Oblivion

  Isobel tried to speak, but she felt her throat cave in.

  His lips came close to hers, almost touching.

  “I thought I wrote you out,” he whispered.

  Then, like a reel of old film eaten through by heat, his face, the mirrors, the smoke, and everything else dissolved into the bright white glare of her bedroom’s ceiling light.

  4

  Dust to Dust

  Sitting up, Isobel clamped her hands around her throat. She gasped while her fingers climbed the contours of her face. Even though she could see the walls around her and the shadowy tips of her searching fingers, she still half expected to find her eye sockets empty, hollow as broken eggshells.

  Releasing the breath she’d sucked in, she pushed off from her bed, retreating from the warmth of her covers as if that would help her escape the images that clung to her like cobwebs.

  She snatched her alarm clock, hands fumbling as she read the blue numbers. The time twitched to read 6:30, and the sudden drone of her alarm sliced through her escalating panic.

  She was awake now. She knew for sure because the digital numbers weren’t scrolling. The interior of her room wasn’t in reverse, and she didn’t see her own body lying in her bed.

  Isobel clicked the off button, silencing the alarm—but the rhythm of her heart still echoed its urgent bleating.

  She glanced over her shoulder at her dresser and the dark-blue sheet she’d thrown over the mirror to hide it from view. And to shield herself from anything—anyone—who might be watching from the other side.

  Setting her alarm down again, she kept her fingers on its casing, allowing the coolness of the hard plastic to ground her while the voltage of the dream ran its course through her system.

  Pins and needles prickled her cheek in the place where he’d touched her—the scar.

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  She brushed her fingers over her lips where the sensation of his breath lingered.

  Slowly, Isobel twisted to survey her room, her focus trailing upward to the light she knew she hadn’t left on.

  * * *

  She got to school early that morning.

  Once inside, Isobel didn’t bother waiting to watch her mother drive off.

  They hadn’t spoken during the ride, and Isobel hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask about the light—to see if one of her parents had come into her room during the night to check on her, turned it on, and then forgot to switch it off again. She decided she preferred to think that it had been her mother’s or father’s doing. Or even Danny making sure she was still there, still breathing, after another nightmare of his own.

  Hurrying through the empty central foyer, she passed the velvet ropes sectioning off the school crest and then the trophy cases. She veered left, moving past the main office’s wide windows, wanting to get to the next hall over—to the scene of last night’s dream.

  She didn’t know what she hoped that would accomplish, or how being there could clarify or change anything. Varen hadn’t left something in the dream for her to find in reality, as he’d done with the pink ribbon in the bookshop.

  Even if he had, did she really need proof the vision had been true?

  Dreams aren’t real, she’d told her brother the previous night, delivering the worst of lies moments after she’d resolved not to tell him any more.

  Isobel stopped when something in the main office caught her attention: There was a man standing at the front desk. A man she knew.

  He leaned against the counter, one hand propped at his hip, curtaining back his duster-style coat to reveal a holster and gun. He drummed the fingers of his other hand on the countertop, waiting, it seemed, for Mrs. Tanager, the secretary, to finish her phone call.

  Too late, Isobel realized she shouldn’t have stopped. Catching sight of her, the man did a double take; she could tell he recognized her, too.

  Detective Scott, she thought, plucking his name from the recesses of her brain, remembering him as one of the two officers who had knocked on her door the night after the Grim Facade. The night after Varen disappeared.

  Isobel’s cheeks flamed as he continued to stare, and snapping her head forward, she started power walking to where the hall split in two directions. She hooked a right at the corner and stayed close to the lockers, her heart galloping in her chest. Her ears perked for the sound of pursuing footsteps while her own feet sped faster, the cogs in her head beginning to whir.

  After yesterday’s session, Dr. Robinson must have called the police. There was no other explanation. After what Isobel had said, all that she’d alluded to knowing, she should have expected as much to happen.

  There was probably some mandate somewhere that obligated doctors to contact the authorities in certain circumstances—like when a patient divulges information pertaining to a missing person.

