Thick and heady, the aroma of the blossoms weighed down the air.
Isobel fumbled for the handle on her door, which popped open as soon as she touched the latch. Jerking her arm with it, the door swung out wide over the jagged edge of a black cliff.
Far below, milky waters churned amid toothy rocks while the waves clamored one over the other, snapping like white wolves before smashing against the flat face of the cliff.
Isobel gave a silent shriek. She backpedaled for the driver’s side. Twisting, she grabbed hold of the steering wheel, using it to pull herself out on the other side.
She spilled hard onto the ground. Rolling onto her back, she hiked one knee up and kicked, sending the door of the Cougar slamming shut.
The echoing clap caused the car to disperse into ashes.
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Isobel raised her arms to shield her face from the spray of grit. Through the settling dust, she saw that the cliffs had vanished, leaving only the surrounding walls of ruby blossoms.
In the midst of what appeared to be an enormous rose garden, a familiar structure became discernible through the screen of the settling powder.
Isobel recognized the structure as the fountain from Varen’s neighborhood. It now stood in the center of a circular dome-shaped room enclosed by scarlet blooms.
Without the curtain of crystal water pouring from the ledge of its rounded green basin, the fountain was a silent and eerie monument.
Isobel pulled herself to her feet, her practice sneakers caked with ash, chalk white against a carpet of ruby petals.
Her eyes locked on the statue of the woman that stood at the top of the fountain, her stiff stone veil clutched in her hands, the fabric arcing out behind her nearly nude figure in a backward C.
Isobel turned in a circle. All around her, buds and blossoms in various states of unfurling dotted the trellised walls. High over the statue’s head, thick vines met at a circular opening at the top of the domed ceiling. Through the porthole, she could see a tangled webwork of black tree limbs.
What was this place?
And where was—?
“Varen!”
“Here. ”
Isobel started, nearly yelping as she found him standing right in front of her.
She peered up into eyes no longer shielded by sunglasses. Their centers were black, swept clean of color and light.
She searched through their darkness, desperate to find some irrefutable evidence in their depths that could prove it was really him.
“Is—is any of this real?” she asked. “Are you real?”
He lifted a hand to her cheek, his fingers brushing her jaw.
“Even if this is a dream,” he whispered, “I’m not. ”
Isobel’s eyes widened, recognizing those words as her own, the same ones she had once uttered to him. She reached for him, her arms twining around his neck, drawing him to her so that his scent poured over her, that combination of incense, citrus, and dried leaves overriding the funeral smell of the crowding flowers.
He lowered his forehead to hers, his hair draping around their faces, the smooth strands tickling her skin.
“Don’t leave,” she breathed.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “Right here. Waiting. ”
He leaned in.
Isobel tilted her chin up, ready for the press of his lips.
She wanted to let her eyes fall shut, but something, a sensation of being watched, stopped her. Her glance slid past his shoulder, her focus drawn to the statue atop the fountain.
Between the inky strands of Varen’s hair, Isobel watched its eyes slide open. She stared, transfixed, as the statue turned its head toward them, aiming those two empty pits of blackness straight at her.
2
Sorrow for the Lost
Isobel awoke with a start. She sucked in a sharp gasp of air, and her gaze met with the blank surface of her bedroom ceiling.
She blinked as a swirl of images shuttered through her brain like snapshots in a broken reel of film. Closing her eyes, she tried to find one frame to latch on to, one fleeting symbol or shadow that would trigger the memory of what it was she’d been dreaming about.
But the pictures slid by too quickly, growing dimmer and more uncertain the faster her consciousness swam toward the surface of reality.
Isobel groaned. She didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to slip under again. She wanted to go back.
Rolling onto her side, she peered groggily through the narrow slice of window visible between her twin white-lace curtains.
It was still dark outside, still early.
If she threw the covers over her head and tried to sleep again, Isobel wondered if she would be able to return to whatever dream she’d been having. Even if she couldn’t recall where she had been or what had been happening, she knew that the dream had not had a chance to end where it should have. There had been something left unsaid. No, she thought, there had been something left undone. What was it?
Isobel sighed. It was no use straining. The thread was broken.
She turned to glance at her digital clock.
6:30, it read in cool blue numbers.
She froze.
Oh my God. Six freaking thirty?
An ice bomb exploded somewhere in the pit of her stomach, set off by the sudden realization that she was supposed to be on a bus right that very moment, a bus that had probably reached the county line by now, filled with every member of Trenton High’s varsity cheerleading squad. Every member except her.
“Daaaad!” Her voice scraped raw from the back of her throat. Isobel tossed off her covers, her legs prickling with gooseflesh as she staggered out of bed, hurtling toward her bedroom door. She threw it open and rushed out and onto the landing that overlooked the foyer and downstairs hallway.
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Darkness bathed the house, quietness filling every corner.
At the end of the hall, Danny’s bedroom door stood ajar, and Isobel could just make out her little brother’s snores emanating from within.
