Oblivion

  Her eyes brimmed once more, burning with restrained tears because she couldn’t deny any part of what he was saying. Pinfeathers might have been connected to Varen, but as much as she’d wanted to believe the opposite moments before, he wasn’t Varen. Only a piece of him. And even though she and the creature had come this far, meeting and parting time and again as if they’d never quite disengaged from their crazed masquerade dance, Isobel still couldn’t say what exactly—who—he really was. She doubted the Noc could either.

  “I’m sorry,” Isobel said, because those were the only words she could offer him.

  “You’re sorry?” He threw his head back, his laughter manic until another wave of pain caused him to double over at the waist, wiping his grin away and replacing it with a grimace.

  She reached toward him, wishing there were some way to stop this. To make it all okay. To make him okay. To take away the pain it caused him just to be. “I don’t know what to say. Please, tell me what to say. ”

  He straightened, chin lifted. “Say that you’ll keep shattering expectations. That you’ll show her—and us—that you can’t be predicted. Say that when ole Stencil Beak here gets close”—he pointed a red claw at his empty eye—“when he thinks he has you, and when I push through and hold steady, you’ll prove to me that this time you have been listening. That you’ll strike. ” Pulling down the fabric of his collar with one hand, he pointed at the etching of Virginia with the other. “Here. Hard as you can. ”

  Horrified, Isobel closed the distance between them, taking hold of his arms, fingers twisting around the coarse material of Varen’s jacket. “I—I can’t do that. ”

  “You’ll have to,” the Noc said, and though he clutched her arms in return, it was only to push her back, to hold her away from him. “If you expect to live long enough to keep your promise. And you damn well better keep it. After all, you wouldn’t want to have us demolished twice in vain. Talk about rude. Besides, you should know better than to think you can have us both—me and I. Three’s a crowd, remember? Selfish of you to even consider it, really. Can you let go now? You’re wrinkling the duds. Might be secondhand, but, as you can see, that’s part of my new loo—”

  “Stop making jokes!” she screamed, shaking him. “It isn’t funny. ”

  “Who’s laughing?” he asked, his voice doubling, its register dropping low. And then he did start to laugh—though Isobel knew she wasn’t dealing with Pinfeathers anymore. She knew it the moment his right eye went empty, flickering out.

  She swallowed hard, releasing him as, on the left, the other eye filled with a murky lens of black.

  Isobel backpedaled and the Noc’s laughter continued, the lower voice taking over, growing stronger. A piranha’s grin, slow and devious, crawled its way up his face to reveal a double row of serrated teeth—half indigo, half red.

  “Well, hello, stranger,” said Scrimshaw, running a blue-clawed hand through his coarse quill-and-feather hair, its color divided down the middle like his teeth. Like his face. “I knew Pin would find you for me. He can’t ever help himself. Pathetic, isn’t it? Oh, by the way, so sorry for dousing the glim on you in the attic like that—but, you see, we didn’t want to spoil our surprise. By the way, before we forget . . . ” His grin widened, causing the cracks on the left side, his Scrimshaw side—to deepen. He spread his arms. “Surprise. ”

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  It would do her no good to run. She knew that. But that was what Pinfeathers had told her to do. And so, turning, Isobel ran.

  The trees whizzed by on either side of her. Beneath her, the pavement flowed fast like a black river. She wouldn’t look behind her, though. She wouldn’t waste precious time like she had during that first run. Because there wasn’t going to be any escape this time around. No secret guardian to slip through the veil and fight in her stead. No Pinfeathers to absorb death for her.

  Scraping asphalt, her sneaker skidded on the road, bringing her to a stop as, straight ahead, a haze of black-violet smoke congealed into a humanoid shape.

  Isobel wheeled away from it. She charged in the opposite direction, but Scrimshaw met her there, too, uncoiling right in front of her, re-forming fast—too fast.

  Too close to try to dart away again, she swung at him, but he caught her fist in his fierce clay grip.

  “Do you remember this place, my dear?” he asked, crushing her hand in his.

