Oblivion

by Kelly Creagh

  Everywhere, doubles—pawns—began to flicker into being. Ten squads’ worth of Cheerleader Isobels.

  The Noc’s black eye narrowed at her. “What are you doing?” he asked, the confidence in his smile wavering.

  Isobel didn’t answer. Instead she slid into the crowd of doppelgängers.

  “Stop!” the Noc snarled, darting after her, but she’d already commanded each of her selves to switch places.

  Taking a square of her own, Isobel now became one of them.

  A single face among many.

  22

  Checkmate

  “Clever, clever,” the Noc called through the hall.

  Isobel held steady amid the other versions of herself and, careful to keep her focus forward, she followed Scrimshaw’s movements in her periphery.

  His boots tapped on the black-and-white tiles as he entered the ranks of her conjured army, his echoing footfalls the only sound in the ballroom-turned-game board.

  “Well played,” the Noc said, giving an appreciative nod, though he spoke through clenched teeth. “Well played, indeed. You’re smarter than you look. Though still not quite smart enough, I’m afraid. For it’s my turn now, and I’m sure I needn’t remind you how your cunning has bought you only time. ”

  He slid out of her sight line then, and Isobel had to fight the impulse to turn her head. Stiffening, she willed her doubles to blink and breathe in tandem with her while she scrambled to come up with her next move. She couldn’t deny that Scrimshaw was right. Though the idea to multiply herself and hide among a legion of look-alikes might be enough to preserve her life now, it would not keep the Noc at bay for long. Playing defense would only delay death. Not prevent it. But what attack could she make that he wouldn’t simply turn against her, like he had the angels?

  She needed Pinfeathers. Had he not yet returned because he couldn’t?

  “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe . . . ”

  Isobel flinched at the sound of the Noc’s voice. He was close—and getting closer. No more than a single row behind.

  “My mistress told me to pick the very worst one, and it is—”

  She swallowed, and in her ears, the gulp sounded like an explosion. Had the other Isobels made the same noise? She didn’t think so. She hadn’t commanded them to, she’d been so focused on him. On where he might be. And where was he? Why had he stopped talking?

  Isobel didn’t hear footsteps anymore. She didn’t hear the creaking of his frame. Or anything at all.

  Don’t move, she told herself. Hold very still, breath normally, and whatever you do, don’t—

  “You!”

  Isobel screamed, jumping as indigo claws burst through the chest of a double standing two spaces down from her.

  “Aha!” Scrimshaw shouted, and withdrawing the clawed hand that had impaled the fake Isobel, he rounded to face the real her.

  Collapsing in a heap, Isobel’s slain pawn became ash at the Noc’s feet. Scrimshaw strode through the pile, boots dragging dust as he closed in on her.

  Isobel scuttled backward again, ordering the duplicates to switch—to shuffle.

  Her imagined army obeyed, moving once, then twice, some shifting places on the diagonal, some from side to side, others forward and back. They bumped the Noc, jostling him as they brushed past him like robots, taking no note of his presence among them.

  Sneering, Scrimshaw shoved through the crowd, and though she would not look at him dead-on, Isobel could tell he was straining to keep his vision fixed firmly on her. She could also tell by the way his head twitched from side to side that he’d again lost her, that she’d once more become anonymous in the midst of the copies.

  Roaring in anger, Scrimshaw stalked through the assembly and began slashing indiscriminately at the doubles. One after another, they became heaps of ash that showered the floor, spattering the other duplicates and, as Scrimshaw raged nearer, her, too.

  Isobel racked her brain, knowing she needed to act. Now. As in, ten seconds ago. But how was she supposed to fight something she couldn’t catch?

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Scrimshaw lilted.

  He swiped at another duplicate and then another, claws hacking through Isobel’s summoned pawns, reaping them like dry wheat.

  Her jaw tightened, and for a brief instant, she feared the manic thumping of her own heart would give her away.

  Think. There had to be something she could do to end this. To end him. For good this time.