She hurried to the stairs, not caring if she woke him, her bare feet thundering down the carpet-covered steps. “Da—”
Isobel jerked to a halt midway down, surprised to see her father enter the foyer, his upturned face clean-shaven, his expression questioning. He held his briefcase in one hand, a travel mug of coffee in the other. He wore black slacks and a clean white button-down shirt, the silver pin-striped tie she’d given him last Father’s Day laced through the collar.
He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Miss the bus again, kiddo?” he asked, a slightly bemused look on his face.
Isobel stood motionless on the stairs, her thoughts racing. As the blank spaces of all the current whens and wheres refilled, the frantic beating of her heart began to slow. Spotting the darkened Christmas tree through the living room archway, she felt a warm gush of relief wash through her.
Nationals. The competition. It had all already happened. She’d been home from Dallas for a week now. She hadn’t missed the bus, either. In fact, she’d been early.
They had won, too. Trenton High Spirit Squad now held the all-too-rare title of three-time NCA champions.
Isobel could still hear the squad’s piercing screams of victory echo through her head. In her mind’s eye, she pictured them all huddled together, a squealing, teary mob of blue and yellow, everyone clamoring to lay a hand on the gleaming golden trophy.
“Third time this week,” her father said, drawing Isobel’s attention back to his presence in the foyer.
With glazed eyes, she followed his movements as he set his briefcase down next to the umbrella stand. He stepped forward, grabbing his gray wool peacoat from where he’d hung it on the banister post. Juggling the coffee mug between his hands, he kept his gaze steady on her while he shrugged the coat on one sleeve at a time.
; “Think I’m going to have to talk to Coach about this,” he said. “Tell her to cool it a little next time on all those extra practices. I’m just waiting for the day you wake up from the nightmare where you think you lost. ”
Isobel grasped the stairway banister. She clutched the wood hard, her fingernails digging into the cherry finish. Slowly she lowered herself to sit on the edge of one step while fragments from her dream began to resurface, bobbing up like driftwood from a shipwreck. Amid the tangle of familiar and unfamiliar, mundane and frightening, one quiet face floated forward to occupy the forefront of her mind.
She was beginning to wonder if she would ever again be able to picture his eyes the way they’d been before . . . before . . .
“Hey. Relax, Izzy,” her father said, leaning forward to nudge her knee with a fist. “Trophy’s in the bag, champ. ”
The dream—it always started out with her being at final practice. And though she’d had it a handful of times now, it had never lasted so long. Every time before this, every single time, she’d awoken as soon as she saw him—as soon as she realized that his being there wasn’t possible and that she had to be dreaming. In other words, as soon as she became lucid.
This time had been different, though. Somehow she’d managed to forget about reality long enough to remain within the dream. Long enough for him to show her what he’d wanted her to see.
But what had he wanted her to see?
“Sooo,” her dad said. “I know it’s Christmas Eve, but as you can probably guess, I’ve got to head into the office for a couple hours. Very Bob Cratchit of me, I know. ” He checked his wristwatch. “I should be back early, though. Noon at the latest. You and I are still on for our last-minute mall trip, right? I still have to pick up your mother’s gift from the jeweler. Orange Julius on me?”
Isobel nodded at him. She’d have agreed to anything in that moment so long as it would make him go away, so long as it would let her be alone again so she could concentrate on salvaging the bits and pieces of time spent with Varen, even if she couldn’t be 100 percent certain if those moments had been real.
They had to have been real, though. It only made sense that he would try to reach her this way. He had seemed so solid, so there. Her hand still tingled from where he’d held it, her skin alive with the memory of his warmth.
“Oooo-kay,” Isobel heard her dad say, “then I’ll call when I’m on my way to pick you up. In the meantime, Izzy, why don’t you try going back to bed? I think you’re still a little worn out from the all the competition stuff. I mean, they call it winter break for a reason. ”
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Again, Isobel nodded. Nod, nod, nod. It was what she did best these days.
Concern flashed across his features, and his smile faltered.
Quickly she found her voice. “You’re probably right,” she said.
He continued to watch her, frowning, like there was still something else he wanted to say. Instead of saying it, though, he pushed his smile into place again. Turning, he opened the front door and let in a burst of frigid winter air.
Even though the sudden brush of cold wind should have sent a shiver rattling through her, it didn’t.
Outside, Isobel could see that the deep blue darkness had since lightened, evidence that the dawn was doing its best to push back the curtain of night.
Her father remained only a moment longer before bending, at last, to pick up his briefcase.
“I’ll call you, okay?” he said. He raised his coffee mug to the side of his head as though it were a cell phone, like he thought she needed sign language.
“Yeah,” she said, “sounds good. ”
He gave a half wave, then shuffled out, poking his head back in at the last moment to say, “Grab the door for me?”
Isobel pushed herself up from the stairs. She pressed the door closed behind him while her father shouldered his way past the outer storm door.
She leaned her forehead against the wood, listening to his shoes click against the sidewalk as his footsteps grew distant.
With her hand still gripping the knob, she caught herself wishing she could run after him and call him back. Time and again she’d had to fight the urge to tell him everything, even though she knew he would never believe any of it.
