Only a single photograph of him existed. Taken sometime back in the nineties for Life magazine, the scratchy black-and-white print showed a night-vision image, pixelated and indefinite.
Either luck or fate had caused the photo to fall into Isobel’s hands.
After grading her and Varen’s paper and project on Poe, Isobel’s English teacher, Mr. Swanson, had handed back the assignment with an article detailing the Poe Toaster’s rite. Also included in the article had been the infamous image.
A shock had run through Isobel the moment she had set eyes on it. She could not have mistaken the kneeling man in the photograph. It was the same man who had once appeared to her in her dreams, calling himself “Reynolds.” The same man who had warned her from the beginning, who had fought by her side and had even saved her life.
In the very end, though, he had lied to her.
Isobel felt a stab of bitter coldness at the memory of how he had betrayed her, cruelly playing her own hope against her.
Before she discovered that he’d tricked her into thinking that, like her, Varen had returned safely to the real world, Reynolds had promised Isobel that the two of them would never meet again. But Isobel knew he would never count on her discovering his identity as the Poe Toaster.
Why would he, when he’d never counted on her doing anything but blindly playing along with his own plans?
Her resolve deepening, Isobel headed for the kitchen door and shouldered her way in, her dad following close behind.
As she crossed the threshold, the aroma of baked turkey and mashed potatoes rushed her, the rich scent accompanied by a wave of warmth.
Her mom stood at the stove dressed in worn dark-wash jeans and an oversize gray sweatshirt. Stirring a saucepan of gravy with one hand, she held open a thin paperback novel in the other. Isobel recognized the book as one of the trashy thrillers she liked to read between her brick-thick classics.
Her mom turned her head when she heard the door, though it took a second longer for her eyes to part from the page. At last she lowered the book, flashing Isobel one of her distracted “I’m still somewhere else” smiles.
“Back already?” she asked. “That was quick for a Christmas Eve venture to the mall.”
Isobel pulled off her white knit hat. A loud growl rumbled through her stomach, even though she didn’t feel the gnawing hunger it implied.
She set the bags down and peeled off her gloves. Shedding her coat, she hung it on one of the hooks behind the door.
From the living room, she could hear the familiar sound of video-game music punctuated by the slashing twang of swords and the anguished cries of fallen undead. Danny, she thought. Still in front of the TV. Always in front of the TV.
Isobel’s mom laid her book aside, open and facedown on the countertop to hold her place. “I started dinner late because I thought you two would be gone at least another half hour,” she said.
“You know me,” Isobel’s dad chimed in, shutting the door. He shed his coat and hung it next to Isobel’s. “Quick and simple. That’s the way we roll, right, Izzy?”
Isobel shot him an incredulous stare. Had he really just said “roll”?
Snatching up the bags again, Isobel headed for the archway that led out into the hall but stopped when she felt two sets of eyes boring into her back. She glanced over her shoulder to find her suspicions confirmed.
“What?” she asked.
On the stove, the saucepan of gravy started to burble and slurp. Her mom, as though snapping from a trance, turned away and switched off the burner.
Hands shoved into his pockets, her dad continued to stare at her.
She already knew what he must be thinking. He was probably wondering to himself if things would ever go back to being normal. If she would ever be the same again. If they would ever be the same.
In turn, Isobel wondered how long it would take for him to realize the obvious answer to that.
She gave the bags a shake. “So I think I’ll go try to find a place to stash this stuff.” Without waiting for a response, she ducked into the hall.
“Yeah,” she heard him call after her. “Good thinking.”
As Isobel made her way into the hallway, she thought she could hear her mother whispering, asking her father, “What happened?” and she knew he would cave and tell her that she’d brought up the Maryland trip. Again.
Isobel cringed. She switched the shopping bags to one hand and grabbed her scarf with the other, pulling the itchy woolen fabric free from her throat. Stalking down the hall, she passed the archway that led into the living room, where both the TV and the Christmas tree glowed with soft silvery light. Isobel stopped long enough to squint at the television screen, which displayed a spreadsheet of video-game statistics, weapon lists, and blinking vital signs.
That the game had been paused could have been an indication of only two things: Either her little brother had had to pee so bad that he couldn’t hold it any longer, or he’d been abducted by aliens.