Oblivion (29 page)

Isobel's frown deepened when he said nothing. But she'd come too far to allow him to persuade her this was hopeless. That
he
was hopeless.

Concentrating, Isobel pictured the room righting itself. She felt the floor seesaw back into place, leveling out beneath them.

Next, she evaporated the layers of dust. The sheets tore themselves free like magicians' cloths and then vanished, taking the furniture with them. The writing on the walls faded out, and the boxes evaporated.

Taking care to restore Varen's bedroom to the way she remembered it, she filled in as many details as she could recall.

Varen's black-and-white Vincent Price poster unrolled on one wall. His narrow single bed emerged from another, sliding them both forward on the small throw rug that materialized beneath them.

Books flipped from the floor onto his shelves, while the collection of toppled bottles righted themselves in the fireplace. Isobel imagined their study materials laid out around them.

Last of all, as she unfolded her legs in front of her, she conjured Varen's copy of
The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe
. The book appeared between her hands—open—its pages blank as she tried to recall the poem Varen had been reading to her before his father had torn into the room, interrupting the one moment that might have changed everything.

She thought the blankness of the pages might be okay, though. Her purpose was not to re-create the moment precisely—only to remind Varen that it had transpired. Or rather, to remind them both of what had
almost
transpired.

“This is when it happened,” Isobel said. “Right in the middle of your reading to me.”

Varen didn't move. But knowing that he was listening, she pressed on.

“I know you think I'm talking about when everything fell apart—when it all went wrong. But I'm not. . . .”

She scooted nearer to him, settling again when her shoulder met with his.

“I'm talking about the moment . . . when I fell in love. With you. Officially.”

She saw his hand resting on his knee—the one bearing his onyx, V-stamped class ring—twitch.

“When you were reading, I was listening to you, but at the same time . . . not. I heard your voice. Felt it. But the thing is, you had my hand, like this.”

Isobel gathered Varen's hand in hers, pressing it between her palms as he'd done. The hard corners of his ring pressed cold and sharp into her palm.

“And I remember being so torn,” she continued. “Split between never wanting you to stop reading and wishing you'd shut up and kiss me.” Isobel allowed herself a small laugh. “I think it must have been on your mind too.”

He didn't speak, but he turned his head toward her again.

Isobel tightened her grip on his hand, and her own went numb from the connection.

“Sometimes . . .” Isobel paused, then started again. “At least once every hour of every day . . . I find myself wondering how things might have been if . . . if your parents hadn't come home early. If we
had
kissed then. Do you ever wonder the same thing? If any of this would have turned out differently?”

A beat passed in which he said nothing. Then, suddenly, Varen's hand tightened around hers. “Read me something?” he said. The sound of his voice, the question itself, startled her.

Isobel's eyes fell to the pages open in front of her as, slowly, the white space began to fill. She scanned the text as it formed, recognizing the poem by its title as one of Poe's.

She remembered Varen mentioning this piece several times, though she'd never once read it. This had to mean two things: that Varen knew at least a portion of it by heart, and that
he
was the one making it appear.

Drawing a shaking breath, Isobel did the only thing she could do. She began to read out loud. To him.

“It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;—”

Varen clenched her hand tighter, but she didn't look up and she didn't stop reading.

“And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I
was a child and
she
was a child

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.”

Isobel stopped there. Because that was where the words dissipated.

She frowned, feeling the thump of her heart grow heavy while she waited. The right-hand page remained bare. Could it be that was all he recalled of the poem?

Then Varen spoke, picking up the lines from the memory that hadn't failed him, after all.

“But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”

He stopped there. Pulling his hand free of hers, he rose.

As he did, the boards beneath them began to loosen, softening into . . . sand?

Isobel gasped when the support at her back vanished, and she would have fallen if not for the hand that caught hers just as a surge of warm water rushed in around them.

When Varen pulled her to her feet, sunlight—blinding—broke through the dissolving walls, illuminating the crystalline waters that now enveloped her legs.

Varen drew Isobel to him, and she saw that his clothes had changed. In place of his long coat, he wore an old-fashioned charcoal waistcoat and, beneath it, a white stiff-collared shirt, sleeve cuffs rolled to the elbows.

Isobel pressed her hands to his chest, stunned and entranced by how much the timeless style seemed . . . right. Almost as if she'd always known him this way.

At her legs, she felt clinging folds of fabric much longer than her tattered pink party dress. She looked down to see that she now wore an off-the-shoulder gown the hue of white wine. Small burgundy bows held gathers of the fine material, pinning it around her in elegant drapes.

Touching her brow, her fingertips found a crown of velvet-soft flowers.

In a flash, she remembered the statue she'd found next to Varen in the courtyard and realized he'd transformed her into the living version.

A new wave surged in around them, and as it did, Varen swept her up and out of the water's path. He swung her in a slow circle as the water rolled and crashed, frothing white.

Isobel's heart swelled with the sea. She felt weightless in his arms.

Enwrapping his neck, she leaned in close, laughing as the spray of water sprinkled their skin and beaded in his dark hair like minuscule diamonds.

Pastel-yellow rays sliced through the puffy pink-and-blue-bellied clouds that gathered overhead. Straight as arrows, the light shot down to meet the glittering sea.

Perched at the zenith of a high rock, Varen's castle cut a striking outline.