  Isobel gritted her teeth and wondered if this was what her father’s cell phone call had been about last night. She thought back to the shoulder squeeze he’d given her and wished he was there with her now.

  Ducking into the alcove of a darkened classroom doorway, she pulled her phone from her coat pocket. She flipped it open and dialed her father’s cell, then hesitated, her thumb hovering over the send button.

  A gnawing dread scraped at her spine. That same sickening sense of being followed.

  Lowering the phone, she leaned out, peered down the hall . . . and felt her stomach bottom out.

  She didn’t see any adults. Detective Scott had not come after her.

  Worse.

  Strips of yellow caution tape roped off the opposite end of the hall, halting the group of freshmen who trickled in from the side entrance, their chatter ceasing the moment they took in the ominous scene.

  Beyond the tape barrier, ash dusted the floor and lockers.

  Isobel folded her fingers around her phone and clamped it shut again.

  Because the darkened light fixtures and the trail of boot prints cutting a path through the grime told her that calling for help couldn’t stop what was coming for her now.

  And neither could the police.

  5

  Loss of Breath

  “So I guess you heard about Lesley Groveston,” Gwen said, breaking the long silence that had stretched between them since leaving school.

  Isobel offered no answer. She continued, instead, to stare out her window at the passing storefronts, their displays filled with kitschy hipster dresses, used guitars, and artfully arranged antiques.

  Peace and calmness reigned in the cold and cloudless morning sky. Like there was nothing the matter. Like this world was the only one there was.

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  “She got dumped by Alex Trimble right after first bell,” Gwen continued, but Isobel tuned her out, turning her thoughts to their destination: Bruce’s funeral. Her last and only chance to confront Varen on neutral ground. On ground she hoped would be neutral.

  After discovering that last night’s dream had leaked into reality, that Varen could not only re-enter the real world, but could affect it physically—and that he apparently still sought to finish what he’d begun in shoving her from the cliff—Isobel had finally come to understand that there could be no peaceful parting of ways. No escaping the dark world he’d embraced. No escaping him.

  Not as long as he continued to buy into the twisted version of the truth Lilith had shown him.

  By astral projecting from the dreamworld into reality, Varen had overheard Isobel say horrible things on more than one occasion. That she wished she’d never met him, that she’d never had feelings for him, that she was the last person who would know anything about what had happened to him. That she was the last person who would care.

  All lies. Part of the front Isobel had donned to convince everyone that she’d moved on.

  But Lilith had been one step ahead of her, using Isobel’s own words against her in order to distort Varen’s perception—just as
she had his heart and mind. And now the demon would use him to gain access to this world, to carry out her plans to destroy reality.

  Unless Isobel could convince Varen to listen, to hear her.

  “Of course, Alex Trimble has another girlfriend anyway. ” Gwen laughed. “One of the St. Bernadette girls. So I want to tell Lesley good riddance, but then again, the truth usually never cheers anyone up. Does it?”

  “Mm,” Isobel said, thinking back to how she’d sat waiting for something to happen during first period. How her stomach had churned with nauseating anticipation. Any second she had expected Mrs. Tanager to call for her over the intercom. Or for someone to echo the horrible static warning of “code red. ”

  Over and over again, she’d imagined Varen appearing as he had in Mr. Swanson’s room that day of the project. Like in last night’s dream, he would stalk down the hall in full view, a damning specter in that awful black coat. Everyone would pull away in shock and fear, but he wouldn’t care. This time he’d do more than just shatter the lights in their fixtures. He’d bring the school down, flooding it with nightmares, loosing the demons of Poe’s stories—and of his own mind—into this reality that no longer held a place for him.

  And he wouldn’t stop. Not until he found her. And maybe not even then . . .

  That’s why Isobel had to head him off at the pass. To intercept him at the only opportunity she would have to reach him. The funeral of his best friend.

