by Kelly Creagh
When that happened, she would need Varen by her side. On her side.
Isobel knew that she had never been part of Lilith’s original design. Even before Isobel and Varen had grown close, Lilith had preyed on Varen for a reason. Not just for his ability to create, the demon had once said, but also for his capacity to destroy.
According to Lilith, Isobel had entered Varen’s life as a distraction. But when Varen’s feelings for Isobel had grown stronger, protecting her from the Nocs, Lilith had been forced to switch tactics. So she used Isobel as a catalyst to ignite a dangerous fuse within Varen, and in so doing had awakened his powers, transforming him into a new link.
His darkness didn’t end in the dreamworld, though. Nor did it begin there. There were pieces here, too. In the very reality Varen had so desperately sought to escape.
Varen had been drawn to the woodlands because of the peace they promised. Because unlike his life, the dreamworld was something he could control. And because Lilith had represented all that was missing for him in this existence.
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For the heart whose woes are legion
’Tis a peaceful, soothing region—
The bell dismissing lunch rang, interrupting the lines of Poe’s poetry her memory had somehow retained.
Beyond the blue doors, she knew the halls were filling with students.
Isobel took a step backward, and then another, glancing toward the passing traffic on the road nearby.
There was a city bus stop two blocks away. She and her mom passed by the covered bench every day on the way to school.
Dipping a hand into her pocket, she retrieved the lunch money her mother had laid on the counter for her that morning.
It would be more than enough, she thought, to get her to the city’s preservation district.
15
Images
The house loomed over her, blank-faced, ordinary.
This was not how she remembered Varen’s Victorian home.
Instead the image of the reversed, cracked, slanted mansion from the dreamworld, its windows blacked out, forced its way through her memory, making this house seem like the strange one.
Behind her, rows of parked cars lined either side of the serene, sun-filled court. Among them, Isobel saw the champagne Lexus Varen’s stepmom drove, its sparkle-flecked finish gleaming bright. Knowing this meant that Darcy had to be home, Isobel climbed the steps to the porch and lifted a fist to knock. She hesitated, though, and a full minute elapsed before she could admit to herself that she was stalling, waiting for piano music to drift from the parlor, for the amber stained-glass window of the door to bleed violet, for the knob to melt or the concrete beneath her to transform into a pit.
But the house remained silent, the doorknob as solid as the cement under her feet.
Sucking in a breath, Isobel rapped twice.
More seconds ticked by, and the urge to bolt grew strong, as if, by knocking, she had somehow triggered the countdown of a bomb.
Her fear stemmed less from the prospect of facing Darcy than it did from being this near to the house itself. Monsters, in one form or another, had shown up each time she’d entered its walls.
Thudding footsteps, heavy and fast, interrupted Isobel’s thoughts. She shifted, her uneasiness escalating, because those footsteps didn’t sound like they belonged to—
An enormous figure filled the stained-glass window. The door opened, and a man dressed in a spotless gray business suit—the exact twin to the one she’d seen in the dreamworld attic, complete with red tie and silver cufflinks—appraised her with a hardened glare.
“Yes,” Mr. Nethers said, holding the door open by a foot, as if he needed only one half of a good reason to send it slamming home again. “What is it?”
“I—I” Isobel stammered. She hadn’t expected Varen’s father to be home. Not this early in the day. “Um—”
As she scanned her brain for something comprehensible to say, she couldn’t help but marvel at the man’s six-foot stature, his bulky shoulders and steely gaze. This, after all, was the first time she’d ever encountered Varen’s father one-on-one, in person.
On the night Mr. Nethers had stormed up to his son’s bedroom in a drunken temper, shouting slurred obscenities at him, she’d caught only a brief flash of the man’s face from the closet where Varen had forced her to hide. Red and blotchy, knotted with fury, that face had seemed like an ogre’s.
