Nevermore

by Kelly Creagh

  Isobel jerked her wrist back, remembering Gwen’s warning not to lose her tag. The point was that she had one. So what else did he want?

  She took a step backward, but he shook his head. It didn’t seem as though he was ready to let her go. He crooked a finger at her to come closer, and this time it was her turn to shake her head. He scowled and turned to point at a nearby gathering.

  The group he gestured to looked like a stately if not unusual funeral party. There were three young men, two of them with black umbrellas open and held aloft over the head of a girl, her golden-bronze arms coated in black lace sleeves, her thick dark hair piled atop her head beneath bands of silver, secured with large roses and long drapes of black ribbon. She looked like a queen, her full dress a deep bloodred, accented with black.

  Lacy.

  For a moment Isobel thought about bolting straight into the crowd, but then the other girl saw her and it was too late. Like a mouse paralyzed in the gaze of a cobra, Isobel stood frozen.

  Lacy’s artfully painted eyes narrowed hard on her. She surveyed Isobel for a long moment, a sneer contorting the perfection of her ebony lips. By this time the other members of her party had turned to stare as well, lowering their goblets.

  Isobel gulped. They were going to eat her alive.

  She silently cursed Gwen for dressing her in baby-girl pink. Why couldn’t they have swapped? A little eyeliner, a dash of sullenness, and she could have slipped beneath the radar completely.

  Apparently growing inpatient with her, Mohawk Man placed a large hand against her back and urged her forward, toward the group. Isobel, not knowing what else to do, went where she was pushed.

  The guys with the umbrellas looked like they were in their twenties at least, each of them clad in top hats and long coats. The third had a more edgy look. He wore a leather jacket laced in chains, his hair spiky on one half of his head, shorn clean on the other. Lacy handed off her goblet to Mr. Mohawk and seized Isobel’s tag. Her dark eyes narrowed as she read, and when she looked up she stared past Isobel, searching the crowd behind them.

  This was the last shred of evidence Isobel needed to know that Varen was present, that he’d been seen, and she wasted no time. She lashed out at Mohawk Man, jerking his arm, causing him to drop Lacy’s drink. It splattered on the floor, dark droplets flying onto the skirt of Lacy’s dress. She gasped in horror and let go of Isobel’s tag. Isobel, seizing her chance, broke away from the group, running headlong into the black throng. She plowed forward, pressing her way through the bodies, weaving between them. Her dress snagged on someone’s spiked bracelet, and she had to stop to free herself. She glanced behind her, then turned and spun in another direction. How would she ever find him? Was he down below, or above, somewhere on the gallery?

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  The farther she wove into the crowd, the more eyes she seemed to attract. Whispers started up around her. Strange faces turned toward her, most of them either porcelain white or covered by masks. She looked over her shoulder, still expecting to find Lacy two steps behind, furious and ready to snatch her bald. Either that, or drain her of blood.

  Isobel stepped on someone’s toe and looked up. The boy, dressed completely in different versions of plaid, smiled at her. That disturbed her more than if he’d glared, and she turned and pushed through again, the space growing tighter as she wove her way deeper into the crowd. Someone caught her around the waist and she screamed, her voice lost in the noise of the screeching music. She wrenched away. A laughing face fell backward, becoming lost within a haze of colored lights. She stared after it, wondering if she had imagined the hole in his cheek.

  Isssobel.

  Isobel jumped at the sound of her name. It was as though someone had spoken it from inside her head, the voice metallic and sharp—a woman’s.

  Someone knocked into her, and she was jostled to one side. Sharp red fingernails reached out from the darkness. She gasped and pulled away, stumbling. Like the face, the hands vanished, leaving her unsure whether they’d been real.

  Isobel blinked and watched as the dark figures around began to merge and meld into one another. Becoming one, they moved in on her like a black tide. Blood rushed into her ears and drowned out the music. All sound seemed to drift farther and farther away. She drew her arms in tightly around herself and turned once more, then again, only to find every clear step closed off, covered over by shapeless black shadows.