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  Briefly, she considered ordering her replicas to attack him all at once, but that wouldn’t stop him from dissipating into smoke again. So she thought about sending a decoy running in one direction to create a distraction, but that would only lead him away. If it even worked. She needed him close, like Pinfeathers had said. Luring him to point-blank range would be her only hope of landing a hit.

  And she was tired of running. So tired of all those things Scrimshaw had mentioned.

  Threading himself through a line of doubles, the Noc drifted to within mere feet of her. She stared forward, refusing to look at him, not even as his smile returned and he homed in on her. The real her.

  He crept to stand directly in front of her, and Isobel forbade her hands from twitching into fists. She kept her body rigid and her face slate, as unflinching as any statue’s.

  He was close enough now that she could strike at him outright. But would she have time to rear back, to prepare a punch strong enough to prevent him from shredding her as he had the others? She doubted it. As Scrimshaw tilted his head at her, eyeing her with increasing suspicion, she realized that their battle of wits was about to come to an end. And if she couldn’t win a contest of the mind, she knew she had no hope of surviving one of blows.

  “Forget something?” he asked her.

  Isobel blinked.

  He had to be bluffing, trying to get her to give herself away. It had to be a coincidence he’d found his way to her. Any second now, he’d pass her by and go on to interrogate the next figure. Then she’d have her chance. She’d spring on him when his back was turned. As soon as his back was turned.

  “I asked you,” the Noc repeated, “if you forgot something. ”

  He lifted a red claw, pointing to the hole in his cheek. In Pinfeather’s cheek.

  Oh no, she thought, terror dissolving her insides as his meaning dawned on her.

  The scar. She hadn’t thought to give the duplicates the marking.

  Isobel wrenched away, but he proved too quick. “Checkmate!” Scrimshaw growled, his arm lashing out, fast as a whip. He caught her by the throat and she choked as he drew her forward, dragging her out from the lineup of doubles.

  “Shhhhhh,” the Noc hushed, pressing a red claw to his lips.

  Her troops began to erode and flake away, her shining checkered tiles fading to cloudy white again while her imagined cheer uniform transformed back into her ashen street clothes.

  Her cover blown, Isobel tried to jerk free, fingernails scraping at the Noc’s porcelain hand.

  “Oh, he’s really fighting me now,” Scrimshaw said. “I can feel him, fluttering about inside as if on fire. Tell me, should I let you two lovebirds bid each other a final farewell?”

  Pinfeathers. He was talking about Pinfeathers.

  “No, I think not,” said the Noc through a gritted grin. “Never been a fan of good-byes myself. Especially the kind that have been said once already. ”

  Isobel opened her mouth, wanting to call out to the other Noc, to beg him to push through. But Scrimshaw clenched her neck tighter, slowly crushing her windpipe.

  “You should hear him implore me,” the Noc continued. “Pleading like a child. It’s almost painful to listen to. You really ruined him, you know. And now I have to wonder what it is—pardon, what it was about you that did it. ” The Noc tilted his head at her while he continued to strangle her, as if he really wanted to know. “What type of poison
are you, girl?”

  Poison?

  Because Pinfeathers cared for her, Scrimshaw saw her as poison? As Pinfeathers’s downfall? His ruin? But if she had become the biggest weakness of the leader of Varen’s Nocs—then, in regard to Scrimshaw, couldn’t the same be said for . . . ?

  Light-headedness closed in on Isobel, stealing her ability to think. The room began to blur, and the bodies of the courtiers, still draping the balconies above, became fuzzy blobs. Scrimshaw’s dual face melted into a jagged smear, and sparks flashed in the corner of her vision. But one fading glance at the creature’s open collar, at the delicate, hazy image carved into his chest, and she was reminded of who the girl was. Who she had been to Poe.

  Isobel tried to speak. A gasping sound escaped her, but the Noc must have read what she’d tried to say on her lips, because for an instant, his squeezing grip faltered.

  “What was that?” he demanded.

  She again attempted the one-word utterance—a single name. One she knew he knew. At least as well as Pinfeathers knew her name.

  Scrimshaw let go of Isobel’s neck. He switched hands, snatching her by the shirt collar instead.