And early last month, Isobel had glimpsed Varen’s father a second time through a keyhole after he had entered Bruce’s shop looking for Varen. Sober but just as angry, Mr. Nethers had slammed his giant fist on the countertop, issuing threats and demanding answers of the elderly bookstore owner.
But here, up close, Mr. Nethers looked drawn and tired, sapped of his ferocity. His soot-colored hair hung loose in greasy strands around his ashen features, as if he’d run his hands through it a thousand times that morning. Heavy bags underlined his leaden, red-rimmed eyes, and their hooded dullness made her wonder if he’d already been drinking.
“How old are you?” he asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now?”
Unbidden, a string of accusatory counter-questions began flipping through Isobel’s head like cue cards, making it impossible for her to conjure a single excuse.
“I—I’m—”
“Isobel. ”
Mr. Nethers swiveled his head in the direction of the soft gasp from within the house.
Over his shoulder, Isobel saw Darcy approaching. Still dressed in the black slacks and pumps from earlier, she moved toward them with purpose, her silk blouse rippling.
“Joe,” Darcy said, placing a manicured hand on his shoulder, “I forgot to tell you. I went ahead and posted that ad for a housekeeper. I know you said you weren’t sure, but I thought it would help to take some of the stress off. ”
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“Her?” He squinted at Isobel, his upper lip twitching into a sneer. “She’s a kid. ”
“Who needs an after-school job,” Darcy replied.
Isobel kept quiet, eyes flitting between the two as she waited to see if Darcy’s fib would convince him.
“Except it’s not after school. ” Mr. Nethers checked his wristwatch. “Not nearly. ”
Darcy took the door from him. “I found the aspirin,” she said. “I packed it with your lunch in the kitchen. You’d better take it with you, though, or else you might as well go ahead and take the rest of the day off. ”
“I can’t afford to take the rest of the day off,” he snapped, irritably stripping his watch from his wrist. “Especially not since, apparently, we’re hiring a housekeeper. ” He broke away, adjusting the watch as he headed toward the back hall. “And if you’ve got time to post a want ad,” he called as he went, “then you’ve got time to post a sale ad for that damn car. ”
“It’s not mine to post,” Darcy said, her voice flat, resigned.
“Post the car, Darcy. ”
With that, Mr. Nethers swept from the room, disappearing down the hall.
Isobel knew they had to be arguing over the Cougar, confirming her suspicions that Bruce had indeed bequeathed the car to Varen.
“Please come inside,” Darcy said, stepping back, making room for Isobel to enter. “You must be freezing out there without a coat. ”
Folding her arms against shivers that had nothing to do with the cold, Isobel stared past the woman, into the mouthlike doorway. Soft yellow light bathed the foyer within.
“He’ll leave in just a minute,” Darcy said, and the tremble in her voice made Isobel wonder what she was afraid of. Was it that her husband would find out Isobel’s visit pertained to his missing son? Or maybe that Isobel would run off like she had that morning at the fountain, taking all the answers with her?
“It’s . . . not him,” Isobel said.
Varen’s father might be imposing, and the prospect of invoking his anger ha
d terrified her once, but she’d faced worse—far worse—since she’d first glimpsed him through that closet door.
“He’ll suspect something if we stand at the door like this,” Darcy warned, her breath puffing in a small cloud of white.
Isobel vacillated for half a beat longer. Then she stepped into the house.
Her gut tightened with a residual surge of fear as she ventured into the foyer, a series of images flickering through her memory, electrocuting her with the past. The free-floating chandelier. The sheet-covered furniture. The dilapidated stairs. Everything reversed. And the painting on the wall, the one of the storm-tossed—
At the sound of the door clicking shut behind her, Isobel yelped and spun around.
Darcy froze, eyes full of alarm.
“The ship,” Isobel breathed, pressing a hand to her collar and wrapping the hamsa in her fist. “It’s gone. ”
“Excuse me?” Darcy asked, head tilting.
Isobel pointed at the painting, which had shown only white-capped waves and angry black clouds. Except now the ship had returned.
