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As she continued to listen, she heard footsteps—booted footsteps, their gait even and slow—begin to make their way across the upper floor.
There was somebody upstairs, in the attic.
Isobel headed toward the rear of the shop, but a distant sound, hissing from behind, stopped her before she reached the open archway.
Glancing over her shoulder, back toward the gramophone, Isobel watched as the crank began to revolve again, this time in the opposite direction as before. The hissing transformed into whispers. Then the whispers became words, which began to drift from the horn’s black hole, growing louder and more discernible with each revolution of the crank.
“Believe me,” a girl’s voice cut through the static, “that would so never happen.”
Isobel’s mouth fell open as she recognized the voice as her own.
“In fact, we never saw each other outside of class except those times we had to meet for the project. To be honest,” the voice—her voice—continued, “we didn’t even get along. But I had to put up with it because I needed a passing grade.”
Isobel shook her head. “No,” she said.
“At this point, I’m just kind of ready to forget about it and move on, you know? But . . . as far as knowing anything about what happened that night? I’m honestly the last person who would—I’m honestly the last person who—I’m honestly the last person—the last person—honestly—hoooonnestly—hooooneeessstly.”
The crank ground to a halt, the repeated word dropping several octaves, slurring into one incomprehensible drone before dying out.
“I didn’t mean it,” Isobel murmured. After a moment, she shouted, “I didn’t mean any of that!”
Startled by the sound of a low click followed by a long creak, Isobel whirled to face the open archway leading to the rear of the shop. Through it, she could see that the door leading to the attic, the DO NOT ENTER door, the BEWARE OF BESS door, had opened itself.
Approaching the door, she could see the narrow set of stairs just within.
She crossed the threshold and, looking up, saw that where the ceiling should have been lay only open skies. The low-flying clouds skimmed past at a frightening speed, the cavernous spaces in between their folds illuminating with brilliant flashes of violet lightning.
Fighting vertigo, Isobel groped for the stairs. She mounted them, watching her feet climb until she reached the top landing.
When she raised her head again, she saw that just as there had been no ceiling, no walls existed either. Only their blackened and charred remains fringed the parameters of the open room.
Black trees crowded the freestanding platform, their arms outstretched to the passing clouds.
In the middle of the room, wearing a long black coat she had never seen before, stood Varen, his back to her.
Between his shoulder blades, the image of the same upside-down crow from his green mechanics’ jacket blazed in pure white against the ebony fabric. Only, just like everything else, the bird was reversed, now upright with its wings outspread as though in the midst of taking flight.
Clenched in one fist, she saw that he held her pink ribbon, the sash belonging to the dress she had worn to the Grim Facade. When she’d been there with him, on the other side of the purple chamber, unable to free him, Isobel had untied the ribbon from around her waist and given it to him as a token. A symbol of her promise to return for him.
He turned to face her slowly, the wind teasing at his hair, tugging at the hem of his long coat.
Isobel took a step toward him but stopped the moment their eyes met.
His stare, black and soulless, so far from the penetrating emerald gaze she remembered, rendered her immobile.
Lifting his arm out to the side, he let the slip of pink satin dangle from his hand. Then he unclenched his fist, letting go of the ribbon.
It fell, pooling right in the center of a blackened scorch mark that marred the floor.
“Wait!” she called as he began to turn away again.
But it was too late. Her eyes were open and she was back in her bed, awake and alone in her darkened room.
18
Burned
“You want me to go in with you?” Gwen asked.
