Oblivion

“Isobel, do you know where Varen Nethers is?” Dr. Robinson asked, hand tightening around her pen, apparently deciding to go for broke.

Isobel’s eyes welled. His name still had the power to do that to her, to summon tears. Her body, still awake, still breathing, seemed to remember how to interpret pain. Yet she didn’t feel the emotion that should accompany the prickling sting, not while her soul remained vacuum-sealed.

One tear slipped free and trailed hot down her cheek, dividing in two the warning scar Pinfeathers had given her.

“Isobel?” she heard the doctor ask, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Where is Varen?”

Isobel had asked the question once herself.

And what had Reynolds told her?

She looked up to meet the doctor’s gaze, knowing that he’d been right.

“Lost,” she said.

* * *

“Mom and Dad are going on a date tomorrow. Did you know that?”

Isobel’s eyes flicked up from her algebra worksheet to her little brother, Danny, who sat across the kitchen table from her. He didn’t meet her gaze but remained fixated on the shoe-box diorama in front of him, one plump hand shooting out to grab the glue stick at his side before vanishing behind the cardboard barrier again.

“It is Valentine’s Day weekend,” Isobel replied, returning to the quadratic equation before her, searching for where she’d left off. She frowned, unable to concentrate on the numbers. She hadn’t known about the outing.

Probably because their mom and dad hadn’t wanted her to.

Since she’d come home from Baltimore, at least one of her parents had always been present in the house with Isobel. So if Danny was telling the truth about the date, then tomorrow would mark the first time both her mother and father would be together somewhere other than home. And a date on the Friday night before Valentine’s Day meant that the two of them must have made plans and reservations in advance.

She already knew that there would be zero chance of their leaving her in charge of Danny like they used to. Most likely, their mom had arranged for one of her single friends to come over.

“First of all, it’s gross,” Danny said, using scissors to cut out a large pyramid from a sheet of yellow construction paper. “Second of all, since when do Mom and Dad go on dates?”

Isobel shrugged. “They used to go out all the time.” She drew her calculator close, not willing to admit to Danny that it did seem strange for their parents to make things sound so official. “Remember all those babysitters you used to torment? I think Mom and Dad only stopped going out when they ran out of cash-strapped high schoolers they could bribe to watch us. Then I became a freshman and, lucky me, I got to watch you for free.”

Danny tossed the scissors onto the table. “Yeah, but they never called it a date before. Dating is what you do when you’re getting to know someone. Or like, when you’re trying to impress them. Not when you’re married.”

“Okay, Dr. Phil,” she said, “is there some point you’re trying to make?”

“Yeah. I don’t like it.”

“Because you’re twelve and you think it’s gross.”

“I’ll be thirteen in five months, it is gross, and no, that’s not why I don’t like it. I don’t like it because it’s weird.”

“Yeah, well, you’re weird but . . . I still like you.”

Danny went silent, staring hard into the open recess of the shoe box. She watched him pick up the glue stick again, and when he went to work slathering the paper pyramid with it, she gave up waiting for a response and tried to refocus on the still-unsolved equation.

From somewhere upstairs, the vacuum kicked on, breaking her concentration a third time. Glancing to the clock on the stove, she saw that the digital numbers read 5:42, and her shoulders tensed. It had gotten late without her realizing. Their dad would be home soon—within the next ten or fifteen minutes, probably with pizza or some other kind of take-out in hand, since their mom hadn’t been cooking much.

“You’re not going to try to go anywhere while they’re gone, are you?”

Isobel’s attention snapped back to Danny, who peered at her intently through his mop of black bangs.

“Where would I go?” she replied in a quiet voice, because it was the quickest response she could think of. Because she didn’t know if cutting school to attend the funeral tomorrow counted, since that would be in the morning. And because she didn’t want to lie to him anymore in case it did.

Danny jutted his bottom lip out, somehow managing to sneer at the same time. “Oh, I don’t know. Another state, maybe. Some cult party. Bike-trashing event.”