Nevermore

11 Whispered Word

The sidewalk raced by beneath her pounding feet, the chilled autumn air stinging her lungs. As she ran, Isobel felt her body enter that uncomfortable place of being warm on the inside but cold with sweat on the outside. She knew she’d pay later for not having warmed up or anything before launching straight into a full-out run.

She tried to picture Danny still holding down the fort, doing whatever he could to direct attention away from her unusually quiet room, which her parents, by now, would have started to wonder about. And if they hadn’t, well, they would when they sat down to dinner and she wasn’t there.

She swung around a crosswalk pole, stopping to tap the silver button. The light changed, and with only a moment’s hesitation to check for traffic, she jogged across the street to Willow Avenue. She slowed, however, as a new thought entered her mind. She stopped and stared down the road where, just ahead, she could see one of the side entrances to the park.

She hesitated, taking a moment to breathe, to debate. She pulled the straps of her backpack forward, bringing the bag flush with her back, and she felt the weight of the Poe book as it pressed into her spine.

Even though the park was huge, with forest patches split by lots of twisty, turny roads and steep rolling hills, it would be a lot faster to cut through. And getting past the closed-off entrance and into her subdivision would be as simple as climbing over a low wooden gate. Growing up, she and Danny must have done it every weekend in the summer.

She glanced skyward. Through the smattering of clouds, three early night stars shone in the deepening blue, but it wasn’t completely dark yet. If she went through the park, if she ran the whole way and managed not to get lost, she’d make it in time for sure. She knew it.

Her mind made up, she darted for the park entrance.

On either side of the street loomed tall and haughty window-faced Victorian homes. They seemed to watch her as she veered past, taking the one-way blacktop road that curved upward into the park. Soon, the houses and buildings and streetlights fell away. Her path narrowed to a single, twisting lane of asphalt. Rows of trees and thick underbrush emerged on either side of her. The farther into the park she ran, the denser the surrounding forest grew.

Overhead, the interlocking patchwork of hanging boughs worked to transform her pathway into a darkening tunnel. Through the lacework of limbs, thick clouds inched by.

Isobel ran on, listening to the soft beat of her sneakers as they pounded the blacktop. She couldn’t wait to get home and into a hot shower. She thought about making herself some peppermint tea and maybe even going to bed early, even though she couldn’t say it was because she was looking forward to tomorrow.

Darkness crept in around her, spreading its fingers through the trees, working to smear them into a single black blur.

As she approached a fork in the road, she slowed, but only long enough to decide that she should keep going straight. She’d somehow forgotten that the city didn’t keep the park roads lit, and she hoped that if a car came up it would have its lights on, that she would hear it, and that the driver would see her.

She kept running, her breath the loudest sound in her ears. The only sound.

She frowned, at last admitting to herself that something had felt funny since she’d entered the park. Only now, however, could she place her finger on what.

She slowed her run to a jog, listening to the lonely, hollow clap of her sneakers.

Quiet.

Everything around her stood really still and really . . . quiet.

The breeze that had greeted her outside the bookshop had vanished somewhere between there and here, and she looked up now to find the tree limbs motionless, their leaves immobile.

Or were those leaves at all?

A black shadow moved in one of the trees, and Isobel registered the silhouette of one huge black bird. It made no sound, though it seemed to watch her from its perch. One of the leaves at its side moved. Another bird. Soon, with a ruffle of feathers, she noticed another and, on her other side, another.

One of them broke the silence with a caw, the sound falling harsh on her ears, rasping and raw.

Spooked, Isobel picked up the pace again, glad that cheerleading had kept her in such great shape. True, she wasn’t the world’s best runner, but she could keep going if she needed to, and right now, she needed to.

She wondered, an ice-water sensation rushing through her veins with the thought, if Bess could have followed her. Could poltergusties—or whatever they were—could they follow someone? Stick to them like parasites?

Isobel shook off the convulsive shudder that rattled its way through her shoulders. Stupid idea. No such thing as ghosts. Only stupid boys with morbid fascinations and old men who liked to slam doors.

Maybe the stillness was just her imagination. After all, this was a park. Parks were supposed to be placid. Serene. Maybe she just missed the sounds of traffic and people and the glare of artificial light. Besides, everything died in the fall anyway, right? All the little crickets had chirped their last sometime back in early September.

Still, she couldn’t help feeling that there should have been some sounds. Like a dog barking. Or a foraging squirrel. A rabbit or something.

She slowed to a stop again, this time so she could catch her breath. She leaned forward, clasping her knees, her own huffing all but reverberating in the silence. She glanced over her shoulder at the darkening stretch of road behind her, black, like a ribbon of ink. She looked forward once more. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the entrance to her neighborhood lay straight ahead from where she stood right now. If she was right, she’d enter a block behind her house and be home maybe even with a few seconds to spare.

But something else felt wrong now, and it wasn’t just the stillness.

Since she had stopped running, the air around her had seemed to compress, to grow denser. She couldn’t explain it, but it felt as though the night itself, unnatural in its calmness, had begun to move in on her, to close in tight.

Her nerves prickled. Along her neck and arms, all hairs raised to stand on end.

