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Darkness.
I don’t know.
All I know is that when he is with me, I feel invincible. I feel strong. I feel like me, but a better version.
So I do the only thing I can think of to do. I slide my grandfather’s ring off of my thumb and give it to him.
“I can’t take this,” he protests softly, but he’s so so touched, I can see it.
“It will remind you of where you are,” I tell him. “And who you are. I want you to have it. You’re a Savage, too. As important as anyone else.”
He slides it onto his middle finger and the movement is mesmerizing, and the sheen of the ring the sheen of the ring the sheen of the ring shines in the light and the world swirls.
It swirls
It swirls
It bends
It breaks.
The pieces drift around me and form pictures and I feel I feel I feel like I’ve been here before.
I stare at Dare, and he’s different, he’s older. My hand is older, too. Long and slender and strong, as I reach out to touch Dare’s face.
“Do you want to turn back, Dare?” I ask, and my voice is flirty, and we’re here in Joyland but it’s older and dirtier.
“Not on your life.” Moonlight shines upon his face, and drenches us, illuminating the dark stubble outlining his jaw.
“Let’s do it then.” I smile, and my heart is full and we disappear into Nocte.
The darkness swallows us, then blends together, then falls away, and then I’m once again standing in the sun, and Dare is staring at me, confused, bewildered.
“Calla?” There’s concern in his voice, and there is no stubble on his clean-shaven face.
I shake my head, shaking all of the confusion away, because it’s notrealnotrealnotreal.
“I’m ok,” I whisper, but I’m not really. Because sometimes I’m here, and sometimes I’m not.
Keep his ring. It will hold you to the ground, and make you always remember where you are. Eleanor’s words echo through my head and I focusfocusfocus on them.
I’m here.
Dare’s here.
Yet a minute ago, as real as anything, I wasn’t here. I was somewheresomewheresomewhere else.
We go home, back to the funeral home, and the days inch, fly, swirl past. They turn into weeks, and the weeks turn into months, confusing wonderful beautiful months.
Dare spends my birthday with me, then two. He spends Christmas. He spends every day in between. Every day, he becomes more and more unsettled.
Because he’s not real.
Because I don’t know what he is.
“If I could fix everything, I would,” I tell him one day as we stand on the cliffs. The wind whips at my hair and I shove it away. Dare stares at me and there’s sadness in his eyes.
“I know, Calla Lily.”
