Initium

by Courtney Cole

  “Come to you where?” I cry. “Tell me, and I will.”

  But he’s sad because he shouldn’t have to tell me. “You’ll know,” he says wisely and he’s gone, and monsters stay in his place.

  Black black monsters with red eyes. Their teeth are white as they gnash in the night and glisten in the moon and I scream.

  I scream and scream, and writhe and moan, and Richard never wakes up.

  My mother comes, though, in the morning.

  “I heard you screaming,” she tells me, and I don’t ask her how. Knowing her, she felt it in her bones.

  She places her hand on my swollen tight belly and her mouth draws into a gnarled smile. “It’s almost time,” she nods. “This is almost over.”

  I twist away from her touch because I can’t trust her now. I love her and she loves me, but I can’t trust her to do what is right by me. She is ruled by the stories, by her beliefs, by what she thinks is fate.

  “There is no such thing as fate,” I tell her. “Your stories aren’t real, mother. The only thing that is real is us. Our babies, our lives. We determine what is real.”

  She looks at me blackly and mutters under her breath. “You don’t even know what is real anymore, Olivia. That is the problem.”

  I have to agree, but I don’t say it aloud. I don’t know what’s real anymore.

  It’s this place.

  It’s Whitley.

  Or it’s my pregnancy.

  Or it’s England.

  Or it’s the air.

  Or it’s my dreams.

  I don’t know what it is. But I do know that my mind is deteriorating, and I’m floating, and the insanity is the sea, and I’m cast away in it, all alone and floating and sinking.

  “I will not sink,” I tell myself as I wash my face, and as I do, my belly twinges and the pain is real. If nothing else is, the pain is.

  The pain is.

  The pain is.

  I almost revel in it, and I do sink to my knees and experience it, focusing on it as it contracts to and fro, from my spine to my chest.

  I moan, I keen, I float.

  I hold my belly in my arms and sing to it.

  I cry and rock,

  I sigh and sink into the floor,

  My cheek pressed against the stone.

  The pain wracks me, it takes me, it breaks me.

  I see the black beings, and they are circled around me, waiting

  Waiting

  Waiting.

  “No,” I screech, and I fling my arms far and wide. “No. You can’t have my baby and you can’t have me.”

  They smile though, with fangs and blood, and I close my eyes, floating on my pain. Phillip is here now and he holds my hand and sings to me, his voice humming in my ear and it’s wordless and tuneless and he smells like the moon.

  “Save me,” I tell him, I beg.

  His eyes are black and soft, glistening like dark pearls and I want to stroke him.

  “Save me, and I’ll save you,” he says and his hands are on my back, rubbing rubbing rubbing.

  “Save our baby,” I beg and his words are confusing. “Whatever it takes.”

  He stares at me, and his stare is sharp and jarring. “Whatever it takes?”

  “Yes,” I scream as another pain wracks me, and rips me apart. “Yes.”

  Phillip rocks me and rocks me and my mother comes and she blends in and out with the night, with reality, with my pain.

  “We have to pay for the sins of our fathers,” she murmurs, and it’s something she’s told me many times before. “Think, Olivia. Think.”

  But the pain,

  The pain.

  It dulls my thoughts, and all I can think of is it. The pain.

  “Think,” she urges me again. “Who did the great Salome marry, Liv? You know this. Think on it. Think on it.”

  The black seeps in from my eyelids and it turns red, and the words form in my mind, but I can’t read them, I can’t read them. I try and try.

  I focus

  And focus.

  “Phillip,” I finally manage. “Salome married a Phillip.”

  My mother sits back, satisfied. “Yes. She married a Phillip. Her uncle Phillip.”

  I’m astounded and my pain ebbs and I can think for a moment.

  “Not my Phillip,” I tell her. “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” she asks. “Sons must pay for the sins of their fathers.”

  The pain returns and I can’t think anymore, and all thoughts drift away. Phillip comes back, and he murmurs in my ear.

  “My love, my Salome. It will be over soon.”

  “I’m not Salome,” I tell him, and his eyes glimmer and shine. “I’m not Salome.”

  “Aren’t you?” he asks simply and I clutch my stomach and it’s time, it’s time, it’s time. The pressure is too much to bear and my legs part and my stomach contracts contracts contracts.

  I scream

  And scream, and push

  And push.

  I feel my baby coming

  Coming

  Coming.

  It claws its way into the world, sliding into the light, and I push it push it push it.

  He cries a great sob when he enters this life, and I cry because he’s here, because I did it, because I don’t know what will happen now.

  He lays on my breast and he looks up at me, and he’s bloody and red and his eyes are black black black as night.

  Black as Phillip’s.

  Phillip looks up at me, his hand on his baby’s breast, and he smiles.

  “My Salome,” he croons, and the world goes black,

  because the pain

  the pain

  the pain broke me.

  Chapter Nine

  Once in a far away land and time, a man, Judas Iscariot, a betrayer of all men, dwelled. Judas had a friend, the savior of the world, and he betrayed the Savior with a kiss for a mere handful of silver. Thirty simple pieces was all it took for him to betray mankind. Guilt overcame Judas, and he killed himself, but not before his infamous betrayal.

