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.