Nevermore

32 Pinfeathers

Halfway out the door, Isobel slammed into her father, the makeshift raven flopping off his shoulder and once again onto the floor.

“Hey, whoa, Iz! I’m still here.” He gripped her shoulders to steady her. “How do you think we did? Hey, listen”—he dropped one arm to check his watch—“I better get on to the office so I can be back to pick you up before the game.” He bent to get the bird, and before Isobel could utter a syllable, six-foot-something Bobby Bailey stepped between them, blocking Isobel completely.

“Hey, man, that was awesome,” he said, engaging her father in a complicated series of handshakes and fist bumps.

“Hey, thanks,” her dad replied, navigating through the grips and punches as best as he could. “Uh, glad you thought so . . . man.”

Isobel peered down the hall both ways, searching for Varen’s familiar dark figure. Not seeing him, she elbowed Bobby aside. “Dad, this is important. Did you see which way Varen went?”

Bobby butted fists with her father one last time before passing on. Her dad, stuffing the bird under one arm, frowned. “Yeah,” he said, pointing, “he took off down that way. Didn’t even say hi or, you know, thanks.”

“Daddy, thanks. Listen, that was great.” She hugged him quickly, then shoved the boom box into his grasp. “Can you take this for me? I gotta go!” She turned without waiting for a reply and ran off through the crowd, jumping up to see over the tops of bobbing heads. It was at times like these that she hated being so short. She also hated leaving her dad like that, standing in the middle of the chaotic hall, still dressed as Poe and carting around her blue stereo.

At first she didn’t see him. Then the way cleared, and suddenly he was there. Isobel shoved her way through.

“Varen!”

Hadn’t he heard her? She shot after him, almost catching up. She called to him again—why wouldn’t he turn around? He rounded the corner without looking back. She swung around the bend right after him—then skidded to a halt.

He was gone.

He’d been right there in front of her not two seconds ago and now, in the space where he should have stood . . . nothing.

Isobel peeked into the nearest classroom. Vacant. She turned again, this time in a slow circle. Lockers slammed. Somewhere in the distance, she recognized the shouts of her favorite call-and-response chant: “When I say Trenton, you say Hawks! Trenton! Hawks! Trenton! Hawks! When I say down, you say Bulldogs! Down! Bulldogs! Down! Bulldogs!” More students streamed by her, laughing and chattering, no one seeming to have noticed one person’s total evaporation.

When Isobel entered the lunchroom, she found Gwen right away, sitting at their table. Stevie was there too, which wasn’t a big surprise. Someone she hadn’t expected to find, though, sitting at one far end, picking through her untouched taco salad, bedecked in cheerful dangling earrings yet still managing to look mopey, was Nikki.

For a moment their eyes met. Isobel resisted the urge to look away, to steal a glance toward where she knew the crew would be sitting. Or, she corrected herself, where what was left of the crew would be sitting. With Nikki attempting to cross over and merge with the light side (if that indeed was what she was trying to do), Isobel figured the crew should be neatly split somewhere down the middle.

At this newest complication, Isobel found herself more annoyed than anything, wishing Nikki had picked another day. Yesterday, for instance. She didn’t have time for drama right now.

She switched her gaze to Stevie, who waved, no doubt on Nikki’s side for her attempt at a smooth convergence.

“Hey, Iz,” he called, “where’ve you been?”

Isobel came to a stop beside the table, letting her bag drop to the floor. “Long story.”

“You know,” said Gwen, after swallowing a mouthful of what looked to Isobel like a peanut butter and banana sandwich, “I’ve seen that look before. Not on you”—she shook her head—“on somebody else. I think his name was Rambo.”

“Gwen.”

“Isobel,” Gwen said, echoing her tone of seriousness.

Isobel swiveled where she stood, then sat so her knees faced out instead of in. This put her back to Stevie and Nikki. “Listen,” she said in a low voice, “can you still get me to that thing tonight?”

Gwen took another bite of the goopy sandwich and smiled. “I thought you said you didn’t want to go.” The words were barely decipherable.

Isobel frowned. She’d never said she didn’t want to go. She had wanted to go, only more so now because she had a gut feeling that if she was going to catch up to Varen at all, she would need to find him there, tonight, at the Grim Facade.