  Salome located one of the silver pieces and had it made into a ring, to symbolize her power to sway men, her power to do whatever she pleased, her power to even control death. She wore that ring until she died, and then it was passed to her son, and his son, and his son, and so on.

  She called herself the daughter of death, and she wore her ring proudly.

  That ring is mine now,

  And my son,

  And his son,

  And so on.

  It is in the middle of the night when I open my eyes, and Richard is not in my room. The fireplace flickers and the flames lap at the stone, and I feel like I’ve been here before. My mother sits next to me and she rocks and rocks, her hands full of two bundles.

  Two.

  My eyes widen but my vision is blurry and I feel like I’m slip slip slipping.

  “You must choose, Olivia,” she says, and her words twist and turn. “You must give something to get something.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say woozily, and I think I’ve been drugged, or I’m crazy. The bundles in her lap squirm and cry, and tiny fists raise in the air.

  “You do,” my mother says and she’s right, I think I do.

  There are two, and I can’t keep them both. I’ve known that since I was small. I would dance the dance of Salome, and I would choose.

  So it has been written,

  So it shall be.

  I close my eyes and open them, and then I point.

  I choose.

  My mother hands me one bundle, and takes the one I pointed at away, disappearing into the shadows. I think she hands it to Phillip, but I can’t make it out through the haze.

  My heart rips into two and I can’t breathe, so I do the only thing I can do to survive. I put it out of my head, out of my mind, and I don’t focus on what will happen to it, or even wonder if it is a boy or a girl. I can’t think on it. I can’t I can’t I can’t.

  Instead, I focus
on the dark eyes staring up at me,

  The dark

  Dark eyes

  That are blacker than night.

  “Your name is Adair,” I croon to him. “Adair DuBray. And you will avenge me, and you will be your father’s son.”

  From the shadows, with his arms full of death, Phillip smiles.

  * * *

  The days pass and I waste away.

  I dream of horrible things, terrible things, nightmarish things.

  My mother comes to me often, and she begs my forgiveness. “It had to be done, Liv,” she tells me, and I hate her, I think. “I had to do it, my mother had to do it, your son will have to do it. We all have to choose, we all have to pay for the sins of our fathers.”

  Of Salome.

  I remember now, a final piece of Salome’s story. Her mother had pulled the strings that night, her mother had wanted John the Baptist’s head. She had used Salome’s wiles to get it. She had used her daughter, just as my mother has used me.

  “Leave me,” I tell her, and when I dream that night, I scream, but no one listens, and no one cares.

  My baby, my beautiful Adair, sleeps through the nights so peacefully and he grows and thrives, and has no idea what the world has become, or who he is, or who I am.

  I rock him and sing to him, and when he sleeps, I scream.

  Sanity is lost on me,

  And I’m lost in an ocean.

  Phillip doesn’t come to me anymore, and without him, I don’t understand the point. I miss him, he was my heart, and without him, I don’t want to live.

  I manage to hang on, though. I eat a few bites every day for my son, because I have to protect him from this world, from the black beings that walk upon it.

  Days still pass because the world still turns, and each day turns into a week, which turns into a month, which turns into a year.

  It is when my son is three that I begin to have vivid dreams of the past, and of the future.

  I dream of a hooded boy, and his eyes are as black as night, as black as Phillip’s, as black as my son’s.

  I dream of blood.

  I dream of treachery.

  I dream of bad, terrible things.

  I dream of treachery and betrayal and deceit.

  I try to tell my mother, and the Savages, but no one listens, and they think I’m crazy and maybe I am.

  Laura comes to visit me one day, and she holds Dare in her lap as he tugs at her fiery hair. “You have to be strong for him, Liv,” she tells me, and her eyes are sad and I instinctively know why.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” I ask in sorrow and she nods.

  “I’m not safe here,” she tells me and I know it’s true and I cry. She holds my hand and when she leaves, I cry again, because I know I won’t see her again.

  But I’m wrong.

  I roam the halls that night,

  Because I think everyone else is sleeping.

  But I’m wrong.

  I turn the corner quietly into the library, and what I see startles me into freezing, and I press my hand to my mouth.

  Richard and Laura are on the floor in front of the fireplace, and the flames lap at the stones, and Laura’s red hair glows as Richard moves above her, sliding into her. Her hands are grasping his back and her knuckles are white, but she doesn’t fight him. Her pale legs are limp and she’s limp and Richard is like an animal ravaging her, but she doesn’t fight.

  Her eyes meet mine and she’s not afraid.

  She’s accepting her fate,

  Like I must accept mine.

  “One for one for one,” she whispers and she’s whispering to me, and no one can hear it but me.

  Eleanor stands in the shadows, watching this unnatural, heinous thing, and my mother is with her, her hand on Eleanor’s arm. They are surrounded in a haze and is this a dream?

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know.

  All I know is, in the morning, when I wake, Laura has gone, she’s fled Whitley and I can’t blame her. I would flee too, if I could.

