Nevermore

Below that, Swanson had added something else. This note appeared in blue ink, and in a tighter, more compact version of his loopy cursive. “P.S.” it read, “if you need to talk, I’m here.”

This tiny gesture, so very unobtrusive and kind, struck a chord deep within her, inducing a surprise moment of lucidity. It brought a sad smile to her lips, because it didn’t matter that she could never accept the invitation. She just liked knowing that Swanson had added it because he liked Varen. And that, in turn, made Isobel like her English teacher more than he would ever know.

She slid the paper off of her desk and shoved it into her backpack, putting Varen’s name out of sight so that the world could go mute again. Mute and void, colorless except for that one empty chair in the corner.

That afternoon Isobel made the mistake of going to her locker.

She had just finished shoving her binder, notepad, and English book inside when Gwen sprang up behind her, sending the door to her locker slamming shut.

“You,” she said, jabbing Isobel right in the shoulder, “are a terrible friend.”

Isobel scowled and kicked the corner of the metal door so that it popped open again. Her notebook slipped out and fell to the floor, loose papers scattering. “Thanks,” she muttered. “I needed that.”

She stooped to gather the spilled papers, but stopped when Gwen stepped forward, pinning them to the floor with one foot. “No,” she barked. She sent Isobel’s locker slamming shut again, this time with a decided bang. “What you need is a reality check. You’ve been wandering around in this little bubble of solitude and sulk long enough. Now, I don’t know what happened that night, but I know that you do. I know it was weird. I was there, remember? I saw that fight with my own eyes, but unlike everybody else, I knew it was real. I also know that you disappeared on one side of town only to reappear on another. You might be fooling everyone else, but you’re not fooling me, Isobel Lanley. If he’s dead—”

“He’s not dead!” Isobel shouted suddenly, her voice piping with panic. She grabbed Gwen tightly by the arm, shaking her. “Don’t say that.”

Gwen pulled her arm roughly away. She took a step back, and, for a long moment, the two of them stood there and stared at each other.

“I’m tired of chasing after you,” Gwen said at last. “And if you’re not going to do something, then I’m not going to cover for you. Those two detectives came to school yesterday. If they come back, if they ask me what happened, I’m telling them what I saw.”

Isobel gaped at her friend. “Do something?” she repeated. She shook her head, uncomprehending.

“Do—do you have any idea—”

“No!” Gwen snapped. “No! I don’t. I have no idea! In fact, the only thing I do know is that it looks like you’re giving up.”

Isobel blinked, suddenly speechless, stung to the core by the accusation of those words.

Gwen glared at her, unrelenting, her eyes lit with intensity. “Don’t look at me like that. I saw you there with him that night. And I know you know where he is.”

Isobel’s lips parted with a tremble. She started to speak, to deny it. But the truth was that she did know where he was. There was just no way to reach him. How could she tell Gwen that it was impossible to save him because the link between worlds had been destroyed? How could she expect anyone else to understand any of it when she’d scarcely been able to grasp what had happened herself?

A glower hardening the normally soft angles of her face, Gwen turned away to dial the combination to her own locker. She opened the metal door and, reaching inside, grabbed something from the top shelf, shoving it into Isobel’s hand. Her pink cell phone.

“There. Now it’s your turn.” With that, Gwen looped her purse strap over her head, her movements fast and jerky. “When you figure out how to use one of those again, well . . . I logged my number in at the top of your address book. And here,” she added, yanking out Isobel’s gym bag. She let it drop onto the floor between them, right on top of the smattering of papers. “My locker’s not a storage unit.”

With a flip of her long hair, Gwen stalked off, leaving Isobel to stand there, staring at her rumpled gym bag, wondering how it was possible that she could feel any emptier.

Mechanically, she sank to one knee in front of her locker and with slow, deliberate movements, began to gather her things.

Then something about one of the papers made her pause. Her cell phone slid from her grasp. It cracked against the floor, but Isobel hardly seemed to notice, too distracted by the black-and-white photo mixed within the spread of loose white sheets.

She grabbed one corner of the printout, tugging it free from the others. Isobel’s eyes scoured the page, certain that she had to be imagining what she saw there.

At the top of the paper, the header read Baltimore Sun in bold block letters, and she knew it was the article Mr. Swanson had wanted her and Varen to see, the one he had handed back with their paper.