Isobel scowled and twisted around in her covers, huddling to one side. “Well, he’s just going to have to deal. ”
That made her mom laugh. Isobel loved the sound of her mom’s laugh. It was light and airy, like something you might expect from a Disney princess. “Your friend is a bit different,”
she said. “I think part of it is that at first, he comes off as a little . . . stark and maybe a little . . . experienced. I think that, more than anything else, is what has your father spooked. He seems like a nice enough boy, though. Just a little eccentric. ” Isobel felt her mother’s hand brush her forehead, fingertips stroking her hair. “It won’t take your dad long to see that. He’s just . . . I don’t know. I think he’s so used to Brad being around all the time. ”
Isobel snorted into her pillow. “So then why don’t the two of them date?”
“Oh, Izzy. ” Her mom sighed. “Don’t be like that. He’s just trying to look out for you. So cut him a little slack. ”
“Cut him a little slack?” Isobel somehow doubted that her mom could be right about her dad getting over it, though she hoped he would. She hated fighting with either one of her parents, but for some reason, things always seemed especially bad when she fought with her father. Maybe it was because he was scarier when he yelled. Or more likely, maybe it was because they hardly ever argued to begin with, let alone outright screamed at each other.
“Izzy?”
“Mmm?” Isobel murmured, thinking.
“Do you want to talk about what went on between you and Brad?”
Isobel grimaced. She twisted again, trying to straighten the covers so they weren’t wadded around her in a tight cocoon. “No,” she said, “there’s nothing to talk about anyway. We broke up and that’s all. ”
“Okay,” her mom said, and patted her side again. It reminded Isobel of someone trying to put out a small fire. “Just asking. I’m going to go read now, if that’s okay?”
Isobel nodded against her pillow. She wanted to be alone. To think.
“There’s some chicken salad left over in the fridge if you decide you’re hungry,” she said, then bent down and placed a kiss on Isobel’s temple. Magically, her headache seemed to subside a little.
After her mother left, Isobel lay staring at the gleaming title on the spine of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. She knew she should probably sit up, prop the book open, and get to reading, but she also knew that after everything that had happened tonight, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on a single word. Especially since reading Poe felt like trying to decode some ages-old dead language anyway.
Besides that, the book still gave her the creeps. Isobel grabbed it and held it out over one side of her bed. She let it drop onto the floor with a heavy thud, then reached an arm over her head and pressed the button to set her alarm. Curling to one side again, she shut her eyes, leaving her bedroom light on.
The trees stretched up high and thin around her, gathered together like innumerable prison bars, all black, all dead.
Withered leaves littered the ground of the circular clearing in which she stood. Still and silent, the woods seemed almost mute. Beyond the trees, a backdrop of deep violet bled through like a glowing cyclorama, casting everything into eerie outline.
She looked up. Above her, beyond the spiderweb mesh of tangled black limbs, there roiled a storm-purple sky. Snow drifted down around her gently. No, Isobel thought, holding out a hand to catch a flake—it wasn’t snow. She rubbed it between her fingers and felt dry grit. Ash.
Like a thin blanket of dust, it coated the forest. It clung to the sides of the trees and collected in the bowl-like bodies of shriveled grayish-purple leaves.
“Where . . . ” she wondered aloud, if for no other reason than to test the silence.
“These are the woodlands known as Weir” came a voice from behind her. Isobel whirled to see him standing just within the perimeter of the clearing, draped in his long black cloak like before, the white scarf swathing his lower face, the fedora hat casting his eyes into shadow. “It is a mid-region. A place seldom consciously reached. One that lies in the space between dreams and all realities. ”
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Startled, Isobel took a step back, her eyes trained on him. Amid all the phantom trees, he cut an even more menacing figure than he had in her room. He even seemed taller, if that were possible.
“So . . . I’m dreaming again?”