  Isobel cried out. Her legs buckled, the pain sending her to her knees.

  “Being that it is our place of meeting, is it poetic or trite, do you suppose, that it would also be our place of parting?”

  Lifting a boot, the Noc kicked her hard in the shoulder. He released her in the same instant, sending her sprawling.

  She landed with an oomph, all her breath expelling the moment she connected with the pavement.

  Though her body screamed for air and her muscles demanded that she start running again, Isobel forced herself to lie still. With her face hidden under her splayed hair, she could only hope that the Noc would take her for unconscious, would lower his guard. . . .

  If she couldn’t get away, then she would have to do as Pinfeathers had told her. She would let him in close.

  She could feel him drift near, sense his shadow falling over her.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Scrimshaw said. “That Pin-featherbrain’s little plan will work—oh yes, I heard. I’ve been listening the whole time. Our hearing, you see, it’s very acute. ”

  Damn it, Isobel thought when he grabbed her by the ankle. She rolled onto her back as he dragged her toward him, but before she could raise her hands to try to ward him off, he knelt over her. With his red-clawed hand, he gripped her throat, holding her down.

  Curling her fists, Isobel fastened her arms at her sides and waited, hoping Pinfeathers would come through, that somewhere inside, he was fighting.

  “And just as I have heard you, he can hear you now. Isn’t that lovely?” Scrimshaw continued, his smile reappearing as he pressed the indigo claws of his free hand into the soft flesh of her belly, preparing, she knew, to drive them through her. “So don’t forget to scream really pretty for him. ”

  Involuntarily, Isobel’s thoughts drifted to the Grim Facade. To a moment so similar to this one, except there it had been Pinfeathers hovering over her. What had she done then?

  “Knock-knock,” Isobel said, startling herself with how calm she sounded.

  Apparently, the prompt was enough to startle Scrimshaw as well. His smile fell, and he stiffened. A look of confusion flashed on his crackled face, replaced quickly by a glare of annoyance. Tilting his head at her, he blinked in that filmy-eyed, birdlike way that made her stomach turn.

  “Whoooo,” Scrimshaw began, his cracked upper lip twitching into a sneer, “is there?”

  Isobel uncurled a fist. If there was one thing she had learned for certain about these creatures, it was that they could not resist their own insatiable sense of curiosity.

  Imagining a door at her back, she felt the ground beneath her shift.

  She groped at her side, relieved when her fingers stumbled over a knob.

  “The woodlands,” she said, and, grabbing the knob, she twisted.

  21

  Head Games

  Isobel let go as the door under her swung wide, dumping them both into the open air above a landscape of snarled tree limbs.

  Freefalling with the Noc, she grabbed the lapels of his green jacket and jerked to one side, flipping his hollow frame under her.

  The ground rushed to meet them, and she knew she had him.

  They’d hit, and he’d be crushed for sure.

  Just as long as he didn’t—

  Scrimshaw screamed in her face, the sound like metal grating rusted metal, and the Noc dissipated into smoke. Isobel fell through the swirls, crashing into the bed of ash alone, sending up plumes of dust.

  She scrambled in the smog and pulled herself up. Ignoring t
he pain radiating through her jolted limbs, she took off, bolting headlong into the woodlands.

  Legs and arms pumping, troops of charcoal trees flying past on either side, Isobel began to regret the knee-jerk choice of once again crossing the border between worlds. Another stern warning that Reynolds had once given her somehow, through the raging vat of her panic, bubbled to the surface of her consciousness.

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  Die here, stay here.

  At least, that was the abridged version of what he’d told her in that cold Baltimore graveyard. He’d reminded her, in nearly the same breath, that perishing in the woodlands—becoming trapped here forever—had been his own fate.

  And even if Reynolds was playing her again, positioning her like a pawn, signing her up for yet another trip to the funeral pyre, she wasn’t going to take a chance on betting that particular bit of advice had been a lie.

