AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Isobel turned to face Gwen again, watching as she swept her skirts up from the dusty ground to tie them in a knot over the pair of thermal stretch pants she wore. Gwen lowered herself with a grunt to sit on the ground, her back pressed to the front of one of the long tombs. After that, she twisted to aim her flashlight up at the name engraved above the rusted iron door.
“Well, hello . . . J . . . Meredith,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind the intrusion. No, no. No need to get up. We’re not the fancy type. I’m Gwen and this is Isobel. Isobel, J. Meredith; J. Meredith, Isobel.”
Isobel took the black case out from beneath her arm and offered the tomb a pinched smile and a slight wave with her free hand. She drew up to the mausoleum and let her backpack slip to the ground, then lowered herself to sit next to Gwen on the other side of the metal door.
Gwen let out a long sigh as she tilted her head back to rest against the tomb, while Isobel reached for her backpack.
“I’m going to put your dad’s tools in my bag,” she said.
Gwen rolled her head in Isobel’s direction. “Not tools,” she muttered. “Hammer and wrench are tools. Orthodontists use instruments.”
“You hungry?” Isobel asked. Digging deeper into the bag, she pulled out two of the granola bars she’d packed.
“Always,” Gwen replied, and snatched one up. She tore open the package. “Dunno if it’s really kosher to dine in catacombs, though,” she said, taking half the bar in one bite.
Isobel fumbled to open her own bar. Even though she didn’t feel hungry, she knew she needed to eat. She chewed her first bite without tasting.
The sound of their munching seemed to fill the otherwise silent space. After a moment, Gwen released her hold on the tiny flashlight button, allowing the darkness to turn both of them into shadows too.
“Where do you suppose your dad is right now?” Gwen asked.
“No telling,” Isobel said, and even though she had half the granola bar left, she nudged Gwen, offering her the rest. “Police station, maybe.”
“Thanks,” Gwen said. She took the bar, and Isobel could hear her chew and swallow loudly.
“I have water, too,” Isobel said.
“I’m good.”
They were quiet for a long time after that. Then, when the soundlessness began to grow loud in Isobel’s ears, she spoke again.
“I bet Dad’s called Mom by now,” she said softly. “She’s probably scrambling right this second to get a plane ticket. And someone to watch Danny.”
“Mmm,” Gwen said.
“I can’t help thinking about it,” Isobel whispered. “About what I’m doing to them right now. About how crazy they must be feeling. The things they’re saying to each other. The things they’re thinking.”
Isobel pulled her knees close, hugging them to her chest.
“Sometimes,” she went on, “I wonder if any of this would have ever happened the way it did if I could have just talked to them about what was going on. I mean, what was really going on. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference if I’d told Dad about the things I was seeing, about Varen’s journal and the Poe book and the dreamworld. I don’t think he would have ever believed me. But not just because of the weird stuff.” She paused. “Until I met Varen, it was never like that, where I couldn’t just go to my dad and tell him . . . whatever. Because no matter what it was, I never had to doubt whether he’d be on my side. I mean with something that really mattered.”
Isobel stopped again, dropping her forehead to her knees.
Gwen said nothing, but Isobel kept talking anyway, the words spilling out from some inner wound she hadn’t realized had begun to bleed.
“Why?” she asked. “What about Varen changed all that?”
Taking in a shuddering breath, she tasted dust. “I guess,” she continued, deciding to take a stab at answering her own question, since Gwen had yet to offer one, “I guess that by wanting to keep us apart, Dad thought he was protecting me. I’m trying to understand that, to get that, but it’s hard when he never even gave Varen a chance, you know? When he decided in a split second, after just one look, that he couldn’t accept Varen even being in my proximity. No one could. His friends, my friends, my parents, the entire school—everyone wanted to pretend like, together, Varen and I formed some kind of . . . I don’t know . . . combustive chemical mixture that could blow everything up. I think you were the only one, the only one in the whole world, who it didn’t make any difference to, Gwen. Did you know that?”
Isobel waited. When Gwen still made no response, she glanced over to hear that her friend’s breathing had turned slow and measured.
Asleep . . .
Taking into account the drive Gwen had made that day, coupled with her earlier survey of the cemetery and the stress of picking her up from the harbor, Isobel didn’t doubt that she’d probably dozed off after Isobel’s third sentence.
But that was okay, she told herself. Because it hadn’t been Gwen who she’d been speaking to anyway. Not really.
Leaning back again, Isobel shut her eyes and, releasing a sigh, rested the back of her head against the tomb.
