This time, Isobel didn’t smile. Her mood for joking had dissipated.
“I’ll just have to find another way,” she said, crossing to kneel beside the bags Gwen had left on the floor. One at a time, she repacked the presents.
“Isobel . . . ,” Gwen began. She took a long time before continuing, which made Isobel worry, since filtering wasn’t one of Gwen’s regular talents. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said at last. “And in all honesty, how can you be sure this Poe Toaster guy is even going to show up this year?”
Isobel scowled. “He has to show up,” she snapped. “The article says that the Toaster comes every single year. What would make this year any different?”
In the corner of her vision, Isobel marked Gwen’s measured and slow approach. She kept her eyes downcast, even as the hem of Gwen’s skirt and the toes of her striped socks stopped within a foot of where Isobel knelt.
“The article also says that nobody knows how this guy gets into the graveyard,” Gwen said. “Or out, for that matter.”
Isobel said nothing.
“What I don’t understand,” Gwen went on, “is what happens once you’re there. Let’s say, for instance, that we actually get you to Baltimore. Then you manage to sneak into the locked graveyard without getting arrested for trespassing, grabbed off the street, shoved into a van, or shot. Next, this guy shows up, and then what?”
“He knows where Varen is. That’s what. What else is there?”
There came the sharp clank of bracelets as Gwen lowered herself to kneel beside Isobel. “So . . . are you saying that you don’t know where he is?” she asked.
Isobel stopped repacking the presents, able to feel Gwen’s searching gaze.
Up until this point, she had managed to dodge Gwen’s gentle prods concerning the details of that night. And for her part, Gwen had refrained from asking too much during the short spurts of time in which they’d seen each other at school. Isobel had no doubt that Gwen’s effort to restrain herself from bombarding her with questions must have been nothing short of agonizing. And Isobel could now sense that the time for evasion, along with Gwen’s patience, had reached its end.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened that night?” Gwen asked. “What really happened? If you’re going to do this, Isobel, if you’re going to go to Baltimore, then you’re going to need help. And you’re going to need a plan.”
Isobel already knew that Gwen was right. As much as she wanted to think otherwise, she doubted she could do it all alone. Cornered at last, she looked up.
“There’s so much. I barely understand it myself. I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning is good,” Gwen prompted.
The beginning? Isobel wanted to laugh, mostly because it sounded so logical. But there was nothing logical about it.
Isobel thought about the day she and Varen had first met, that day when Mr. Swanson had paired them together for the project. She remembered the way Varen had looked, sitting slouched in his chair, all darkness and quiet brooding, his black book pinned between his arm and the desk.
“It all started because of his writing,” Isobel murmured, aware that this was the first time she’d divulged this to anyone. “He was writing about . . . another world.”
“Another world?” Gwen made a face, as though the words didn’t taste right in her mouth.
But Gwen had seen Reynolds fight that night at the Grim Facade after all, had known that his opponent, the specter swathed in crimson robes, awash in blood, had not been an illusion. She had known, too, unlike the rest of those in attendance, that the battle with the Red Death had not been a staged performance.
“Is it . . . safe to assume that that’s where Varen is now? In this other world?” she asked, each word like a timid step into a pitch-black room.
Isobel nodded slowly, relieved to have Gwen connect the dots on her own. It helped not having to put things into words herself.
Words.
Hadn’t Reynolds once warned her about the power of words? What had he said? That they could conjure, that they could bring things into being.
“Before any of it started,” Isobel said, taking in a gulp of air, “before everything unraveled, before I started to see things, to hear things, Varen was writing. Remember that black sketchbook he always carried with him? It all had something to do with Poe. I think that’s why Varen chose him for the project. He was reading Poe.”
“Did you ever read any of what Varen wrote?”
