by Kelly Creagh
“Soooo,” she heard Gwen say, “I’d ask if this was ringing any bells, but by the look on your face, I can practically hear them myself. ”
Isobel offered no response.
How was this possible? Here before her was the same woman Isobel had encountered, face-to-face, in the dreamworld. The only thing missing was the silver rim of light that had surrounded her, like the ebbing glow that haloed the winter moon.
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Staring straight down into the open book, Isobel let her eyes shift to the text that filled the opposite page, right below the title, which read “LILITH” in swirling capital letters.
She shook her head as she sank to her knees, closer still to the book, and stared hard at the writing, waiting for her brain to remember how to read.
She could see the words, identify them as being words, but for some reason, she couldn’t seem to concentrate enough to decode their message. She was too distracted, too swept up in a nebulous world of flashing images and floating memories.
Only one word swam into her focus long enough for her to register its meaning.
Demon.
“Now you know why I left,” Gwen said softly.
Even through her confusion, Isobel could still detect the residue of guilt in Gwen’s words. If their roles had been reversed, if she had known these things that Gwen had, that she was involved with something beyond a vengeful spirit or malevolent ghost, Isobel had to wonder if she would have acted any differently.
Against her will, her eyes insisted on shifting back to the engraving.
“What does it mean?” Isobel asked.
There was a pause, and then a quiet shifting of fabric as Gwen lowered herself into a kneeling position next to Isobel. As she settled, bracelets tinkling, she began to read aloud from the book. Isobel tuned her ears to the sound of Gwen’s voice, though her eyes remained fixed on the etching.
“‘Lilith, also known as Li-li, Lila, or Lilitu, is one of the oldest recorded demons in existence,’” Gwen read, the tone in her voice suggesting that she wasn’t relating anything she didn’t already know. “‘References to Lilith date as far back as antiquity, and she makes her appearance in a multitude of cultures, eras, and regions, including ancient Egypt, Greece, Babylonia, and Europe during the Middle Ages. In modern times, she is revered by some occult circles as a goddess. Translated literally, her name means “night. ”’”
Fine threads of ink curled upward and chased one another downward, spreading their way across the page like veins infused with black poison. They connected and layered with one another, intertwining and weaving in and out to depict the curve of a delicate wrist, or to convey the motion of wind through the swells of gossamer veils.
“‘She is the harbinger of nightmares as well as death, destruction, and insanity. Said to reign in an alternate dimension, a bleak and desertlike twilight version of reality, Lilith has long been hailed as the queen of mental darkness. ’”
With the utterance of these words, Isobel’s thoughts flashed to Varen. Sorrow crept over her fear as she remembered the way he had stared at her with eyes devoid of both light and hope. When she had finally found him, he hadn’t even believed she was real. In that moment, he had seemed so hollow, so utterly lost. Consumed.
“‘In some traditions, Lilith is considered to be a succubus, who enters the dreams of young men, seducing or otherwise influencing them. ’”
Drawing in a shaking breath, Isobel forced her eyes shut. But the image from the book remained, drifting forward in lines of glowing white, highlighted against the black backdrop of her eyelids.
Doing her best to ignore the image of Lilith, she attempted to call to her memory the exact words Varen had used to describe “Bess” in his sketchbook.
Despite her efforts, only one sure word surfaced through the jumble. Need.
Isobel’s expression hardened. She opened her eyes, realizing for the first time just how well this demon had chosen her target.
“‘Lilith can take many forms, such as a bright, starlike light or a white owl,’” Gwen continued. “‘Most often, however, she assumes the figure of a snow-skinned woman cloaked in white with large onyx eyes. Those who have seen her describe her as possessing a strange and unearthly beauty, characterized in particular by masses of thick ebony hair. ’”
As Gwen read on, Isobel soaked up each new bit of information and began to piece them together with all the events that had led to this moment. Varen’s writing. His repeated disappearances. What he’d meant when he’d told her that when he didn’t want to go home, he went “somewhere else. ” Like jolts of electric current, her thoughts raced ahead of her to make one connection after another until her mind became a live switchboard of linking sequences.
This creature had stalked Varen before entering his dreams. She had watched him and waited for just the right moment. And then she had lured him into her world, making him an offer he could not refuse—an escape hatch into a realm that, to him, must have seemed all too beautiful.
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Through deception and seduction, Lilith had found a way to access that hollow part of him that yearned for connection. Like black oil, she had poured herself in, filling his mind, his heart, and eventually his stories. Stories that had not only given her strength, but had opened a gate to this world. In short, she had exploited that very characteristic of Varen’s that so many chose to judge him by.
His aloneness.
The word drew Isobel’s thoughts away from Gwen’s voice and back to the poem by Poe that Varen had once told her was his favorite: “Alone. ”
It made her realize how Lilith must have squeezed her way into a similar chink in Poe’s own heart.
Now Isobel thought she finally understood why Varen had gravitated toward Poe in the first place.
In the pages of his stories and the lines of his poems, Varen had discovered a light much like his own. In researching Poe’s life, he’d been able to draw parallels between them. He had found a kindred spirit.
He is not like others, is he?