“Hey,” said Gwen, jabbing a bony elbow in Isobel’s ribs, “what’s with you? You’re doing that creepy stare-off thing again. What made you change your mind, anyway? Not that I was really going to give you a choice in the first place since I got Mikey to tag me. How come you’re not eating? Where’s your lunch? Talk to me here. Did you guys get the project done or what? And where is the Dark One, anyway? I haven’t seen him all day.”

He should be here at this table, Isobel thought, clenching a fist.

A new thought dawning on her, she lifted her gaze to scan the room. She looked toward the goths’ table. The congregation there was sparse, probably in aversion to the pep rally and the chaos of rival game day. And it was Halloween. No doubt they were all somewhere getting ready for their own celebration, for the Grim Facade. Among those missing from the table, Isobel couldn’t help but notice, was Lacy.

“Are you just going to sit there and ignore me?” came a quavering voice. Nikki.

Isobel pulled her feet up, turned around, and slid her legs underneath the table. She wished that she didn’t have to deal with this, of all things, right now.

“Just tell me if you hate me,” Nikki went on. She propped her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands—a condemned prisoner begging the executioner to hurry up with the ax already. “Tell me off or something.” Her chin trembled. “But don’t just sit there and ignore me.”

Isobel averted her eyes with an actual pang of guilt. “Nikki.” She sighed.

All at once, she sucked her breath back in.

“Omigod, Gwen.” She reached out, fixing a clawlike grip on Gwen’s arm. Her banana sandwich missing her mouth, it tumbled to the side and onto the floor.

“Omigod what? I was so gonna eat that.”

“Who’s that guy?”

“What guy?”

“That guy,” Isobel said, her hand tightening on Gwen’s arm. “Sitting with Brad.”

Both Stevie and Nikki swung around to look.

Sitting right next to Brad was a boy with porcelain white skin, his dark bloodred hair slicked back, sleek yet somehow spiky. His clothes were black leather and chains. Beneath the table, she could see he wore boots, and his pants were covered with buckles and dull silver chains. He had on a thin strap-covered black coat that almost looked like a straitjacket. It fitted snugly against the boy’s spindly frame.

“Where?” asked Gwen. “I don’t see anybody.”

“He’s sitting right there. Right next to Brad. Nikki, you see him, right?” Isobel glanced at her former best friend, only to be met with an expression of hurt and doubt.

“Are you making fun of me or something?”

“What? No! I—”

“Iz,” Stevie interjected, “Nikki has been trying to say she’s sorry.”

“No, I know!”

“Tch!” Scooting her tray aside, Nikki pulled her ostrich legs out from the table and rose. “I knew you wouldn’t listen.” Leaving her tray behind, she stalked off, hurrying toward the courtyard doors. With a heavy sigh, Stevie drew himself up. Before turning to follow, he eyed Isobel with baleful disapproval.

She shook her head. “No, this isn’t about that! Look!” She pointed. “He’s right there! He’s sitting right there. He’s got . . .” Ignoring her, Stevie turned to head Nikki off at the door.

Isobel let her gaze trail after them for a moment until, looking back, she saw that the boy sitting next to Brad had turned to stare at her. She quickly lowered her arm, something in her gut telling her she shouldn’t have pointed.

“Isobel,” Gwen started, “no offense, but I’m gonna have to go with the cheeries on this one. Not funny.”

Transfixed, Isobel watched as the blood-haired boy raised a thin, abnormally long hand, the tips of which ended in long, red, talonlike claws. He waved at her, and she felt her stomach plummet to the floor. Her mouth went as dry as paper.

They couldn’t see him. No one could see him. No one but her. Even Brad, who was sitting closest to the boy, hadn’t been paying any attention. He’d been bent low over the table, conferring with Mark, who hadn’t seemed to take any notice either. And Alyssa, indifferently listening in, sat coating her nails in polish, oblivious.

“I’ll . . . I’ll be right back,” Isobel mumbled, gripping the table for support as she rose.

“What? Wait a sec, where are you going? Isobel. You’re not seriously going over there. Hey! Are you crazy? Sit down!”

She felt Gwen swipe at and catch the hem of her pleated skirt. She pulled free, however, her heart drumming a steady rhythm in her ears as she headed toward the wide windows paneling the wall, walking in a straight line toward the crew’s table. She was surrounded by the low murmur of talking, the clank and clatter of silverware and trays. Somewhere behind her, a table erupted into laughter. It all felt so real, so normal.

The muttering between Brad and Mark ceased when Alyssa, with one yet-to-be-slathered nail, tapped the space between them. “Hey,” she said, “look who’s coming over to chat.”

