Nevermore

“I am not who you may think I am,” he said.

“You mean . . . Poe?” she asked. She felt silly saying it out loud. It seemed to be the response he was looking for, though, because he nodded once, a very slight inclination of his head. He took a step toward her, then another. His feet made no sound against the patchwork blanket of dead leaves and cinders. “Though you should know that he has as much to do with this.”

What was up with the way this dude talked? It was like listening to a Grand Master Jedi Ninja Buddhist, only without the enlightenment factor. And why did he keep walking toward her?

“Okay, stop right there,” she said, raising a hand. He obeyed only as her heel came in contact with a dried twig, snapping it. They both stood frozen then, listening to the echo.

The forest seeped whispers. Stifled laughter rang in the distance.

Isobel felt panic rise within her. She turned. “What was that?”

“Ghouls,” he said, “imps of the perverse. Empty beings from this world. They have been sent to watch you. They are listening.”

“Why? To what?” Isobel began moving back again. She glanced around, searching for a place to run. Every direction looked exactly the same, though, and as far as she could tell, there was no exit sign.

“You must stay close,” he said. “They will only keep their distance as long as I stand with you.”

Isobel stopped her backward trek. She stared at him, wondering if his suggestion that they use the buddy system was supposed to make her feel better. It didn’t, and she folded her arms around herself, fighting a shudder. “How did I get here? More important, how do I get out of here?”

“You are here because I brought you,” Reynolds said, “so that you will know this place, for I am not the only one who may now transport you here. That is why you must understand that your only hope of navigating this realm is to know it for what it is—to know that it is within a dream that you stand. With this knowledge comes the ability to control. Do you understand?”

“About as well as I understand Swahili.”

“Look around you,” he said, “and you will see how your friend’s actions have already begun to strip the veil.” He held out a gloved hand. Ash floated to light on his fingertips. “It weakens, and the night where it is at its thinnest in your world fast approaches. You must—” A quiet snicker echoed to them from somewhere far off. It was followed by the hissing, static cry of

“Tekeli-li!”

“What is that?” Isobel whispered.

“Quiet,” Reynolds commanded. After another moment’s listening, there came an answering call of

“Tekeli-li!” from a different corner of the forest.

“She knows we are here,” he said. “I can say no more than I have. You must go.” He held his black-gloved hand toward her, palm up. Isobel hesitated, staring at it as though it were the hand of death.

“Now!”

The urgency in his voice fanned the flame of panic within her. She stumbled forward. He grasped her hand tightly and pulled her through the line of trees, the sound of her steps absorbed into silence by the powder-soft ash.

He sped her through the maze of the dead forest, taking sudden twists and quick turns until the clearing vanished behind them and every direction began to look the same. She didn’t know how she was keeping up with him. The trees rushed by her in a blur that made her head swim. It seemed impossible that they could be moving this fast.

You’re dreaming, she told herself as they ran. It’s just a dream. Any second now you’ll wake up, and it will all be over.

From somewhere within the woods, Isobel heard a rustling sound and then the whisper of her name.

Her head snapped up. In the distance, through the line of trees, a bright light, radiant and ethereal, broke like a beacon through the dimness. Long and slender, the light fluttered beneath the cover of a billowing white shroud, taking shape. Isobel could not help but steal backward glances as they ran.

She saw a figure emerge from within the ebbing light—a woman, angelic in form, though her features remained lost in the distance, buried beneath yards of floating gossamer veils.

Reynolds stopped, yanking Isobel to face him. Out of thin air, he grasped a doorknob that appeared just as his hand clasped it. It was as though the door had been painted to blend in with the forest.

“You are her only threat and therefore our only hope,” he said hastily, pulling the door open to reveal rose carpeting and a pink bedspread. He pushed her through and Isobel stumbled over the threshold, into her bedroom. There, in her bed, she saw herself—asleep.

“Learn to awaken within your dreams, Isobel,” he called after her, “or we are all lost.”

Behind her, the door slammed shut.

25

Seeing Double

Isobel stared at the sleeping body in her bed. Her body.

All at once, the digital clock on her headboard twitched to read six thirty a.m. The blaring sound of her alarm erupted, and with it she felt a quick, sharp tug through her middle.