Nevermore

24 The Woodlands of Weir

“Are you seeing that kid?” her father asked, pointing out the door. Isobel tried her best to ignore the fear that flared through her insides, like dry tinder catching flame. Her father hardly ever lost his temper, but when he did, it was totally lair-of-the-dragon-king, complete with fire breathing and fuming eyes.

“Sam,” came her mother’s voice from the hallway. She appeared in the archway leading to the kitchen, her hands wrapped in a dish towel.

“He’s not a kid,” Isobel seethed, “and for your information, neither am I. What is your problem, anyway?” She tightened her arms around her middle, bracing herself for the argument.

She hated fighting with her dad, and it was such a rare event that it always made her nervous.

“I’m trying to find out if my only daughter is dating a hoodlum, that’s my problem!” he railed.

These words were echoed by the bang of the storm door. Danny, clad in his tan Boy Scouts uniform, awe plastered across his chubby face, entered the foyer. “That car was dope!” he announced. “Who—?” He stopped suddenly, looking between Isobel and their dad, his enthusiasm draining. “Ohhhh,” he whispered, his voice like a tire leaking air, “should have used the back door.”

“Sam, honestly,” her mom said, “I don’t get what the big deal is. They were just working on a project.”

“Did you not see that kid, Jeannine? He looks like one of those gun-toting, school-shoot-out maniacs!”

“Yes, Sam, I did see him! And I spoke with him. He was very well-mannered, and if you hadn’t blown through the roof, you might have found that out for yourself.”

“Who are we taking about?” asked Danny, opening his arms as though expecting rain.

Isobel couldn’t believe this. Her dad was freaking out over nothing! He was blowing a gasket because she’d been doing her homework. “You just can’t handle it that I broke up with Brad, can you?” she growled.

“Whoa,” Danny said, taken aback, “you broke up with Meathead?”

“No,” said her dad, starting to shout, “what I can’t handle is you being dropped off after midnight by some kid who thinks he’s a vampire!”

“And now you’re dating a vampire?” Danny asked, intrigued. “You know they bite, right?”

“Danny,” her mom said, “go sit in the kitchen.” Danny stayed right where he was.

“Oh, please!” Isobel shouted. Spinning away, she mounted the stairs at a run. She was not going to stand there and be questioned like a five-year-old.

“Are we talking about the dude from the phone?” asked Danny, addressing the room in general.

“Isobel, you stop right there. I’m not done yet!” her dad yelled.

“Too bad,” she shouted, stopping midway up the banister, “because I am!”

“How can he be a vampire when he knows so much about slayers?”

“Danny,” her mom said, her voice full of warning.

“Just saying.” Danny shrugged.

“I said get down here, Isobel! We’re going to talk about this or it’s going to be another two weeks before you’re allowed out of this house!”

“So what else is new!” she bellowed, barging the rest of the way up.

“Isobel!”

“Sam, stop yelling at her!” her mother yelled.

“If this were in Japanese,” said Danny, “it could so be an anime.”

“Isobel!” her dad shouted again.

She stopped at the top landing and leaned over the railing. “I’m sixteen, Dad! And it’s none of your business who I choose to date!” She turned and stomped the rest of the way to her room, stopping again outside her door, her anger blazing. “Or who I dump, for that matter!” she roared, and sent her bedroom door slamming shut with a resounding bang.

Inside her room, Isobel flung herself onto her bed, unleashing an unbridled scream into her pillow. What was happening to her life? When had everything become so complicated? It was homework! How and when had her life become upended by homework?

Quick footsteps on the stairs were followed by a gentle knock at her door. Her mom. Isobel knew it even before she heard the soft voice asking if she would please come down to dinner. Isobel offered no reply. After a moment, she heard a sigh, then the retreat of defeated footsteps.

She lay still for a long time after that, curled up on her side, and tried to ignore the dull ache forming in her head.

She thought about digging her cell phone out of her backpack, but who would she call? She could try Gwen, but Isobel didn’t know her number, and since Gwen had called the land line the other night, she wouldn’t have it in her cell’s directory, either. She thought about trying Gwen’s Internet White Pages approach, but that would mean she would have to venture into her brother’s room, and right then, she didn’t have it in her to face another argument.

For what felt like the first time in her life, Isobel was battling not to hate her father. She couldn’t understand how he could be so unfair or so blind, how he couldn’t seem to see Brad’s other side. Or what it was about Varen that had caused him to go so ballistic in the first place. Why did Varen seem to cause everyone around to go ballistic? What about him was not allowed? What made his world so different from hers?

His face, angular and serene, materialized in her mind. The memory of his gaze sent a gentle calm through her. She pictured him just as he had been when they’d been standing outside together next to his car. He’d been so close, she thought, shutting her eyes again, taking in a long, deep breath, as though, if she concentrated hard enough, she might be able to imagine he was right there next to her.

From somewhere downstairs, Isobel heard the phone ring, followed by Danny’s shout of, “I got it!” She opened her eyes and rolled onto her back, straining her ears to try to hear whether or not the call was for her, even though she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to take it. She heard her brother’s voice float up from the foyer, saying, “Hey, Trevor.”

She rolled over to stare out her darkened window. Her thoughts drifted back to Varen, and she tried to ignore her brother’s heavy footsteps on the stairs and his voice as he spoke loudly into the phone. “Yeah, it’s upstairs, let me get it and I’ll check.”

