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“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?”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore

“She glanced down at the contents of her plate. Just tell him what it is. Simple. Look at it and say what it is. "Sloppy Joe," she managed.

"Hmm," he said, sounding doubtful. "May he rest in peace.”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore

“For the briefest moment, they came face to face. Their eyes locked. Then he broke the stare, swiveled, sank into a sitting position, chains clanking, with his knees up.
She watched him speechlessly as he set a cooler bag between his boots, like he was settling down to a picnic or something. An image of the contents as hospital blood bags, complete with juice straws, flashed through her mind.
Unfolding her legs, she made herself as comfortable as she could on the cold outer edge of the sill. An intangible and unnameable charge electrified the space between them, and at first, neither of them said anything.
[...] Finally she heard him unzip the bag and watched him pull out a small cylinder.
"I thought you might like some crappy ice cream," he said.”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore

“I keep telling myself
That you’re
just a girl.
Another leaf blown across my path
Destined to pass on
And shrivel into yourself
Like all the others.
Yet despite my venom
You refuse to wither
Or fade.
You remain golden throughout,
And in your gaze I am left to wonder if it is me alone
Who feels the fall.”
― Kelly Creagh, Enshadowed

“He opened his palm and saw that the watch remained. Still there. Still real.
Varen looked up at the figure that stood atop the fountain.
With a howl of rage, he made it burst apart.
He fell to his knees amid the wreckage and floating dust.
Crumpling into himself, he released a choking sob, knowing that he, too, belonged to the ruin.”
― Kelly Creagh, Enshadowed

“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.”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore

“They know you lied.”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore

“He brushed his thumb across her lips. “I guess you're not as easy to forget as we'd hoped.”
― Kelly Creagh, Enshadowed

“She wanted to touch him, to throw her arms around him â€� 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’d 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’t true," she whispered. "I knew you wouldn’t 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’re 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’re 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.”
― Kelly Creagh, Enshadowed

“I told you you’d come," said a nearby voice, one Isobel knew well. "You said you would."
(�)
"You shouldn’t have, though," he said, and looked up, his face twisted with anger. "Even if we knew you would, you shouldn’t have." He got up and began moving toward her.

"Why," he growled, "when we will only show you we are not worth it? Why, when we have no other choice but to prove to you we’re not worth it?”
― Kelly Creagh, Enshadowed

“To Madeline,

This subtle second self
Sheaf of me
Can do more than you ever could.
Like you, it can leave
And go
Somewhere else.
The night splits me in two.
I disconnect �
To sink, to fall, to fly
And rage
Forever
And always
Without you”
― Kelly Creagh, Enshadowed

“Much like books, she could tell how voiceless things had provided a brand of companionship more compatible to his nature than human friendship had ever been. These things, locked in their inanimate ways, fed him ideas, she thought. They whispered their tales to him through unmoving lips and he listened, opening himself to their world so much more than any normal passerby. That much was evident in the way he’d taken the photos, as if he’d caught each soulless thing in a candid moment of secret animation. Like they’d sensed him coming and so turned themselves his way because they knew that he held the power to translate their silence into words.”
― Kelly Creagh, Enshadowed

“Awkward dot com.”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore