Isobel watched as he struggled to right himself. He fumbled for his crutches, using them to maneuver his way out of the corner she seemed to have driven him into.
“Wait,” Isobel said.
To her surprise, he stopped when he reached the open walkway between the locker-room entrance and the door that led to the showers. He stood stock-still with his back to her, his head down.
For the first time, Isobel noticed the streak of white at his temple, showing up like a patch of frost against his otherwise coppery curls.
He trembled where he stood and kept his face turned away from the mirror, his eyes rolling in her direction, pupils expanding. Tiny beads of sweat began to form on his upper lip.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in practice right now?” he asked her in a shaky whisper.
Isobel swallowed. “I got out . . . early. ”
“What do you want?”
“To talk,” she said. “Just to talk. ” She reached a hand toward him but pulled back when he cringed and angled away from her.
“You’re going to ask me what happened,” he said. “Just like everybody else. Aren’t you?”
Isobel didn’t answer.
“Except,” he continued, “unlike everybody else, Izo, you know what happened. In fact, you’re the only one who knows what happened. You were there. I saw you. ”
She watched as he hobbled back to the bench. Bracing his crutches against the lockers again, he lowered himself next to his duffel, extracting from it a black trash bag. Bad leg extended, he leaned forward at the waist and began to stuff the things lying on the floor into the bag.
“You . . . remember that?” she asked.
“Every single time I shut my eyes,” he said.
Isobel shifted uncomfortably where she stood. She knew they were talking about Halloween night, but she couldn’t be certain yet if he recalled any of the time he’d spent in the dreamworld, or if he was simply referring to what happened on the field when the Nocs cornered him during a play, snapping his leg.
Immediately after the attack, he’d fallen unconscious on the turf. Isobel had been there with him, calling out to him. But she didn’t find out until later that his spirit, his “astral form” as Reynolds had called it, had been dragged from his body by the Nocs and taken by force into the dreamworld. It was there that Isobel later discovered him, alerted to his presence by desperate screams only moments after she’d found Varen locked inside another room.
Promising Varen she’d come back for him, Isobel had gone to try and save Brad from being tortured by the Nocs. But she’d arrived too late.
She’d watched Brad, against his will, become the blood-drenched figure of the Red Death, his soul sucked into a cemetery statue that burst into life, its gray stone robes transforming into sodden sheets of tattered crimson.
She could still picture the way the phantasm had moved, floating over the ground with its cloak billowing behind. Helpless, Isobel had watched from within the pit of an open grave as the hooded figure descended from its plinth. With one wave of its skeletal hand, the creature had sent the dirt walls of her prison caving in, burying her alive.
Reality and the realm of dreams had already begun to merge by that time, and under the Red Death’s control, Brad entered the real world again, ready to carry out the final events of Poe’s gruesome story.
Only Reynolds had prevented him from killing everyone at the Grim Facade.
After rescuing her, he had fought to keep the Red Death at bay while she returned to the woodlands to destroy Varen’s journal, severing the link between worlds. Though doing so had been enough to free Brad and allow him to return to his body and to reality, it had not been enough to ensure Varen’s return. In fact, it had done just the opposite.
“Brad,” Isobel began, “listen. I’m sorry about . . . what happened on the field. And . . . I’m sorry that you can’t—”
He laughed, a bitter, cold sound. “You know I’m not talking about what happened on the field,” he said. “And keep your pity for yourself. I hated football. ” She watched him shove the blue-and-gold jersey into the trash bag.
Isobel gaped at him, stunned. “What?”
