“Sorry, but I’m not that creative.”
“Did somebody set you up to call me and say all this?”
“Look,” Gwen said, “I didn’t call because of some prank. I called you because there’s something really freaked out goin’ on, and since it transpired in the direct vicinity of your locker, I thought you might like to know.”
A scuffling noise had Isobel turning to face the window.
“Of course,” Gwen prattled, “if I’d known I’d be accused of conspiracy on top of lying, I’d have written about the whole ordeal in an article and submitted it to the school newspaper instead.”
“Shh!” Isobel hissed. “Gwen, shh!”
The sound came again. A low, grating noise.
“I don’t think I should have to shush. You know, I didn’t have to call you. I had better things to do. My trig homework, for example.”
“No, Gwen,” said Isobel. She dropped her voice as the dull, scraping noise grew louder. “I hear something.”
For a moment the line went silent.
“Gwen?” Isobel said, afraid she’d hung up.
“I’m here, though I’m startin’ to wonder why.”
“Listen,” said Isobel as another long scratching noise issued from behind her drawn shade. “I believe you. There’s been a lot of weird stuff happening, actually. But I can’t tell you about it right now, because I think there’s something outside my window.”
There was a moment of tense silence. Isobel strained both ears, listening.
“You want me to call the police or somethin’?” Gwen whispered.
“No, not yet. Listen, I want you to stay on the line with me while I try to get a look. It could just be . . . y’know—a bird or something,”
“A bird? Are you kidding me?”
“No,” Isobel murmured, distracted as the scratching continued, closer this time. Something shuffled right up against her window ledge. Whatever it was out there, it sounded a lot bigger than a bird.
“Hold on,” she said. She crept forward, the phone held tight against one ear, her other arm outstretched, fingers reaching toward the shade.
“Isobel? What’s going on? Are you there or what?”
Transfixed by the large, moving black shape shifting in and out of the visible edge around her window shade, she watched her own hand as it drifted closer—remarkably steady
—toward her window. Touching a finger to the edge, she peeled back the canvas ever so slightly, squinting, trying to peer past the glare and into the dusk.
A thin, spidery hand, almost glowing white in the twilight, slammed against the glass. Isobel shrieked and stumbled back, tripping and falling on the carpet. The shade flew up. The phone jumped from her grasp and landed out of her reach.
On and off, she could hear Gwen’s distant, frantic voice calling her name.
Isobel stared up in terror through the dark square of her window, at the pale, luminous face that stared back.
19
Visitations
“Varen!” Isobel launched herself from the floor. She rushed to the window. Finding the clasps, she snapped the locks back, fixed her fingers in the grooves, and heaved upward.
He crouched precariously on the slanted roof, watching her, his calm, expressionless face level with hers. With every glimpse, every meeting of their eyes, those cool, kohl-rimmed jades bored into her, causing little electrodes to zip through her insides.
“Isobel! Isobel!” came a tiny, strained insect voice from somewhere behind. “Isobel, I’m calling the police!”
“Oh!” Isobel whirled, throwing a Hold on! gesture toward the window before diving for the handset.
“Gwen,” she said, “it’s Varen. I gotta go.”
“Omigod. Okay—but you better call me baa—!”
Beep.
Isobel flung the phone aside and sprang to grapple once more with the window. She tugged and jerked until it shimmied up half an inch, allowing in the cold evening air. She slipped her hands under the bottom, ready to lift, but froze when she felt his fingertips, cool from the October air, slide in next to hers.
All breathing ceased. And there was that static sensation again, a soft buzz where their skin touched.
The quiet knock at her door made her jump. She spun, slamming her back to the window. There was a shift and a shudder from outside, a quiet curse, and then a long, scraping scuffle.
“Isobel?” Her father.
“Not decent!” she yelled, her voice ridiculously loud, erratic. “Just a second!” She turned and faced the window again, only to catch sight of Varen sliding backward, headfirst down the slope of her roof, some sort of bag trailing behind him, still clutched in his white-knuckled grasp.
