Oblivion by Kelly Creagh Page A

doing? Why . . . did you run . . . like that?”
    â€œI should be dead,” Isobel gasped, her thoughts leaping out of her mouth as the memory of awakening on that hospital table ripped into her with chain-saw teeth. “I was, and I should have stayed that way.”
    â€œNo!” Gwen pulled Isobel’s hands from her face, forcing her to look into her frantic brown eyes. “Why would you say that?”
    â€œHe—he tried to kill me,” Isobel whispered.
    Saying it out loud for the first time felt like pulling a knife out of her soul. She was able to draw breath again, and gradually, the world stopped swirling.
    Grabbing Isobel by the shoulders, Gwen pulled her away from the plinth. Isobel swayed, falling to lean against her warm friend.
    Gwen’s wiry arms wrapped around her, pulling her in tight, and the scent of lavender caught Isobel off guard, because she’d never noticed it before. The aroma was one detail her brain could latch onto, though, something that testified to the realness of this embrace, which had to be the first she and Gwen had ever shared.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Gwen said. “Isobel, I’m so sorry I brought you here. And I’m sorry I said those things in the car. I—I didn’t know. I just wanted to—I thought he—”
    â€œShe won.” Isobel sobbed the words against Gwen’s shoulder, though her eyes remained dry; the storm raging within her took place inside a wasteland, where there could be nothing as cleansing as rain. “Gwen, she won. He hates me. She made him hate me.”
    â€œHe hates himself,” Gwen said. “You just got caught in the cross fire.”
    She pulled Isobel tighter. But the comfort of arms around her could not shield her from the memory of his eyes. Like a pair of black holes, they threatened to devour her, to incinerate her like they had in the dream, leaving no trace of her former self behind. Not even this shell she now occupied.
    â€œHe can find me,” Isobel murmured. “Anywhere I am. He can find me. The ash in the hall . . . That—that happened in a dream. He was there. He . . .”
    Gwen hushed her.
    â€œI wanted to come here today,” Isobel went on, “because—because I thought I might see him. Like before. Now, though, I’m afraid that I won’t ever stop seeing him. He scares me so much. I don’t know what he wants anymore.”
    Humming, Gwen began to rock her gently back and forth. Then, out of nowhere, she began to sing.
    The sound of Gwen’s singing voice, smooth and melodic—so different from the brash, cut-and-dried voice Isobel thought she knew so well—shocked her into stillness. Isobel blinked, her focus shifting at once to the strange syllables climbing and falling through their haunting phrase.
    â€œLyulinke, mayn feygele
    lyulinke, mayn kind
    kh’hob ongevoyrn aza libe
    vey iz mir un vind.”
    As Gwen’s song unwound with a slow, sad melody, Varen’s face—angry, vengeful, hollow—dissolved from her imagination, dissipating like smoke cleared by a gentle breeze.
    Cool air gusted past them, stirring Gwen’s hair, intensifying the scent of lavender, and with each silky note, the world around Isobel grew clearer, its lines sharper, the colors more vibrant, until she was fully present in the moment, not split between two places, two worlds.
    She’d never known Gwen could sing like this. She’d never have guessed, either. Before this moment, Gwen had always been wry wit and blunt truths. Gwen was sound advice and rationality. Her kindness had always been the sandpaper sort, as abrasive as it was smoothing. Apparently, though, Gwen had a softness, too, a gentleness she kept hidden. A gentleness Isobel found herself all too grateful for.
    â€œThat word,” Isobel said as the song looped to its chorus. “ Lyul — lyul —”
    â€œ