Moments passed. A balding man in a gray suit got up from a nearby table. Gathering his books, he passed them, taking a path through the stacks, leaving them even more alone than they had been before. A palpable silence took his place and seemed to condense the air between them.
Isobel flipped open another one of the books on the table, this one small and as thin as a magazine. She opened her mouth, ready to say something, though she didn’t know what.
Anything to break the silence.
He beat her to it, though, when without warning, he got up from the table, looming tall.
“Go through that one,” he said, indicating with a stiff nod the book she held, “and see if you can find the poem ‘Annabel Lee.’ I’ve got to go check the shelf again.”
Unable to help a small smirk, Isobel raised one hand in a salute. “Aye, aye, O Captain! My Captain!”
He turned. “Right era,” he muttered, “wrong poet,” then vanished between the shelves.
When he was out of sight, Isobel snapped closed the little book of poetry and leaned forward. She shifted away the yellow steno notepad and lifted the corner of his black hardback book. She peeked into the opening and peeled apart the pages, keeping the book open just a crack. She took a quick glance up to the row of shelves he’d slipped between. At no sign of him, she returned her eyes to the book, halfway standing to get a better look.
Its spine made a soft creaking noise as she pulled it open all the way. It went easily, as though the pages spent more time being pinned apart than clamped together.
Purple writing covered every inch of white paper. What was the deal with the purple ink, anyway? But it was the most beautiful handwriting Isobel had ever seen. Each loop and every curl connected cleanly to make the writing itself appear as perfect and uniform as a printed font. It baffled her how someone could sit and take the time to form letters so meticulously.
She checked around her one more time before flipping the page over and there, her suspicions confirmed, she found still more writing. The guy was a regular Shakespeare.
In some places, there were big spaces where he had written around drawings. They were more like loose sketches, actually, the lines never certain but nevertheless making pictures.
They were strange sketches too. People with crazy hair and with whole pieces of their faces missing like they were made of glass. She leafed past another page, this time daring to read a little of what was there.
She stood in the mist, waiting for him again,
always in the same place.
Isobel glanced up, stooping slightly to try and see through the shelves and towers of books for any hint of moving black or silver. No sign of him. He must have gone all the way to the stacks at the far end of the library. Her eyes darted back down to the page, searching for the place where she’d left off. She’d read just a little bit more. It wasn’t like it was a personal journal or anything, right?
He always asked the same question.
“What do you want me to do?”
She never answered. She couldn’t. All she could do was stare, reaching toward him with her gaze alone, pulling him to drown in the sorrow of those depthless black pools.
The black book thwacked shut. Isobel first stared at the silver-ringed fingers that pressed the cover down, then gradually her eyes traveled up the black-clad arm and then farther still until they met reluctantly with a pair of outlined eyes. They narrowed on her in disdain, and the way he looked at her made her feel like any second he was going to use the Force to choke her lifeless.
“I was just—”
“Snooping.” He dropped the book he’d returned with on the table and snatched the black sketchbook journal, shoving it into his satchel.
“I didn’t see anything,” she lied, glancing at the title of the newly unshelved book. The Secrets of Lucid Dreaming, it read. But that, too, was quickly ripped out from under her eyes.
“I gotta go,” he said, shouldering his satchel.
“Wait. What about the project?”
He pointed at her list of titles. “Start reading,” he said. “You have a library card, right?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned, once again disappearing between the shelves.
5
A Note of Warning
“Hey, Dad, what time is it?”
Isobel wondered if the crew might still be at Double Trouble’s.
“Little after three,” her dad said as the sedan rolled to a stop at an intersection. “Why?”
“Just wondering.” She shrugged.
“You didn’t say anything about my haircut,” he said, lifting a hand from the steering wheel to primp imaginary curls at the back of his head.
Isobel tried to keep from grinning while she surveyed the cut. It was really more like a trim, though, a grooming of his usual style, which Isobel often referred to as shaggy à la hobo.
Isobel had not inherited her dad’s dark brown, nearly black hair, like Danny had, though hers did have the same thin, almost straight texture.
“Oh, yes. Ravishing,” she told him.
He watched her with a goofy grin until she said, “Light’s green.” Then he looked ahead again, both hands on the wheel.
“You’re awfully glum today,” he observed, making a turn west, toward their neighborhood. “Something going on with Brad?” he asked.
“No,” she said, then thought better of leaving it at that. “Brad and I just wanted to hang out separately this weekend. That’s all.”
Her dad liked Brad because they could talk sports, Danny not exactly being the athletic type. What her mom and dad hadn’t been too keen on was how “serious” they thought she and Brad had become since the beginning of junior year. “You should be thinking about college,” her mom would say. Only problem with that was that Isobel wasn’t sure where she would go yet, or what she would major in. It was an argument she didn’t want to revisit.
“I see.” After a beat, they came to a stop sign, and he asked, “So, what is this project about, anyway?”
“Poe.” She sighed.
“Poe? As in Edgar Allan ‘quoth the raven, nevermore’?”
“That’s the guy,” she said. She picked up one of the books in her lap and leafed through to find a picture. She found one of the bigger ones (they all looked the same to her) and held the book open in his direction.
He took a quick glance away from the road just before pulling into the driveway, then, putting the car into park, turned in his seat to look directly at her. He raised one eyebrow.
“Next time, maybe I should just let my hair grow out like that.” He tilted his head to one side, eyeing her for a response. “And what about the mustache?” He draped an index finger over his top lip. “What do you think?”
She smiled at the visual and nearly snorted, because she hadn’t expected to laugh. She pictured her father with a crazy crop of black locks and a neat little mustache. He looked, in her mind’s eye, more like Charlie Chaplin than Poe.
A victorious smirk tugged at one side of his mouth.
Isobel slammed her locker closed.
“Ah!” she yelped, her notebook landing on the floor.
Varen. Right behind where the door to her locker had stood open. His eyes, calm to the point of emptiness, seemed to stare straight through her.
“Would you not do that!” she piped.
He said nothing, just stood there and stared, like she’d suddenly gone transparent or something.
“What?” she demanded.