  Isssobel.

  That voice again, that same haunting hiss. It caused the hair on her arms to rise and prickle, the thrum in her ears to intensify.

  Isssobel, it breathed.

  A wave of dizziness washed over her. The room around her shifted on its axis. She lost her balance and threw her arms out to brace herself. She felt people all around her, shapes moving, dancing through the blackness as though they’d been swallowed up just like her but hadn’t realized it. Isobel shut her eyes and opened them, but nothing changed. Why did it suddenly feel as though she was slipping away from herself, disconnecting? Why did it feel as though the world was falling away—capsizing?

  Was she falling asleep, or waking up?

  Isssoooobell . . .

  Who was that calling her name? Coach? Mom?

  No. It was someone else. Some thing else.

  This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening. She was here. She was really here. She couldn’t be dreaming. Even if this was a dream, she couldn’t wake up now. Not when she’d come so close.

  Isobel reached out, felt the air shimmer in front of her.

  From behind, she felt someone take her hand, clasping hard, pulling her around. She spun sharply, and the force of the movement seemed to shock her into herself.

  The world snapped into place.

  All at once, the noise of the party spiraled into full volume again. A girl’s siren voice now replaced the frayed chords of the skull-faced boy. Her song, backed by the haunting pull of a cello’s strings and the gentle thump of percussion, reverberated through the hall. The figures around sprang apart from formless shadows to become people again, leaving in their wake a dark figure that now stood before her, his face hidden beneath a mask of white.

  “It’s you,” she gasped.

  38

  Out of Space, Out of Time

  It was his eyes that gave him away. Despite the phantom’s mask that hid his face, she could not have mistaken those eyes. She would have known them anywhere, those two jade spheres, their gaze so sharp it could cut. Framed by the holes in the simple white mask, they blazed into her like they had so many times before, lit now by a strange and unearthly fire.

  Isobel could not have stopped herself if she’d tried. Not as she closed the distance between them. Not as she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck. Not as she pressed herself to his frame, breathed him in, took in the scent of him—a concentrated dose of spice and incense that sent her mind reeling. She clung fast to him, tightened her hold on him, felt the realness of him in the fabric of his familiar jacket, in the warmth of his body.

  Unbidden, his arms encircled her, invited themselves around her waist. He drew her in. Isobel’s heart crashed against the cage of her chest, beating against his.

  She looked up at him and, unwinding one arm, reached to remove the mask. It came away in one easy motion, revealing the darkened, purple bruise beneath his left eye, the angry split in the skin above his lip.

  Her brow furrowed. Brad. He’d been telling the truth. And Bruce had been right. But how could that be? She’d seen Varen earlier that day, in Mr. Swanson’s class. The contours of his face had been smooth.

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  Her fingertips reached to trace the damage, but he grasped her hand with his own. He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her lashes. She had just enough time to take in a breath, to blink, to part her lips before he took them with
his own.

  Time froze. Her heart ceased to beat. Her eyes fluttered shut.

  The cool slip of the small metal loop pressed into her skin as he kissed her. Urgent. Gentle. So slow.

  Sweet, soft demolition.

  He tasted of cloves and coffee. And of something else. A faraway essence, familiar and yet somehow foreign, too. Something sere and arid. A little like smoke. A little like decay.

  Ash.

  A tiny sound of alarm escaped her. She pulled back. He gripped her, though, and pulled her to him. Did he think that she might slip through his arms or vanish? Or was his fear that he might? He raised both hands to cup her face, to hold her lips against his own. It was as though the moment was a stolen one, as though every second counted, as though this first kiss was doomed to be their last.

  Like horrible skeletons, these thoughts reared in her mind, corrupting the moment, frightening her enough to pull away. This time he let her.

  A gentle sting played over Isobel’s lips, as though they’d just met with a battery’s charge. Onstage, the girl continued to croon longingly, though the music behind her began to build and climb, to swallow her reverberation and careen once again toward sure chaos.

  “I found you,” Isobel whispered.

