For a moment, Isobel thought she recognized the tune. She listened hard, the urge to place the refrain so overpowering that it outweighed the more immediate question of who had turned her radio on to begin with.
Isobel shut her door softly behind her. She strode over to where the clock sat on her headboard, hoping that when the song ended, the radio station announcer would mention its title. As she drew closer, however, the song faded out, the speakers sputtering static while another station struggled to take over.
She swiveled the radio’s dial back and forth, but the channel had vanished. Then a fast-paced pop song from one of her usual stations broke through the static, making her jump.
She clicked the radio off. Glowering at the now silent clock, Isobel struggled to grasp the time and the place in which she’d heard that song.
Maybe it was an instrumental number from one of the old-school musicals her mom liked to listen to while she cleaned.
Did that mean her mom had come into her room while she’d been in the bath?
One glance toward her closet door told Isobel that was exactly what had happened.
Varen’s green mechanic’s jacket hung on the outside of the white slatted folding door, the collar looped around the small knob.
The sight of it hanging there, so exposed, jolted Isobel’s heart into hyperspeed.
She had not laid eyes on the jacket since the night she had stowed it away nearly two months ago, the same night she had found and read the note Varen had left for her in one of the pockets.
Oh no. The note.
Isobel rushed to grab the jacket, her hands fumbling through the coarse folds, searching for the pocket that crinkled. Reaching inside, her fingers brushed the piece of stiff paper, and her shoulders sagged with relief.
Had her mom found the note, Isobel knew she would have taken it for the accumulating evidence file. Worse, she might even have shown it to her father.
Isobel knew the act of turning on the radio and hanging the jacket in plain sight had been her mother’s way of making a statement.
Unable to resist, Isobel hugged the jacket close, rewarded with a scent that seized her heart like a clenched fist.
It smelled like him. God. It still smelled like him.
Isobel carried the jacket back to her bed, where she laid it out flat. She stared down at the image of the dead crow etched in black against the white patch of fabric safety-pinned to the back. Letting her fingers trail down one sleeve, she then turned toward her dresser and went to open the top drawer. Pulling out a worn pair of pajama shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt, she tossed her robe to the floor and got dressed in the dark.
She picked up the jacket again, carefully threading her arms through the sleeves. It slid onto her shoulders with a hushing sound.
Somehow, its stiff weight managed to ground her. She came back to herself, scarcely realizing how far away she had really been.
Not bothering to peel back the covers, Isobel climbed onto her bed. She lay down on her side, facing the window, Varen’s note to her crinkling inside the right pocket.
She gripped the collar of the jacket and tucked it around her chin. She didn’t need to take the note out to know what it said. She’d already memorized the words written there.
Over and over again, she repeated the last line in her head.
I will see you again.
It was something she knew she would have to believe if she wanted to keep from losing her mind.
If she was even going to entertain the idea of leaving for Baltimore on her own, if she was going to try and formulate a plan, a new plan, she would need all her sanity.
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Downstairs, she heard the furnace shut off, allowing a more concentrated silence to close in around her.
Isobel shut her eyes, even though she wasn’t sleepy.
Her mind circled back to the previous night’s dream. By now, though, the only thing that remained untarnished by layers of wishful thinking and fogginess was the core feeling it had left her with. It lay buried deep within her, like a piece of grit worried into a pearl.
In the end, it was the only thing she really needed in order to keep going.
Hope.
6
Some Late Visitor
Cold wind swept over her.
Isobel shivered; loose strands of her hair tickled her cheek in spiderweb wisps. She pulled the jacket more tightly around her, curling into herself.
Though the draft died away, dissipating like a sigh, it left the room frigid in its wake. Thin and sharp, the air stung her nose as she inhaled.
Isobel stirred. Through half-mast eyelids, she saw her breath puff out before her in the dim wash of filmy moonlight that still shone through her bedroom window.
Her open window.
She scowled, squinting at the gaping foot-wide gap as another breeze, harsher than the first, surged through, causing her lace curtains to swell.
Smoothing her hair back, she pushed herself up onto her elbows, wondering who had opened the window. More important, why?
When a blast of arctic air brought with it a spray of snow, Isobel sat upright. Shuddering uncontrollably, her teeth chattering, she pushed her confusion aside and scooted toward the edge of her bed.
She froze, though, a clangor of silent alarms triggering within as her focus was drawn to the outer fringe of her vision. To the dark figure standing at the foot of her bed.
Her hands gripped the covers beneath her. Slowly she turned her head to look.
Motionless, he stood watching her, his thin, angular form little more than a black outline in the darkness.
When he moved, sliding one black-clad knee onto the edge of her bed, she heard the soft clink of chains.
Her gaze dropped to the place where the mattress sank beneath his weight, where one slender white hand splayed itself against her pale comforter, the onyx square of his class ring glinting behind the silver V set in its center.
Isobel remained still, making no move either toward him or away.
She could only mark his steady approach with her eyes, following his spindly frame as he climbed onto her bed, moving toward her. Over her.
