by Kelly Creagh
“What? Wait a sec, where are you going? Isobel. You’re not seriously going over there. Hey! Are you crazy? Sit down!”
She felt Gwen swipe at and catch the hem of her pleated skirt. She pulled free, however, her heart drumming a steady rhythm in her ears as she headed toward the wide windows paneling the wall, walking in a straight line toward the crew’s table. She was surrounded by the low murmur of talking, the clank and clatter of silverware and trays. Somewhere behind her, a table erupted into laughter. It all felt so real, so normal.
The muttering between Brad and Mark ceased when Alyssa, with one yet-to-be-slathered nail, tapped the space between them. “Hey,” she said, “look who’s coming over to chat. ”
But she wasn’t there to talk. Not to them, at least.
Sitting one seat over from Brad, closest to the window, the blood-haired boy leaned forward, turning his head toward her, revealing the other side of his face. Isobel froze, her eyes locking on the jagged black hole that marked his cheek, as though an entire chunk of his face had been knocked out, like a chink in a porcelain vase. She could see straight through, to his hollow jaw and the two rows of red daggerlike teeth within.
Fear pulsed through her, and yet she stood hypnotized. He was horrible and fascinating all at once, like a scorpion prepared to strike, all angles and sharp lines and menace.
Running now on pure nerve, Isobel took up her steps again, determined to prove to herself that this wasn’t a hallucination—that she was awake, and this was real. The boy’s eyes followed her, eyes that she now saw held no irises, whole only in their blackness.
“Well hey, Isobel,” Brad said, greeting her with mock enthusiasm, “what a surprise. ”
“So you can see me,” said the boy. The sound of actual words coming out of his mouth startled her. His voice was quiet, smooth, and acidic, somehow corroded in essence, as though he was speaking through a thin layer of radio static.
It was eerily familiar.
This close, Isobel could see that his hair, which really was more like coarse feathers, grew darker, almost black toward the roots that weren’t roots at all, but thick quills sprouting from his scalp. “That’s very interesting,” he continued, “that you can see me like this. ” He smiled, flashing a dangerous, dark pink mouth filled with jagged teeth the color of red coral.
Isobel swallowed, clearing the way for her own voice. “Who are you?”
Brad flipped his fork onto his tray, and Isobel jumped at the clatter. She’d almost forgotten he was even there.
“Aw, c’mon, Iz,” he said, “don’t give me that old ‘I don’t even know who you are anymore’ crap. And don’t pretend I didn’t warn you. ”
Suddenly the blood-haired boy moved. Isobel’s focus snapped to him as, in a series of quick, jerky motions, like a DVD on fast-forward, he brought an arm across Brad, extending a red-clawed hand toward her. “The name is Pinfeathers. ”
Isobel drew back half a step, making no move to touch him, staring instead, as though it were a dead rat he’d offered her and not his hand. His nails, more like the scarlet fangs from some deadly venomous snake, gleamed in the light.
“What, you leaving already?” Brad said. “Is that it? You trying to be deep or something? I don’t get it. ”
Pinfeathers withdrew his hand. “Oh, don’t trouble yourself with introductions,” he said. “I know you. You’re the cheerleader. ” He blinked at her sharply, cocking his head to one side.
“Now, you might not realize this,” he said, “but you and I, well, we’ve met before. ”
Isobel found herself once again staring into the hole in Pinfeather’s cheek, her gaze held by the scarlet teeth and the movement of his jawbone as he spoke. There were no muscles, no tendons, no cartilage, nothing to hold him together, only hollow blackness.
He raised a clawed finger to point at the missing portion of his face. “Oh, don’t let this bother you. Happens to the best of us. ”
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Brad snorted. “I sit here. ”
“Duh,” Alyssa chimed in, smearing another coat of polish onto her thumbnail.
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“I like your friends here,” Pinfeather said. “Especially the big one. ” He brought a claw toward Brad’s face, poking lightly at his ear. Isobel watched in horror as Brad swatted at the nonexistent fly.
