Nevermore

43 The Oblong Box

The passageway ahead grew colder, narrower, and more maze-like. Her breath clouded in front of her, visible even in the fading light.

She listened again for the sound of screams but heard whispers instead. They seeped through the walls.

Isobel slowed her run and pressed closer to the damp stone, her fingers trailing as she strained to hear. The voices seemed to be moving along beside her, through whatever room lay on the other side.

She hurried along the passageway, struggling to keep up with the lingering sound of a long, low moan, one that had issued from the midst of the hissing snickers and low cackles. One she knew belonged to Brad.

She rounded the next bend, suddenly finding herself within a large circular room. Dark doorways lined the walls, each like the gaping mouth of a monster. Knowing there was no time to deliberate, she took one on her left, a tunnel-like entrance. This snaking pathway of stone, mortar, and dampness seemed to take her down and down. So far that the whispers and groaning faded. Along the walls and clinging to the stone overhangs, Isobel could make out the edges of a crystallized white substance. She hesitated, wondering if she should turn back, if she’d taken the right way. Was there a right way?

She pressed forward, lured through the blindfold of darkness by the promise of a glimmering, uneven light that danced against a portion of the stone wall far ahead. Shoulders hunched against the damp and cold, she passed one hand along the gritted wall to guide her. Something hard crunched under her feet, and Isobel willed herself not to look, not to even imagine what sort of matter covered the floor.

She stepped into the pocket of dim light, which illuminated a bridgelike portion of the passageway, one that overhung a vast and open vault of catacombs. Her eyes followed the orange-yellow flickering to its meager source—a torch. There, far below, a man worked in solitude. Divested of his cloak and coat, a trowel in one hand, he busied himself in laying a brick wall across a gaping black archway.

A clanking echoed from within the hole, as though from chains. A tingling of bells issued forth, and Isobel froze, her eyes widening with the realization that there was someone inside the recess. At once she recalled the pair of men she’d heard when she had first stepped through the doorway that had transformed into the ebony clock. There had been one with a mask and a cloak, and hadn’t the other worn a hat with bells?

The man working to wall up the hole paused, a brick in one hand. Slowly he turned his head until his eyes met with hers. She fell back with a gasp, then plunged headlong down the darkened path.

She ran, the floor snapping and popping underfoot.

Around the next corner, at the end of the long corridor, Isobel saw a shaft of soft blue light. It streamed through an open archway, and she sped toward it. Her footing slipped on the jagged edge of something hard, and she tripped forward, slamming onto the stone, sending up a rush of dust.

The light confirmed her worst fears. Bones and ash scattered the floor.

Her fingers curled in the grit as she pushed herself onto her knees.

No, wait, she thought. Not bones at all.

Hand shaking, Isobel slid her fingers beneath what had looked to her a moment before like the cap of an ancient skull. It was, instead, the broken sliver of a porcelain face, the curve of a cheek all too evident in the outline. All the pieces were similarly identifiable. Broken fingers, like tiny tombstones, lay scattered in the dust. Half of a hand here. Part of an arm there. A jaw. An ear.

Isobel flung the shard aside. She stood, wiping her hands on the folds of her grime-caked dress, then pressed them to either wall to steady herself. She continued through the passage, finally stepping past the shaft of blue light and through the narrow archway. She drifted over the threshold and down one step, finding herself suddenly within the confines of a large marble crypt.

Slats of blue-gray light funneled down from high square windows, each no larger than a letter-size envelope. Inside, the smell was dry and sharp, like burnt paper. Countless broken and misshapen faces stared sightlessly down at her from their perches along marble shelves lining the four tall walls. More hollow and intact appendages littered the outer edges of the space, strewn like the remnants of discarded marionettes.

At the front of the crypt, an iron door stood ajar. Backed by blue-tinted stained glass, the door was the source of the sapphire light, which fell like a translucent gauze over the crypt’s centerpiece—an elevated stone tomb. Atop the tomb, chiseled in polished marble, lay the carving of a beautiful woman, her eyes closed in death, her cold stone hands fastened around an equally frozen bouquet of roses. Isobel knew she had seen that face before, had watched it emerge from the unfolding blackness that had claimed Varen.

The woman’s hair, like that of a sorceress, lay spread around her head. It draped over the sides of the sarcophagus in long, coiling tendrils. Her marble dress, heavy and flowing, like the inaugural gown of a queen, spilled from either side of the elevated tomb while the embellished train fell in gentle folds along the stairs leading down from the base. The pleats and endless ripples in the marble garment gave the illusion of softness, her face the illusion of life. It was as if at any moment Isobel could expect to see her chest rise and fall with the intake and release of breath. Perhaps the most disturbing element about the tomb, however, was that the impossibly heavy lid had been shifted open.