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  Isobel inhaled, gulping for air. Her dizziness lifted, and Scrimshaw’s split face snapped into clarity.

  “Speak plainly,” he snapped, shaking her. “Tell me what you just said. Say it again, girl. ”

  “Virginia,” Isobel rasped, pressing fingers to his cold chest, to the engraving of Poe’s young cousin and bride.

  Scrimshaw’s expression collapsed. Pain blended with sorrow, replacing his rage.

  “Why?” he snarled, thrusting his halved face in hers. “Why would you dare speak that name to me? Why make hers the last you’ll ever utter?”

  “Because,” Isobel said, her voice hoarse, ragged—almost gone. “She’s standing right behind you. ”

  23

  In the Hearts of the Most Reckless

  There hadn’t really been anyone there. No one at all.

  But Isobel’s lie that there had been someone—a very specific someone—proved a far better distraction than she had initially dared to hope.

  Because when Scrimshaw turned his head to look, suddenly there was someone.

  Isobel had not imagined the young woman into being. She hadn’t been able to think that far ahead. Or that fast. Not with the Noc gripping her throat, squeezing the life from her.

  So the phantom standing before them had to have arisen from the depths of the Noc’s consciousness, triggered by Isobel’s suggestion and, perhaps, by the underlying current of Scrimshaw’s own repressed longing.

  Though Isobel could recall only a few specifics regarding the appearance of Poe’s wife—a handful of vague characteristics picked up during her study with Varen, retained from the one or two glimpses she’d had of her portraits—Scrimshaw, it seemed, had forgotten nothing.

  Black-haired and pale in complexion, her small hands clasped in front of her, the round-faced young woman—so real, so completely lifelike—watched the Noc with large and soulful brown eyes.

  Releasing the fabric of Isobel’s shirt, Scrimshaw angled slowly toward the vision.

  Freed, Isobel retreated from him fast, and though she expected the Noc’s head to snap back in her direction and for the illusion to rupture as instantaneously as it had materialized, she was relieved when the Noc remained entranced.

  “Do you remember the Valentine I’ve been writing for you?” Virginia asked, her voice soft and high, sweet like a songbird’s. “Well, you and Mama will both be pleased to know that even though I haven’t yet finished it, I have begun setting the lines to music. Just as you suggested. ”

  Transfixed, Scrimshaw took two slow steps in Virginia’s direction.

  Isobel watched, clasping her throat where he’d gripped her, still stunned that her bluff had worked and that, somehow, she’d managed to buy back her life again. For at least another moment.

  But maybe, she thought as she trained her gaze on the upside-down crow in the center of the Noc’s back, another moment was all she needed.

  Spinning away, Virginia strode to the piano bench that appeared only just as she sat, the skirts of her simple, cream-colored dress swishing. With girlish flair, she lifted delicate hands and placed slender fingers on an invisible keyboard.

  As Virginia pressed down, a squat, rectangular piano unfurled from the nothing and the middle chord she’d struck resounded softly, as gentle as a sigh. More notes followed, her hands wandering to and fro over the keys as if the song were one she had to find her way back to.

  “Oh, and Eddie?” she went on to say. “I’ve hidden your name in the lyrics, so keep a sharp ear. Listen closely and tell me—either of you—if you can discover the trick. ”

  Isobel curled her fists at her sides. Her chance, hard won, had arrived.

  So why hadn’t she taken it?

  If she moved now, if she ran fast enough, she could slam right into him. She could shove him straight to the floor. As fractured and fragile as he was already, such a fall would surely finish the Noc.

  Of course, it would finish both Nocs. Was that why she was hesitating?

  And why hadn’t Pinfeathers returned? Couldn’t he do so now that Scrimshaw was distracted? Now that his guard had been lowered?

  “Lenore,” the Noc whispered, and as he spoke the word, the decorative molding and flaking gold paint of the once-decadent walls began to melt away, becoming plaster.

  Worn wooden boards bled through the dingy ivory dance floor, seeping through like a spreading stain.