The idea that you could feel like you were being watched had always sort of struck Isobel as being corny in a Scooby-Doo kind of way. Now, though, as she turned and looked around at all the black trees with their skeletal arms tangled in a silent fight for space, she couldn’t help the sudden feeling that, somewhere among them, something watched her, waited for her to move again.

The birds were gone now. Which was weird, since she hadn’t heard them take off.

She listened.

Nothing. The silence grew, feeding on itself until it became a dull roar in her ears.

She continued on the road, though at a slower, quieter walk, and just when she started to think that listening to the eerie nothing might be worse than actually hearing something, a hushing sound—a fast whoosh—broke through from the line of trees at her right. She jumped, an ice pick of fear stabbing her through the middle so that, for a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

Whatever it was had been big. As in person big.

“Who’s there?”

Skoooshh!

Isobel whirled. This sound had come from the trees directly across the road. It came again from behind. She heard the pop of a branch, and the crush of dry leaves. She spun in a circle, and despite the cascade of sudden noise, the rustling and crackling, she could not sense so much as the slightest movement in any direction.

Isobel felt her throat constrict and her chest tighten. Her heartbeat sped to triple time. She turned and broke once more into a run, taking the road as hard and as fast as her legs would carry her. Her palms, cold and sweaty, tightened around the straps of her backpack, and she felt the Poe book pound against her.

Whatever it was in the woods, it followed her. Out of the corner of one eye, she thought she saw the edge of a dark something. Then there was another at her left. Figures, tall and long, rushed through the black gate of trees on either side of her, their movements too fast. Impossibly fast.

As she sped up, so did the dappled forms.

They seemed to multiply as, out of her periphery, she spotted yet another. This one glided away from the others to rush along the group of trees directly beside her. It moved through the trees, through undergrowth, dashing over the dry ground—a rippling form. She risked a quick glance, head-on, but saw nothing, only blackness and tangled branches and stillness. But that was impossible!

“Go away!” she screamed. She couldn’t outrun them, whatever or whoever they were. She couldn’t gain even the slightest bit of distance, and already a stitch the size of a softball had begun to knot itself in her side. She blocked out the pain, pushing through. Run. Run. Run!

“Run!” she heard someone hiss. A man.

It had come from the line of trees beside her.

Isobel tried to cry for help but couldn’t find the breath, able only to choke out a low sob. She couldn’t stop to scream, but she couldn’t keep going like this, either. She couldn’t breathe anymore. Her lungs stung from the cold while her sides ached with stiffening pain.

Why hadn’t she gone around the park like before? Why hadn’t she just—

The gate!

Straight ahead. There! She could see it.

Dizziness wafted in around her temples, but she wouldn’t stop now. Somehow, she knew that if she could just clear the gate, she would make it home. She’d be all right.

Reaching the gate, Isobel clasped a hand to the wood and, as she vaulted over, felt the stabbing reward of a thick splinter as it entered her palm. Her feet hit the dust and gravel pathway beyond. She teetered forward from the weight of her book bag and slammed to her knees. She picked herself up again, stumbling, scrambling, running even as her body begged her to stop.

The chains that held the swinging gate shut rattled behind her. Whispers and hisses. Someone laughed, but the sound morphed into a high-pitched shriek. She heard a splintering shatter—like a crash of plates.

She dared not turn around.

To her left and right, familiar houses zoomed by, looking like shocked faces in the low street light. She tore past them, and even as her own house drew into view, she did not slow. She willed her body to keep moving in spite of her screaming muscles, the torturous ache in her lungs.

“Isssobel.”

The sound of her name whisked by her, caught by the wind and then lost in the rush of leaves scattering around her feet. She had heard it, though. Her name. Someone had whispered her name.

That, at last, stopped her and brought her stuttering to a halt at the edge of her front yard. She wheeled around, eyes scanning. She gasped for breath, sucking down air in huge gulps.

She peeled her backpack off and, mustering every bit of strength she had left, threw it onto the ground. It made a dull thud sound as the book within slammed to the cold, hard turf.

Whoever it was had said her name. That meant they knew her.

As though triggered by the flip of a switch, rage replaced her fear.

“Who’s there?” she shouted, heaving. “Who is it? Why don’t you just come out?”

She wiped her running nose with her sleeve, not caring.

“Brad?” she roared toward the oak in Mrs. Finley’s yard. “Mark? I know you’re there!” This she turned on a row of shrubs lining Mr. Anchor’s white fence.

“Brad, if that’s you, this isn’t funny, I swear to God it’s not! Wherever you are— whoever you are—!” As she shouted, Isobel bent down despite her wooziness and hauled up from the leaf-strewn grass a thick and gnarled branch. She swung it, teetering. “Come out already!” She waved the limb through the air again, swiping. “Come out so I can take this stick and shove it straight up your—”

“Isobel!”

Whirling, Isobel dropped the stick. It cracked against the asphalt.

Her mother leaned out the front door, her form cast in the buttery glow of the porch light. Arms crossed, tucked in against the cold, she squinted at Isobel, her expression undergoing a strange battle between concern and outrage.