“Sorry for what?”

“I’m sorry for everything.”

The clouds clear for a minute, then surround me again.

“But it wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t?” Finn sighs. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter anymore. Fault, cause, roots. None of that matters. All that matters is you. You have to face what is real.”

His hand starts to fade and he seems to slip into the air, away from me. I grab at him, but my fingers come up empty.

“Finn!” I call. “Come back! Don’t leave me!”

But he’s gone, and I’m alone, and all that is left is Finn’s soft voice, and it seems to come from nowhere, yet everywhere.

“If you have to live for both us, then do it,” he whispers. “But live.”

“Finn?” I ask hesitantly, but there is no answer.

He’s truly gone.

The room is empty and cold and stark.

My entire life, my brother has been my other half. He’s loved me unconditionally, completely, with everything he has.

And now he’s dead, and he’s asking me to do something.

Something hard.

To exist without him.

To figure out, once and for all, what is true,

What is real.

I have to do it.

And to do that, I have to re-trace my steps.

If Finn is gone,

There’s only one thing in my life that is true.

One true point of reference.

One important thing.

Dare.

With shaking hands, I close my eyes,

and try to think about Dare.

Because it’s always been about Dare.

I try to focus on his dark eyes, and his bright smile, and his swaying shoulders…but thoughts of him won’t form. They’re stubborn and elusive, and all I can think of is the beginning.

The beginning

The beginning.

With a start, I remember scratched words from Finn’s journal.

Mars solum initium est. Death is the beginning.

The beginning, the beginning.

I NEED TO START.

My breathing catches then quickens, because maybe once again, like always, Finn is telling me where to go.

Maybe the beginning is exactly where I need to be.

Chapter Two

The smell of the school gym permeates my nose. The dust motes float in the air, the floor scuffed and hot. Around me, the other kindergartners screech and run because Capture the Flag is our favorite game. Our skin smells like sweat, our breath is heavy and hot in our chests, and the sense of competition is so thick I can taste it.

I look up to find my brother Finn grabbing the other team’s flag. He’s as surprised by this turn of events as I am because one thing about my brother… he’s not athletic. It’s not his thing. His smile is beatific as he sprints toward our side, because if he can just manage this, he’ll be the hero of the day. We’ll win, and it will be because of him.

I wave my arms and motion for him to run harder, as if he weren’t already. His skinny arms are pumping, his legs scrambling. But he needs to run faster because I want everyone else to know how amazing he is.

“Calla!” Finn shrieks, and for a second, I think it’s from the excitement. “Calla!”

The tone of his voice is anxious or desperate and his hair is plastered to his forehead, and he’s not excited. He’s terrified. His eyes are wide and focused on something behind me, on the wall, on nothing.

I’m confused, but panicked, because something in me is triggered. The age-old innate instinct to protect my twin. Fight or Flight. Protect him.

I sprint to catch him, to try and shield him from the kids trying to bombard him for the scrap of material in his hand. I’m not sure what is wrong with him, but he’s no longer trying to play the game. He’s trying to escape it.

When I reach him, his eyes are sightless and he’s screaming in terror. Around me, I hear other kids snickering and see them staring and I want to punch them all, but I don’t have the chance.

Finn drops the flag and it flutters to the ground like an orange ribbon.

Before I can stop him, he shimmies up the old creaking rope, the one that goes to the ceiling. He hovers by the stained ceiling tiles, looking down at me, but not really seeing me.

“It’s here, Calla!” he screams. “It’s here. The demon. The demon. Its eyes are black.” His eyes widen, and he shrieks again, shirking away as if something unseen is chasing him. He tries to climb higher, but there’s nowhere else to go. He’s at the top, next to the ceiling and something imaginary is chasing him and I can’t breathe.

What is happening?

My heart pounds and I grab the rope, climbing it as quickly as I can to get to my brother.

One hand after the other, I push with my feet. The thick twine cuts into my hands, burning and hot, but it doesn’t matter.

Only Finn matters.

But Finn isn’t seeing me. He looks through me, and shrieks and shrieks and shrieks.

He scrambles away, and I’m terrified.

“Finn, it’s me,” I tell him softly, my voice as steady as I can make it. “It’s me.”

I have to help. I have to. What’s wrong with him?

I touch his shoe, lightly, so very lightly, so lightly that I think he won’t feel it.

But he does. His face twists and he turns because he thinks I’m a demon, and as he moves, his hands slip away from the rope.

Life is slow motion.

He falls away from the rope and he screams. He flails as he falls and the sound he makes as he hits the gym floor is startlingly soft, like a pillow. How can that be?

I’m stunned and detached as I stare down at my brother, at the blood pooling on the gym floor, at the teacher ushering the kids away from his body, at my brother, at my brother.

Finn’s light blue eyes are open and staring at me, but he’s not seeing me.

Not anymore.

Because he’s dead.

My father is an undertaker, so I know what death looks like.

I don’t remember how I get down from the rope, because my hands are numb, my heart is numb, my head is numb. I don’t remember who picks me up from school. All I remember is lying in bed and staring at the ceiling and feeling lifeless, like the whole world could fall into pieces and float away and I wouldn’t care. Because if Finn is gone, I don’t want to be here either.

The sadness presses on me like a heavy, heavy weight, and I know I can’t withstand it. It will crush me.

I close my eyes,

And it’s dark, and I dream.

I’m in a darker place, and my brother is there. His eyes are dark and murky, without whites, and I realize that he’s an embryo, and I’m an embryo and we haven’t been born yet. I reach out my webbed fingers and touch his face through the liquid, through the fluid, and he’s my brother. Although he doesn’t have hair yet, I know it. I feel him, I feel his heart.

He looks at me through the dark, and just as if he were speaking, I hear a voice. It’s him, it’s my brother, it’s Finn.

Save me and I’ll save you.

He is loud, and quiet, and everywhere, and nowhere.

Something is troubling him, and I feel it in my bones, so I nestle closer to take it, to absorb it, because I can’t let anything happen to him, not ever. I failed him once, and I’ll never fail him again.

He brings me comfort and I bring him comfort and that’s the way we’ll always be.

I feel his skin. I feel his heart beating against me.

I feel our cells splitting as we grow, as we develop, as we become beings.

Save me, and I’ll save you.

Yes, I will.

I will.

I awaken with a start, and the light is pouring into my bedroom window.

The bedding is pulled up to my chin and I untangle one hand, staring at it. My fingers are no longer webbed. My fingers are separate and long. I wiggle them in the light.