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“How can we all be related?” I ask and I feel weak now, like my knees will collapse.
She sighs and she breathes. “Because our bloodline is pure,” she says and I think briefly of the royal bloodlines of Egypt. They married amongst themselves to keep their bloodlines pure.
“Like that,” she says and I don’t know if she read my mind, or if I said it out loud. I never know these days.
“We’re from the oldest bloodline in the world,” she adds proudly. “We have powerful blood, Calla. Ancient blood. You have no idea.”
“No, I don’t,” I agree. “Does my mother?”
My grandmother seems amused. “Your mother has always known,” she tells me. “Since she was a child. She’s known her place, she knew her purpose. She was strong. Unlike you. Your mind is weak and we must handle you.”
“Handle me?” my words are a whisper and she smiles again.
“A sacrifice must be made,” Eleanor says bluntly. “And you must make it. We’ll shelter you and strengthen you until then, but when the time comes, yo
u will be strong, girl.”
It’s a directive, not a question.
I will be strong.
I’m not strong now as I fumble out the door and trip down the long halls to my bedroom. When I arrive, when I tumble through the door, Dare is sitting in my window seat and he’s pale and he’s troubled.
“Something isn’t right,” he says, and his British accent is clipped. “Something is very wrong.”
“I know,” I agree, and I collapse next to him and he rubs my back and we stare out the window together at the moors and the moors growl.
“We’re all related,” I tell him, and he stares at me in surprise.
“That’s not possible,” he replies, but I can hear the doubt in his words.
I nod. “Eleanor just told me. Only she said that your mother died young and that you don’t exist.”
“I’m as real as you are,” he says firmly, and his hand is on my back and he does feel real.
“She says we’re like the Egyptian pharaohs,” I explain. “Our bloodline is pure.”
“What does that mean?” Dare asks, and he’s dubious now.
“I don’t know.”
And I don’t.
Chapter Thirteen
Days turn into weeks, and with every week, things get stranger. All traces of Dare have been eradicated from Whitley. Not a picture, not a mention. I’m so convinced that I’m crazier than ever that I even stop confiding in Finn.
It’s not something my brother appreciates.
“You’re not yourself,” he announces one day in the library. “Something’s wrong and you’re not hiding it very well.”
He’s so worried that it twinges at my heart. I want to tell him, I wanttowanttowantto. But I can’t. Can I?
“Have you ever imagined someone into existence?” I ask him carefully, grabbing his hand and squeezing it ever so softly.
“No,” he answers slowly. “Have you?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I thought we had a cousin. A step-cousin. But everyone is acting like he doesn’t exist, like he never did. And I’m starting to wonder if I made him up in my head.”