  My dreams persist and I dream of Mr. Savage.

  He calls me his daughter.

  But that can’t be right. If he’s my father, then I’m Laura’s half-sister. And Richard’s half-sister. But then Mr. Savage jumps from the cliffs and I don’t know what is real, all I know is that I dream it over and over and over. When I ask my mother, all she will say is that our sons must pay for the sins of their fathers.

  My dreams continue

  And continue

  And continue,

  Until

  One

  Day,

  I dream of something different.

  Instead of Salome or Phillip, I dream of the betrayer, I dream of Judas. I see his lips moving, I see him kiss the savior of the world, I see him slip into the crowds after the deed is done. His face is appalled at his own actions, but that didn’t stop him from doing it.

  His one action, his one betrayal, condemned the savior of the world to die.

  Night after night, I dream this, and night after night, I struggle to get to him, to try to stop him from following through with the kiss that doomed the world. Night after night, I fail, because his actions were written in fate, part of a plan larger than himself or me.

  He was condemned from the beginning, doomed to play a treacherous part.

  My dreams repeat

  And repeat

  And repeat, tormenting me into screams,

  Into sobs.

  But one night,

  I realize something that I hadn’t noticed before, because I had been so swept away in trying to prevent his treachery. My blood chills in my veins as I make the realization and draw the connection, and I sink sink sink into a black abyss of sorrow.

  Judas’ hair is as red as flames.

  As red as blood.

  As red as Laura’s.

  * * *

  To see a sneak preview of LUX, the exciting series finale, please keep reading.

  Preview of LUX

  Prologue

  There’s a fork in the road and even though I see it, I can’t avoid it.

  One road goes left, one goes right, and neither of them ends well.

  I feel it in my bones,

  In my bones,

  In my hollow reed bones.

  He grabs my hand and we walk…through a tunnel…through a hall… through the dark.

  “It’ll be ok,” he whispers.

  Will it?

  “We have to do this,” he says. “But I’m with you. I won’t leave you.”

  I nod because I believe him, because no matter what else, I know that much is true. He won’t leave me.

  The room is shrouded in shadows, in flame, in secrets. I step inside, and peer around, and the heat from the fire warms me, warms my blood, and the blood pumps through my heart.

  I sing a song of nonsense, and it sings back. The notes echo and twist in the air, and I swallow them whole.

  “Come out,” I call behind me, because I know they’re there.

  I can’t see them, but they’re always watching.

  The eyes appear, inky black, and glistening, and they blink once, twice, three times.

  “I can see you,” I announce and it growls and then I’m crushed beneath the dark, beneath the weight, beneath the oppression.

  “You don’t scare me,” I lie.

  Because it does scare me. It’s followed me my whole life, and finally, finally, I’ll find out what it is.

  Why it’s here.

  Why it wants me.

  Because above all, I know it’s here for me.

  I know it

  I know it.

  The walls around me pulse and hum and growl,

  There’s savagery here, there’s grace.

  But above all, there’s oblivion and no matter what I do, I will be sucked into it.

  I know it.

  I feel it.

  I’m crazy.

  “Are you ready? she asks an
d we nod, because we aren’t but it doesn’t matter.

  She nods and the flames lap, and the words start,

  One for one for one.

  I fall backwards from the precipice

  into oblivion.

  The endless

  Endless oblivion.

  * * *

  Chapter ONE

  The room swirls white and medicinal, filled with beeps and blank walls and cold skin. Goosebumps chase each other in confusion up my arm, and I gulp hard.

  I’m in a hospital.

  I’m cold.

  I’m afraid.

  My dead brother stares at me, his pale blue eyes evasive as he skirts my question. I ask it again.

  “Finn, where’s Dare?”

  I ask him stiltedly, each word a sword that stabs my heart, because doom invades this room, in every inch, every breath, every moment.

  Finn looks away, at the wall, at the floor, at anything but me.

  “Dare is….you know where he is, Calla.”

  I don’t, though, and that’s the unbearable thing.

  My eyes flutter closed and the last thing I see is the white hospital blanket that covers me. I close my eyes against reality, and Finn picks up my hand.

  “Cal, you’ve twisted everything around in your head until you don’t know what is real, and what is not. You know where Dare is. You know what is real. You’ve just got to think. You’ve got to face it.”

  This hurts, and I hate it.

  “I…can’t.” My words are limp, falling onto the bed, tumbling to the floor.

  Finn stares at me, into my eyes, into my heart. It pierces me, it grabs me with both hands and doesn’t let go.

  “Calla, you can. You’re not me, you’re you. And that’s ok. That’s who you need to be. Please, for the love of God, come back. Just come back.”

  My eyes open because his words are confusing.

  “Come back from where?”

  I’m clearly here in the hospital with him, with my dead brother. I’m already here. He’s the one who’s not, because he’s dead. He’s not making any sense.

  He sighs, a soft sound in a silent room.

  “Come back from where you are. You’re needed here, Calla.”

  “But I am here,” I say hesitantly, because Finn is already shaking his head.