.

He doesn’t belong with Finn, I do.

Finn is mine.

* * *

When I wake, I hear voices reverberating through the halls of our home. I smell the carnations and the stargazers, the flowers of funerals, of death.

I pad across my bedroom and down the stairs.

The smell of hotcakes surrounds me and I inhale the maple syrup.

“Why is today special?” I ask my mom, because we only get hotcakes on special days. She looks up at me as she bustles through to the kitchen.

“Your cousin has to go back home early. His Latin tutor arrived ahead of schedule.”

“Latin?”