  An agonized expression crossed his features. He gripped her behind the neck, pressed his forehead to hers. His soft hair draped around them, shielded their faces from view. “You shouldn’t be here. ”

  Her lips parted to utter a reply, but he released her, taking his mask from her and donning it once more. She watched him, confused as he turned to look behind, to scan the figures around them. He gripped her hand, and she squeezed it in her own. He spun around, and she soon found herself following him through the press of costumed bodies. Where was he taking her? What did he mean, she shouldn’t be here? Hadn’t he wanted her here? With him?

  Fed by the new hard surge from the drums, the dancing turned to thrashing and the costumed bodies closed in, making it almost impossible to keep hold of him as he steered her through the tangle of ghouls, devils, dark faeries, and vampires.

  At last they broke through the press of bodies. He led her toward the far wall, where several partygoers stared, their painted features sullen and apathetic. Varen drew her along, moving faster.

  She tugged against him, attempting to rein him in. She was tired of being in the dark, surrounded by shadows and ominous forms that always knew more than she did. She was ready for answers. She tried to loosen her hand from his, but his grip only tightened. She tugged again, and finally he swung around.

  “Tell me what’s happening. ”

  “Not here. ” He grabbed her wrist and they were moving once more. He pushed through a gathering of Jack the Ripper look-alikes, and ahead, hidden within a recess of shadows, Isobel saw a door.

  They slipped around a pierced couple pressed against one wall, their arms wrapped around each other, their faces molded together, locked in a deep kiss. Varen opened the door. He drew her inside, pulling a string for light, and shut the door behind them.

  They were in what appeared to be a small office. At least, the tiny space had probably once served as an office. It smelled of sawdust and stale tobacco. An unfinished desk sat in one corner, a crooked corkboard nailed to the wall above it. A few sheets of paper, still pinned there, yellowed and brittle with age, stirred in the breeze of their entrance. A broken chair, overturned atop a threadbare throw rug, acted as the room’s centerpiece. Beyond that and the cord-and-bulb ceiling light overhead, there was nothing. Outside, the music raged on, though muted by the boundary of the four surrounding walls.

  Varen, removing his mask and setting it on the desk, gathered the broken chair from the floor and lifted it. He hooked the backrest beneath the doorknob. The action caused Isobel’s skin to prickle. What was he barricading them against?

  “Varen?”

  He held a hand up to silence her and paused at the door, listening.

  “Varen—,” she whispered.

  He swung toward her again, moving fast to her side. “Don’t say my name,” he hushed. “She can’t find you here with me. You have to hide,” he said, more to himself than to her.

  “She?” He couldn’t still be worried about Lacy, could he?

  His eyes, wide and anxious, snapped to hers.

  She’d never seen him like this. She’d never even imagined him this way. Skittish, fearful—almost fevered. Whatever she had expected to find when she got here, it hadn’t been this. His fear, so unfamiliar, doubled hers.

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  “Tell me what’s happening,” she pleaded.

  He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have come. ”

  “Stop saying that. ” She gripped his jacket, her fingers clutching. “You asked me to come, remember?”

  “That was a mistake. ”

  She wanted to shake him, to wake him up, to make him answer her.

  “Varen, none of this makes any sense, and then you say something like that! Your letter—why did . . . I don’t understand anything that’s happening, and it’s happening to me, too! Tell me right now what happened to your face. Brad said—but then I saw you . . . ” She shook her head, trying to sort out her thoughts, her memory. Did anything fit together? Which confusion should she start with first? “One minute you were there, the next you were gone. I looked for you but you’d disappeared, just like a ghost! And now you’re here and you won’t tell me. Why? What are those things? Why are they following me? Why did they attack Nikki and Brad? Where did they come from? What do they want?”

  “They want the same thing I want!” he shouted suddenly, yanking away from her. He grabbed the mask off the desk and threw it against one wall. It shattered, shards of porcelain spraying the floor.

  Hands quivering, she reached toward him.

  “Don’t. ” He turned his back to her, facing the door.