“Stop it. ”
Pinfeathers drew his hand away, using the same claw to point at her now. “Never pegged you for the jealous type. ”
“Don’t touch him again. ”
Brad smiled suddenly, broadly. The unexpected expression startled Isobel so much that for a moment she was distracted from the weirdness that was Pinfeathers. “Ah, I thought that might have something to do with you comin’ over. Haven’t seen his face all day, so he must have told you. ”
Isobel shifted her gaze back to Brad now, her concentration zeroing in with effort on his self-satisfied expression. His inflection on the word “he” could only have meant one person.
“Wh-what?”
“Uh-oh,” Mark said, biting off a piece of his roll.
Wait, Isobel thought, what had she missed? What was going on? She looked to Alyssa next in her search for clarification, but knew her mistake in doing so when the other girl, returning to her nails, displayed only a knowing smile.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded of the three of them. “What’s going on?” she said, this time appealing to Pinfeathers.
The creature winked and tapped his thin white lips with a red claw, like he was letting her know the best part was coming.
“Well,” said Brad. He wiped his hands with his napkin, then crumpled it and tossed it onto his tray. “Let’s see, Iz. ” He pushed his tray away and folded his hands on the table. “We caught up with your little bloodsucking boyfriend last night after he dropped you off, that’s what. Did he, uh, happen to mention anything to you about it? See, Mark and I had a bet going.
I said he’d run to you first thing, but Mark—Mark’s giving him the benefit of the doubt. ”
Isobel watched dully as Mark leaned in to murmur something to Brad that she couldn’t catch. Their laughter ensued. Pinfeathers listened too, folding his hands on the table, mimicking Brad’s posture.
“We waited for him by your house, and then we followed him,” Mark said, as though it were as simple as that.
“I felt we needed to have a talk. A one-on-one,” Brad explained, “about the defacement of personal property. ”
“We did give him a choice,” said Mark.
“Yes. We were very diplomatic. ” Brad nodded.
“He surprised us,” Mark said, an almost appreciative note to his voice.
“Yeah, we’d thought for sure he’d pussy out and opt for us trashing his car. ”
Mark shook his head. “But he didn’t. ”
“Nope. He didn’t. ”
“You’d have been proud of him, Iz. ”
“Yeah,” Brad admitted, “we were impressed. ”
Her throat tightened. “You’re lying. ”
“Nope,” Brad said. “No, Iz, we’re not. ” He leaned forward, blocking Pinfeathers from her view, looking her in the eye. He lowered his voice. “And don’t go off thinking this was about you, because it wasn’t. He deserved it, and you know what he did as well as I do. ”
At these words, Isobel felt something hot inside of her rush up and snap, like an electric cable.
“Don’t you get it?” Before she could stop herself, she lashed out, flipping his Coke over. Ice clattered out of the tall blue cup, liquid splashed over the table. Alyssa screeched and slid away. Brad shot up from his seat as soda cascaded onto his lap. “He didn’t touch your car!” she shouted. “And I know you’re lying!” He was toying with her. They were just trying to get a rise. She’d seen Varen not twenty minutes ago. He’d been fine.
Or maybe,
she realized, her thoughts jarring, maybe that’s why he’d sunk so slowly into his chair. Maybe that’s why he’d refused to remove his glasses. Maybe that’s why he’d avoided her.
“Does this look like I’m lying?” He moved out from the table to tower over her. Her eyes darted briefly to Pinfeathers, who watched unblinking. Lifting his pinky, Brad aimed it at a large blood blister on his upper lip that she hadn’t paid attention to until now. Brad was a running back, and she was used to seeing him with scrapes and bruises.
“Hey!” came Mr. Nott’s shout from the far end of the room, followed immediately by the hard, fast jangling of keys.
Brad bent low to speak into her ear. She felt powerless to do anything but listen. “He was a real sport about it. He only clipped me once, but by that time I was done, and I let it go,
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’cause I said something I shouldn’t have. Somethin’ about you, Iz. ”
Horrified, she recoiled, and Mr. Nott, coming to a jangling halt, stepped into the widening space between them, asking in his deep, authoritative voice the obligatory, “What’s going on here?”