But she wasn’t there to talk. Not to them, at least.

Sitting one seat over from Brad, closest to the window, the blood-haired boy leaned forward, turning his head toward her, revealing the other side of his face. Isobel froze, her eyes locking on the jagged black hole that marked his cheek, as though an entire chunk of his face had been knocked out, like a chink in a porcelain vase. She could see straight through, to his hollow jaw and the two rows of red daggerlike teeth within.

Fear pulsed through her, and yet she stood hypnotized. He was horrible and fascinating all at once, like a scorpion prepared to strike, all angles and sharp lines and menace.

Running now on pure nerve, Isobel took up her steps again, determined to prove to herself that this wasn’t a hallucination—that she was awake, and this was real. The boy’s eyes followed her, eyes that she now saw held no irises, whole only in their blackness.

“Well hey, Isobel,” Brad said, greeting her with mock enthusiasm, “what a surprise.”

“So you can see me,” said the boy. The sound of actual words coming out of his mouth startled her. His voice was quiet, smooth, and acidic, somehow corroded in essence, as though he was speaking through a thin layer of radio static.

It was eerily familiar.

This close, Isobel could see that his hair, which really was more like coarse feathers, grew darker, almost black toward the roots that weren’t roots at all, but thick quills sprouting from his scalp. “That’s very interesting,” he continued, “that you can see me like this.” He smiled, flashing a dangerous, dark pink mouth filled with jagged teeth the color of red coral.

Isobel swallowed, clearing the way for her own voice. “Who are you?”

Brad flipped his fork onto his tray, and Isobel jumped at the clatter. She’d almost forgotten he was even there.

“Aw, c’mon, Iz,” he said, “don’t give me that old ‘I don’t even know who you are anymore’ crap. And don’t pretend I didn’t warn you.”

Suddenly the blood-haired boy moved. Isobel’s focus snapped to him as, in a series of quick, jerky motions, like a DVD on fast-forward, he brought an arm across Brad, extending a red-clawed hand toward her. “The name is Pinfeathers.”

Isobel drew back half a step, making no move to touch him, staring instead, as though it were a dead rat he’d offered her and not his hand. His nails, more like the scarlet fangs from some deadly venomous snake, gleamed in the light.

“What, you leaving already?” Brad said. “Is that it? You trying to be deep or something? I don’t get it.”

Pinfeathers withdrew his hand. “Oh, don’t trouble yourself with introductions,” he said. “I know you. You’re the cheerleader.” He blinked at her sharply, cocking his head to one side.

“Now, you might not realize this,” he said, “but you and I, well, we’ve met before.”

Isobel found herself once again staring into the hole in Pinfeather’s cheek, her gaze held by the scarlet teeth and the movement of his jawbone as he spoke. There were no muscles, no tendons, no cartilage, nothing to hold him together, only hollow blackness.

He raised a clawed finger to point at the missing portion of his face. “Oh, don’t let this bother you. Happens to the best of us.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Brad snorted. “I sit here.”

“Duh,” Alyssa chimed in, smearing another coat of polish onto her thumbnail.

“I like your friends here,” Pinfeather said. “Especially the big one.” He brought a claw toward Brad’s face, poking lightly at his ear. Isobel watched in horror as Brad swatted at the nonexistent fly.

“Stop it.”

Pinfeathers drew his hand away, using the same claw to point at her now. “Never pegged you for the jealous type.”

“Don’t touch him again.”

Brad smiled suddenly, broadly. The unexpected expression startled Isobel so much that for a moment she was distracted from the weirdness that was Pinfeathers. “Ah, I thought that might have something to do with you comin’ over. Haven’t seen his face all day, so he must have told you.”

Isobel shifted her gaze back to Brad now, her concentration zeroing in with effort on his self-satisfied expression. His inflection on the word “he” could only have meant one person.

“Wh-what?”

“Uh-oh,” Mark said, biting off a piece of his roll.

Wait, Isobel thought, what had she missed? What was going on? She looked to Alyssa next in her search for clarification, but knew her mistake in doing so when the other girl, returning to her nails, displayed only a knowing smile.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded of the three of them. “What’s going on?” she said, this time appealing to Pinfeathers.

The creature winked and tapped his thin white lips with a red claw, like he was letting her know the best part was coming.