Isobel didn’t dare climb the steps and peer inside, knowing that the only thing worse than finding a withered body within would be not finding one. She waded instead through the carpet of broken faces and parts until she reached the crypt door.

“Mistress?”

At the sound of the voice, low and grating, she halted.

“Mistress, is that you? Have you returned?” the voice asked, curious.

Isobel’s hand stopped short of the iron-and-glass door. She pulled back and, with careful steps, drew to peer around the other side of the sarcophagus.

He sat slumped against the far wall, half of him lost in shadow. A Noc. He looked up, his dark gaze focusing on her. “Ah,” he said, grinning, “now there’s a surprise. Tell me, what demon has tempted you here?”

He was different from the other Nocs. This Isobel noticed right away. Instead of a dark red to black, his hair was deep black to blue-violet. As he lifted his head from the wall, his hair spiked up from his skull like the feathered crest of a bird. His teeth, pointed like the tips of countless sharpened pencils, gleamed an unsettling indigo. Though his face was whole, he was missing nearly half of himself on one side, including an arm from the shoulder down, part of his abdomen, and his leg from the knee. A thin layer of dust coated his dark pants, evidence that he’d not moved for some time.

He wore no shirt or jacket, which was what revealed the most unusual thing about him.

Scrolling designs covered much of his exposed skin. His chest, sculpted and smooth like a Greek statue’s, depicted minutely detailed tattoos of sailing ships, tossing waves, and foam. A long-haired mermaid graced his existing shoulder, her scaly tail sweeping the length of his arm. An entire portion of the sea epic vanished into the pit of his missing side, and though the pictures themselves might have been beautiful, Isobel was too distracted by the fact that they had been chiseled into his skin like carvings. That thought, combined with his demonic grin, the garish white of him, and the jagged gaps in his body, made them somehow vulgar.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Not who”—he wagged a blue-clawed finger at her— “what.”

“Fine,” Isobel obliged, “what?”

“Baffled,” he replied, “at how you, fetching though you are, could have cost me an arm and a leg.”

Isobel stepped out fully from behind the tomb, eyeing him warily.

“If I had known about your masked friend,” he continued, “and his way with a sword, I’d have let Pin go first in the chase.”

“Chase?” she asked, her voice echoing through the crypt.

He grinned and pointed at something behind her with a detail-swirled finger of his existing hand. “Be a doll,” he said. “Show your worth and hand old Scrimshaw that empty limb over there.”

Isobel glanced over her shoulder, where against the side of the open tomb lay a hollow arm, complete from shoulder to wrist, though missing its hand.

Her head whipped back to him and she stared in disbelief, all other questions forgotten. She watched as, with his remaining hand, he rooted through the pile of dust beside him and pulled free a large shard. He held it against his gaping body, like someone trying to determine where a puzzle piece might best fit. With horror, Isobel realized what he was doing. He was piecing himself back together. Was that possible? She took a step back, her footstep crunching.

He looked up. “No?” he said.

She took another step back from him.

“There’s gratitude,” he muttered, the shadows overtaking his form once again as she receded. “Ah,” he said, and began to sing softly to himself in a lilting tune.

“Can it have been the woodlandish ghouls—

The pitiful, the merciful ghouls—

To bar up your way and to ban it

From the secret that lies in these wolds—

From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds—?”

Isobel turned and ran for the iron door. Behind her, he laughed, the lyrics of his dreadful song rising in volume.

“Well you know, now, this dim lake of Auber—

This misty mid region of Weir!”

She grasped the side of the iron and tugged inward. With a screech for each pull, the door gave inch by inch until it yielded a space big enough to slide through. She eased out, a panel of lace ripping free from the skirt of her dress.

“Well you know, now this dank tarn of Auber,

This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir!”

Isobel pushed the door shut behind her, blocking out his voice with one last shriek of iron and rust.

Outside, gray ash coated the ground of a silent cemetery. Flecks of white sifted from the purple sky, falling through the arid atmosphere to gather like snow atop the countless crooked tombstones that pockmarked the grounds in crowded patches. They leaned into and away from one another like scattered, broken teeth. Stone angels and grim, robed figures wept and grieved at the sides of aboveground tombs, while in between it all stood several of the same thin black trees as from the woodlands. Beyond the cemetery, the jagged edge of a cliff split the sky from the ground, stretching in a serrated rift spread as far as she could see.

Behind her, attached to the crypt, loomed the cathedral-like castle, the abbey from Poe’s story within which raged the masquerade. Its spires pointed toward the ashen sky, jagged and wicked, like the spine of a slumbering dragon.

The view was all stillness and quiet, like some creepy charcoal etching brought to life.

Until the sound of loud knocking shattered the sanctuary quiet.

