Nevermore

once, unanimous in their recoil.

Isobel had to raise her head from the floor to look, to make sure that her mind hadn’t simply blocked the pain. It was the cutlass that lay broken and detached, though, and not any part of her. Her widened gaze shot immediately to Pinfeathers, who, still looming over her, raised the fractured hilt to his scrutiny.

“Hmm,” he said, “I was afraid that might be the case.”

Isobel took her chance. She grabbed the doorknob she’d made in the floor and twisted it. The ground beneath her swung free, and they toppled through.

Taken by surprise, Pinfeathers tumbled past her, while Isobel held tightly to the knob. She opened her mouth in a silent scream as her body jerked to a halt and she dangled above a world of ash, of withered leaves and black charcoal trees. She looked down between her feet in time to see Pinfeathers dispel into thick spirals of ink before he could shatter against the ground that lay no more than ten feet below.

It had worked, she realized, casting a quick glance around her. She was back! She’d made it to the woodlands.

The heads of the other Nocs appeared in a circle around the open door above her. Their whispers continued, and they turned their heads to look at one another, though not a one of them made even the slightest move to grab her.

Isobel’s grip on the doorknob began to slip. She let go and, prepared for the drop, landed squarely on her feet. Pinfeathers gathered himself once more into his humanoid form. He stood at a distance from her while other Nocs, morphing into birds, poured themselves through the open doorway. They lighted on the barren, swaying branches of the skeletal trees, watching, waiting.

Ash rained around them, heavy and thick enough to collect on the shoulders of Varen’s jacket. By now, Isobel’s hair had become completely unraveled, and it whipped about her face in a flurry of cold winds.

The purple sky overhead swirled and roiled like the eye of a hurricane. The door that hung open and suspended in the sky swung shut with the next gust of air. She peered through the trees, and there she saw another door. This one was narrower, familiar to her, and she knew it at once as the one she sought. It was almost, she dared to think, as if the door had been seeking her.

Or lying in wait.

As she approached, her eyes went to the two signs taped to the door’s surface. The words on the signs were written backward, but she didn’t need to read them to know what they said.

She knew that the top one read DO NOT ENTER, while the one below it warned the reader to BEWARE OF BESS.

46 Bedight in Veils

Isobel came to stand just in front of the door. Behind her the Nocs called and rasped wildly. Winds pulled and jerked at her hair, at the jacket and at the hem of her tattered dress. The paper signs taped to the door twitched and stirred in the bluster, threatening to blow away in a wind that was fast becoming violent. She reached for the doorknob, which was on the left side of the door this time, backward from what she remembered from the door in Bruce’s shop, just like the signs. There came a rustle at her side and she stopped, turning her head sharply to catch Pinfeathers’s jerky approach.

“Don’t,” she warned him.

He froze, leaving a distance of several feet between them. The other Nocs silenced and stilled themselves in the trees as Pinfeathers eyed her warily. She glared back coolly. It seemed that they now both understood what she was capable of.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, that static voice taking on a smooth, diplomatic tone. His gaze darted to the door, then back to her. “And so I’ll offer you that same warning.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. There was something very wrong about the way Pinfeathers worked. Hadn’t he tried to skewer her only a moment ago? So now why was he turning all Jiminy Cricket? And why, after fighting with her so fiercely in the graveyard, had he changed at that last second and offered her help?

That he’d wanted to toy with her had been evident right from the start. But it had become more than that. There was something else to him, a deeper secret lurking behind the hollow mask that was his face. Her thoughts went back to the purple chamber, to Pinfeathers and Varen’s strange conversation. What were they to each other?

Isobel knew it would be a dangerous question to ask the creature standing before her, and so she would keep it locked away, along with so many more, for Varen. She had other questions, though, for the apparent ringleader of the Nocs. “What will I find behind this door?” she asked.

“The other side of what you know,” he answered, with a laugh. “Just like me.” His smile faded.

A chill ran through her. “What do you mean?” She tried to make the question sound demanding, but even she couldn’t ignore the note of uncertainty and fear in her voice.

“Oh.” He sailed through the distance in quick, twitchlike motions until she became aware of him standing just behind her. His remaining arm wrapped around the front of her, across her chest, “I mean that you might not like what it is you find in there, that’s all.”

Stiffening, Isobel tolerated his closeness. At her side, her hands balled into ready fists. “You can touch me, but you can’t hurt me,” she guessed.

“Which works out,” he said admittedly. “Because, remember, I don’t want to hurt you. But you have to understand, Isobel, there is always that fine line.” As he spoke, his hand trailed up her collar, his touch featherlight. “Between doing what we want . . . and doing what we’re told.” Cold, his fingers wrapped around her throat.

Isobel gasped and grabbed for his hand. It dissipated at her touch, and her fingers clutched at her own skin. He swept around her, coils of violet and black mixed with the churning ash.

He reassembled to block the door, his form shimmering into solidity.

“Open this door, and no matter what, you’ll never close it,” he warned.

“Kind of like you and your mouth,” she snapped, and went to push past him. Fear flashed in his eyes and he loosened again, slithering aside. She grasped the handle, and at this, the Nocs in the trees renewed their frenzy. She could hear them flitting and rustling.

“You’re going to need a lot more in there than backflips and cute tricks, cheerleader,” Pinfeathers called. He slid away with a fearful whisper that sounded like “Tekeli-li!”

The cry was taken up immediately by the other Nocs. In hoarse, rasping croaks, they echoed the call. “Tekeli-li!” they shouted with their parched voices. She had heard it before, that first time she had found herself in the woodlands. But what did it mean? They took flight from the black branches and fought the turbulent air with their wings, carrying off the strange word with them until they vanished into spells of violet.

Left alone, Isobel turned her attention back to the door. She took in a quick breath, then twisted the knob. The door creaked as it opened inward. As she crossed the threshold, it felt as though she was moving through a screen of static. The electric sensation lingered over her skin like pins and needles as she passed into the small space of an enclosed staircase landing.

Immediately the wind at her back silenced. She glanced behind her to watch the world of ash and charcoal whip and toss. Traces of static blipped the scene, and it was like watching the whole thing on a muted television.

The air inside the stairwell was musty, like an old closet. Cold slats of gray-white light streamed down from the square window above the narrow wooden stairs. Dust particles filtered in and out of the stark light like tiny lost beings. The staircase itself, sandwiched between two wood-paneled walls, led up into what Isobel knew to be an attic.

Ash slipped from the sleeves and cuffs of Varen’s jacket as she moved forward to take the first step.

Isobel placed a hand on either wall. She took the second step, and it creaked low underfoot. In her chest her heart began to pound, rushing blood to her ears and adrenaline through her system. She could