Nevermore

When she thought she could, Isobel stood. Shakily she drifted toward the door. She reached an unsteady hand to the knob. The door opened outward, opposite from before, and it moved easily, seemingly more from her touch alone than from any effort on her part to push.

The music washed over her, building and falling, the melody mimicking itself, then starting over again. A chamber of rich ebony lay stretched out before her. Thick velvet draperies spilled from tall windows, like motionless black waterfalls. Phantasmal light played through the stained-glass bloodred panes, setting shadows loose to clamor over the sable walls and coal black carpeting.

“The vaults are insufferably damp,” one of the men’s voices said. “They are encrusted with niter.”

“Let us go, nevertheless,” the other voice returned, and Isobel recognized his accent as Italian. The bells on his cap jangled again, and the sound drew her out of the office.

She kept one hand on the door frame as she passed into the room where the smell of perfume and wine mingled with the scent of rich food. She looked up and noticed more black draperies. They hung suspended from the vaulted ceiling. Combined with the deep crimson windows, the space seemed like the innermost chamber of a royal crypt.

But where had the warehouse gone? The goths and the Grim Facade? And why did this place seem so familiar?

“The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”

The two men stood just within the doorway opposite her own, one at the far end of the otherwise empty room, their silhouettes surrounded by a haze of dim violet light. Who were they? What were they talking about? And where was she?

The bell-capped figure took the arm of the other. Then that man raised a mask to his face. He drew his cloak in tighter and they hurried off.

Isobel crept forward, toward the archway where they’d stood.

A deep, bold sound arose from behind, halting her steps. The noise vibrated through the carpet, strong enough to stir the curtains. It rolled through Isobel’s shoes and through the solid black walls. Dread, like a poison, spread its way through her, and she turned toward the source of the noise.

Like a dark sentinel, an enormous ebony clock now stood in place of the door she’d walked through not a moment before. The clock’s face, like that of an unforgiving god, glowed white in the surrounding blackness while the chimes sang out a discordant melody.

The party music died out at once and with it, the voices and all laughter. The clock’s song washed clear and haunting through the chamber and the hall, resonating like a false lullaby.

When its cry died down, snuffing out at last with a lingering, mournful echo, Isobel could hear nothing but the sound of her own blood rushing through her ears. That, and the quiet turning over of the clock’s innermost mechanisms.

She’d been here before, she realized, if only in her mind. It was exactly as she’d imagined it too. Every detail. Down to the clock that now towered over her, real as life itself.

Then the clangs came, dull and droning, and the seed of Isobel’s fear grew.

She rushed back toward the clock, but any trace of the door she’d entered through had vanished. In its place, a silver pendulum close to Isobel’s own size swung to and fro just as the lightbulb had. It swayed back and forth as the clock chimed the hour.

Four. Five. Six.

Wait. What time was it?

Nine. Ten.

Isobel’s eyes rose to the face of the clock. One long spearlike hand aimed at twelve, the other, shorter hand at eleven. She listened as the last chime throbbed around her until it dissolved into nothingness.

There was a beat of pure silence. The gears in the clock finished turning, and then a woman’s light laughter trickled from some chamber far away. It was followed by the pluck of strings and the immediate build of voices. The music started again, and somewhere, a champagne cork popped.

No. No. No. This wasn’t real. She placed a hand to her forehead, trying to backtrack through her memory, to recall in reverse order the night’s events. This couldn’t be happening. She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.

The clock’s pendulum sliced through the air like a scythe, reaping the seconds. With each pass, its ornately engraved silver surface flashed a mottled version of Isobel’s reflection.

The pendulum passed again, revealing in the circle of silver the white face of an empty-eyed figure, one which now stood behind Isobel.

She gasped and swung around, nearly tumbling backward into the clock.

There was no one. Her eyes darted, catching the tail end of the fleeting shadows thrown by the flickering light of the bloodred windows.