No longer menacing but regal, the ivory fortress—all turrets and waving green banners—seemed to watch over them, as if awaiting their return to its grand halls.

Isobel clung closer to Varen, holding tight to him and to this moment that felt so much like a fairy tale.

Varen tilted his head toward her, his lips brushing hers as he spoke.

“‘For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee.'”

Isobel's smile returned. Finally she got it.

The poem. He'd taken them right into the middle of it—this ballad that felt as if it told the story of a previous life. One they'd shared together, just like this.

“‘And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee.'”

As though taking command from his words, the daylight faded and the sky swirled sherbet. The sun sank into the shimmering sea, giving way to a lunar glow that swept the dreamscape in tones of deep blue and shining silver.

Tilting her head back, Isobel watched the sky fill with innumerable stars.

When she looked to Varen again, she was so startled by the sight of the two jade spheres gazing back at her that she nearly let go of him.

“Varen. You—”

“Shut up,” he said, tilting his head as he leaned in, “so I can kiss you.”

He pressed his lips to hers.

Immediately Isobel's hands went to his face.

She held him there, too afraid he might try to pull away. Or that she'd wake up somewhere without him.

Gently, as the tide rushed out from under them, Varen set her down. But he did not break the kiss; encircling her waist, he drew her in closer.

Isobel rose onto tiptoes, bare feet sinking into the pliant sand.

With another rolling surge, the warm waves returned, swelling higher this time, past their knees.

Varen's silver lip ring teased as it caressed, lulling Isobel's mind as it beckoned the rest of her toward abandon.

Watching him through the lashes of lids that had dropped on their own, Isobel found herself locked in a bittersweet battle, torn between never wanting this moment to end and needing to look into his eyes again. To be certain she hadn't imagined the return of their polished jade hue.

She pressed her palms to his chest but could not bring herself to push him back. The fever of his kiss, the strength of the arms that held her to him—the power of the spell he'd cast over them both—won out.

Giving in, Isobel permitted her thoughts to float off without her. Her lips matched his painstaking pace, trading brush for brush and stroke for stroke.

Varen lifted both hands, hooking them under her jaw. His thumbs grazed her cheeks as he took his turn to hold her in place.

He kissed her as if doing so was the one thing that could keep him, all of this, from unraveling—again—into pandemonium.

She knew how he felt. Lost and found. Freed and captive. Calm and desperate . . .

She knew, because she felt it too.

So she let the fabricated dream continue, trying to keep the nagging truth at bay for one more moment. Then another, and another . . .

But when the water's warmth began to fade, when the current grew stronger with each sigh and heave—when the sensation of pins and needles crept into her awareness, growing strong enough to drown out the sensation of his lips—she had to stop.

Isobel froze. Her eyelids lifted.

Grimacing, Varen parted the kiss that had already ended.

He pressed his forehead to hers, and Isobel relished the sensation of his hair catching in her lashes. She saw that he held his own eyes shut, clenched tight, and she knew his fear had returned.

That had to be why the water had turned cold so quickly. Why, in the passing seconds, the darkness surrounding them had grown more absolute.

Already the tide had risen to mid-thigh. But . . . he couldn't still be doubting her, could he?

“Open your eyes,” Isobel urged, tucking silken bits of hair behind his ear, though the strands wouldn't stay. “Please?”

“You'll leave,” he murmured, his voice hoarse with the emotion he was trying hard to keep bottled.

“Never,” she said. “Nevermore,” she corrected in a whisper.

She stayed silent for the next few seconds, watching him, giving him time to trust.

When Varen finally did open his eyes, he kept them fixed on her hamsa charm. She could feel him holding his breath as he grabbed her shoulders and squeezed.

Isobel ignored the pain of his fingers digging into her flesh, because she knew what he was trying to assure himself of. That when he looked up, he would not find a dead girl staring back at him.

Then his clear green gaze flicked to Isobel's, igniting a smile that sprang, involuntarily, to her lips.

“There you are,” she said, taking in the sight of those twin emeralds, whose color she could detect even in the dark. “I knew I'd find you.”

Varen scowled in pain as though her words had cut him. But she could feel relief, too, in the breath he exhaled as he pulled her against him.

With fierce strength, Varen's arms wound around her, and he clutched her tightly. Isobel surrendered to his hold and, laying her head to his shoulder, yielded to the rush of bliss that she could not have fought off if she tried.

But even in his embrace—on the other side of fulfilling her promise—she knew they both had to be thinking the same thing. How, as beautiful as this was, as real as it seemed, it wouldn't last. Couldn't . . .

“Please,” she said, pushing back against him gently, enough to find his gaze again. “Say you'll come with me.”

“Where?” he asked. But he sounded so uncertain.

“Home,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Where else?”

His brow knitted in confusion. “Home,” he repeated, as if the word was foreign to him. “You mean . . . heaven?”

The question, as startling as it was sobering, stole her already faltering smile.

She let her arms slip away from him.

Though it was clear that Varen now believed she was real, that he understood she'd come here to get him, it suddenly became equally clear that somehow, he still thought she was dead.

And if he was asking about heaven, did that mean he assumed they
both
were?

The memory flashes. The writing on the wall. Varen's horrified reaction after her words about conquering death—now it all made sense.

He still believed that he'd killed her. It was the only way he'd been able to reconcile Isobel's presence in the dreamworld.