they were together, or worse, just on the fritz.
“Oh, you know what I meant. That’s not the point. Did you really tell him your combination?”
“He knows it,” Isobel grumbled, getting more annoyed by the second. Was it any of Gwen’s business who she gave her locker combination to? They were locker neighbors, not locker roomies. “What does that have to do with what happened?”
“It was right after last period. Your big football player ex-guy—did you say his name was Ben?”
“Brad.”
“Right, well, for some reason, that guy was in your locker. Now, I wasn’t there yet, so I can’t say
“Other people?” She cringed.
“Well, apparently, this Brad guy was getting stuff out of your locker, planning to take it with him, it looked like.”
Isobel tried to remember exactly what she’d stored in her locker. All she knew she had in there was her binder, some books, and a box of tampons—what could he want with any of that? Evidence, she realized at once. He must be looking for some kind of proof about her and Varen. Maybe. What else would it be?
“But then guess who shows up.”
“Yeah.”
Something in her middle turned a wobbly somersault. Varen approaching Brad? Bad. Very bad.
“What happened?” Her voice almost cracked.
“Well, this is the part that I saw. Apparently, Varen wanted Brad to give him all your stuff. Then Brad grabbed a fistful of Dr. Doom’s shirt and slammed him into the lockers. Hard. I mean, I saw his head bounce. One- handed, too—Bruno never even had to put your stuff down.”
Isobel gasped. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. The room around her seemed to tilt. She cringed, and the hand holding the phone felt weak.
“And
Oh God. There was more? Isobel needed to sit down. She sank onto one corner of her bed, waiting for the worst. How bad could it be? she thought. If Varen had called her from work, then he had to be at least somewhat okay. He couldn’t be in traction if he was at work, right?
“Well,” Gwen said, her voice flattening out, “let me just say that when he banged into the lockers—the lockers banged back.”
“What do you mean they banged back?”
The line went quiet and fuzzy for a moment. Isobel squished the phone in hard against one ear, blocking her other ear with a finger. She turned her head to one side, and another roll of static fizzed against her eardrum.
“All the lockers . . . they knocked back,” Gwen said. “One right after the other. Everybody hit the floor, because it sounded like gunfire—I
“Gwen,” Isobel said, standing, a note of hysteria in her voice. Her eyes fell to the Poe book still sitting on her carpet where she’d left it. She kicked it under her bed. “You’re making this up.”
“Sorry, but I’m not that creative.”
“Did somebody set you up to call me and say all this?”
“Look,” Gwen said, “I didn’t call because of some prank. I called you because there’s something really freaked out goin’ on, and since it transpired in the direct vicinity of
A scuffling noise had Isobel turning to face the window.
“Of course,” Gwen prattled, “if I’d known I’d be accused of conspiracy on top of lying, I’d have written about the whole ordeal in an article and submitted it to the school newspaper instead.”
“Shh!” Isobel hissed. “Gwen, shh!”
The sound came again. A low, grating noise.
“I don’t think I should have to shush. You know, I didn’t have to call you. I had better things to do. My trig homework, for example.”
“No, Gwen,” said Isobel. She dropped her voice as the dull, scraping noise grew louder. “I hear something.”
For a moment the line went silent.
“Gwen?” Isobel said, afraid she’d hung up.
“I’m here, though I’m startin’ to wonder why.”
“Listen,” said Isobel as another long scratching noise issued from behind her drawn shade. “I believe you. There’s been a lot of weird stuff happening, actually. But I can’t tell you about it right now, because I think there’s something outside my window.”
There was a moment of tense silence. Isobel strained both ears, listening.
“You want me to call the police or somethin’?” Gwen whispered.
“No, not yet. Listen, I want you to stay on the line with me while I try to get a look. It could just be . . . y’know—a bird or something,”
“A
“No,” Isobel murmured, distracted as the scratching continued, closer this time. Something shuffled right up against her window ledge. Whatever it was out there, it sounded a lot bigger than a bird.
“Hold on,” she said. She crept forward, the phone held tight against one ear, her other arm outstretched, fingers reaching toward the shade.
“Isobel? What’s going on? Are you there or what?”
Transfixed by the large, moving black shape shifting in and out of the visible edge around her window shade, she watched her own hand as it drifted closer—remarkably steady
—toward her window. Touching a finger to the edge, she peeled back the canvas ever so slightly, squinting, trying to peer past the glare and into the dusk.
A thin, spidery hand, almost glowing white in the twilight, slammed against the glass. Isobel shrieked and stumbled back, tripping and falling on the carpet. The shade flew up. The phone jumped from her grasp and landed out of her reach.
On and off, she could hear Gwen’s distant, frantic voice calling her name.
Isobel stared up in terror through the dark square of her window, at the pale, luminous face that stared back.
19
Visitations
“Varen!” Isobel launched herself from the floor. She rushed to the window. Finding the clasps, she snapped the locks back, fixed her fingers in the grooves, and heaved upward.
He crouched precariously on the slanted roof, watching her, his calm, expressionless face level with hers. With every glimpse, every meeting of their eyes, those cool, kohl-rimmed jades bored into her, causing little electrodes to zip through her insides.
“Isobel! Isobel!” came a tiny, strained insect voice from somewhere behind. “Isobel, I’m calling the police!”
“Oh!” Isobel whirled, throwing a