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“You heard me,” he said. “I hated the games. I hated the practices. I hated the tailgating and the stupid pep rallies. The only reason I did it was because everyone told me I should. Because it made my old man happy. Because I thought it made you happy. ”
He shook his head, yanking the yellow ties so the neck of the bag drew tight. He tied them off in a knot. “Now,” he said, and stuffed the nearby stack of T-shirts and locker photos into the duffel. Isobel thought she even recognized Nikki’s smiling face in one of them before he zipped the bag shut. “Now I can just forget about it. Right? Start over. Be something else. So thanks for that, Izo. But please . . . ”
He looped the strap of the duffel over his head and positioned the bag on his back. Anchoring himself with one of the crutches, he pulled himself onto his feet again. “Don’t do me any more favors. ”
He picked up the black garbage bag with his free hand and limped toward her. Isobel stepped aside to allow him access to the enormous trash can behind her. He hoisted the bag over its edge and let it fall in with a whoosh.
Then he turned to her and pointed to the remaining crutch.
Wordlessly, she handed it to him.
He slid it under his arm.
Isobel expected him to walk right past her after that, to leave without saying anything else. But he lingered, edging in closer, his crutches creaking.
“You know . . . ,” he began, his voice dropping to a whisper, “I still hear the screaming. If my head ever gets too quiet, that’s when it starts up. It’s like when you hit the snooze button and then, just as soon as you begin to doze, the alarm goes off again. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and there’s blood all over my hands. And all down my arms. ” Adjusting his weight, Brad extended one of his arms out in front of him, staring at it as he flipped it from front to back. “And I have to blink several times before it’ll go away. ” His gaze shifted back to her. “What about you, Izo? What do you see?”
Isobel didn’t move. Her eyes remained trapped by his. She told herself not to speak, not wanting to let on how much he was scaring her.
“Can I tell you something?” He tilted his head, moving in closer still, so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek. “Do you want to know what my grandma used to say about kisses on the forehead?”
He pressed his lips to her brow, holding the silk soft kiss for a long moment while Isobel stood in place, unable to bring herself to shove him away.
“She told me it’s the kind of kiss we save for the dead. ”
Isobel’s eyes snapped open wide. She took an immediate step back from him, her hands forming into fists.
But he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Instead he seemed transfixed by something behind her. “A word to the wise,” he added in a murmur. “Cover your mirrors. That’s how they find you. ”
With that, he turned away from her, his crutches clanking as he moved toward the door. He pushed through without looking back, leaving her there alone.
She stared after him, suddenly hyperaware of the mirror at her back.
A nagging feeling settled over her. It was that same sensation she’d felt that night in the park behind her house before being chased by the Nocs. Like there were a thousand invisible eyes aimed at her back, waiting for her to notice them so they could descend and devour.
Her body told her to start moving, to walk away as fast as she could, to leave right that second and not look back. But her mind, her instinct, told her there was something she needed to see.
She pivoted slowly in place, like a music-box ballerina winding down on its pedestal.
There, in the mirror, standing only a few short feet behind her, Isobel saw him.
> It was the pure blackness of his eyes that stopped her breathing. They peered right through her. White ash caked his boots like flour, turning them from black to gray.
“Varen?”
He watched her with an expression as unreadable as it was unchanging. It was that cold and stark blank-canvas look of his she’d always found so unsettling, that mask of nothingness that refused to give anything away.
He blinked, and the lights flickered.
Isobel stood paralyzed, helpless to move or utter a single syllable as he slipped between the lockers and vanished.
She spun to look behind her. The aisle stood empty. As she ran the length of it, checking between each of the alcoves, panic swelled in her chest. Still, she found no trace, no scrap of evidence that he’d ever been there.
She whipped her head to look back at the mirror, confronted only with the mad confusion of her own reflection.
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16
Dark Reflections
Isobel left the boy’s locker room and ran toward the doors leading out into the central hallway, her gym bag jouncing at her side.
She needed to catch up to Brad, to ask him what he knew. What else he’d seen. She needed him to tell her what he’d been talking about, what he’d meant when he’d said—
“Isobel!”
She whirled.
Looking harried, with her glasses askew, Gwen came hurrying after her, bracelets jangling. Behind her scurrying form, through the open doorway of the gym, Isobel could see a small cluster of squad members as they glanced up in their direction.
