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She wanted to let her eyes fall shut, but something, a sensation of being watched, stopped her. Her glance slid past his shoulder, her focus drawn to the statue atop the fountain.
Between the inky strands of Varen’s hair, Isobel watched its eyes slide open. She stared, transfixed, as the statue turned its head toward them, aiming those two empty pits of blackness straight at her.
2
Sorrow for the Lost
Isobel awoke with a start. She sucked in a sharp gasp of air, and her gaze met with the blank surface of her bedroom ceiling.
She blinked as a swirl of images shuttered through her brain like snapshots in a broken reel of film. Closing her eyes, she tried to find one frame to latch on to, one fleeting symbol or shadow that would trigger the memory of what it was she’d been dreaming about.
But the pictures slid by too quickly, growing dimmer and more uncertain the faster her consciousness swam toward the surface of reality.
Isobel groaned. She didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to slip under again. She wanted to go back.
Rolling onto her side, she peered groggily through the narrow slice of window visible between her twin white-lace curtains.
It was still dark outside, still early.
If she threw the covers over her head and tried to sleep again, Isobel wondered if she would be able to return to whatever dream she’d been having. Even if she couldn’t recall where she had been or what had been happening, she knew that the dream had not had a chance to end where it should have. There had been something left unsaid. No, she thought, there had been something left undone. What was it?
Isobel sighed. It was no use straining. The thread was broken.
She turned to glance at her digital clock.
6:30, it read in cool blue numbers.
She froze.
Oh my God. Six freaking thirty?
An ice bomb exploded somewhere in the pit of her stomach, set off by the sudden realization that she was supposed to be on a bus right that very moment, a bus that had probably reached the county line by now, filled with every member of Trenton High’s varsity cheerleading squad. Every member except her.
“Daaaad!” Her voice scraped raw from the back of her throat. Isobel tossed off her covers, her legs prickling with gooseflesh as she staggered out of bed, hurtling toward her bedroom door. She threw it open and rushed out and onto the landing that overlooked the foyer and downstairs hallway.
Darkness bathed the house, quietness filling every corner.
At the end of the hall, Danny’s bedroom door stood ajar, and Isobel could just make out her little brother’s snores emanating from within.
She hurried to the stairs, not caring if she woke him, her bare feet thundering down the carpet-covered steps. “Da—”
Isobel jerked to a halt midway down, surprised to see her father enter the foyer, his upturned face clean-shaven, his expression questioning. He held his briefcase in one hand, a travel mug of coffee in the other. He wore black slacks and a clean white button-down shirt, the silver pin-striped tie she’d given him last Father’s Day laced through the collar.
He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Miss the bus again, kiddo?” he asked, a slightly bemused look on his face.
Isobel stood motionless on the stairs, her thoughts racing. As the blank spaces of all the current whens and wheres refilled, the frantic beating of her heart began to slow. Spotting the darkened Christmas tree through the living room archway, she felt a warm gush of relief wash through her.
Nationals. The competition. It had all already happened. She’d been home from Dallas for a week now. She hadn’t missed the bus, either. In fact, she’d been early.
They had won, too. Trenton High Spirit Squad now held the all-too-rare title of three-time NCA champions.
Isobel could still hear the squad’s piercing screams of victory echo through her head. In her mind’s eye, she pictured them all huddled together, a squealing, teary mob of blue and yellow, everyone clamoring to lay a hand on the gleaming golden trophy.
“Third time this week,” her father said, drawing Isobel’s attention back to his presence in the foyer.
With glazed eyes, she followed his movements as he set his briefcase down next to the umbrella stand. He stepped forward, grabbing his gray wool peacoat from where he’d hung it on the banister post. Juggling the coffee mug between his hands, he kept his gaze steady on her while he shrugged the coat on one sleeve at a time.