“I spilled my Coke, sir,” Brad announced over the sudden quiet. A few titters ran through the table next to them. If the whole entire cafeteria hadn’t been watching before, they were now. “It was an accident, sir. Pregame jitters. ”
Isobel returned her gaze to the table, where Pinfeathers watched her. His expression seemed darker now, his humor gone, and the fathomless black of his eyes now threatened to swallow her. “Don’t look so lost, cheerleader,” he said. “I’ve watched you watching him— us, I mean. I even tried to warn you. But you wouldn’t listen. You waited, and now it’s too late.
For you . . . for us. ”
“Isobel, did you hear me?” Mr. Nott asked. “I said, go take your seat. ”
Isobel didn’t move. She found her gaze unable to waver from Pinfeathers, from his face as it seemed to struggle and twist between several emotions, finally contorting into a grimace of malice and pain. Why did that make him suddenly so familiar?
“Miss Lanley, are you deaf today? I said, go take your seat. ”
In one blinking movement, Pinfeathers lunged at her, jaw unhinging, the black hole in his face widening. Teeth bared, claws outstretched, he unleashed an ungodly sound, something between a woman’s death screech and a demon’s howl.
It happened too fast for her to form her own scream, too fast for her raised arms to do any good. His claws rained down.
Isobel fell back, knocking into the table behind her. A shrieking torrent of jet feathers engulfed the light. His form loosened into violet smoke, and like a demon sucked into hell, he vanished into the floor.
33
Just a Bird
Blood. Where was the blood? Why wasn’t she bleeding? Isobel searched her arms for signs of scarlet, expecting the pain to hit her at any moment. Those claws, they’d raked right through her. She should be shredded. Still halfway curled into herself, she stood trembling, as though waiting for the moment when she would start to fall apart at the seams. That moment never came, though. There was nothing. Maybe she was in shock.
“Miss Lanley, are you ill?”
It was Mr. Nott who asked this. The quiet tone of his voice made her feel suddenly grounded. It only took her a moment to realize that the cafeteria had grown quiet and looking up, she found the whole world staring at her.
Heat flooded her face.
She drew herself sharply upright, gazing into the faces of those who had been eating at the table behind her, the table she’d knocked into. Spilled cups, ruined lunches, and sopping napkins now littered the surface. All eyed her with expressions wavering between indignation and uncertainty. There was a last beat of silence, one final moment of suspended peace.
Then Alyssa’s voice, clear and curt, sliced through the stillness.
“Oh my God, Isobel, you’re such a spaz!”
Laughter. A loud burst of it shattered the eerie silence. Horrible, torturous, unforgiving laughter. How could she be living this nightmare again?
Isobel ran for the doors. Grinning faces blurred in her peripheral vision. She thought she could hear Brad shouting after her, but she ignored him. She hurried past her own table without even a sideways glance at Gwen, pushed through the double doors, and ran the length of the hall.
She pushed into the girls’ restroom, letting the door bang shut behind her. She drew herself up to the middle sink, placing her hands on either side of the basin. She stood there, trying to regulate her breathing, and fought against the urge to puke.
She was cracking up. She was losing her mind right in front of everyone. There was no other excuse for it. What was wrong with her?
She couldn’t be dreaming right now, could she?
Isobel brought her reluctant gaze up to the mirror. Staring into the deep ocean blue of her own eyes, she had never felt so alone.
“I need help,” she whispered. Pallid and haggard, she watched her nostrils flare as she took in a longer breath. She let it out through her mouth and shut her eyes. “I know you’re there, listening somewhere. ” She wondered who she was even talking to. Reynolds? Herself? Varen?
“Look,” she said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t listening before, but I’m listening now. Please. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know what’s real anymore. ”
The words were out, and Isobel found her eyes opening, shifting to watch, through the mirror, the space over her shoulder. She waited for something to happen, for him to appear in front of one of the stall doors, cloaked and shrouded as he had done before.
