Painted faces laughed. It was like a mad carnival where everyone was oblivious, lost in the bliss of chaos, a throng unaware of a bomb planted beneath thefloorboards.

You yourself could be nothing more than a shadow, someone else’s dream who is, themselves, someone else’s.

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...

The more this guy talked, the more he sounded like a fortune cookie.

Her fingertips reached to trace the damage, but he grasped her hand with his own. He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her...

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...

He smiled like he couldn’t help it. She couldn’t believe it. He was actally smiling, teeth and all. Had she ever seen him smile before? No, she realized, because right now, it was such a...

Please welcome Professor Varen Nethers, famous depressed dead poets historian and author of the bestselling books Unlocking your Poe-tential: A writer’s Guide, and Mo Poe Fo Yo: When You Just Can’t Get Enough.

She never answered. She couldn’t. All she could do was stare,reaching toward him with her gaze alone, pulling him to drownin the sorrow of those depthless black pools.

You’re a dream. Like everything else.

Just because I wear black and keep a private journal, that doesn’t mean I’m going to blow up the school. Or terrorize mindless cheerleaders, for that matter.

Death always wins

He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her lashes, She had just enough time to take in a breath, to blink, to part...

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...

Side by side we’ll fight the tide,That sweeps in to take us down.Hand in hand we’ll both withstand,Even as we drown.

Despite all the dark armor, the kohl liner, the black boots and chains, she saw him clearly now. She’d peered through the curtain of that cruelcalmness, through the death stare and the vampire sentiments and...

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...

As though sensing her heightening alarm, Pinfeathers halted his advance.”I can’t help it that I’m susceptible to you”, he whispered.”You know that. It’s just that you’re so…unreal…and so I have to touch you. If only...

Have you ever seen anything like it? They have everything, don’t they? Everything except a single care to dwell on.

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...