“Yes,” he said, “and no. ”
“Ookay. ” Isobel felt a cold shiver run up her spine. She didn’t like it here. What was worse, she didn’t like not knowing if “here” really existed. Being in a dream meant that you were inside your own imagination, right? Then why did this feel so real?
Uncertain of what else to do, she continued to walk backward slowly, her feet crunching over the brittle ground cover. “So, like, when can I get an answer from you that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a Magic Eight Ball?”
He shifted slightly, as though there was something about her creating distance that bothered him. His eyes remained on her, unblinking. “Understand that I have no choice but to speak to you in riddles. ”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“I am not who you may think I am,” he said.
“You mean . . . Poe?” she asked. She felt silly saying it out loud. It seemed to be the response he was looking for, though, because he nodded once, a very slight inclination of his head.
He took a step toward her, then another. His feet made no sound against the patchwork blanket of dead leaves and cinders. “Though you should know that he has as much to do with this. ”
What was up with the way this dude talked? It was like listening to a Grand Master Jedi Ninja Buddhist, only without the enlightenment factor. And why did he keep walking toward her?
“Okay, stop right there,” she said, raising a hand. He obeyed only as her heel came in contact with a dried twig, snapping it. They both stood frozen then, listening to the echo.
The forest seeped whispers. Stifled laughter rang in the distance.
Isobel felt panic rise within her. She turned. “What was that?”
“Ghouls,” he said, “imps of the perverse. Empty beings from this world. They have been sent to watch you. They are listening. ”
“Why? To what?” Isobel began moving back again. She glanced around, searching for a place to run. Every direction looked exactly the same, though, and as far as she could tell, there was no exit sign.
“You must stay close,” he said. “They will only keep their distance as long as I stand with you. ”
Isobel stopped her backward trek. She stared at him, wondering if his suggestion that they use the buddy system was supposed to make her feel better. It didn’t, and she folded her arms around herself, fighting a shudder. “How did I get here? More important, how do I get out of here?”
“You are here because I brought you,” Reynolds said, “so that you will know this place, for I am not the only one who may now transport you here. That is why you must understand that your only hope of navigating this realm is to know it for what it is—to know that it is within a dream that you stand. With this knowledge comes the ability to control. Do you understand?”
“About as well as I understand Swahili. ”
“Look around you,” he said, “and you will see how your friend’s actions have already begun to strip the veil. ” He held out a gloved hand. Ash floated to light on his fingertips. “It weakens, and the night where it is at its thinnest in your world fast approaches. You must—”
A quiet snicker echoed to them from somewhere far off. It was followed by the hissing, static cry of “Tekeli-li!”
“What is that?” Isobel whispered.
“Quiet,” Reynolds commanded. After another moment’s listening, there came an answering call of “Tekeli-li!” from a different corner of the forest.
“She knows we are h
ere,” he said. “I can say no more than I have. You must go. ” He held his black-gloved hand toward her, palm up. Isobel hesitated, staring at it as though it were the hand of death. “Now!”
The urgency in his voice fanned the flame of panic within her. She stumbled forward. He grasped her hand tightly and pulled her through the line of trees, the sound of her steps absorbed into silence by the powder-soft ash.
He sped her through the maze of the dead forest, taking sudden twists and quick turns until the clearing vanished behind them and every direction began to look the same. She didn’t know how she was keeping up with him. The trees rushed by her in a blur that made her head swim. It seemed impossible that they could be moving this fast.
You’re dreaming, she told herself as they ran. It’s just a dream. Any second now you’ll wake up, and it will all be over.
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From somewhere within the woods, Isobel heard a rustling sound and then the whisper of her name. Her head snapped up. In the distance, through the line of trees, a bright light, radiant and ethereal, broke like a beacon through the dimness. Long and slender, the light fluttered beneath the cover of a billowing white shroud, taking shape. Isobel could not help but steal backward glances as they ran. She saw a figure emerge from within the ebbing light—a woman, angelic in form, though her features remained lost in the distance, buried beneath yards of floating gossamer veils.