Isobel shrank back farther into the hall and out of their line of sight.
“Wait!” Gwen called, jogging in Isobel’s direction, the strap of her messenger bag looped across one shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” she huffed. The bright flush in her cheeks told Isobel that she must have gone searching outside as well. “Did you forget I was picking you up? Why weren’t you in there with the rest of the gladiators?”
Isobel didn’t answer. Turning away, she started down the hall at a faster pace, following the line of lockers, stopping only when she rounded the corner. But Brad wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.
“Where are you go—oof. ” Gwen collided with Isobel’s back, her bracelets clanking like cutlery.
Isobel spun to face her.
“Gwen, I saw him. ”
“Who?” Gwen asked. She straightened her glasses, then tugged at her hair, trying to loosen several strands from where they’d become caught between the sets of silver bangles. “Your old flame? Yeah, I saw him too. Just now. Watched him get into the car and ride off with Mizz Scarlett. ” Gwen batted her eyes, flipping her hair in imitation of Nikki. “Did you talk to him?”
“No. Gwen. ” Isobel gripped her by the shoulders. “I saw Varen. ”
Gwen went rigid in Isobel’s grasp, her expression faltering. In an instant, her cheeks lost their rosy hue, giving way to a pasty white. She clutched at Isobel’s wrists, which made her realize that she’d been digging her nails into Gwen’s shoulders.
Isobel let go.
“Where?” Gwen asked. “How?”
“In—in the—” Isobel looked over her shoulder, back in the direction of the gym. Then another memory surfaced through the jumbled murk of her confusion.
The first time Reynolds had appeared to her, hadn’t it been through a mirror?
Isobel grew still, her heart speed doubling as her thoughts returned yet again to the moment in the courtyard after Mr. Swanson’s class. Suddenly there was no longer any doubt in her mind about what she’d seen in the darkened screen of her cell phone.
Reflections . . .
That’s how they find you, Brad had said.
But what had he meant by “they”? And if mirrors really were a link between the dreamworld and reality, then why hadn’t Varen tried to reach her through one before now? And why hadn’t he spoken to her or, at the very least, attempted to convey some kind of message? Why had he only stared at her like that?
“The way he looked at me . . . ” Isobel glanced slowly back to Gwen. “It . . . it was as if . . . ” She trailed off, suddenly realizing where it was they were standing.
She remembered turning this corner after practice once before. That day she’d found Brad hovering over Varen, threatening him in low tones. And then the way Varen had glared at her, thinking it had been all her doing, that she’d sent Brad after him on purpose.
It seemed like such a faraway moment, but she could never forget the hatred in Varen’s eyes that day. Like two pyres burning in the dark, they had branded themselves into her memory forever. In them, he had shown no fear. Not even anger. Only empty contempt.
Just now, in the locker room . . . why did it feel as though she had relived that moment?
She felt Gwen grab her by the arm, jostling her. “Isobel,” she said, “talk to me. Tell me what happened. ”
“The kiss,” Isobel said, the words tumbling out of her mouth in the precise moment they occurred to her.
“Kiss?” Gwen asked. “Whoa, whoa, what kiss? What are you talking about?”
Isobel’s eyes met with Gwen’s, her jaw squaring. “He saw Brad kiss me. ”
“SO,” ISOBEL’S DAD SAID AS he reached for the saltshaker. “First day back. How was it?”
Isobel stopped pushing her green beans around on her plate long enough to give her father a cautious glance.
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“Okay,” she lied.
Resuming construction on the tepee-shaped pile of beans, she looked at Danny, who sat next to her, preoccupied with his DS, and then at the empty chair across from him, glad that Monday was her mother’s Pilates night.
After dropping Isobel off at home, Gwen had initially invited herself to stay for dinner but then opted out as soon as she discovered that Isobel’s mom wouldn’t be there to act as a buffer between her and Isobel’s dad.