Now she could see Varen in her mind’s eye, just where he’d been in her dream. A far-off form, tall, windswept, framed by a forest of matchstick trees. She was just about to shut her eyes again when there came a quiet knock at her bedroom door. She sat up. “What?”

“Isobel.” It was Danny, whispering to her through the bottom crack of her door.

“What do you want?”

“Open up,” he said. “It’s for you.” He raised his voice again, and she heard him say, “Yeah, I got the whole list of codes right here. Which ones do you want first?”

Isobel stumbled out of bed and toward the door. She opened it to a slit and found her brother there, holding the portable out to her. Stunned, she took it.

“Make it quick!” he whispered, and leaning over the banister, he said, “Okay, the first one is for Blood Thirst Traitor Three, and it’s to stop the countdown clock on level seven. Ready?

Okay—two, two, nine, zero—”

Isobel retreated quickly into her room and cradled the receiver against her ear. “Hello?”

“Okay, so madness runs in the family, am I right?”

“Gwen!” Isobel breathed out in a rush, sinking to the carpet on her knees.

“What is it?” said Gwen. “What’s the matter?”

Outside her door, Isobel could hear Danny droning on, spouting off made-up codes. She knew there was bound to be a catch to Danny’s help, but for the moment she was grateful.

“Varen was here,” Isobel whispered, and then proceeded to give Gwen the abridged version of what had happened, all the way from the drive home to the atomic explosion with her dad.

“Are you serious?” Gwen exclaimed, cutting her off before she could finish. Then, as if she hadn’t heard a word about the fight, she said, “He tagged you to go to the Grim Facade? Oh my cheese and crackers. Do you even know how major this is?”

“Gwen, are you listening to me? Did you not hear me when I said my dad just finished grounding me for the rest of my natural life?”

“Are you kidding?” she squeaked. “Ohhh, you are sooo going. You gotta see it. ’Course, I’ve only ever been once myself, but it was awesome. I went the year before last ’cause that emo kid, Mikey, with the spiky hair? You know the one I’m talkin’ about? He tagged me. Hey! I bet I could get him to tag me again. If he isn’t already taking somebody.”

“Gwen, hello.” Isobel tapped a finger against the receiver. “You’re not hearing me. I can’t go. I already told him I couldn’t.”

“What are you gonna wear?”

Isobel shut her eyes. She rubbed her temple where a headache had begun to set in.

“Look,” she said, “it’s probably safe to say that I won’t be having much social interaction outside of school, at least until New Year’s. I’m not going, Gwen. End of story. I’m just trying to figure out a way to meet with Varen this week to get the project done. Can you help me figure that one out? Please? Besides, if I can manage not to get kicked off the squad again, I’ve got the rival game this Friday anyway.”

“Your parents gonna be there?” Gwen asked, a sly edge to her voice.

“At the game?”

“No, at your bat mitzvah—yes, the game!”

“After tonight? Are you kidding? My dad’ll probably pick a seat front and center and still have binoculars handy.”

“Can you . . . guarantee that?”

“Yes!” Isobel hissed, “I can!”

“Good!”

“Gwen—”

“Only do me a favor and try not to piss your dad off any more—well, any more than can be avoided.”

“But—”

“—is not a nice word, even though we all have one. Now go to bed before your dad finds out you’re on the phone and sends you into orbit for nine years. I’ll see ya in the morning.”

Click.

Isobel stared at the phone. Now she was completely convinced. Gwen was a mental case. Recent escapee from the Home of Our Lady of Loonies. There was no way she was going to be able to sneak out this Friday. Hello. It was Halloween. Her parents—at least her dad—would be taking notes for the record if she so much as sneezed.

Isobel jumped when Danny zoomed into her room, snatching the phone out of her grasp. “Abort, abort!” he rasped, rushing back out, practically dive-bombing into his own room, shouting into the receiver, “Yeah—oh, yeah. Detrodon is the best!”

Isobel heard footsteps on the stairs. Her first instinct was to rush forward and slam her door shut, but instead she rose quietly and went to stand in the doorway. She grasped the handle and peered out to see her mother on her way up. Isobel frowned and turned away but left her door ajar. Returning to her bed, she buried herself in covers.

“Isobel,” her mom said, her voice soft, coaxing, “I want you to know that your father and I are going to have a talk.”

Isobel felt one side of her bed sink down as her mom sat, and then the weight of one warm hand against her arm. “In the meantime, I want you to go ahead and make plans to finish this project, okay? Here, I brought you your book.” Isobel’s eyes widened as her mother laid The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe on the covers right next to her head. She shifted to sit up.

“Do you have somewhere else you two can meet this week?” her mom asked.

Isobel thought for a moment. In her mind, she pictured the ice cream shop. There was also Nobit’s Nook, and of course, there was the library if all else failed. She nodded, grateful to have an ally after all. More often than not, her parents stuck maddeningly together on most issues concerning her social life.

“I don’t understand,” Isobel murmured. “I don’t get what his problem is.” She traced a finger along the sleeve of her mom’s lavender top.

Her mother let her words out in a sigh. “I think he’s just afraid.”

“Of what? It’s not like I was out doing drugs or something. Mom, we were studying.”

“I know,” her mom said, patting her arm. “I think he’s afraid because he sees that you’re growing up.”

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.”

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 here,” 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.

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.