  Against all inner urgings, Isobel continued to wait and watch as the room morphed around them. The walls smoothed and squeezed inward. The ceiling dropped low.

  In mere seconds, the ballroom had transformed, its macabre scenery replaced by the cramped interior of a meager and sparsely furnished sitting room.

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  Oblivious to the shift, Virginia played on.

  Individual notes, clunky at first, tinkled forth from the instrument, whose flat back met flush with one of the four unadorned walls. Against another, orange flames crackled in a tiny fireplace.

  “Ever with thee I wish to roam—

  Dearest, my life is thine.

  Give me a cottage for my home

  And a rich old cypress vine. ”

  As she sang, Virginia’s melody evened out. The notes became more certain, as light and airy as Virginia herself.

  “Removed from the world with its sin and care

  And the tattling of many tongues.

  Love alone shall guide us when we are there—”

  The last note, higher in register than the others, caused her voice to crack. Startled, Virginia paused.

  She lifted a hand to her lips. Bringing fingers away, she frowned at the smear of crimson that blazed against her pale skin.

  Blood, Isobel thought, suddenly realizing this moment was not a random dream or imagining as she’d first thought. Instead it was another memory. Like the one Pinfeathers had transported her into that morning she’d found him at the fountain.

  Reynolds had testified that that memory, the one depicting Poe’s death at Reynolds’s own hands, had been “stolen. ” But if that was true (and, at this point, considering the very little she knew for sure about Reynolds, there could be no telling), then had Scrimshaw been the owner of that stored memory—as well as this one? Had both memories originated from Poe himself?

  At first glance, it would seem so.

  On the night before their project was due, Varen had described this moment of Poe’s life to Isobel: Virginia playing the piano, singing for her husband and her mother. Then the appearance of blood—the heralding sign of consumption. Tuberculosis. Death.

  “Eddie?” Virginia said, and she swiveled in her seat to look toward Scrimshaw, her face childlike in its expression of confusion and alarm.

  Freeze-framing,
the replay stopped there.

  Isobel, startled from her reverie, channeled her focus once more to the image of the upside-down crow and steeled herself to charge the Noc.

  But her feet stayed grounded, because she knew she’d waited too long.

  He’d surfaced from his trance. That had to be why the scene before them had halted. Any second now, he’d turn on her and it would be over.

  “Years later, she finished it,” the Noc said, pointing one blue claw at Virginia. “By then, however, she’d already been devoured from the inside out. From this day forth she lived—if indeed you could call it living—as though Death himself had taken residence within her very heart. A death as red as the blood that never ceased. ”

  Isobel’s clenched hands slackened. Maybe, she thought as she listened, she could still make her attack. Or rather, finish the assault she’d already unwittingly initiated.

  If she aimed accurately, said just the right thing, was it possible her words could inflict more damage than her fists?

  “You loved her,” Isobel said.

  “Worshipped,” Scrimshaw corrected. “But more ludicrous than that, let us not forget, she loved me. ” He gave a short ironic laugh. “Not just him—the poet. But me as well. I, the epitome of our own penchant for self-destruction. Do you know how difficult . . . how impossible such a feat must have been?”

  “Yes,” Isobel said, pressing a hand to her own heart, certain she could feel echoes of the same pain that resonated within him. “I do. ”

  For a long time, the Noc remained quiet. He lowered his arm to his side, and when he spoke again, his words came soft, almost too low for her to decipher.

  “There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. ”

  Isobel thought she might have heard those phrases somewhere before—or read them. Maybe in one of Poe’s works, though she couldn’t recall which.

  “You have conquered, and I yield,” the Noc went on to say, his words doubling midsentence when a second caustic voice rose to join the first. “But I’ll advise you not to allow my return. Because your final play, girl, effective as it was, stands with us as too grievous an onslaught not to seek vengeance for. I grant you a reprieve, but not forgiveness. One cannot give what he does not possess for himself. ”

  With these words, another vision shimmered into view before him, superimposing itself over the first. Similar in composition, though a hundred times more familiar, an alternate memory unfurled, causing the room to transmute yet again.