Isobel tilted her head as the words floated through her mind, drowning out her own thoughts as well as Gwen’s voice as she continued to read aloud.
It was what Lilith had said to her that night in the attic of Nobit’s Nook, when Isobel had asked why she had chosen Varen.
He is special, even in regard to those who have come before him.
Isobel felt her skin prickle as the voice spoke within her head again. The sound of it, crisp and resonant, as merciless as it was melodious, electrified the hairs on the back of her neck. A crawling sensation of being watched stole over her.
She frowned as Gwen’s voice began to fade, ebbing away into a distant murmur, replaced by a faint ringing noise.
Her focused snapped to the etching.
The woman’s veils—they moved.
Isobel felt the blood drain from her face. She went still as, line by line, the etching began to animate itself. And yet she knew Gwen wasn’t seeing any of it because she just kept reading, her voice a dim murmur to Isobel’s right, like the sound of a radio playing somewhere in the next room.
Isobel blinked deliberately once, then twice at the etching. But now the branches seemed to be moving too. Like clawed hands, they scraped and scratched soundlessly at the page. All the while, the ringing in her ears grew, loud enough to drown out Gwen’s voice entirely before converging into a multitude of unintelligible whispers. Whispers that seemed to be coming from the entanglement of hollow-faced creatures surrounding the swathed figure of Lilith. Like a knot of interlacing serpents, they began to writhe, their skeletal limbs snagging in the tattered scraps of fluttering white veils.
Then the woman’s eyes snapped open.
Two black pits bore into Isobel, causing her breath to catch in her throat.
The woman’s lips parted. Her mouth opened wide, allowing a
rushing sound to issue forth, like a hissing surge of wind through autumn trees. It grew louder as tendrils of ebony hair danced and whipped across the page like black smoke.
In one great whoosh, the birds in the background of the image took flight from their perches.
The rasp of their hoarse caws and the flap of wings joined with the hissing whispers until it all rose into a hellish cacophony, converging with the woman’s glass-shattering scream.
Isobel fumbled for the book, knocking Gwen aside in her effort to grab it and slam it shut. But it was heavier than she’d expected, and it slid from her hands, tumbling between them. Its spine cracked when it met with the floor, and then it fell flat against the carpet with a thud, still open.
Isobel scrambled backward, away from the book, and crashed into the wall with a thump. She clapped her hands over her ears but couldn’t block out the monstrous screech emanating from the book.
In the corner of her vision, she could see Gwen shouting at her.
Then they froze, both of them staring at the book as it began to move on its own. One heavy half tipped itself upward, as though pulled by magnetic force. It fell onto the other half with a sharp slam, squelching the piercing shriek at last.
An entire minute passed before either of them made a move.
“What . . . just happened?” Gwen asked in a small voice while Isobel removed quaking hands from her ears.
“It moved,” Isobel said. “The picture. Did . . . did you see it?”
“I saw the book . . . move,” Gwen said. Then there was silence between them again, enough that she could hear Gwen swallow before she added, “Just now. ”
“You didn’t hear the . . . ?” But Isobel didn’t bother finishing her question. It was already clear that Gwen hadn’t seen or heard what she had.
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Isobel tried to steady herself, willing the thundering of her pulse to slow, willing her nerves to steady themselves and her increasingly tenuous grasp on reality to return.
Reality. The thought of that word caused her to utter a short, sharp laugh because, by now, it had begun to lose its meaning.
Isobel felt Gwen’s eyes on her and, turning her head, found herself caught in the beam of Gwen’s widest, most fearful stare.
It made Isobel want to laugh again, because it only went to show how much she really was on her own. Even if Gwen wanted to help her, how could she? How could anyone when they couldn’t even see the things that she could?
Still, the moment with the book made her wonder.
If Lilith already had what she wanted, if she had Varen locked within her world, then why show herself here and now?
Because, Isobel thought, she must know that Varen had found a way to reach her, to communicate. She must know he’d visited her in a dream.
Isobel felt herself beginning to smile, while within her chest, a warm spark of courage ignited like a flare. It brought with it a flash of clarity: Despite everything, she was still a threat.
“Isobel,” Gwen said, “I’m really not liking that look on your face right now. It’s a little Chucky meets Buffy, and it’s freaking me out. As if I’m not freaked out enough already with you seeing stuff and my dad’s book slamming itself shut. How am I supposed to take that thing home with me now?”
Feeling calm for the first time in what felt like a decade, Isobel drew herself slowly to her feet. She went over to the book and, stooping, scooped it from the floor. It didn’t feel as heavy as it had before. She tipped it into one hand and passed the fingers of her other along the spine, probing for any cracks or breaks. She felt Gwen watching her as she went to the bed and slid the book back into the black messenger bag.
