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“Are—are we going to have time for that?” she asked.
“I mean . . . that’s the whole reason we’re going, isn’t it?”
She sat back. Gripping the table, she nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Wow. I—it—Thanks . . . Dad.”
He gave her a funny, squinty-eyed look. “Gosh, Iz, I thought you’d be a little more excited than this.”
“I am excited,” she insisted. Leaning forward in her chair, she touched his arm. She smiled again but didn’t push it, not wanting to lay it on too thick too late. “I just . . . got nervous there for a second is all. I don’t really have anything prepared, you know?”
“Well, like I said, kiddo, it’s not official or anything. Right now, I think they just want to see a little of what you’ve got. You’re still only a junior. And you’ve got some time to practice, though you ought to be in pretty good shape from the competition. You don’t have to do the pass if you don’t want to.” He nudged her elbow. “I mean . . . you’re not having second thoughts about the whole thing, are you?”
“No!” she shouted.
Her dad cocked an eyebrow at her.
Isobel sank back in her chair. She ducked her head and stared at the soupy contents on her plate. The smell of the food began to make her already knotted stomach churn in loop-de-loops. She felt suddenly light-headed and queasy, like she’d spent the entire day on a carnival ride that had only just begun to slow down.
“I mean no,” she said more quietly. “I do want to go.”
“Okay,” he said. “Well then, we’re still on, don’t worry. I booked our hotel, too. We’re flying up that Sunday, and we’ll be staying in the city two nights, right in the Inner Harbor. Then we’ll check out Tuesday morning, load up the rental, and drive to the school. That’ll be a long day, because we’ll have to turn around and come back later that night to catch our flight home. I’ve got to be back in the office the next morning, too, so we gotta—Isobel, are you listening?”
Isobel nodded. In truth, she’d tuned him out right after he’d mentioned the day of the flight. Sunday was the eighteenth, the same night she needed to be in the graveyard. That meant she’d have to ditch him almost as soon as they arrived.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure. That works. Um, hey, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I . . . be excused?”
He pointed to her plate. “You didn’t eat much.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m not that hungry.”
She needed to get away from the table, away from her father and all his well-meaning plans. She didn’t want to think about hurting him, because that’s what she was going to do. She wouldn’t make it to the special meet-and-greet tryout he’d arranged. Neither of them would, because she would be long gone. And he would be there, alone in that huge city, doing whatever he could to find her.
She could practically hear her parents arguing over the phone, her mother’s frantic I-told-you-sos, her father beside himself with guilt and self-blame.
She could feel the fissure forming in her family now, before any of them were even aware the crack existed. Or that she had been the one to put it there.
Isobel’s breath hitched. She balled her napkin in her fist, trying to play it off as a hiccup. Cringing inwardly, she decided to pull the fail-safe girl card. “Cramps,” she said.
Her dad leaned back in his chair. “Mm,” he said.
Isobel stood. She slid a hand under her plate, but her dad held up a palm. “I’ll get that,” he said.
She backed away. Turning, she hurried up the steps.
Ducking into her room, she shut the door behind her.
17
Inversion
Isobel sat on the corner of her bed closest to her dresser mirror. She watched the glass from an angle that did not show her own reflection, only that of the room itself.
From here, she could see the dark square of her window and the white-lace curtains that flanked it. The mirror also showed her nightstand and fringed bedside lamp, which she’d switched on.
The darkness seemed to press in around her, as though waiting for her to make a move or dare to step beyond the cone-shaped pool of yellowish lamplight.