Isobel kept close to the side of the crypt, pressing one hand to the cold marble wall as she moved away from the stained-glass door. Soon the Nocs drifted into view. She counted six of them altogether as they exited from the iron doors of another vault.

They bore aloft on their shoulders what she recognized at once as a long wooden coffin. Her heart jarred at the sight of it, fear tightening her chest.

A shout arose from within, followed by the clatter of more knocking.

On top of the coffin, like a king, perched a great black bird. In between dry croaks, it pecked at the lid, as though in answer to the knocks coming from within.

Pinfeathers. He made seven.

Another anguished cry for help came from inside the oblong box, and now she was certain. It was Brad inside that coffin. But how had they brought him here?

Isobel remembered how, on the playing field, Brad’s eyes had turned black. Just like Varen’s, they’d lost the vibrancy of color within the beat of an instant. But when Brad’s eyes had changed, his body had remained on the field, unconscious. How, then, had he been transported here?

Isobel slipped away from the crypt. She followed them, venturing through the tangle of trees, ducking behind monuments and tombstones. She stopped at the side of a tall winged seraph weeping into her stone hands, and watched them from a distance.

Like bizarre pallbearers, they carried the coffin along toward a misty clearing encircled by more black trees.

Nearby, a mound of dirt awaited, pricked by the spade ends of several shovels. Their handles, like needles in a pincushion, stood erect from the pile, ready to be put to task.

In front of the mound, as a marker, loomed a tall, shrouded statue. A long hooded robe concealed the form’s entire head and swathed its arms, which were held open over the gaping maw of the black grave.

Isobel squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. But she didn’t wake up. The scene remained. The screaming remained. It was all the same, only now the Nocs lowered the coffin from their shoulders.

“Let me out!” Brad shouted.

The Nocs laughed and together heaved the coffin into the hole. Pinfeathers squawked and fluttered up from the lid while the box landed with a crackling thud. A rush of ash burst forth from the grave. Brad howled.

Isobel drew in a sharp breath, her heart pounding so hard that it started a ringing in her ears. She gripped the base of the stone angel that hid her as if, somehow, it could give her strength.

This was insane. They were going to bury him alive, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Why had she followed them out here? What did she think she could do to stop them? What could she do to stop any of this? It was just her. And the Nocs.

They would shred her to bits.

“Please! Let me out!” Brad screeched.

Isobel forced herself to look again. She watched Pinfeathers morph out of his bird form. He took shape standing at the foot of the grave, staring down. Like buzzards, the other Nocs gathered in, positioning themselves around the opening.

“Please!” Brad shrieked, banging again, scratching.

Unable to bear it any longer, Isobel burst forth from her hiding place. She had no plan. She had no idea what she could possibly do to save Brad. Up until the moment that she reached the grave, she had nothing but the pure rush of adrenaline. Then, without thinking, she snatched up one of the shovels from the mound. Brandishing it like a club, she swung the shovel blade-first into the back of one of the unsuspecting Nocs.

The shovel hit its mark—and kept going. The blade swiped cleanly through him, caving his body with a crash. The creature shrieked before toppling into the grave, where he burst apart against the coffin lid.

Isobel stared at the place where the Noc had shattered, shocked at her own actions.

A collective howl arose from the other Nocs. In turn, each of them loosened into their purple-smoke selves, re-forming into the shapes of maddened birds.

Isobel swung the shovel freely amid the frenzy of feathers and wild flapping. The murder of crows screeched and cawed. She batted at them blindly. Panicked, they scattered. Isobel twirled, raising the shovel again. Something jarred it in her grasp.

White hands clasped the shovel’s handle on either side of hers. Pinfeathers towered over her, his bloodred shark’s teeth gritted in rage, his porcelain face a mask of fury.

“You!” he bellowed. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

That was it. Detaching one hand from the shovel, Isobel reared a fist back and let it loose. Pinfeathers arched away from the attack, releasing the shovel. Thrown backward, Isobel felt herself tip into the open grave. She hit the lid of the coffin inside with a bone-jarring slam.

Over the lip of the grave, Pinfeathers’s wiry frame appeared.

“Why did you come back?” he seethed.

Isobel spat ash from her mouth. She wiped sweat and grit from her eyes and leveled a defiant glare up at him.

“Time and again!” he snarled, livid, yet somehow . . . concerned? “You should have left when I gave you the chance!”

Isobel tightened her hand around a wad of dirt. She unleashed it at him. He hissed, recoiling as the spray caught him in the face.

Somewhere in the distance, a bell tower began to chime the hour. Loud, brazen bongs ricocheted through the cemetery. It was a sound that gripped her, wrung her with its meaning.

Midnight. It was midnight.

“Help!” came a raw gurgle from the pine box beneath her.

Isobel whirled. Hands and knees on top of the coffin, she cleared away the top layer of dirt and broken bits of Noc.