She felt herself tip backward beneath him. Looking up, she scoured those shadow-swathed features, seeking his eyes through the forest of his dark hair, the only things that could tell her for certain whether or not this was another dream.
But what else could it be?
His face drifted to hover within an inch of hers. She felt his breath against her cheek.
Isobel parted her lips, prepared to speak, but he stopped her mouth with his.
Her eyes fluttered shut. Smooth and velvet soft, his kiss ignited her from the inside, sending a flash-fire coursing through her, surging to engulf all rationality, all question or doubt.
An involuntary moan escaped her as the slim curve of his lip ring, tempered by the frigid air, pressed against her mouth. She sought it out, warming it with her own lips as he pressed down on her.
Fastening one hand to the nape of his neck, she pulled him to her, her fingers intertwining with the dark, feather-soft wisps of his hair.
The moment felt so real. He felt real.
Isobel pulled him closer still, suddenly afraid that he would slip through her grasp, or that at any moment she would wake up and he would be gone again.
She felt his hands fall to trace her sides, sliding past the jacket to burrow beneath the thin barrier of her T-shirt. They glided upward, gathering material as they went, pushing back the fabric to expose her stomach.
Her pulse quickened, causing her thoughts to disconnect.
A burst of winter wind rushed around them.
She arched beneath him, her own hands seeking to bury themselves under his shirt.
But she found no heat in his skin.
Isobel frowned as her palms followed the corded kni
tting of strong muscles.
He felt strange to her somehow. His skin was too smooth, his body too light.
He lifted away from her long enough to strip his shirt off over his head, long enough for her to glimpse the jagged line of an angry white scar etched like a curved lightning bolt along one side of his torso.
“Varen?”
He descended once again, his mouth locking with hers, silencing her.
The urgency in his kiss grew, climbing toward ferocity. She struggled to keep up, to catch her breath.
She pressed her palms flat to his bare chest . . . and felt no heartbeat.
His grip on her tightened.
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With a whimper, Isobel tried pulling away. She wanted him to slow down, to stop. She needed to understand what was happening.
Both of her hands rushed to cup his face, to push him back. But her fingers fell through on one side, curling to hook onto the jagged cut-glass socket in his cheek.
She stiffened.
Against her mouth, she felt his lips curve into a slow smile.
He drew back, angling to grin at her, displaying two rows of sharp crimson teeth visible through the gaping void in the side of his face.
“I’ve missed you, too, cheerleader,” hissed a familiar voice.
7
Unrest
Isobel screamed.
Her howl, primal and fierce, pierced the nighttime silence.
She strained against her bed, her hair whipping at her face. Twisting and writhing, she finally yanked free from the hands that grasped for her wrists. Scrambling back, she slammed into her headboard, banging her skull on the wooden frame.
“—sobel!”
Her eyes sprang open. The room swirled into focus.
She blinked rapidly at the artificial light that radiated from her ceiling fixture, her heart thundering in her chest, manic as a captured bird.
“Isobel, wake up. Wake up, baby. ”
She gasped, heaving, and swallowed the air in gulps.
Someone patted her cheek. She seized the large, warm hand between both of hers, her attention narrowing on the thick golden band that encircled one finger and the slim dark hairs that poked out from beneath the drooping cuff of a familiar navy fleece robe.
Isobel looked into the face of her father. He stared at her hard, eyes searching, his dark brows knitted together.
She glanced from him to her window. Closed. Against the backdrop of snow and night, her lace curtains hung motionless.
She felt a hand brush her cheek, and she flinched. She turned back to her father, whose eyes strove to make contact with hers.
“Isobel, look at me. You were dreaming, kiddo. Dreaming. ”
She heard herself whimper as she scooted to sit up. Her empty stomach churned, and she swallowed in an effort to repress a wave of nausea.
Her dad grasped her by the shoulders, and Isobel collapsed into his arms. She pressed her face into his neck and released one long, choking sob.
“Shhh,” he hushed. “Just a bad dream. That’s all. ”
Over his shoulder, she caught sight of her mother hovering close by, her face anxious, etched with delicate lines of worry. She drew near and sank onto the bed next to them, placing a cool palm to Isobel’s brow. That was when Isobel saw Danny standing in the open doorway.
Disheveled and groggy, he wore a pair of baggy black sweatpants. His belly strained against a too-tight Batman T-shirt, while his dark hair stuck up in tufts around his head. He sent a squinting glare around the room.
“Jeez,” he muttered, turning in a slow circle, as though still half expecting to find some evidence of an ax murderer’s presence. “I mean, were you trying to break the sound barrier?”
Isobel quaked in her father’s arms while the adrenaline made its final rounds through her system. Fingers twitching, she curled them into the collar of his robe.
“It’s okay,” her dad said as he rocked her, his voice firm, commanding, as though his saying so held the power to make it true. He stroked her back, and she could feel his hand bumping over the safety pins on Varen’s jacket.
Pretending not to notice the meaning-filled glance shared by her parents, Isobel shut her eyes and tried to slow her breathing, to bring her heart to normal speed and return her mind to reality.
While her father rubbed her back, her mother smoothed her hair, nimble fingertips tucking flyaway strands behind her ears.