“Well,” said Brad. He wiped his hands with his napkin, then crumpled it and tossed it onto his tray. “Let’s see, Iz.” He pushed his tray away and folded his hands on the table. “We caught up with your little bloodsucking boyfriend last night after he dropped you off, that’s what. Did he, uh, happen to mention anything to you about it? See, Mark and I had a bet going.

I said he’d run to you first thing, but Mark—Mark’s giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

Isobel watched dully as Mark leaned in to murmur something to Brad that she couldn’t catch. Their laughter ensued. Pinfeathers listened too, folding his hands on the table, mimicking Brad’s posture.

“We waited for him by your house, and then we followed him,” Mark said, as though it were as simple as that.

“I felt we needed to have a talk. A one-on-one,” Brad explained, “about the defacement of personal property.”

“We did give him a choice,” said Mark.

“Yes. We were very diplomatic.” Brad nodded.

“He surprised us,” Mark said, an almost appreciative note to his voice.

“Yeah, we’d thought for sure he’d pussy out and opt for us trashing his car.”

Mark shook his head. “But he didn’t.”

“Nope. He didn’t.”

“You’d have been proud of him, Iz.”

“Yeah,” Brad admitted, “we were impressed.”

Her throat tightened. “You’re lying.”

“Nope,” Brad said. “No, Iz, we’re not.” He leaned forward, blocking Pinfeathers from her view, looking her in the eye. He lowered his voice. “And don’t go off thinking this was about you, because it wasn’t. He deserved it, and you know what he did as well as I do.”

At these words, Isobel felt something hot inside of her rush up and snap, like an electric cable.

“Don’t you get it?” Before she could stop herself, she lashed out, flipping his Coke over. Ice clattered out of the tall blue cup, liquid splashed over the table. Alyssa screeched and slid away. Brad shot up from his seat as soda cascaded onto his lap. “He didn’t touch your car!” she shouted. “And I know you’re lying!” He was toying with her. They were just trying to get a rise. She’d seen Varen not twenty minutes ago. He’d been fine.

Or maybe, she realized, her thoughts jarring, maybe that’s why he’d sunk so slowly into his chair. Maybe that’s why he’d refused to remove his glasses. Maybe that’s why he’d avoided her.

“Does this look like I’m lying?” He moved out from the table to tower over her. Her eyes darted briefly to Pinfeathers, who watched unblinking. Lifting his pinky, Brad aimed it at a large blood blister on his upper lip that she hadn’t paid attention to until now. Brad was a running back, and she was used to seeing him with scrapes and bruises.

“Hey!” came Mr. Nott’s shout from the far end of the room, followed immediately by the hard, fast jangling of keys.

Brad bent low to speak into her ear. She felt powerless to do anything but listen. “He was a real sport about it. He only clipped me once, but by that time I was done, and I let it go,

’cause I said something I shouldn’t have. Somethin’ about you, Iz.”

Horrified, she recoiled, and Mr. Nott, coming to a jangling halt, stepped into the widening space between them, asking in his deep, authoritative voice the obligatory, “What’s going on here?”

“I spilled my Coke, sir,” Brad announced over the sudden quiet. A few titters ran through the table next to them. If the whole entire cafeteria hadn’t been watching before, they were now. “It was an accident, sir. Pregame jitters.”

Isobel returned her gaze to the table, where Pinfeathers watched her. His expression seemed darker now, his humor gone, and the fathomless black of his eyes now threatened to swallow her. “Don’t look so lost, cheerleader,” he said. “I’ve watched you watching him— us, I mean. I even tried to warn you. But you wouldn’t listen. You waited, and now it’s too late.

For you . . . for us.”

“Isobel, did you hear me?” Mr. Nott asked. “I said, go take your seat.”

Isobel didn’t move. She found her gaze unable to waver from Pinfeathers, from his face as it seemed to struggle and twist between several emotions, finally contorting into a grimace of malice and pain. Why did that make him suddenly so familiar?

“Miss Lanley, are you deaf today? I said, go take your seat.”

In one blinking movement, Pinfeathers lunged at her, jaw unhinging, the black hole in his face widening. Teeth bared, claws outstretched, he unleashed an ungodly sound, something between a woman’s death screech and a demon’s howl.

It happened too fast for her to form her own scream, too fast for her raised arms to do any good. His claws rained down.

Isobel fell back, knocking into the table behind her. A shrieking torrent of jet feathers engulfed the light. His form loosened into violet smoke, and like a demon sucked into hell, he vanished into the floor.