  “In other news,” Gwen prattled on, “Marcus Tomes asked Candice Weiss to tomorrow’s dance. She said no. Felicia Rowen is out with the chicken pox, aaaand there’s a ceiling leak in Mrs. Lory’s classroom. Also, huge mess in the first-floor north hall this morning. Busted lights. Weird dust all over the walls. But . . . you knew about that already. ”

  Isobel’s eyelids fluttered. “What?”

  “I said you knew about that. ” Gwen’s hands tightened on the wheel, her shoulders going rigid. “’Cause everybody knows about that. Per your usual way of dealing with things these days, however, you just weren’t going to say anything. ”

  Isobel locked her jaw. Swallowing, she forced her focus forward.

  Given that Gwen never missed even the tiniest blip on the radar of Trenton’s day-to-day grind, Isobel figured she would have known about the ash. But it surprised Isobel that Gwen had linked her to the incident, especially when Gwen knew so little about the dreamworld itself. But since she had made the connection, why hadn’t she brought it up first thing, before they’d left?

  Isobel frowned, realizing now that if she’d been thinking, she’d have guessed Gwen’s plan to corner her in a moving car—where walking away wasn’t an option—ahead of time.

  “Of course, the admins think someone broke in last night,” Gwen explained, her voice adopting a mock-casual tone. “Did it all as a bad prank. That’s why they called the police. Did I forget to mention they called the police?”

  Isobel grasped the cuffs of her coat, fidgeting with the fabric.

  Straight ahead, an enormous clock tower loomed into view. It stood like a sentry over Cave Hill Cemetery’s main entrance, casting its slanted shadow over them. An angel, her wings unfurled, stood at the pinnacle of the tower, an arm raised in proclamation of some unnamed triumph.

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  The clock’s golden hour hand pointed at the roman numeral nine, the minute hand slightly beyond twelve, making them officially late. But at least the clock’s hands weren’t spinning. At least she knew for sure that she was awake.

  “Everybody else seems to think it was the work of a ghost,” Gwen scoffed. “But oh, those sad, silly, superstitious schnooks. ”

  Refusing to look away from the clock, Isobel watched its hands until the Cadillac crossed the last street, bumping up the short drive that led through the cemetery’s iron gates.

  “You and I,” Gwen said, flashing her a tight smile, “weeeee know better. ”

  To their left, a white-haired cemetery guard sat on an iron bench. Gwen offered him a wave as they drove past. Rising to his feet, he nodded in response, though his expression remained stern; Isobel had no doubt he could tell they were too young to be college kids on a photography excursion.

  Gwen stiffened her arms as she maneuvered the car down the long, tree-lined lane, the crooked shadows of twisted limbs skimming the interior of the car, sliding over Isobel’s lap, up her arms and behind her. She envisioned them gathering there, transforming into creatures with clawed hands and jagged-toothed grins.

  Impulsively, she grasped the rearview mirror and, tilting it toward her, eyed the backseat.

  Empty . . .

  “He went inside,” Gwen said.

  Isobel froze for an instant, then pushed back the mirror.

  “Or wait. Let me guess. ” Gwen slapped the dashboard, as if pressing a game-show buzzer. “You weren’t checking for the guard, were you? Please, if we’re about to get pelted with mutilated pigeons, I’d appreciate a warning this time. Given that I forgot to pack my inhaler and that defibrillator stations would be totally beside the point in a place like this—not to mention vaguely insulting to the residents. ”

  “It’s nothing,” Isobel mumbled. “There’s nothing. ”

  Reaching up, Gwen fixed the mirror. “Riiiight. Of course it’s nothing. That makes total sense. What else would any of this be adding up to besides a big fat steaming pile of nothing?”

  Isobel gripped the seat beneath her. She waited, and as she’d hoped, the quiet quickly settled into place again. Yet the tension radiating from Gwen refused to fade. Anger rolled off her in invisible waves while, outside, the ticking of a rock stuck in the tread of one tire grew louder. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.

  They rounded the first bend in the road and wound farther into the sprawling and seemingly endless cemetery.