Reynolds stopped, yanking Isobel to face him. Out of thin air, he grasped a doorknob that appeared just as his hand clasped it. It was as though the door had been painted to blend in with the forest.
“You are her only threat and therefore our only hope,” he said hastily, pulling the door open to reveal rose carpeting and a pink bedspread. He pushed her through and Isobel stumbled over the threshold, into her bedroom. There, in her bed, she saw herself—asleep.
“Learn to awaken within your dreams, Isobel,” he called after her, “or we are all lost. ”
Behind her, the door slammed shut.
25
Seeing Double
Isobel stared at the sleeping body in her bed. Her body.
All at once, the digital clock on her headboard twitched to read six thirty a. m. The blaring sound of her alarm erupted, and with it she felt a quick, sharp tug through her middle.
There came a rushing sensation, like the whir of a carnival ride. Her room blurred into smears of color, and then it all stopped too soon in a jarring slam.
She rocketed up in bed, her chest heaving. Wide awake, she stared at the place in front of her door where she had just been, where she had just stood— looking at herself.
Her bedroom door swung open.
“Izzy,” her mother said, leaning in, “I’m glad you’re up on time but really, do you have to go around slamming doors so early? Besides, your father’s already left for the office, so there’s no one here for you to make a statement for. Isobel?” Her tone switched from reproachful to concerned. Isobel tried to focus on her mother’s face, but she couldn’t keep her gaze from wandering over her shoulder to stare down the length of the hallway.
Her mom came into the room and, silencing the alarm clock, placed a hand on Isobel’s forehead. Against her skin, her mom’s hand felt like fire.
“Isobel,” her mom said again, “you look pale. You’re not getting sick again, are you?”
In the hall, Isobel could see yellow light draining out from the bathroom, and Danny’s partially open door.
No trees. No forest. No Reynolds.
26
Freak
“Central control to Cadet Lanley. Do you read me?”
By the time Isobel had reached her locker that morning, she’d come up with a neat and (for the most part) logical explanation for almost everything. The forest had come from Varen’s black-tree CD, the run through the woods had been her subconscious mind reliving her run through the park, and Reynolds . . . well, Reynolds probably had something to do with her dad.
Stick that all in a box labeled “bad dream,” tie it up with a dreaming about dreaming theory, and Isobel thought she had things pretty much figured out. Of course, the only thing she hadn’t been able to play connect the dots with had been the strange white light, the mysterious ghostly woman. Maybe, Isobel mused, it had been a metaphor for Lacy.
The locker beside hers slammed shut with a bang, causing Isobel to start.
“Yeah, hello,” Gwen said, circling a hand around in front of Isobel’s face, as though washing sludge from a window.
“What?” said Isobel. She pushed Gwen’s hand down.
“What my butt! Did you seriously not hear a single thing I just told you? I said, ‘Are you feeling okay?’ You’re all catatonic this morning. And you look a little washed-out. ”
Isobel looked away, trying to hide her face behind the locker door. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just didn’t sleep very well. ”
Overhead, first bell sounded.
“Hey,” Gwen said, still watching Isobel as though she were examining something in a petri dish. Then her concern softened and melted away, replaced by a wry smile. “Before I forget. ” She held out a folded slip of paper with Isobel’s name printed across one side in deep purple lettering. “I only read it once, I swear. ”
Isobel gasped and snatched up the note. “When did you see him?”
“Parking lot. This morning. You know, some of us have cars. ”
“Don’t rub it in. ” Isobel unfolded the note.
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Can we meet after school? My house. No parents.
See you in Swanson’s class.
—V
Isobel’s heart thrummed, turning several loop-de-loops. His house?
She grinned, suppressing visions of the Addams Family mansion.
And no parents. No parents?
She reread that line again, suddenly realizing that the thought of being totally alone with him was more than just a little terrifying.
What word had her mother used? Experienced?
She refolded the note quickly.