  “Still have that old pluck, I see,” Scrimshaw bellowed after her, his voice booming from all around so that she couldn’t be certain from which direction it emanated. “A few charming stunts left to pull. Well, you’re bound to run out of cheek eventually. ”

  Another door, she thought. She needed to make another door. To re-enter reality.

  Staggering to a halt, panting hard, Isobel reached out. Imagining the front of her house, her street and the driveway, she grabbed for the knob that, like the one she’d made second’s before, should have appeared.

  Nothing. Air.

  No, no. Come on. She’d seen Reynolds do this before. Why wasn’t it working?

  Isobel hissed a curse, spinning in place as Scrimshaw’s laughter echoed around her, growing closer.

  She whipped her head this way and that, scanning the multitude of burned matchstick trees. But she didn’t see his scarecrow figure anywhere amid the stalks or against the woodlands’ violet back-lit glow.

  “Door to door,” the Noc called. “It’s the only way to make a sale. Everyone knows that. ”

  Trying again, Isobel pictured her bedroom door, remembering specifically that Reynolds had passed from one world to another using the exact same entry point.

  In spite of her faltering hope, a familiar frame materialized before her out of the nothing. Her heart leaped, and her hand itched to try the knob—so familiar—now in her grip.

  Sensing eyes on her, though—an eye—she stalled.

  “Well, go on,” came that craggy voice from mere feet behind. “What are you waiting for? Take me home. Introduce me to the folks. I’d love to meet them. And if I remember correctly, a little meddling bird might have mentioned a younger brother as well. ”

  Her grasp on the doorknob loosened.

  “Come to think of it,” the Noc went on, “I may have seen him here before. Short and sort of round? A bit like a pigeon. Black ruffled feathers always in his eyes?”

  Lowering her arm to her side, Isobel turned slowly.

  Arms folded behind his back, crimson claws poking out on one side, blue on the other, Scrimshaw displayed a self-satisfied grin as yesterday’s discussion with Danny again returned to Isobel’s mind. How her little brother had mentioned he’d been having bad dreams. Nightmares about her dying . . .

  Had he encountered the Nocs too? Or was Scrimshaw merely trying to goad her?

  Deciding that it didn’t matter either way, that it was enough to know Danny was in danger, Isobel gave up on all thought of going home.

  She couldn’t. Not so long as Scrimshaw remained locked on her trajectory like a heat-seeking missile.

  If she was going to be free of him, if she was going to keep her family as safe as she could in the already bleeding worlds, she would have to stand her ground. She would have to fight—and defeat—Scrimshaw here, on his turf.

  And maybe, Isobel thought as she reached behind her, fumbling for the doorknob again while she kept her eyes trained on the Noc, maybe her odds of achieving those ends were better in this realm, anyway, where everything was malleable.

  “Change your mind?” Scrimshaw asked. “Afraid I won’t make the best of first impressions?” He gestured to his chest. “It’s the tattoos, isn’t it?”

  Clutching the knob, Isobel banished her bedroom from her mind, imagining instead someplace else entirely. Somewhere she knew for certain would not intersect with reality. A place that, because its creator had conjured it in his imagination, existed solely in the dreamworld.

  Scrimshaw’s gaze flitted between her and the door that must have taken on a new shape behind her. His smile waned, fading out along with the cunning crocodile gleam in his single eye. He took a halting step toward her, cocking his head to one side.

  “Tell me truly, girl. Do you not ever tire of running?” he asked. “Do you never grow faint from the sickness, the pitiless pain—the fever that is living? From the horrible, horrible throbbing of your own aching heart?”

  Isobel stood motionless, surprised to catch herself actually considering the question.

  “No,” she said at last, “at least, not nearly as tired as I get from listening to you. ”

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  With that, she shoved through the door, into the cathedral hall of Varen’s Gothic palace.

  Whirling, she ran again, steps echoing as her feet carried her fast down the long alley of columns and violet stained-glass windows.

  She headed straight toward the altar, to the twin angels and their double-edged swords.

  “Wake up!” she snapped at them.

  Their eyes sprang open, those sapphire orbs glowing in faces that mirrored hers.