A moment longer, though, and she might have confessed that actually, she had had the nightmare he’d mentioned—the one where she’d lost. But unlike the recurring dream about practice, it hadn’t concerned Nationals at all.
It had concerned everything else. The only thing else.
But it hadn’t been a dream.
These days, it was getting harder and harder to tell what was.
She spun, putting her back to the door, listening to the quiet hum of the sedan’s engine as her father backed the car out of the driveway and onto their street.
The twin beams of the headlights flashed through the living room window, casting a host of misshapen shadows along the floors and walls, making Isobel feel suddenly less alone.
A chill climbed up her spine, receding only when dimness and silence settled over the house once more.
She glanced up to the darkened doorway of her bedroom.
Her dad had told her to try to go back to sleep. Now that she was wide awake, though, Isobel began to doubt if she would ever know true rest again.
3
Bleak December
Her father’s “no later than noon” call lit up Isobel’s cell closer to four. Something had come up, he said, which had essentially turned his quick Christmas Eve trip to the office into another full workday. So it wasn’t until after five that they were finally able to wrestle their way through traffic and into the mall. Amazingly, they managed to extract themselves from the mad bustle, bags in tow, appendages intact, by seven. They were even able to locate the sedan before the first semifrozen droplets of the weatherman’s projected “wintry mix” began to pepper the pavement.
Isobel stared out the passenger-side window as her father maneuvered the car through the congested parking lot. Slushy rain streaked the glass, turning the whole view mottled. Christmas lights blurred into glowing smudges, while the bright holiday window displays melded into shapeless meshes of color.
As the sedan edged toward the main road, a sifting of white snow slowly began to replace the sleet. It collected on the windshield in fluffy specks between wiper-blade swipes, the downy flecks bringing Isobel’s thoughts back, yet again, to her dream.
“Awfully quiet over there,” Isobel’s dad said. “How about some music?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he flipped on the radio, and through a scratch of fuzz that made Isobel flinch, Bing Crosby’s voice broke, crooning about a white Christmas.
They turned, emerging from the bottleneck squeeze to join with the steady flow of traffic. Rows of trees swished past on the left, clumps of wild mistletoe clinging to their barren branches like tangled knots in petrified hair.
Despite her father’s attempt to spark conversation, Isobel’s thoughts remained lost in a world that existed between here and forever. A world that still held him.
For the entire day, the brief flashes of Varen’s face, both torturous and comforting, had been the only thing she could concentrate on.
The dream itself still felt loose in her head, more distant than a childhood memory.
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More than anything, she remembered being close to Varen. She just couldn’t recall where they’d been or what he had said.
And as the day had dragged on, she wondered if her subconscious could somehow be the culprit behind the repeated dreams, doing its best to provide her with the one thing—the one person—that it hurt too much to be without.
“If this keeps up,” her dad said, putting on his turn signal, “we might just get one of those. ”
Isobel stirred from her thoughts. “One of those what?” r />
“A white Christmas, Iz,” he said, his eyes never leaving the road. “What are you thinking so hard about over there, anyway?”
As they switched lanes, her dad offered a wave of thanks to the lady in the kid-packed SUV who had let them over. Isobel glanced down at her hands in her lap.
“Oh. ” She summoned her best semblance of a smile. “Just thinking about . . . Nationals,” she lied, and touched the thin golden band on the ring finger of her right hand. She twisted the ring, turning it around and around. NATIONAL CHAMPION it read in bold capital letters that framed a smooth, glinting, Trenton-blue gemstone.
“Seems like you’ve been thinking about that an awful lot lately,” he said. “Or worrying about it, I should say. I mean, to the point where you’re dreaming that it didn’t happen. ” He paused, looking away from the road to glance in her direction. Isobel knew he was waiting for her to speak, but she couldn’t think of what to say. She didn’t know what it was he wanted to hear. It was better, she thought, to remain silent and let him draw his own conclusions. At least it was easier to hide the truth that way.
“You know, Izzy,” he said, returning his attention to the road, “you were really great out there this year. I mean, better than ever. And I’m not just saying that. I have to admit, I was a little nervous when I saw Heywood do their routine, but you guys smoked them. You know that, don’t you? I mean . . . I can’t help but get this feeling that, for whatever reason, you keep asking yourself if you really deserved to win. It’s like you feel guilty about it, when I don’t think I’ve ever seen you more focused. The squad was great, but you, Izzy, it’s like you were on another plane of existence. I mean, you were totally zoned. You should be proud of yourself. ”
“I am,” she said, giving the ring a final twist as the sedan rolled into their subdivision, past the triple-tiered fountain, which now stood as still and silent as a cemetery monument, collecting snow in its empty basins.
Isobel sensed her dad glancing her way again, so she looked up and squeezed out yet another false smile. She tried her best to hold the expression, even when he looked away, but keeping up the game was starting to take its toll.
At the very least, she’d tried to make it seem like Nationals had mattered to her in the way it once had, before that day at school when she’d been paired to work with a certain jade-eyed goth boy named Varen Nethers. Before she’d ever known a single thing about him or the ominous subject he’d chosen for their English project—the man who was Edgar Allan Poe.