Allow them to change the patterns,

Change the events.

I invoke you.

I invoke you.

Restore my daughter.

I invoke you.

End the cycle.

Take them as the sacrifice.

Her voice, like always, was a raspy whisper and I remember it now. I remember holding Dare’s hand, but he let go, and he stepped back, and Finn was there with me.

One for one for one.

There was fire, and we burned.

Finn and me.

Sabine burned us to death,

For something

Something

Something.

Something that didn’t work,

And we’ve spent the rest of this time

Cycling through.

Over

And

Over.

“You killed my daughter,” Sabine says simply. “All of you.”

She touches my hand, her own like a claw, and the events the events the events of that night flood me.

It was dark.

It was so long ago.

Dare’s mom was taking us for a midnight swim. We were so small and she was crazy. Schizoaffective disorder and she hadn’t taken her medicine and no one knew. We were going to dance on the beach, she said. But the car rolled off the cliffs

And

We

Fell.

The water filled up the car, and the windows the windows held us in. And then suddenly, Olivia broke us free, and we drifted to the surface, but she didn’t because she drowned.

“My daughter drowned saving you,” Sabine says, and there’s something akin to hatred in her eyes.

“Dare is your grandson,” I say stiltedly. “Olivia was Richard’s wife. But Dare wasn’t Richard’s.”

I remember that. I remember hearing the whispers and not knowing what they meant. Olivia was unfaithful. Olivia was unfaithful. Dare had a lot in life and I didn’t know what it was. Dare can’t leave the grounds because he’s an embarrassment. Dare is a bastard. What’s a bastard, mom? Nothing you should worry about, my darling.

“Of course he wasn’t,” Sabine hisses. “Olivia was in love with Phillip, who was Salome’s. Olivia is Salome, Calla. And Dare is Salome. We’re all of her blood, and Phillip has always loved her, he was her brother, her twin. No one knows that of course. History has changed and says that he was her uncle. Either way, our bloodline is pure.

“It is pure so that we could offer a pure sacrifice, to end the cycle. It wasn’t supposed to be Olivia. It was supposed to be Finn. Olivia’s death was in vain, because she’s not from Cain and Abel, like Finn. But Olivia died saving you and Dare and Finn instead. Finn was supposed to die. The universe gives back what you put into it, girl.”

“Olivia had SAD,” I say slowly. Sabine’s smile is eerie, and it stretches from ear to ear.

“Yes, she did. And now you and Finn pass that very thing back and forth, after you killed her. Do you find that to be a coincidence?”

Her voice her voice her voice is knowing and I know she’s right. It’s not a coincidence.

“We didn’t kill her,” I say weakly. “Not on purpose.”

“Either way, it happened. The Universe always has its way, child. You were supposed to have a heart condition. You were born with it. But you gave it to Dare, and now it seems to be gone. But it’s not. Things never are. Fate is what it is, and it will always have its way. Dare knows that.”

“Has Dare known all along?” I ask and my words are pieces of wood just like my heart.

Her smile stretches wider.

“Of course he has,” she says and she is heartless, her heart is black, her heart is gone. “He was trying to save his mother, after all.”

The fire

The fire. Dare led me to the fire, and he let go, and he left me with Finn to die.

Only we didn’t.

“You tried to kill us,” I say aloud. “So long ago. It didn’t work.”

She looks away now, disgruntled. “It should’ve worked,” she snaps. “It should’ve been easy. But nothing in this life ever is, I suppose. You’ve fought and fought against us, but you can’t fight forever.”

“Us?” I want to melt into a puddle and stay there, because I know who she means.

“Dare and I, of course.”

That’s what I thought, and it kills me kills me kills me.

“It has to be Finn,” she explains with her heartless tongue. “And Dare knew that. To sacrifice, to set things right, it has to be Finn. Olivia tried. She offered up one son, but that offering was rejected. It wasn’t her fault.”

All I can think of is one thing.

Dare is with Sabine.

Dare is with Sabine.

“How have you done this?” I ask her. “How are you making us crazy? How are you doing it? Is it your tea?”

She laughs and it’s like a cackle. “Of course not, child. I have my old Rom ways, and I adhere to them. Everything will come to pass as it should. Time is fluid and it can change. You can change it. You can change it to the right thing if we just wait long enough.”

“And Dare?”

Sabine shrugs. “He doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the end.”

My veins turn to ice and I don’t understand. All I know is that all along, my memories have been real, even when they haven’t seemed possible. The deva ju, the craziness.

“One for one for one,” Sabine tells me. “You are of Judas, and you must betray your brother in order to set things right. There are sacrifices to be made, girl. You must be strong enough to do it.”

My mother’s words in the book she left come back to me come back to me come back.

May you always have the courage to live free, and the strength to do what is right.

My breath hitches and hitches and hitches, because it seems that my mother was saying to sacrifice Finn, to choose to live free with Dare. But that can’t be right. She told me that I couldn’t be with Dare.

But then things changed,

Again

And again. And who knows anymore?

“You’re the crazy one,” I tell Sabine as I study the look in her eyes, the unsettling, unbalanced gleam. She doesn’t deny it.

The door bursts open and Dare is here, thank God, and he grabs me.

“We’ve got to go, Calla.”

I look at him, and his eyes are wide and full of pain and guilt, and I pull away.

“It’s true?” I ask softly.

“You came to get us? You were going to kill us for Sabine? You were going to kill Finn?”

His dark eyelashes are inky against his cheeks as he closes his eyes and he sighs, so loud. “I was so small when I agreed. She was my mother, and I just wanted her back. Sabine told me that if I participated, my mother would come back. I didn’t know all of this would happen. I didn’t know.”

“But you knew that Finn or I would die,” I press, and his fingers are cold against my own.

He opens his eyes and stares into mine, and I want to dive into his, to swim in them, to float.

“When you’re a child, you don’t understand mortality,” he offers simply. “Not really. And once we started, I couldn’t stop. It was a bullet out of a gun, and I couldn’t put it back. I’d already agreed, and a Roma’s word is a bond.”

He’s part Roma, and I know that now.

“When I realized, as I got older, what it all really meant, I’d already fallen for you. I can’t let it be you. I’ll do anything to stop it.”

“But we’re cursed,” I say quietly, and it feels like the only answer. “You’re Finn’s brother, and I’m Finn’s sister, and I’m a child of incest. Everything has been orchestrated because of some grand belief in Roma magic.”

“It’s not just a belief,” Dare sighs. “I wish it were, but it’s not. Cal… you change things. You’ve changed them over and over your whole life, without even knowing it. You loved your brother so much that you’ve literally changed time to bring him back. It’s because you’re descended from Abel. God made him the Judge of Souls and so are you. You know what is right. You know.”

Sabine watches us and she’s serious and silent.

“I don’t believe you,” I say and it sounds like a whimper.