  Isobel sprinted up the short set of steps. She slammed a hand on the altar, vaulted over it and, landing on her feet on the other side, twisted in time to see Scrimshaw storming down the long corridor toward her, a crazed smile contorting the entirety of his halved face.

  “Break him,” Isobel commanded her angels in a whisper.

  The seraphs moved in unison as they swung their swords up, holding them at the ready.

  “Two can play, child!” bellowed Scrimshaw, and, as he slid to a stop, he sliced his hand through the air. Instantly the feathers of the stone angels’ wings shriveled, dropping away to reveal dragons’ wings. Wheeling on Isobel, the pair of figures morphed into crimson-eyed gargoyles, foreheads sprouting curling rams’ horns, faces elongating, noses sharpening into snarling snouts. Forked tails lashed out behind them like whips.

  The statues released their swords. The blades clattered to the marble floor, and dropping onto all fours, two grotesque, doglike creatures growled and snapped in place of the seraphs.

  Isobel groped through her mind for a counterattack, keeping watch on the serpentine tails that flipped and twitched as the chimeras stalked toward her, their massive stone paws cracking the marble beneath them with each stride.

  Then, before she could even think about dodging the pair, they bounded forward. Leaping onto the altar, they opened toothy jaws wide, roars deafening and breath furnace-hot as they descended upon her. They might have crushed her even before they could have torn her to shreds—and would have—had Isobel not turned them to dust with a well-timed thought.

  Debris rained over her, powdering her in yet another layer of grime.

  “A bit like playing a game of chess, isn’t it?” Scrimshaw asked, materializing on the opposite side of the altar. Leaning his elbow against the marble top, he propped his split chin in one palm. Red claws drummed the right side of his face, the Pinfeathers side. With a blue claw of his free hand, Scrimshaw drew circles in the dust of his demolished demons. “That would make it your turn. ”

  Chess? Pawn. The words brought a sudden idea to her mind.

  Swiveling on her heel, Isobel dashed to a tapestry covering the rear wall. Imagining another door behind it, picturing the first place that came to mind—the only space big enough to host her plan without overlapping the real world—she ripped the drapery free.

  She visualized herself in her chee
r uniform, the one with HAWKS embroidered on the top and the matching blue skirt with yellow pleats. As she shoved through the ornate double doors, her clothing morphed in compliance, her performance sneakers squeaking on the floor as she hurried into the white ballroom of Poe’s Red Death masquerade story.

  Quickly, though, she skidded to a halt, too arrested by what she saw to engage the next phase of her plan.

  Bodies—more skeleton than flesh—lay everywhere. Mounds of them.

  Still clothed in their rotting costumes, their decaying faces half-hidden beneath their garish, gore-stained guises, the courtiers and revelers lay strewn across the floor, draped over one another, a corps of corpses.

  Limp forms draped the banisters and balconies, arms hanging free.

  Shrunken and shriveled, the musicians sat slumped in their chairs. Their mouths hung agape, the ragtag wings of their dragonfly costumes bent and broken. Several of them still held on to their instruments with mummified grips.

  The walls and flaking gold-leafed domed ceiling of the formerly grand ballroom matched the state of its inhabitants: decrepit and crumbling.

  Isobel’s hand rushed to cover her mouth. Fighting the urge to retch, she spun back to see Scrimshaw leaning a shoulder against the frame of the open doorway, his arms folded.

  “Don’t care much for the redecorating, I see,” he said. “That’s too bad, since you’re about to join the decor. ” Pushing off from the jamb, he started toward her. “So thoughtful of you to have changed into a costume. ”

  “It’s not a costume,” Isobel snapped, scuttling backward. “And if we are playing chess, then it’s still my turn. ”

  Smirking, the Noc paused. “By all means,” he said, with an inviting wave of his hand.

  Continuing to put distance between them, Isobel imagined the floor taking on a checkered pattern, like in the lunchroom at Trenton. Like on a chessboard.

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  The bodies from Poe’s story vanished from the ground at her whim as on every square, she pictured herself exactly as she was now.