  That word had stopped her once before. But not now. Not now that she had glimpsed through the funeral front of Varen’s own eternal Grim Facade. Despite all the dark armor, the kohl liner, the black boots and chains, she saw him clearly now. She’d peered through the curtain of that cruel calmness, through the death stare and the vampire sentiments and angst and, behind it all, had found true beauty. She looped her arms around his waist, burying her face against his jacket, against the silhouette of the dead bird. “Please tell me!”

  He spun in her grip and pressed his lips to her ear, whispering. “I didn’t know it would happen like this,” he said. “I only wanted to escape. I don’t know if you can understand that.

  That I only wanted to find a way to somewhere else. Even if it only lasted a little while—even if it wasn’t real. But then it was real. It was real and I couldn’t stop it. ”

  “What? Stop what?”

  “Then I met you,” he said, his lips hovering close to hers once again. “And the dreams changed. ”

  His breath washed warm against her, and it made her want to surrender to him again, to feel his touch, to hold his kiss, at once petal soft and incinerating. She’d never been kissed like that before—like the shell of her soul had evaporated.

  He inched closer, but paused. Outside, the music, the screaming, the voices, the sounds of the frenzied crowd—it all stopped. Silence pulsed. He pulled back, turned to look toward the door.

  The room grew cold. Isobel drew in a breath. She hugged herself, shivering as she recalled the night at the ice cream shop, the time they’d spent in the freezer. It felt so long ago.

  Seconds passed.

  Against the walls, the dull yellow light began to move and sway. The motion threw their twin shadows this way and that against the walls and floor, making the room seem suddenly more crowded. Varen looked up, and her own gaze followed. They watched the naked bulb swing on its frayed cord, as though caught by the gust of a nonexistent breeze. Back and forth it swung, like the pendulum of a clock.

&
nbsp; The light blinked, flickered. Darkness teased, threatening to strike.

  Hoarse whispers rose up from just outside the door, a sound like dry leaves crackling over a fire.

  At first they started low. So low that Isobel couldn’t be certain of what the sound was or that she was even hearing it at all. But then the voices became clearer, hissing through the crack at the bottom of the door. Something laughed. A fast shadow moved, darting like an animal.

  Isobel gripped his sleeve. “What is it?”

  He moved cautiously forward, positioning himself in front of her. “They’ve found us. ”

  39

  Much of Madness

  The doorknob rattled.

  Isobel watched as the chair holding the door shivered and shook. Something banged into it hard, jarring the door in its frame, and she jumped, letting out a yelp.

  All at once the whispers died. The door settled.

  A small light, white and crystalline, like the light she had seen in the woodlands, appeared in a wink at the bottom. It traveled along the crack slowly, back and forth, as though probing for a way in. There was a sound on the other side, like the slip of gauze fabric over the wooden exterior of the door, and Isobel found herself fighting the urge to scream. Then the white light blinked out.

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  Silence. Only the sound of their breathing. And then a new sound. Quiet and distant.

  Music.

  “Do you hear that?” she whispered, still clinging to him. The tune grew louder. One instrument, one note at a time, it pieced itself together until at last she could place what it was she heard. An orchestra?

  “Don’t listen,” he said, his voice brittle. “Pretend it’s not real. ”

  The music grew steadier, firmer, and it was real—string instruments sighing out a swirling waltz. A crash of cymbals accented a change in melody. The waltz swelled even louder, so unlike the deafening, crunching goth music. It couldn’t be another band, could it? There was no way. She heard no guitars. No tortured vocals.

  New voices filtered in from beyond the door, different from the whispers they’d heard a moment before. These voices were more substantial, more alive, the sound of real people laughing and talking and shouting. The voices rose steadily, accompanied now by the delicate clink and tinkle of glassware. More and more voices chimed in, one for every second that passed, until they blended into a unanimous, lively hum. Despite the light laughter, the trilling, swirling tune, Isobel clung tighter to the back of Varen’s jacket. It made no sense. All of it felt . . . wrong.