isobel

As though sensing her heightening alarm, Pinfeathers halted his advance."I can__ help it that I__ susceptible to you," he whispered. "You know that. It__ just that you__e so...unreal...and so I have to touch you. If only to be certain that I__ not the one who__ dreaming. You see, I hear that sort of thing is going around.

So." [Isobel] cleared her throat. "What are we doing?""We," [Varen] said at last, "are doing a project on Poe.""Didn't he marry his cousin or something?""The man is a literary god and that's all you have to say?

Isobel moved farther into the kitchen, not knowing whether to be relieved that her mother hadn't had an atomic meltdown, or mortified that she'd taken it upon herself to play head chef with the nearest thing Trenton High had to a Dark Lord.

Do you like kids?Only with barbecue sauce.

I keep telling myselfThat you__ejust a girl.Another leaf blown across my pathDestined to pass onAnd shrivel into yourselfLike all the others.Yet despite my venomYou refuse to witherOr fade.You remain golden throughout,And in your gaze I am left to wonder if it is me aloneWho feels the fall.

She wanted to touch him, to throw her arms around him _ but something held her back. Maybe it was the fear that her arms would pass right through him, that she would have come all this way only to find a ghost after all.As though he__ been able to read her thoughts, he slowly angled toward her. He raised his hands and held his palms out to her. Isobel lifted her own hands to mirror his. He pressed their palms together, his fingers folding down to lace through hers. She felt a rush of warmth course through her, a relief as pure and sweet as spring rain.He was real. This was real. She had found him. She could touch him. She could feel him. Finally they were together. Finally, finally, they could forget this wasted world and go home."I knew it wasn__ true," she whispered. "I knew you wouldn__ stop believing." He drew her close.Leaning into him, she felt him press his lips to her forehead in a kiss. As he spoke, the cool metal of his lip ring grazed her skin, causing a shudder to ripple through her."You..." His voice, low and breathy, reverberated through her, down to the thin soles of her slippers. "You think you__e different," he said. She felt his hands tighten around hers, gripping hard, too hard.A streak of violet lightning split the sky, striking close behind them.The house, Isobel thought. It had been struck. She could hear it cracking apart. She looked for only a brief moment, long enough to watch it split open."But you__e not," Varen said, calling her attention back to him. Isobel winced, her own hands surrendering under the suddenly crushing pressure of his hold. A face she did not recognize stared down at her, one twisted with anger _ with hate."You," he scarcely more than breathed, "are just like every. Body. Else."He moved so fast. Before she could register his words or the fact that she had once spoken them to him herself, he jerked her to one side. Isobel felt her feet part from the rocks. Weightlessness took hold of her as she swung out and over the ledge of the cliff.As he let her go.The wind whistled its high and lonely song in her ears. She fell away into the oblivion of the storm until she could no longer see the cliff _ could no longer see him.Only the slip of the pink ribbon as it unraveled from her wrist, floating up and away from her and out of sight forever.

Can I tell you something?" He tilted his head, moving in closer still, so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek. "Do you want to know what my grandma used to say about kisses on the forehead?"He pressed his lips to her brow, holding the silk soft kiss for a long moment while Isobel stood in place, unable to bring herself to shove him away."She told me it__ the kind of kiss we save for the dead.

If she were gone I would be nothing. You should think better of yourself than to settle for that.