Nevermore

“Mom!” Isobel yelled into the house. Behind her, she held open the storm door for Varen. He stepped in and then politely to one side, next to the umbrella stand and in front of the coat rack, his hands folded neatly in front of him, where he looked slightly uncomfortable and very much out of place. She felt a sudden lurch of panic at seeing him there like that, her mom’s embroidered framed copy of the Lord’s Prayer partially visible behind one safety-pin-studded shoulder.

“Mom!” she turned to shout again. “Uh, wait right there,” she said. Dragging her gym bag along, Isobel pounded up the stairs to her room.

Her mom wasn’t in her room or in the bathroom, though.

Isobel dropped her gym bag off in her own bedroom. Quickly she peeled off her practice gear and wiggled into her favorite pair of jeans. She threw on a clean T-shirt and rubbed on some deodorant.

Next, while she was thinking about it, she grabbed The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe from her nightstand.

It was strange how far away the dream with Reynolds seemed now. She shook her head, holding the book between her hands, suddenly glad she hadn’t had the chance to finish telling Varen about the dream, or about the book reappearing, or that she’d thrown it away in the first place. Or thought she’d thrown it away.

All that seemed to matter now was that she had the book and that they were going to finish the project. That is, if she could find her mom and tell her not to freak.

Isobel raced back down the stairs. She stopped before she reached the foyer, startled to find the space in front of the coatrack and umbrella stand empty.

She rushed to look out the front door, relieved to see Varen’s car still parked outside.

“I actually did a study on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle during my undergrad when I was at Wash U,” Isobel heard her mom say as she drew nearer to the kitchen. “But when I found out that Poe’s Dupin was the inspiration for Doyle’s Holmes, I tell you, I really got swept up in reading Poe’s detective stories. I remember wishing I’d done my term paper on him instead.”

Isobel stepped through the archway of the kitchen to find her mother at the sink, cutting chunks of boiled chicken with a pair of red-handled culinary scissors. Varen stood farther down the counter, slicing stalks of celery into thin crescent shapes. He glanced up as she walked in and, catching her eye, smiled faintly.

“Oh, Isobel,” her mother said, “there you are. I hope you don’t mind that, while you left your guest waiting, I enlisted him to help with supper.”

Isobel moved farther into the kitchen, not knowing whether to be relieved that her mother hadn’t had an atomic meltdown, or mortified that she’d taken it upon herself to play head chef with the nearest thing Trenton High had to a Dark Lord.

Well, at least it looked like he hadn’t minded. In fact, Isobel was surprised to note how adept he seemed to be at chopping celery. Practiced, even.

“You’ll stay to eat with us, won’t you?” her mom asked. Varen flicked a quick glance at Isobel.

“Yeah,” she said, “you should stay for dinner.”

Could this day get any weirder? She tried to picture Varen at her family’s dinner table, and she only hoped Danny wouldn’t embarrass the hell out of her. She could just hear her little brother asking all sorts of stupid questions, like if his underwear was black too.

She stepped up to stand next to Varen, placing the Poe book on the counter.

“Varen says you’re doing a project together,” her mom said. “Isobel’s never been a big reader,” she added in an aside to Varen, who shot Isobel an amused smirk. She was glad he was enjoying himself so much.

“I was just telling Varen how I studied Poe in college,” she continued. “I mostly read his detective stories, though. ‘The Purloined Letter,’ ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’—I think I had a crush on Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin,” she prattled on, pronouncing the name with the worst French accent ever. Isobel felt her ears go hot.

“Varen, would you like some iced tea?” her mother asked. “I just made some about a half hour ago.

Ginger peach. There’s some lemonade in the fridge too.”

“Mom,” Isobel cut in before he could answer, “can we please go study now? If that’s all right.”

“Okay, okay,” her mom said, and stepped aside from the sink so Varen could wash his hands.

“Why don’t you two go in there on the dining room table so I won’t be in your way? There’s plenty of room to spread out.”

Isobel, her ears still burning, didn’t wait for a second invitation to vamoose before her mom could find anything else embarrassing to say or do. Picking up Varen’s satchel, which she found on one of the kitchen chairs, she hauled it into the dining room, knowing that if it held his black book, then wherever it went, he would follow.

He was still smiling that “I am silently amused by your quaint home life” smile by the time she set his bag down on one of the tall-backed dining room chairs. She pulled out another for herself and sat.