The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen (26 page)

I fidget in my seat. Sheila grips my hand harder, as though trying to hold me in place.

Sheila's chanting grows louder. At my insistence she busted out the crystals and the Ouija pointer thing and everything, and I let my gaze come to rest on these stupid toys on the table between the three of us. Why am I doing this? I could just as easily be waiting for her in Washington Square. Sitting in the afternoon sun on a park bench, watching terriers and spaniels parade by on their way to the dog run. Pigeons pecking around. A few roses clinging to thornbushes, their petals starting to crisp and brown at the edges.

Annie's mouth, her lips like pale rose petals. I picture it, the tiniest of smiles pulling at her mole. Her weird curled hair. That delicious, musky smell she has.

I smile privately to myself.

“Psssst.” A faint whisper brushes up alongside my ear, so faint I think I might have imagined it. The fine hairs along the back of my neck stand up.

I crack open my eyes, peeking between my eyelashes. I can just
make out the silhouette of Sheila chanting, her head drooping to one side with the half-assed-ness of it, and Tyler with his shoulders hunched up and his eyes squeezed tight as though anticipating someone hitting him in the face. I don't see anything else.

My heart rate has sped up, though.

I hold perfectly still, listening.

The whisper, if that's what it is, moves along the back of my neck and down my right arm. My nerves tingle with the aliveness of it, and I can feel a static electric current lift my arm hairs and move up the surface of my skin, all the way up to the roots of my hair.

“Annie?” I mouth the word, barely whispering it so that the others won't hear.

“Wes?” the whisper answers me. It's somewhere behind me, or to the right.

I move my eyes slowly in their sockets, hunting for her shape. But it's too dark; I can't see anything.

I stare long and hard at a point off to the right. I imagine I hear the faintest laughter, moving around the periphery of the room.

“What are you doing?” the whisper asks, this time brushing against my left ear. I have to fight the urge to let go of Tyler's hand and reach up to scratch my ear.

“I was trying to find you,” I breathe.

Tyler's hand tightens on mine. I guess he can hear me. I hope I don't sound stupid.

The faint laughter intensifies.

I look across the table at Sheila, who's kept on chanting like it's nobody's business, totally indifferent to whatever Tyler or I might think.

Is that . . . ?

Wait. Is it?

It is.

Ha!

Standing behind Sheila's chair is the barest outline of a young girl, about seventeen, with curls combed forward over her ears. She's in her same dress, with the low neckline with the bow in the middle, and loosely gathered elbow-length sleeves, the one Eastlin thought was stolen. As I stare she becomes more distinct, as if she were being reconstituted one atom at a time, growing gradually denser and more real.

Her eyes are bottomless pools of black, and she's smiling at me.

She holds a finger up to her lips.

Then, behind the medium's head, she waves her fingers and forms her mouth into an O, as if she were saying
Woooooo!
She tiptoes around in a circle, exaggerating like a mime, pointing at the medium and making faces at me.

I can't help it. I start cracking up. I press my lips together tightly to keep myself from laughing out loud.

Annie sees me fighting not to laugh and then covers her mouth with one hand, pointing at me with the other. She swans around, pretending like she's wearing a sheet. Then she mock-rattles some imaginary chains, rolling her eyes and moaning.

“Dude,” I burst through my laughter, my eyes tearing up. I let go of the others' hands and collapse, laughing on the table.

Sheila must have noticed that I've stopped participating or something, because all at once the lights flood on and Tyler screams, “Holy crap!”

He staggers to his feet and reels backward, a hand on his chest like he's having a heart attack.

“What's going on? What are you trying to pull?” Sheila shrieks at us.

Annie's frozen in the middle of the room, arms raised, like she's playing freeze tag.

Tyler is gaping at her, his eyes so wide I can see the whites around his irises.

“Holy crap!” he cries again. “You were serious!”

“Who was serious? What're you talking about?” Sheila MacDougall says, gathering her little crystals and stuff to her chest as if she were worried we're going to steal them.

My eyes bounce between Tyler's horrified-yet-fascinated face, and Annie's smiling one. She's let herself become un-pretend-frozen, and is shaking out her skirts and patting her hair back in place. Sheila, though, is just looking at Tyler.

In a flash I figure it out.

Sheila doesn't see her.
But Tyler does.

“Hi, Annie,” I say aloud.

“Hey, Wes,” she says sweetly. She comes over and perches on the card table next to me. She leans her mouth close to my ear, and with a mock-concerned look at Tyler says, “Is your friend okay?”

“Annie?” Sheila spits, getting to her feet. “What, Annie? What is this? Are you putting me on?”

Tyler's face has gone ashen.

“Oh my God,” Tyler says. Then he says it again a couple more times, for good measure.

“I told you it wasn't just me who could see you,” I say to Annie.

“You were right.” She nods. “How did you know? I think he might need a glass of water.”

“You boys get out of here,” the medium shouts, her voice getting strident.

“Sheila,” I say, pulling my video camera out of my shoulder bag and powering it up. “Here.”

I pass it to her and indicate the viewfinder.

