Oblivion

Like you, I had a mother and father. And a grandfather, with whom I was particularly close.

“Arthur Gordon Pym,” Isobel muttered, speaking into the book. “By . . . Edgar Allan Poe.”

She’d said the names aloud for a reason. Now that she had, it did not elude her that they carried such similar-sounding beats. Quickly another memory resurfaced—of a time when Reynolds had mentioned his friendship with Poe. Two sides of the same creepy coin, Reynolds had said.

Well, Isobel thought, flipping back to the title page and its lines about mutiny and the Southern seas—at least that explained the whole pirate sword thing.

Curious, she hooked a finger to catch the next segment of pages, preparing to flip straight to the end and read the last paragraph, when a low click from somewhere downstairs made her look up.

Her door frame stood empty. Dark. Quiet.

Then: eeEEEEEeee.

Isobel recognized the sound of the front door opening.

She grew still, listening for several more seconds. When she heard nothing else, she closed the book, set it aside, and, clenching her fist tight around the watch, reached with her free hand to pick up her bedside lamp.

Her fingers stopped just short of wrapping around the lamp’s middle.

Deciding this time to forgo her usual impulse of grabbing the first useless, weapon-esque thing she saw, she rose and padded barefoot to the door.

Peering out into the hall and over the banister, Isobel saw that the front door hung halfway open.

Bits of snow fluttered in with a rolling fog of cold mist.

Sparing a quick glance to the cracked door of her brother’s darkened room, Isobel slid out into the hall.

She stood overlooking the foyer, watching the gales of cold air waft in. Though she thought for a moment about calling for her dad, she decided against it.

Then she noticed that the outer storm door, which should have prevented the inflow of snow and air . . . was missing.

Tick tick tick tick tick tick, came the sound of the mantel clock in the living room.

The noise prompted Isobel to check the pocket watch again, but it continued to tick normally.

She slipped to the stairs and then down, the middle step creaking as she passed the collage of family photos, most of which had been repaired and rehung.

Edging around the banister, she took the door and, opening it all the way, peered out into the familiar cemetery that had taken the place of her front yard.

To her right, perched atop its short cement stoop, its four faces aglow with floodlights, Poe’s gravestone monument stood tall and sturdy. As if it and all the other tombs had always been there. Just another collection of quaint lawn ornaments.

Snow dusted the headstones and the narrow walkway, which ran between the house-shaped sepulchres.

Leading away from the threshold on which Isobel stood, a single set of boot prints dotted the trail. They ran past Poe’s monument and between two rows of short, low-lying tombs. There the footprints disappeared, fading into the patch of darkness that waited beyond.

Even though her breath clouded in front of her, Isobel felt no coldness in the air.

She deliberated for a moment, but then, stepping outside, found that the fleecy snow held no frigid sting.

Isobel drifted forward through the silent cemetery. Following the trail of prints, she made her way down the path, glancing back only once to make sure her house was still there, that the door leading to her foyer remained open. It did.

Aware that despite what the pocket watch was telling her, she must be dreaming, Isobel bore onward. She paused when she reached the end of the narrow alley between tombs and, glancing right, saw that a quiet sidewalk waited beyond the tall Greene Street gates.

To her left, the footprints continued on, winding past the closed entrance to the catacombs and hooking around the corner of Westminster Hall.

Sure, now, of where the prints must lead—and to whom—Isobel let go of her need to stay within sight of her house. She rounded the bend, and from there made her way quickly up the narrow, uneven brick trail that would take her to Poe’s original burial spot.

He stood just where she knew she would find him, hovering over the stone marker while bits of white gathered on the wide brim of his hat.

A low breeze brushed past Isobel and swept around Reynolds, stirring the bottom edge of his cloak and the tails of his white scarf.

Her bare feet leaving the trail, Isobel moved toward him over the hardened earth. Reynolds did not glance her way as she approached but kept his gaze squarely on the marker’s chiseled raven. Even as Isobel joined him at his side, he didn’t turn to her or speak.

“Let me guess,” Isobel said. She dropped her voice low, scrunching her face into her best Reynolds scowl. “Do not be alarmed. This is a dream.”