Before we’re little more than silt
Beneath the rocking waves.”
Isobel lowered the trophy as she entered the room, entranced by the strange scene playing itself out on her family’s television, confused and curious as to what it was doing there and where it could be coming from.
Sinking down to kneel in front of the screen, she squinted, trying to see through the crackle and static overlay, which had grown thicker as she’d drawn nearer.
She wished the woman would turn and look her way, if only for a second. There was something so familiar about her. Especially those floating hands.
Had she seen her before?
It made her wonder if she could have been in the dream with Varen.
No, Isobel thought, she didn’t think so. But the song had.
In an instant, she placed the melody as not only the same one she’d heard in her bedroom, but the same one that had struggled to work its way out of Varen’s car stereo. She remembered the way he’d wrenched the portable CD player loose from its cords, pitching the whole thing into the backseat.
What about the music had bothered him so much?
Isobel studied the woman, who continued to play as though locked in a trance, the melody now meandering on without vocal accompaniment, the piano taking over. An interlude of high notes trickled forth in a complicated pattern, accented by a few well-placed chords from the instrument’s lowest spectrum. This mixture of dark and light, high and low, hope and despair, worked its hypnotic effect on Isobel, as though she were a small child listening to an intricate story.
And that was when she began to search for more details, to notice the objects that surrounded the movie’s central figure. Old-fashioned floral-print wallpaper. Fancy antique furniture. A shelf-lined wall bearing indiscernible pictures in frames and nondescript knickknacks. A mirror, too.
Isobel’s sense of déjà vu grew twofold, the sensation threatening to spill directly into her conscious recognition until, like murky waters, gray and black rolls and squiggles rose up the television screen to scribble the woman away, and fizzing white noise eclipsed the music.
“No,” Isobel whispered, snapping to as though released from a spell. “Wait.” She placed a hand against the screen, but it blinked to blue again, resuming its silent fluttering, flashing in her face like cold firelight.
“Don’t worry,” an acidic voice rasped from behind her. “They don’t work anyway.”
Isobel shot to her feet. She spun to find him sitting in an armchair next to the darkened Christmas tree.
Leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, he sat staring down at the floor in front of him. His hands hung in between, one overlapping the other, the curved tips of his razor claws aimed toward the floor.
“Lullabies, I mean,” he whispered in the corrosive hiss that never failed to set her on edge. “Never have.”
He didn’t look up at her when he spoke but remained motionless.
Every so often, the light from the TV burst strong enough to flare across his scarecrowlike frame, illuminating the crimson curve of long claws and the pointed, slicked-back black-to-red spikes of his coarse feather-and-quill hair.
Pinfeathers.
11
Of Ill Omen
“Why are you here?” Isobel asked him, her tone guarded. In her hand, her “Number One Flyer” trophy began to feel slick, greased by her own sweat. She clutched it tighter.
Part of her had suspected that the black feather had been the Noc’s way of announcing himself, of dropping off a quiet calling card before retreating and waiting to be received.
It was a far cry from his usual jack-in-the-box style of popping up out of nowhere, all demented smiles and gleaming malice.
But what was he seeking to gain by entering her world like this?
More important, how was he doing it?
Pinfeathers blinked, his black eyes remaining downcast. Tilting his head to the side and knitting his brow, he seemed to contemplate the question. He didn’t answer, though. He only looked the other way, toward the Christmas tree, so that with the next flicker from the television, Isobel caught a glimpse of the jagged hole in his cheek.
It made her wonder—if he could reconstruct his arm and side, what kept him from doing as much for his face?