Lowering her arm, Isobel frowned at the painting. She let go of the charm.
While she’d been in the dreamworld, fighting with Reynolds, she’d seen the same painting come to life. Animated seas had devoured the vessel whole.
“What time is it?” she asked Darcy, the question all but leaping out of her mouth.
“Um, around one. I think. ”
“Do you have a watch?” she asked, her anxiety building. “Or a clock?”
Darcy bit her bottom lip, as though refraining from voicing a question. She pointed to the ceiling. “Upstairs. In the office. ”
Turning, she crossed to the steps.
Isobel deliberated, shifting from foot to foot. Then she followed.
As she grabbed the banister, she took a moment to will its varnished surface to transform into a boa constrictor. The banister did not respond to her silent command, but this provided less comfort than she’d been hoping for. Especially since, in her periphery, she thought she’d seen someone standing in the parlor.
Could it be that her mind, punch-drunk from the terrors of the other side, had become conditioned to anticipate horrors at every turn?
No. She was awake. And now—now it was time to get a grip.
Isobel reached the second floor just as Darcy opened the closest of several doors. Whisking past her, Isobel entered a spacious office.
A pair of cream curtains flanked the room’s lone window. Papers, ledgers, and notebooks littered the surface of an enormous oak desk.
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While Darcy remained in the hall, presumably to listen for her husband, Isobel made a beeline for the squat, antique windup clock that sat on one corner of the desk. In reaching for it, though, she knocked over a small picture frame.
The image within made her stop cold.
Varen’s smooth and serious face stared up at her.
Picking up the photo, Isobel studied the black-and-white image more closely. She could tell by the angle that Varen had snapped the photo himself. In it, he lay against a bed of brittle leaves. He held the camera above, gazing straight into the lens so that his hair fell away from his face, leaving his eyes more naked than she had ever seen them.
Varen’s jade irises, Isobel knew, should have appeared pale gray in the photo. But they were black as inkwells.
Pressing her fingers to the glass, Isobel wished so badly that she could reach through the expanse of months separating this moment from the one in which Varen had taken the self-portrait. When had he taken it? How long after Lilith had begun to thread herself into his life? How long after she’d started to take control?
Downstairs, the front door slammed.
Ignoring the sound and the silence that followed, Isobel flipped the photo over. The soft tick-tock of the desk clock boomed in her ears while she pried the frame open.
Just as she’d suspected, Varen’s violet writing blazed against the watermarked paper.
There was no date, though. No lines of looping poetry. Only one word.
Lost, he’d written in his beautiful and old-world hand.
Isobel shut her eyes, but the word remained, searing bright against the backs of her lids like a neon sign. She wondered where Varen’s parents had found the photo. Mixed among his things?
They had to have seen the writing on the back.
Isobel assumed that the cold, stark office belonged to Mr. Nethers; how many times had he glanced at this picture of his own son and not realized that something was horribly wrong? That these eyes were not his son’s? Had he even kept the photo on his desk before Varen’s disappearance? Somehow, she doubted it.
Something brushed against her leg. Startled, Isobel fumbled against the desk, dropping the frame onto its surface, where it clattered apart.
Whirling, she scanned the floor.
There weren’t any bugs filing out in droves. No spindly fingers tipped in claws. No birds. Only Slipper, Varen’s Siamese cat.
The creature peered up at Isobel with icy eyes, electric blue against the dark center of her face. Meowing, the feline flashed a pair of sharp white fangs, leaving Isobel to wonder if she’d been issued a plea or a threat.
“You can relax,” Darcy said, shutting the door to an inch. “He’s gone. ”
Isobel looked up from the cat, meeting the woman’s gaze dead-on. “I’m not afraid of him,” she replied. “Though I can tell you are. ”
Darcy folded her arms. “He’s . . . going through a lot right now. We both are. ”
“I guess he was going through a lot that night the two of you came home early from that benefit party too. ”
Isobel swallowed hard, both awed and cowed by her own audacity.