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“Reynolds!” she whispered, evoking his name.
She heard a creak from behind and drew herself straight.
The bathroom door cracked open, and Gwen stuck her head in.
“Isobel, we’re going to have to talk about what you’re eating for breakfast, because whatever it is, it’s doing nothing for your social life, I can tell you that. Now I’m only going to ask you this once. Are you all right?”
Isobel stared at her friend’s reflection in the mirror.
“I got your book bag,” Gwen said. “Despite your standing ovation in there, I didn’t think you were gonna come back to get it. What kinda books you got in this thing, any-way? Feels like you’re schlepping around a hard copy of the Internet. ”
“Books?” Isobel swung around. All at once, the sight of Gwen dragging her backpack through the door brought on a new thought, something that had not occurred to her until that moment. In the hall, the bell sounded, ending lunch in a shrill, nerve-frying clatter. “Gwen! You drive to school. ”
Gwen stopped her struggle with Isobel’s bag. “And monkeys throw their poop. Isobel, you’re really startin’ to scare me. ”
“Gwen. I need to borrow your car. ”
“Are you nuts? What for? It’s the middle of the day!”
“Please,” she said, holding out her hand for the keys.
They snuck into the boiler room, which Mr. Talbot, the janitor, had left open while he cleaned up in the cafeteria. With Gwen in tow, Isobel hurried past the noise and heat of the boiler and through the back door. She shut it behind them and was certain by the click that it made that it had locked automatically. They’d have to find another way back in.
“This is insane,” Gwen whispered. “You’re gonna get us both suspended. ”
“You didn’t have to come. ”
“Oh, right, and let you drive off in my dad’s Cadillac with nothing but a permit?”
They stooped, sneaking around the side of the building and through the rows of faculty cars toward the student lot. This would be the toughest part, getting in the car and out of the lot without being noticed. The rear of Trenton was covered in windows. Still, her mind was set. If she got caught, then she got caught. She was fairly sure she could talk Gwen out of any major trouble
if she had to, since Gwen was one of the school’s four National Merit finalists. Right now, though, she had to find Varen, and after her encounter with Pinfeathers, she couldn’t exactly say that Gwen’s company wasn’t welcome.
There was only one other place she could look for Varen, and right now, she didn’t care that it was against the rules to leave school grounds. She didn’t even care that she was supposed to be ready to perform with the squad in front of the whole school in little more than an hour.
At least she had a plan. She was pretty sure that if they could get away from the school undetected, and if they waited until the end of fifth period to return, when everyone in the school would be banging on lockers and heading to the gym for the pep rally, they might just be able to pull this off.
Ducking low, they wove their way between the rows of vehicles.
“Could have worn something a little less conspicuous,” Gwen grumbled behind her.
“It’s a pep rally day. I have to wear this!”
They continued on, making their way across the pavement sideways and crouching, like a pair of crabs moving through a desert ghost town.
“That one,” Gwen said, and pointed at an old 1990s navy blue Cadillac hunkered in a middle slot. Compared to the two sporty, brightly colored fiberglass cars flanking it, the thing looked more like a tank. Talk about a getaway car.
“Jeez,” said Isobel. “What, is your dad in the Mafia?”
“Actually, he’s an orthodontist. ”
They split apart, crossing the last clear drive-through space, Gwen sidling up next to the driver’s door and Isobel to the passenger’s. They stayed low as Gwen stuck the key in and unlocked the car. She slid inside and, hunching down in the driver’s seat, reached across to raise the lock on the passenger side. Isobel grasped the handle and pressed the silver button until she felt the latch give. She shuffled back to open the door but stopped, catching sight of something in the rearview mirror. There was someone else in the parking lot. She turned her head to see.
He sat no more than ten feet away, perched on the hood of a black BMW, another blood-haired boy, dressed in black like Pinfeathers, only it wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been, because unlike Pinfeathers, this boy wasn’t missing his cheek. He was missing an entire eye. Even from a distance, Isobel could see the gaping space where one eye and half his nose should have been.