Nevermore

16 Ultima Thule

Isobel blinked up at the ceiling. An unfamiliar tingle prickled along her limbs, like the faint buzz of static electricity. Some-how she’d skipped right over her normal waking-up routine of rolling around and punching her pillows and had just opened her eyes.

She’d been dreaming about something. Something important.

Him. She’d seen him.

Oh no, him.

She groaned, a dull ache creeping up from her spine to settle in her chest. Ugh. She didn’t even want to think of his name. She rolled over, squeezing her eyes shut, stuffing her face into her pillow. She wasn’t ready to remember what had happened, to recall the nightmare that had been the day before.

The faint pins-and-needles sensation, still there, buzzed through her like a soft vibration, though the closer she drifted to full consciousness, the faster it seemed to fade.

Isobel’s gaze slipped dazedly to her window, where she watched the half-naked tree limbs quiver and sway, waving in and out of her view, like clawed hands snatching at the sun.

The sun.

“Oh, crap!” she croaked.

Isobel sat up and pulled her alarm clock from the top of her headboard.

“Eleven thirty-five, oh my God!”

She’d slept through the rest of yesterday and into the next morning. She hadn’t set her alarm! She was supposed to be in Mr. Swanson’s class right this very second! Why hadn’t anyone woken her up? Why hadn’t . . . ?

Isobel stared at the clock, clutching it between her hands. Her eyes went slowly unfocused as the memory of last night’s dream struggled to resurface. Why did remembering feel so crucial? The blue numbers of her clock blurred against their black backdrop, burning into her eyes. She thought about the way they had gone haywire when—

“Reynolds,” she whispered.

She dropped the clock. It cracked against the wood of her bed frame, then thudded onto the carpet. Like a jolt of electricity to her brain, the image of her floating things seized her. She sat frozen, clutching the comforter beneath her. Her eyes scanned her room.

She saw her hairbrush, not on the floor but on her dresser, and behind it, her “Number One Flyer” trophy.

“Mom?” Her voice grated in her throat.

She swallowed against the pain and pulled herself out of bed, then padded to her door and opened it.

Isobel went very still, her hand tightening on her door handle. She stared down the length of the empty, silent hall, afraid to turn around. The book. Would it be there if she looked?

Slowly, her grip easing, she turned, her eyes trailing to her nightstand. She saw her dusty photo album of last year’s cheer events. Next to it sat her lamp, the shade trimmed in a skirt of pink and white beaded fringe, and a couple of hair ties.

No book. No Poe.

Realizing she’d been holding her breath, Isobel exhaled in one long rush that turned into a laugh at the tail end.

She stepped out into the hallway and down the stairs, past the collage of family photos. It made her feel silly, the idea that she’d taken something from her subconscious so seriously.

Cold white daylight streamed in through the front-door windows and through the lace curtains in the living room, but around her, the house seemed dim and dead. “Mom?” Isobel called out again, her throat now feeling slightly less like a cat’s scratching post.

One by one, she flicked on light switches as she reached them even though it wasn’t that dark inside. The false light afforded her little comfort. The silence was too thick. Her fingertips brushed the walls as she passed through the hall, moving toward the kitchen, where she knew she could find a cold ginger ale and maybe something to eat. She opened the fridge, opted for a Sprite, and drank half before closing the door again.

Isobel figured her fever last night had probably caused her mother to call the school for her that morning. So where was her mother now?

No school today. She couldn’t say that she wasn’t grateful. There was no way she’d have survived a repeat of the day before.

Isobel shut her eyes, trying to block Varen’s smooth, pale features from forming in her mind, but that only caused him to materialize more vividly. Grasping the handle of the fridge, Isobel rested her forehead against the cool surface. The cold felt so good against her skin. She turned to press her cheek there too. Wake up, Isobel. What’s the deal? Why can’t you get over it already? He’s just some guy. Some guy who’d she’d dreamt was having dreams about her. How completely whacked was that?

Why did he have to be so . . . so . . .

Isobel let out a growl of frustration, pushing off from the fridge. She took a noisy slurp from her Sprite and made a beeline straight for the pantry. She was going to pull a major Danny and find some Chips Ahoy to scarf down for breakfast.

She reached for the cabinet door and stopped.

A glint of gold on black caught her eye.

She looked, and the Sprite slid out of her grasp. It thumped onto the floor, and soda spread across the tiles with a quiet hiss.

There, on the kitchen table, sat the large, familiar black book, autumn sunlight gleaming off the gold-lined pages and the embossed title that read The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

“No!”

She grabbed the book and swept it from the table. It hit the floor, falling open on the kitchen tile.

Isobel drew back, her arms huddled against her body, her fists balled into tight knots beneath her chin. She could feel herself shaking. This couldn’t be for real, she thought. This couldn’t be happening. She’d thrown it away. She’d gotten rid of it. Last night had been a dream.

She stared down at the book. She watched a trickle of soda crawl across the floor toward it, and despite everything in her being telling her not to, she inched forward. Her shadow settled over a picture in the open book, a large black-and-white image of a pale-faced, sunken-eyed man.

A neatly tied cravat laced his neck like a fancy noose. A rumpled jacket, so black it nearly blended into the portrait’s background, was fastened in the middle by a solitary button. The man’s wide forehead gave way to sorrowful, downward-slanted brows. And then there were the eyes themselves. Dark wells.

Crouching, Isobel lifted the book out of the soda, which had begun to pool at its edge. She found herself at once entrapped by those eyes, transfixed because they seemed to stare right back at her, pleading with her in earnest for . . . for what?

Her gaze trailed down to the caption: “Ultima Thule” daguerreotype of Poe taken November 9, 1848, less than a year before the poet’s mysterious death.

Ultima Thule. Why did that sound familiar?

Isobel stared once again into his eyes. There was something about them, the way they pulled her in, the way they only dimly reflected the light, the way they resembled two black, coin-size holes.

She slammed the book shut.