Nevermore

Isobel’s gaze passed up and over the marked spines of countless books, every item categorized by its own number and date, and it made her feel almost as though she were walking through catacombs.

When she reached the end, she peered around the shelf to see a counter. Well, really, she saw a lot of books piled on top of something that at one time must have been a counter. Behind it sat an old man with crazy, flyaway white hair sticking out every which way around his head, like he’d caught his breakfast fork in a wall socket that morning.

He scowled at her with one large, piercing gray eye, the other eye pinched shut. In his lap was an enormous leather-bound book, open to a page somewhere in the middle.

“Oh, ah . . . ,” she said, and jabbed her thumb over her shoulder, as though he’d need to know she’d come in through the front door. “I’m just looking for someone.”

He kept staring at her with that one eye, and it made her think of how a bird eyes a worm.

“Uh. You don’t . . . happen to know . . .” She trailed off, transfixed by that eye.

Creepy much? He didn’t even blink.

Isobel took a step back and pointed over her shoulder again. “I’ll just let myself—” He snorted, loud and abrupt. She jumped, ready to turn tail and scuttle outside to wait for Varen on the street. They could just go to Starbucks and study, because this was too freaky for her. Before she could take so much as a single backward step, though, the man’s pinched eye flew open. He stirred in his seat, blinking rapidly, sniffing.

“Oh, oh,” he grunted. He straightened in his armchair and squinted at her with both eyes, one of which she saw was a dark muddy brown, though it looked almost black in the dim lighting. “Where did you come from, young lady?”

Isobel stared at him, having to break her gaze away to glance back at the front door—to the sunlight and the sidewalk and the sane people walking their dogs.

“Oh, don’t let this get to you,” he said, aiming the tip of one finger at the large gray eye. “It’s glass.” He wheezed out a haggard laugh. “Glad you came along.” His laugh dissolved into a loose cough. “Or I’d have slept the day away,” he added.

“I’m—I’m supposed to meet someone here,” Isobel murmured, and then was sorry she’d opened her mouth. All she really wanted to do was go back outside and stand on the sidewalk. She’d passed a nice café on the way that would maybe work as a compromise, and they could work there instead.

She didn’t even see anywhere to sit down in this place.

“Oh, yeah?” He coughed again, though he might have been laughing. She couldn’t be sure. She watched him coil one wrinkled fist against his mouth. His shoulders shook as he wheezed into his hand, his cheeks puffing like a blowfish.

When he stopped coughing, he let out a relieved sigh. “He’s upstairs,” the man grunted, and pointed one knotted finger toward an archway, which led into a back room that Isobel could see was (surprise, surprise) filled with still more books. “All the way to the back and up the stairs. Ignore the sign on the door.”

“Uh, thanks,” she said, but he’d already bent his head and gone back to reading. Or sleeping. It was hard to tell.

Turning, Isobel passed through the archway and into the back part of the store. She found the door he’d told her about against the back wall. Tall and narrow, it looked like the lid of a coffin. Her first thought was that it must be a broom closet, but she didn’t see any other doors around, and this one did have a sign on it. Actually, it had two.

DO NOT ENTER That was the first one. The second sign, written by hand on a yellowing slip of coarse paper, bore another warning.

BEWARE OF BESS Who, or what, was Bess? she wondered. More important, which sign was the one she was supposed to ignore? Isobel glanced over her shoulder toward the front room. She didn’t really feel like going back to ask grandpa-coughs-a-lot, and he did say to go upstairs.

Isobel grasped the tarnished brass knob and turned. The door squeaked open, revealing a long, narrow staircase that stretched steeply upward. Square shafts of white sunlight shone down from a window at the top, a million dust motes dancing in and out of the beams.

All right, she thought. If these were the stairs she was supposed to go up, then where was this Bess?

“Hello?”

Her voice sounded quiet and small in her own ears. She didn’t receive an answer, but she thought she could hear the shuffling of papers, so she mounted the stairs, leaving the door open behind her.

There was no banister leading up, so she held her arms out at either side and braced her hands along the dark wood-paneled walls. The stairs groaned and creaked underfoot, as though murmuring secrets about her.

She took one step after another, and as she drew closer to the top, an odd feeling began to creep over her. She felt it in her stomach first, a queasy sensation coupled with the slightest hint of vertigo. It made her skin prickle and the tiny hairs on her arms stand at attention. She drew to a halt on the steps and listened.

Crack!