For once, though, Isobel was grateful to be free of Gwen’s company. Aside from wanting to escape the endless barrage of questions she didn’t have answers for, she would need solitude in order to conduct that night’s after-dinner plan of action.
“Glad to hear it,” she heard her dad say as he shook salt onto his mashed potatoes, not bothering to look up. Isobel’s gaze remained downcast as well while she stabbed at the slice of roast beef on her plate.
So far, her father hadn’t brought up hearing from Coach. If she had called, Isobel couldn’t fathom why it wouldn’t have been the first thing out of his mouth as soon as he walked through the door. Since he had yet to mention anything about it, Isobel had to believe that he didn’t know what she’d done in practice and that she was still in the clear regarding Baltimore, at least for the time being. She had to trust that, because right now, there were more immediate things that needed her attention, like her dresser mirror.
Isobel swept the sliver of beef around and around in its pool of thin gravy. If she could just bring herself to take another bite, if she could just down enough food to clear half her plate, then there was a slim chance that she might be able to excuse herself. Then she could go to her room, close the door, and face the mirror without having to worry about being interrupted.
She’d once conducted a similar experiment, in the bathroom at school. There, in desperation, she’d confronted one of the mirrors in an attempt to summon Reynolds, calling out to him by name.
It hadn’t worked.
Yet later that day, when she’d again encountered the mysterious masked figure, she recalled very clearly how he’d chastised her. I am not a dog to be called, he’d said.
In other words, he’d heard her.
“Isobel, did you hear me?”
“Huh?” She looked up. Bringing her fork to her lips, she forced herself to take another bite. Roast beef squished against her tongue like a tough sponge.
; “I said, how was practice?”
Isobel coughed. She lifted her glass of lemonade to her lips and, taking a sip, managed to force the food down. She nodded in response while taking another gulp of her drink. “Good,” she said, her voice raspy.
“Really,” he muttered. “That’s not what Coach said. ”
Isobel froze. Slowly she lowered her glass.
“Did you know she called me on my cell?” he asked.
Isobel didn’t answer. Vines of panic began to wrap their way around her insides.
Turning her fork on its side, she used the edge like a mini snowplow, shoving the goopy, too-smooth glob of instant mashed potatoes from one edge of her plate to the other. The action made a long, high-pitched scraping noise, which caused her little brother, even though he had on his headphones, to glance up from his game. He glowered at her before returning his attention to the tiny flashing screen.
Normally, neither of them were allowed to have anything electronic at the dinner table. Isobel knew that if their mother were there, she’d have confiscated the DS for sure by now.
“Said you pulled an outright kamikaze on her,” he went on, elbows working as he sawed at his food with fork and knife, the movement causing the table to wobble slightly. “Her words exactly. ” He stabbed at the meat, stuck the fork in his mouth and, chewing, continued to stare at her.
Isobel wished she held the power to shrink to a pinpoint and float off. More than that, she wished that she could blink and make the rest of the two weeks before the Baltimore trip pass by in an instant. That way, she could avoid doing all the stupid things that would prevent her from going at all.
She sank into her seat.
“I threw a pass when she wasn’t looking,” Isobel confessed. “There wasn’t a mat and no one was spotting. I missed the last rotation, and I fell. ”
She assumed that he had his reasons for remaining silent until now. It could only mean he’d made up his mind regarding what he was going to do about it. Taking that into consideration, Isobel knew it was better to just go ahead and match stories with Coach’s instead of playing verbal dodgeball in hopes of finding out exactly how much had been said. When it came down to it, she needed to know what fate he or Coach or Mom or school would sentence her to. After what had happened that day, after what Varen had seen, or thought he’d seen, the only thing that mattered was getting to Baltimore, finding a way to find him. She would need to know if getting there, to the city and to the cemetery, was something she was going to have to do on her own after all.