“Cheerleader!”

Isobel turned to glare over her shoulder.

Pinfeathers knelt down at the edge of the grave. He stretched one clawed hand out to her. “Take my hand. Leave him!”

Isobel grabbed for the shovel that had fallen in with her and, grasping it, swung it at Pinfeathers. He caught it easily, his forearm stretched firm along the handle.

“Stop fighting me and come!” he growled.

Isobel snarled between gritted teeth. She kept her grip on the shovel, and placing one foot against the wall of the grave, she twisted, pushing off, wrenching the shovel handle like a lever. A sharp crack echoed through the graveyard, followed by a howl. Isobel fell free, landing on her backside atop the coffin while Pinfeathers’s snapped arm toppled limp into her lap.

He recoiled with a long hiss. His frame loosened once more, and he became a mix of wisps and bird. He floated above the grave, a dark mass emitting hoarse croaks and inhuman wails.

His wings beat at the air with a broken rhythm, his bird’s body twirling in a spiral, struggling to gain the purchase of flight. His face appeared through the vapor, long enough to roar at her.

Then, as violet mist, he swept away, black plumes escaping his wings, flitting down like fallen leaves into the open grave.

In the distance, the deep chimes of the hour continued to ring, and there was no way to know how many remained to be announced. Isobel threw the hollow, broken arm to one side and returned to the coffin, which had grown silent.

“Brad!” she called. She pulled at the wooden lid. It budged only slightly. Isobel whirled, looking for the shovel. She snatched it up and drove the blade against the side of the coffin. The wood cracked, but not enough. She tried again.

“Brad!”

She hacked the blade against the wood again, and this time a portion of one corner splintered off. Isobel dropped the shovel. She shoved her hands into the hole and pulled upward. The coffin lid came slowly. She conjured all her strength, pulling until at last the lid came free, clattering to the side just as the bell tower’s final chime bonged through the cemetery.

It was twelve midnight exactly.

Inside the coffin, Brad lay silent and shaking, his eyes fixed heavenward. He was dressed in a clean hospital gown, his broken leg bandaged in a thick blue cast. Isobel reached for him, but her hands swept cleanly through, as though he were a hologram.

“Brad!” she shouted.

His shaking intensified.

“Is-Isobel?” he murmured. His eyes stared sightlessly past her, focused on something above her.

She tried grasping for him again, but once more her arms ghosted straight through him.

Something thick, wet, and warm splattered against her arm, stopping her. She looked to see a bright crimson starburst of blood glistening on her forearm. Had she been hurt?

Another splatter came, this one straight into the open palm of her questioning hand.

Isobel looked up. Blood oozed from the statue looming above her.

Great streaks of red coursed the length of its robes, sliding down the folds of its stone gown, pooling in the dirt.

“Isobel!”

Brad flew upward and past her, his limp form yanked from the grave like a rag doll, plucked by an unseen force. He swept up, distorted and stretched, elongating as he was sucked one inch at a time into the visage of the statue. It drew him in, arching the moment it absorbed him completely, Brad’s screams snuffing into silence.

Within the darkened hood, two pinpricks of ruby light sprang to life.

Stone gave way to spilling folds of brilliant crimson. Blood soaking through the stirring fabric of its robes, the figure moved. It turned its head and stepped down from the anchor of its granite base. Isobel stared in motionless horror as the specter rounded the gaping hole in the earth, its blood-dabbled robes fluttering about its shape as it floated more than walked.

A heavy train of red fabric followed the form. It dragged through the ash, causing a cascade of red-stained grit to spill over her.

Isobel coughed and fell back, sprawling into the now empty coffin. She squinted through a haze of dust, mesmerized as she watched the dripping thing drift around the outer perimeter of the open grave.

“Brad?”

The figure stopped. Its glistening, fiendish gaze fell on her. From within the drape of its sleeve, it raised a hand over the open grave, over her. The blood-drenched, bone-thin fingers curled one at a time into a slow fist. Beneath her, she felt the ground tremble, then shudder. Above, the edges of her enclosure quivered, dirt and rock loosening until, at last, they broke forth in a tidal surge.

Earth poured over her in rushing waves from all sides. It fell against her body in heavy clods, a suffocating weight that fast became crushing.

“No!” she screamed, flailing. She thrashed, battling to loosen herself from the raining soil and ash that threatened to consume her. She fought to stand, causing the dirt to press more tightly around her. It claimed her legs, trapping her. She reached with both arms toward the edge of the grave, toward the open sky, but the earth gushed, building to her waist, to her chest. It piled past her shoulders, her head, and now raced to consume her arms, swallowing the light one fragment at a time. With it went the vision of the trees, the gravestones, the ashen sky, and the scarlet, blood-drenched visage of the Red Death.