“Sorry I let it drop,” Isobel said. “From what I can tell, I think it’s okay. ”
“What I’m wondering,” Gwen said, “is if you’re okay. ”
“I’m fine. Especially now that I understand what it is I’m dealing with. ”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. ” Lifting her arms above her head, Gwen knocked her wrists together as though she were a referee calling a foul. “Beep-beep, there, Cassidy, back up the truck. I think this is all getting a little thick up in that blond head of yours. What we’re ‘dealing with’”—Gwen paused long enough to insert air quotes, her fingers hooking like raptor claws—“is actually more likely the one doing the dealing. With us. And don’t get me started on your usage of the word ‘understand. ’” Again with the raptor quotes. “What I need for you to understand is that there is no understanding. We’re a pair of Tinkertoys to this thing. Do you hear me? As if that wasn’t painfully obvious from whatever weirdness it was that just—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Isobel said, cutting her off. “It doesn’t change anything. ”
“Uh, on the contrary, demons can change a lot of things,” Gwen said. She raised one hand, ticking off fingers. “Let’s see, their shapes, for example. Minds. They can change their minds. Other people’s minds, in some cases. ” She gestured to the book in the messenger bag. “Inanimate objects, apparently. Oh, not to mention they can change you. Into somebody dead. ”
“What I meant is that it doesn’t change the fact that I still have to fight this thing. ”
“Don’t you get it?” Gwen said. “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time? You can’t fight it! Isobel, this creature, this entity. . . ” Her hands grasped and wrung the air in front of her, the right words evading her at every pass.
Isobel turned away and started pacing the patch of floor at the foot of her bed, thinking.
If only she could remember the dream with Varen. If only she could recall more of the details. Why had it seemed so real when it was happening and so amorphous now?
“Are you listening to me?” Gwen said. “I’m telling you that what’s happening here is bigger than you or me or Varen or Poe or any of this put together. If you saw something just now, which I know you did, then that means it’s trying to get to you. That means it can get to you. Isobel, are you not hearing me when I say she can kill you? I’m trying to dial through to that pom-pom brain of yours. We’re talking about a demon here. Believe me, you can’t fight it with force and expect to win!”
Isobel stopped pacing. She wheeled on Gwen.
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“So is this why you came back?” she asked. “To try to get me to change my mind? To tell me that it’s too dangerous? That I shouldn’t go?”
“Honestly?” she said. “If I thought it would do any good, I might try. ”
Isobel gaped at her. “How can you even say that? Especially when you’re the one giving speeches about not giving up? Weren’t you the one who cornered me and told me I needed to do something?”
“I never said we shouldn’t do something,” Gwen said, anger building in her voice. “I just don’t know if going to find this Toaster guy is the right something. ”
“What else is there? How else am I supposed to reach Varen? Did you happen to bring a book with you that answers that question?”
“No!” Throwing up her arms, Gwen plopped down on the edge of Isobel’s bed. “Look,” she said, bracing one hand at her brow. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not too keen on the prospect of attending my best friend’s funeral. It’s just that I know you don’t understand what this all really means. And that’s why I came here today. So you’d have some idea of what you were walking into. You love Varen. You’ll do what it takes. I get that. I do. But there’s something you should consider about why this all happened in the first place. ” She paused before continuing and drew in a slow breath, her hands knotting in her lap. “Demons . . . they don’t just waltz into your life and take over for no reason,” she said, her voice going soft again. “They might knock on the door, but ultimately, you have to be the one to invite them in. ”
Isobel sent her a questioning sidelong glare. “What are you saying?” she asked. “That Varen brought
this on himself? Gwen, she lured him. The book says that. You read it yourself!”
“I don’t think it’s a secret to either of us that Varen answered the call when the phone rang, Isobel. There’s no denying that he went seeking her out in return. You said yourself he was writing about her, giving her power. ”
Isobel pursed her lips. Unable to counter the accusation, she folded her arms and turned from Gwen, then made her way to her window, where she stared across the street to the line of cars parked in front of Mrs. Finley’s yard.
“Listen,” Gwen went on, “I know it’s not something you want to hear, but somebody has to say it. Varen’s missing right now because some part of him at some point wanted that to happen. ”
Isobel’s gaze narrowed, her eyes following a large crow as it swooped down from Mrs. Finley’s roof. Rounding the oak in the front yard, it flittered to perch on one of the snow-dusted branches, only a short distance from a second, larger crow she hadn’t noticed until now. She hugged herself tighter as they cawed at each other, the feathers around their necks bristling.
“There’s one more thing you need to know,” Gwen said.
Isobel remained quiet, torn between wanting Gwen to continue and wishing the bombardment would cease.
“I already told you that my grandmother came to me in a dream last night. ”
Outside, the smaller of the two birds took off, dive-bombing the larger, who swooped out of the way just in time. Then they flew off together, one chasing after the other, their squawking echoing through the neighborhood.
“The hamsa. ” Isobel lifted a hand to her collar. She brushed the silver metal of the charm, which had grown warm against her skin. “You said she told you to give it to me. Why?”
“Protection,” Gwen said. “She said you would need it. So don’t take it off. ”
Isobel’s fingers left the charm. Reaching up, she snapped the lock on her window into place. Grabbing the lace curtains, she pulled them closed, then glanced over her shoulder to see Gwen rifling through an outer pocket of her messenger bag.
“It wasn’t just my grandmother who I saw in the dream, though,” Gwen said. “There was somebody else there too. The whole time, the two of us were just wandering around this mazelike garden, all enclosed and made up of tunnels covered in roses. ”
