Nevermore

Isobel backed away, somehow knowing that it would do her no good to rush forward and slam the door. She felt her back meet the wall.

As the figure crossed the threshold, she saw that he wore a white scarf over the bottom half of his face, and she recognized him instantly as the man from the bathroom—the figure from the mirror. He brought with him a scent both sweet and musty, like wilted roses, and the odor of perfumed decay permeated the air.

Her heart pounding, she watched wide-eyed as, behind him, the door eased closed by itself, blocking out the flashes of white light. When the door clicked into place, Isobel’s floating belongings dropped to the floor with a collective, carpet-muffled thud.

“Do not be alarmed,” the man said, his voice dry, husky, and low, like the sound of a match striking. Above the white scarf, his eyes glistened like sharp flecks of coal, and they seemed to chip right into her. “This is a dream.”

Isobel stood still and silent for another moment, her hands pressed flat to the wall behind her, as if its tangible presence held the power to ground her.

A dream?

Well, Isobel thought, taking a moment to consider the situation—her floating stuff, the hall lightning, followed by the entrance of creepy mystery man. Yeah, she could probably buy that this was a dream. It was the not-feeling-alarmed part she wasn’t so sure about.

“Who—who are you?”

“My name,” he began, as though he’d expected the question, “is Reynolds.”

She edged away from him, trying to put a greater distance between herself and Creepy McCreeperson. She bent down, careful not to let her eyes leave him, and plucked up a hairbrush from where it had fallen on her floor. She held it at arm’s length in front of herself, a stupid weapon feeling better than no weapon at all. At the very least, she could give him style.

“If this is a dream,” she said, “then there’s a good chance that—that I’m imagining you. Like the way I imagined you in the mirror. And that day at practice. If that was you. You’re . . .

a manifestation of repressed childhood . . . traumas.” Isobel crunched down hard on her brain, trying to squeeze out whatever vocabulary from her psychology class she’d managed to soak up.

“Your friend is in grave danger,” he said, cutting her off, his words coming clipped and short. “You would be wise to be quiet and listen. I haven’t much time.”

She stared as he made his way farther into her room. A glance toward her digital clock showed the numbers twitching and randomly changing on their own, as though her clock couldn’t make up its mind on what time it wanted to be.

“Then it sounds like you’re in the wrong dream, because I don’t have any friends.”

“Then it is a pity,” he said brusquely, his cold gaze narrowing on her, “that he has put you in so much danger. Because it is you she is after.”

She blinked as he turned, his great cloak swirling after him.

Isobel lowered the brush. She?

Her eyes remained trained on him as he drifted toward her nightstand, dipping a long-fingered hand into the folds of his cloak. As the fabric moved aside, Isobel thought she caught sight of the decorative hilt of an old-fashioned blade. The folds of dark, heavy fabric fell again, though, and she saw that he now held a book—one she knew, with its gold-leafed pages and thick black binding.

“Hey!” Stepping away from the wall, she dropped the brush. A thrill of something drummed up from inside her—a mix of relief and confusion. And fear. “I thought I . . .”

He set the book gently on the nightstand and passed a gloved hand over the gold-embossed title, his fingertips lingering over the words— The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

“I believe that this book has been given to you for a reason,” he said, turning his coal eyes once more onto hers. “I would not be so careless with it again.”

Isobel stared down at the book in disbelief. The very one she’d tossed into the school trash earlier that day. She could see the beige tonguelike ribbon sticking out of the bottom, and the gentle crease etched along its spine. And yet somehow it was here, safe.

“Mark these words,” he said, “The only way for you to gain power over what happens to you in the dreamworld is if you are able to realize that you are dreaming. If you cannot do this, you are beyond my help.”

Isobel shook her head, trying to fight her mounting confusion. The more this guy talked, the more he sounded like a fortune cookie. “What do I have to do with any of this? Who’s after me?”

“That name is best left unsaid. Words, Isobel, have always held the dangerous power to conjure things into being. Remember that.”