Nevermore

Isobel glanced toward Varen again. She watched as he stared down at the open pages of the book in front of him. Sunlight caught on his light hair. This had been how they’d first met, she thought. The first day of school, when he’d sat down next to her and had asked her to write her number on his hand so that he wouldn’t lose it.

Isobel smiled to herself, remembering.

He’d taken her out to eat for their first date. A fancy Chinese restaurant. And just last week, hadn’t he given her his class ring? Isobel glanced down at her right hand. The thick gold band was held tight on her finger by the soft felt strip he’d wrapped it with so it would fit her. The Trenton blue stone inside glinted in the light, bringing back the memory of the moment he’d asked her to wear it. It had been that day sitting in his car outside her house, the day he’d asked her to go with him to junior prom.

Outside, autumn sunlight winked at her through a fluffy, cotton white haze of cloud cover. She looked forward and watched Mr. Swanson. He leaned against his desk, holding a copy of the textbook open in his hands. His eyes closed, and she watched him mouth key words along with Emma while she read. That was the way you could always tell which parts were his favorites.

When Emma finished the poem, Mr. Swanson opened his eyes and straightened his glasses. “Okay,” he said, “now let’s talk about what Mr. Frost is saying here. Does anyone have any thoughts on what the metaphor is? Yes, Miss Andrews.”

“He’s talking about taking different paths in life. Making different choices.”

“Yes, good. That’s definitely one way to look at it. He’s talking about making not just the literal choice of walking down a physical pathway in the forest, but coming to a fork in the road of life and making a decision. We’re a product of our choices, wouldn’t you say? If the narrator of the poem had taken another path, things would have been different for him, right?

Perhaps drastically so. That’s the ‘difference’ he’s talking about here. Very good. Anyone else?”

Isobel looked down at her desk, realizing she hadn’t taken out her book yet. She leaned over and opened her backpack, pulling out her copy of Seventh Edition Junior English. She glanced at Varen’s copy to get the right page number, then flipped to a black-and-white portrait of Robert Frost. Next she reached down to get a pencil and her notebook. She stopped, though, noticing the time on her pink locket watch clipped to her bag. The hands read 11:20. But that couldn’t be right. Class started at eleven. Was her watch running fast? Or had Danny set it forward as a joke? She unclipped the watch from her bag and held it between her fingers, twisting the tiny dial on one side. The minute hand refused to budge. She shook the small watch, sending the pink liquid glitter within rushing around.

Isobel paused, staring at the watch face as the glitter settled. She focused on the reflection of her eyes in the clear glass.

But . . .

Hadn’t she smashed this watch?

Maybe she’d dreamt that.

No. The park. Running. That had been real. The book had smashed the watch. The book. The Poe book. No again, she thought. She’d thrown that book away because it had come back.

Or did that happen later? But then that really must have been a dream, because books don’t come back on their own. Isobel scowled, none of it making sense.

She looked once again at the open pages of her book, at the picture of Robert Frost sitting in his chair, holding out a sheet of paper and reading from a distance.

Suddenly that didn’t seem right either. They weren’t on Frost yet.

Slowly, carefully, Isobel set her watch on the desktop. She grabbed her book and flipped to the index, scanning. Pasternak, Plath, Pope. What? Where was . . . ?

“Poe,” Isobel whispered aloud. Keeping her head low, she glanced toward Varen.

He looked at her, eyebrows raised.

She flipped through the pages of her book. “Where’s Poe?”

“Page two-twenty-six,” he said, and reached a hand over to help her.

She jerked the book from his grasp. “But we’re not studying Frost yet,” she hissed. “We’re studying Poe and the Romantics.”

Mr. Swanson stopped talking. “Miss Lanley, is there something you’d like to add?” he asked.

She straightened in her chair to find twenty sets of eyes trained on her. Everyone stared at her, and suddenly a creepy feeling stole over her. There was something not right about them.

Any of them.

In unison, they all blinked.

“Uh—Poe,” she said, and then had to clear her throat. “He—he’s not in here,” she clarified. She held up the book in one hand. “I thought we were supposed to be studying Edgar Allan Poe.” She glanced up—and froze in Mr. Swanson’s gaze.

Mr. Swanson lowered his glasses, his eyes black. “Who?”

Isobel whipped her head back to stare at Varen. He watched her with a strange fierceness, frustration in the eyes that had since turned black as ink. His face, now wan and sunken, contorted with anger, scarcely resembled Varen’s at all.

That’s when she realized that it wasn’t Varen.

Isobel launched out of her seat. She made a break for the open door. Screams arose from her phantom classmates. Their faces twisted, their expressions demonic. Hands grabbed at her from all sides, but she yanked free and cleared the tangle of desks.

The room stretched and elongated before her like a tunnel. The door in front of her fell farther away. She ran faster, and the door slid back farther. It started to close. The faster she ran, the faster it moved. It boomed shut as she reached it. She groped for the handle but there wasn’t one.

“You’re always running away. You ruin everything” came a static voice from behind.

Isobel whirled to find herself alone in the classroom with Pinfeathers. His scarecrow figure sat occupying the desk the false Varen had. Slowly he rose, and Isobel pushed herself flat against the door, felt the coldness of it against her bare shoulders. She looked down, finding herself in her party dress again. Outside the door, she could hear music and people.

With quiet steps, he moved toward her, tucking a pencil behind one ear.

“You could have it all, you know. If you’d only let go,” he said, danger lacing his tone.

“I don’t want a lie.”

“Why not think of it as just another version? A better version. Really, no less truthful than the last. Perhaps even more truthful. Think of it as another chance to go back to that road not taken. To see what it would be like. To live what it would be like.”

“You’re not him.”

“Aren’t I?”

Isobel eyed him, skittish as she marked his approach, even though there was nowhere to run. His words seeped into her, burrowing deep into the recesses of her mind, raising flags of doubt. He stopped at a distance, letting her eyes scour him, his hands folded at his back and his chin turned down, as though posing for a snapshot. Isobel stared in disbelief, unable to deny an underlying shadow-resemblance to Varen that she had never noticed before. Where it could not be found in his face or his demeanor, it pervaded his stature, his height—his very form.

She shook her head, refusing to believe that his words held even the merest fraction of truth. She could not accept that this thing, this hollow zombie nightmare version, could hold any direct link to Varen. “It’s not just stalling this time, is it?” she said. “Tell me why you’re doing this.”

He sighed, eyes rolling. “Blondes, always needing things explained.”

Isobel glared, hands curling into fists.

He smiled wistfully. “See, this is why I like you. You never give up, even when you should. We need a little bit of your resolve, useless as it is. I think that’s why, cheerleader. Because the truth is that I don’t want to kill you. Not if I can avoid it.”

He took another step forward. She hitched in a breath, her back smashing flat against the door. Her hand groped for the knob she knew she would not find.

“And that’s up to you,” he said, his tone softening. “If you’ll only play the game, stay in the dance with me a