  Another stone angel emerged on the right. Draped in flowing robes, the statue stood atop a rectangular gravestone, the first of too many to count. Isobel waited for the moment when the figure would turn its head to look at her. The statue remained a statue, though, and soon it was behind them along with the guard and the tower and the clock hands she’d sworn hadn’t been spinning.

  Awake, Isobel told herself, you are awake.

  “You know everyone thinks the boot prints are Varen’s, don’t you?”

  Isobel’s grip on her seat tightened, fingernails digging into the vinyl.

  She hadn’t heard that rumor. Of course, there had been the usual stares and whispers that morning, but she’d gotten out of the habit of paying attention. She had been preoccupied with the dream itself, replaying it again and again in her head. And then she’d been waiting for Detective Scott to appear in the doorway of her first class. He’d never shown up to question her, though, and neither had Mr. Nott or any of the other administrators. And maybe that was because they’d been preoccupied themselves—not with her, she now grasped, but with the possibility that Varen had been in the building.

  “I know hearing his name bothers you,” Gwen said. “Actually, I can tell it does worse. I can tell that it rips your heart out and crushes it every time. You know that’s why I don’t talk about him or ask what happened, don’t you? Not because I believe you when you tell me you don’t remember. And it’s not because I think you need space, either. It’s because I can tell it kills—literally kills you to remember. And because until this morning, I thought the truth could wait until you were ready. Because I thought it was all over. Clearly, though, it’s not. Is it?”

  Isobel sucked in a sharp breath and held it. Prying one hand free from the seat, she latched onto her door handle and squeezed hard, wishing she’d decided not to come after all. Really, what did she think she was doing? Hurrying the inevitable?

  If talking to Varen hadn’t worked before, why had she thought it would do any good now?

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  “I know you think you can wait me out,” Gwen said. “I know you think you can keep
giving me the silent treatment just like you do everybody else. But I promise you, I am the bad haircut photos you wish you could delete from the Internet. I am the dumb cheer-mixed pop-song mash-up beat-boxing in your head. I’m not going to go away. We’ve been through too much. ‘We’ as in ‘me too. ’ That crap in the hall, Izzy. What the hell was it?”

  “Please,” Isobel said, “don’t ask me. ” She tried to release the sharp breath she’d taken moments before, but it stuck in her lungs, lodged inside of her along with everything she wasn’t saying.

  “Listen to me, Isobel,” Gwen began again, “I am tired of tiptoeing and I’m tired of being shut out. This involves me, too. ”

  “I don’t want it to,” Isobel said. “Not anymore. I’m sorry. We—we shouldn’t have come. We need to go back. ”

  “Errrh. Wrong answer. Sorry, but you don’t get to be sorry. And I think we both know it’s waaaay too late to turn back now. ”

  Open this door, Pinfeathers had once told Isobel, and no matter what, you’ll never close it.

  “Isobel. ” Gwen snapped her fingers. “Wake up!”

  “I am awake. ”

  “Then start talking. ”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. ”

  “Try the truth this time,” Gwen said. “You might feel better. I know I will. But then, this isn’t about me, is it? I mean, I only risked my life. I only hauled my ass across three states to help you find him. I only had my arm cracked on a tombstone. I listened when no one else would. I believed you. I believed in you. For what? For you to ignore me like I was never a part of it? I want you to tell me why Varen isn’t here. Why he didn’t come back. There. That’s a good place to start. One, two, three—go. ”

  “I—he—” Isobel jerked her head in the direction of a passing mausoleum, her eyes meeting for an instant those of the alabaster angel who watched from within, clutching the hilt of a sword between her hands.

  “Yeah, I don’t think that’s summing it up enough for me,” Gwen said. “You’re gonna have to do a little better. ”

  Isobel squeezed the door handle harder, resisting the urge to pull. Her other hand went to her seat-belt latch, her thumb pausing on the release button.

  This all felt wrong. Her surroundings felt wrong. The conversation felt wrong.