Enshadowed

Danny stepped back when she reached the porch. He gawked at her, actually holding the storm door open to allow her room to enter. His eyes grew even wider as she stepped inside.

“You went out there without shoes?” he asked. “Are you crazy?”

She didn’t answer. Against the warm inside air, her skin flared fire hot. Her feet prickled, the numbness slipping quickly away, replaced by the sensation that the Oriental rug she stood on had been transformed into a bed of burning coals.

“Mom’s been calling for you,” Danny said. He watched her with wary uncertainty, as though he couldn’t be sure she was even listening. “It’s . . . time to eat.”

“Tell them I’m not hungry.”

“Uh . . . it’s Christmas Eve.”

“Then tell them I’m sick.”

He arched a questioning brow at her.

She pushed past him and made a beeline for the stairs.

To his credit, he didn’t try to stop her, and it was his silence that told Isobel he would do what she’d said.

When she reached the top landing, she slipped into the bathroom.

Shutting the door behind her, she made certain to lock it.

IT WASN’T LONG AFTER ISOBEL climbed into the steaming bathwater that the knock came. She could tell by the faint triple tap that it was her mother who stood outside the door.

Soaking in the hot water, her bare knees tucked against her chest, Isobel pictured her dad and little brother sitting at the dining room table, her mother’s holiday china empty before them while the turkey cooled on its platter.

In this house, missing a family meal (let alone Christmas Eve supper) was like missing a military roll call. If you were absent without leave, a member of the troops would invariably be dispatched to seek you out.

“Isobel?” Her mother’s voice came muffled through the door. “Everything okay in there?”

Isobel set her chin on her knees. “Just . . . my stomach,” she lied.

“Izzy,” her mom tried again, “Danny said that he saw you standing outside in the street just now. Is everything all right? Did something happen?”

Isobel narrowed her puffy eyes, glaring at her distorted reflection in the tub faucet. Her face looked curved and muddled, like the image in a funhouse mirror.

“Izzy?”

“I just . . . wanted to see the snow.”

“In your socks, honey?”

Isobel scowled. Couldn’t Danny keep his mouth shut about anything? At the very least, she hoped her ten bucks had actually bought his silence about Gwen having been there. She doubted he’d said anything, though. It would have been difficult for him to mention without incriminating himself in some way. Besides that, Isobel knew that her mother wouldn’t have hesitated to bring up an unannounced visitor first thing. Especially if that visitor happened to be the nefarious Gwen Daniels, bad influence extraordinaire.

Deserter extraordinaire, Isobel thought.

Until that moment, she hadn’t allowed herself to get angry at Gwen. She’d been too confused, too lost in the aftershock. Her brain couldn’t seem to sort through, let alone comprehend, the sequence of that evening’s events.

Worst of all, Isobel kept telling herself that Gwen hadn’t really meant it, that she’d be back. As soon as she got out of the bathtub, Isobel would go to her room and find ten texts and at least three voice mails waiting for her on her cell phone.

Deep down, though, she knew better than to hope for that.

Gwen’s fear had been too real, her words of warning too final. She had known the name Lilith. It had meant something to her. Something terrible. Bad enough to send her literally fleeing.

Isobel bit her bottom lip, an endless stream of questions ping-ponging back and forth in her head. How could Gwen have known that name? Why had it terrified her so much?

“He’s worried about you, you know.”

Isobel’s eyes shot toward the bathroom door again. She’d almost forgotten that her mother was still there.

She knew that by “he,” her mom must have been referring to Danny, though she hardly thought such a statement could be true. The only reason he pretended to care about her right now probably had more to do with the great opportunity it provided to keep their parents distracted and his pathway to the TV unobstructed.

“We’re all worried about you,” her mother went on. “You’ve been so distant. It’s like living with a stranger. It’s scaring us, Izzy.”

At these words, Isobel felt a gentle shift take place inside her, like a set of scales tipping. Her brow softened as she recalled the anxious expression on her little brother’s face when he’d stepped back to let her in from the cold. Her dad’s numerous attempts to extract some kind of meaningful conversation out of her also came to mind. And now her mother was standing just outside the door, doing her best to lure Isobel back from the ledge everyone thought she must be teetering on.