All the attention made her feel so small, so helpless, like she’d somehow reverted to being five years old again.
Only now her parents couldn’t tell her that nightmares weren’t real.
Because she knew better.
NO ONE BROUGHT UP THE nightmare the next morning while unwrapping presents. Not even Danny, who Isobel thought would have been the first to launch into an onslaught of questions, wanting to know about blood spillage and body count.
Maybe, Isobel thought, sitting on the couch, wrapped in her pink robe and wearing her fuzzy slippers, no one was saying anything because it was Christmas.
Then again, maybe it was just because her parents were biding their time, waiting for the right moment to confront her about Varen’s jacket and formally announce their decision to send her to a shrink.
As for the dream itself, Isobel knew better than to call it that. It had felt real. It had been real. Whether Pinfeathers’s visit had happened in waking life or within the dreamworld, however, was another question.
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But unlike the dream with Varen, the nightmare with Pinfeathers remained fresh and alive in her mind, every horrid detail still sharp and clear. A shudder ratcheted its way up her spine at the memory of the monster’s mouth pressed to hers. And that smile. That horrible, jagged smile.
The Noc’s visit made her wonder about the shadow she had seen inside her bedroom the day before. And later under the bathroom door.
“Hey,” Danny said, calling to her from where he sat on the floor beside the Christmas tree, surrounded by discarded multicolored ribbon curls and box-shaped husks of wrapping paper. “Look alive, space face. ”
He chucked something at her. Isobel flinched, catching the small brick-shaped package just before it could smash into her nose. Covered in lumpy red paper and too much tape, the thing looked like it had been wrapped one-handed by a toddler.
The box felt light in her hands, as though she would open it only to find wads of old newspaper stuffed inside. Isobel glanced to Danny, but he had since gone back to rifling through his fresh stack of shrink-wrapped video games and console accessories. Behind him, A Christmas Story played on the TV, the volume kept low.
Across the room, Isobel’s dad sat staring at the television, dark bags under his eyes. A new silver sports watch encircled one of his wrists, and he had on the pair of blue University of Kentucky slippers Danny had given him.
Sitting next to him on the love seat, her mom flipped through a boxed set of mystery novels. Occasionally she would reach up to her collar and brush her fingertips over her new locket.
Isobel looked at the present in her lap. With cautious fingers, she began to peel back the tape and pry open the corners of the wrapping paper. She shucked the glossy red sheath to reveal an old tissue box stuffed with a sheet of crumpled-up copier paper. Isobel yanked the paper free, only to hear something else rattle inside the box. Her attention went to the paper first when she noticed faint blue writing tucked between the crumpled folds. She opened the paper and read the lines of Danny’s sloppy handwriting.
Consider this another U. O. ME.
Watch and learn.
Isobel frowned. Confused, she slid her other hand into the tissue box, her fingers reaching through the plastic slot to stumble across something cool and metal. As she pulled the object out, she heard Danny’s voice pipe up over the TV.
“Hey, Mom, do we have any hot chocola
te?”
In her palm, Isobel held what appeared to be a small silver-and-pink butterfly key chain. It felt heavy in her hand and had a clip-on attachment rather than a split ring. When she tucked her thumb beneath the butterfly’s wings, they fanned upward and out with a quiet click, revealing the round face of a ticking watch. The gift brought to mind her previous glitter-filled key-chain watch, the one she’d broken back in October.
Isobel turned the watch over in her hand, hardly able to believe that Danny would have remembered something like that. Normally, putting the words “Danny” and “thoughtful” together in the same sentence would have been on a par with trying to genetically alter jellyfish to fly. Still, she didn’t get what the gift had to do with Danny’s cryptic note.
“I think we’ve got the powder kind in the cupboard,” Isobel heard her mom say. “Should I make some?”
“Actually, that sounds really good,” Isobel’s dad said.
The sound of his voice made everyone look in his direction. It was the first time her father had turned away from the television or said anything since opening his presents.
“Izzy? How about you?” her mom asked.
Isobel studied her brother, still trying to put two and two together, but he had slipped on the pair of headphones she’d gotten him and plugged them into his Nintendo DS.
“Sure,” she said, “I’ll take some. ”
Her mom gave a tight smile, though Isobel thought she sensed a hint of relief there too. Then she got up from the love seat and padded through the archway leading into the dining room and kitchen.
Folding Danny’s note, Isobel tucked it back into the tissue box.
“Isobel?”
Her dad had stopped watching TV and now, instead, he watched her.
“There’s something else,” he said.
Isobel set the box aside. What did he mean, “something else”? She looked toward her brother again, but he remained absorbed in his DS, his back hunched and his shoulders curved forward, nose hovering less than an inch from the flickering screen.
“I mean you have one more present left to open. ”
Brow arched, she looked at the already hefty stack of gifts that sat next to her on the couch. In addition to new gear for cheer practice and a gym bag, her parents had gotten her lavender body lotion, two sweaters, and a pair of jeans. Considering her recent trip to Nationals and her championship ring, Isobel hadn’t expected to get nearly as much as she had.