It didn’t help to look up and see a grinning, brow-waggling Gwen. Isobel rolled her eyes and tucked the note away in her locker. Then, thinking better of it, she pushed the note into the right pocket of her jeans instead. She still hadn’t changed her combination, and it was definitely not a message she wanted Brad to see.
“Hey,” said Gwen, backing away to join the traffic of the crowded hall, “I’ll see you at lunch, okay? My delicate butterfly nature calls on me to table hop, so expect a visit. And don’t look so worried. It’s been my experience that the spooky ones usually know what they’re doing. ” Gwen winked, then with a hand cupped around her mouth like a megaphone, called,
“And they’ll only bite you if you let them!”
Isobel shut her locker, then hustled in the opposite direction, away from all the heads that had turned.
She tried not to smile.
The rest of the morning dragged by, with every minute feeling more like five. Isobel found herself unable to focus on what was going on in her classes. Unlike the day before, when she’d been able to zone out and let time slip away, she felt fidgety and tense. She kept watching the clock, and even though she’d decided to stick with her sleepwalking theory, her second dream encounter with Reynolds kept creeping in through the back door of her mind, shadow-playing through her memory. The only pleasant distraction she found was in the thought of seeing Varen in Mr. Swanson’s class and then later that afternoon, though the idea of being alone with him still made her nervous.
After what seemed like nine eternities, fourth period finally rolled around. Isobel stopped by her locker again before heading to class to pick up her English binder as well as the dreaded Poe book. If there was one thing she was looking forward to most about finishing the project, it was not having to tote around Poe’s lifework anymore. Besides being creepy and contribut
ing to nightmares, the thing weighed as much as a cement block.
Isobel found her seat in Mr. Swanson’s class. A moment later, chains clinking, Varen walked in. She looked up, straightening in her chair, his presence never failing to put her on full alert. But a second later her rigidness crumbled into laughter, and she had to cover her mouth. Several people turned in their seats, looking curiously between them. The T-shirt beneath his jacket read HOOLIGAN in Gothic white lettering. It was the term Isobel’s father had used last night. Varen had heard, she realized with a stab of embarrassment.
“Shades off, Mr. Nethers, if you don’t mind,” Mr. Swanson said.
Varen removed his sunglasses in a salute before going to his desk, his wallet chains rattling noisily against the plastic seat and metal chair legs as he sat.
The bell rang, and Mr. Swanson began the day’s lesson, leaving Isobel still trying to wrestle the goofy smile from her face. She also had to fight to keep herself from sneaking glances in Varen’s direction.
Toward the end of the class, Mr. Swanson began listing project groups on the board in the order of their presentations the next day. Romelle and Todd were going first with Mark Twain, Josh and Amber were next with Walt Whitman, then came the one group of three with Richard Wright. Isobel started to fidget with her pen as the list grew longer.
“And last but not least,” Mr. Swanson said, writing her name on the board, “we’ll have Isobel and Varen with our Halloween guest of honor, Mr. Edgar Allan Poe. I’m looking forward to that one especially. ” He smiled and nodded at the two of them.
Way to load on the pressure there, Swanson. She shot an anxious glance at Varen. He gave her what she took to be a “no big deal” shrug, and she thought that must mean that he had a plan. She tried to smile, hoping that was the case, but despite this reassurance from him, the queasy feeling in her middle refused to subside. After all, it was no secret between the two of them that she at least had completed nothing. Well, nothing except scribbling down a few random quotes that, if she read them aloud tomorrow, might prevent them from getting a total zero. Emphasis on might.
Isobel shut her eyes, taking a moment to get a grasp on the fact that she could not afford to fail tomorrow. She’d almost lost her spot on the squad once. If she got a failing grade in English, then it would be out of Coach’s hands, and no amount of repentant cheers could save her from exile. Her wings would be clipped, Alyssa would take over, and she’d have to wave good-bye as the bus headed off to Nationals.