But something about the photo of Varen had stirred anger in her. Darcy cared. That much was clear. But it was growing more and more apparent that her reach extended only so far as it was allowed.
“What were you—” Darcy started, but Isobel cut her off.
“You’ve probably guessed by now that I was here—there. With him in his room. ” Isobel flicked her eyes toward the ceiling. “We were doing homework that night you saw me drive away with him. He had put me in the closet almost as soon as he heard the front door open. He . . . was afraid too, I think. ”
Darcy drew a shaky breath and let it go. Folding her arms in tighter, she gripped either elbow. “I read the note. ”
“I figured,” Isobel said, “since you knew my name. ”
And just like that, their conversation had jumped from one uncomfortable track to another.
Slinking between Isobel’s ankles, tail unwinding from her calf, Slipper padded to sit in front of the gap in the door.
“I’ve never known him to say he loved anything,” Darcy began again, eager, it seemed, to stamp out the awkward silence that had settled into the room. “Or anyone. Not even when talking about something like writing or drawing. Not even Slipper. ” She gestured loosely to the cat. “Or Bruce. ”
Isobel looked up, surprised.
“Varen didn’t use that word,” Darcy added in a murmur. “You . . . you must be very special. ”
Her words took Isobel aback, though they shouldn’t have. After all, it was no secret to her that Varen treated his heart like a vault. He kept so much to himself—practically everything.
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Of course, he’d been conditioned to. The less people knew about the things he cared for, yearned for—the less his father knew about them—the less likely they were to be stripped away. Or damaged by ridicule.
Keep away, Varen’s exterior had always said. But the black clothing and the sunglasses and the biting sharp tongue had only been part of an elaborate defense system meant to shut everyone out. Somehow Isobel had penetrated through its boundaries. Somehow she would need to do so again.
“Varen is the special one,” Isobel s
aid, plucking the black-and-white picture from its frame.
“Is?” Darcy asked, eyes wide with sudden intensity, filled with equal parts hope and fear.
“I’m not here because of the note,” Isobel began. “I’m here because I need to know . . . about Madeline. ”
Darcy’s expression changed, hardening with suspicion. “How do you know that name?”
“Varen. He . . . told me she left. ”
“He told you that?”
“Nothing else. Not even when I asked. Why? What happened?”
“What does she have to do with this?” Darcy asked.
“You do know something. ”
“Apparently a lot less than you,” Darcy said, her tone sharpening.
“I need to know what happened,” Isobel said.
“And I need to know what you know about Varen’s whereabouts. Where did you get that note? When did he give it to you? If you don’t start talking now, I’ll call the police. ”
“Because they’ve been so much help so far. ”
“If you know where he is—”
“You know where he is!” Isobel yelled. Catching herself, she lowered her voice again. “You said so yourself this morning. ”
Darcy stiffened. Her hands clutched her elbows tighter.
Isobel could tell she wanted to talk, but something was holding her back. It was not the same something that had held her back before, though, that night in Varen’s room. Or minutes earlier, when Mr. Nethers had commanded her to post Varen’s car. This time, her fear stemmed not from her husband, but from having to admit—no, accept—that something more was at work, something she couldn’t explain or understand.
“I gave you that note today because I thought it was all over,” Isobel said. “Because I thought you deserved an answer. Confirmation of what you were trying to tell me you already knew. Because I thought you actually care—”
“I do care,” Darcy cut in. She pressed her hands to her heart. “So much. Joe does too. He’s beside himself. This whole thing, it’s tearing him apart. It’s tearing us apart. He just doesn’t—he can’t—he’s—”
“He’s what?” Isobel asked. “What excuses him? I mean, besides you. ”
Darcy’s mouth fell open, but Isobel didn’t regret her words. Hadn’t Varen once confronted Isobel with a similar inquiry when she’d dismissed Brad’s behavior? Hadn’t he been right?