“What the hell is this? Don't try to con me, kid.” She glares at me.

“I'm not,” I assure her. “Just look. Maybe start with the shot on Tyler, and then pan slowly over to me.”

Tyler's collapsed to the floor, staring openmouthed at Annie and me.

“She's the one in my movie,” he finally manages to say. “She kept moving around. In the different scenes. She was never . . . I could never get her to . . . Oh my God.”

“I'm sorry he's acting so weird,” I say to her. “He's okay once you get to know him.”

She nudges me with her elbow. “It's all right. How did you know he'd see me, too?” she asks, eyebrows raised.

Meanwhile, Sheila has accepted my video camera with a cross look and is training it on Tyler.

“Wow,” she remarks. “This one's nice. How much this set you back, anyway?”

“It was something you said, actually,” I say to Annie.

Sheila pans from Tyler, sitting cross-legged on the floor and trying to catch his breath, and I can hear from the sounds of the focus that she's zooming in. She reaches me, and then she pans a little farther.

Then she says, “Great God in Heaven,” and slowly lowers the camera to her lap. Her mouth falls open, and her eyes well with tears.

I turn to Annie and smile. She reaches forward and brushes the mop of hair off my forehead, grinning.

“It's possible to see the truth,” I say. “You just can't look at it too closely.”

S
heila MacDougall refused to accept our money, which I could tell was a first for her. But she was really, really anxious for us to leave. She hustled us out so fast I had to hang on to the banister because I was worried I'd trip and fall down the stairs. She slammed the door after us, and we could all hear the dead bolt thrown once it was closed.

“Are you freaking SERIOUS?” Tyler is shouting when we all land on the stoop outside.

I'm hugging Annie to my chest, feeling the soft tickle of her curls against my neck.

“I was afraid I wasn't going to see you again,” I whisper in the shell pink of her ear while Tyler freaks out in the background.

“I know,” she says into my shirt. Her arms go tighter around my waist.

“This cannot be freaking HAPPENING,” Tyler shouts, his eyes bright with excitement.

I cup the back of Annie's head in my hand. Her hair is so soft. Underneath the familiar musk of her hair, I can smell the gunpowder
on her, like she's been sitting too close to a campfire. That smoky-clothes smell. I close my eyes and breathe her in.

I'm distracted by a tugging at my shoulder, and open my eyes to find Tyler rummaging in my camera bag. “What're you doing?” I ask him.

“I'm sorry, man,” he says. “But there is no way I'm not filming this. I don't even care. This is freaking amazing.” He glances at Annie with a shy look and laughs with disbelief.

Settings done, recording button on, Tyler fixes my camera to his eye and trains it on us. Annie withdraws against me, but laughs while she does it.

“Does your friend know there's blueing all around his eyes?”

“Yes,” I say directly into the camera. “He knows. He thinks he's Billy Idol.”

“Please,” Tyler says. “Billy
Corgan
. But you guys! Do you realize you basically just gave that medium, like, a reason to live?”

“What's he talking about?” Annie asks out of the side of her mouth.

“You,” I answer. “That woman thought she was just a scam artist, but it turns out she's really talented. She totally brought you back when we asked her to. God, her face! Did you see it? You scared the crap out of her!”

“Ha!” Annie says, rather than laughs. “She did not either.”

“Are you guys hungry?” Tyler asks, then to Annie he says, “Can you even eat?”

Annie's eyebrows go up. “You don't waste any time, do you?” she says.

“No. I'm Tyler,” he says, camera still in his face, sticking his hand out for her to shake.

“How do you do, Tyler.” Annie seems amused. “I'm Annie.” She takes his hand and pumps it up and down mock-manfully.

I realize I'm holding her to me with my arm around her shoulders, clutching her to me, and I haven't let go just yet.

I should probably let go.

But I don't.

“This is amazing!” Tyler's going on. “I admit, I didn't believe it. Not at first. God! And you're in
Shuttered Eyes
! That's incredible. Wait 'til I tell the gallery. They're going to freak, I swear. Wes, you have to put her in
Most
. For serious. There's never been a documentary like that before. Not a real one. Just let them try and not let you transfer, if you actually put her in
Most
.”

“Gallery?
Shuttered Eyes
?” Annie's looking between him and me, but she's smiling like it doesn't matter that she doesn't know what he's talking about. She's just glad to be here. With us.

With me?

“Hey. Let's get pizza,” I say, and it feels like the most reasonable thing anyone has ever said in the history of ever. The pizza of reason.

“Definitely. God. Or a drink,” Tyler says.

At the thought of a drink, my stomach sinks.

Maddie. I'm supposed to meet her in—I check the time on my phone—a little over an hour. Assuming they're still not carding. She can totally pass for over twenty-one, but the only way I get into bars is by chance when there's no bouncer. I'm meeting her there, in any case. Well, what's the big deal? I didn't tell her it would be just the two of us. I'll just bring Tyler and Annie. We'll hang out in a group. Weirder things have probably happened in New York.

“Pizza first,” I say.

“Definitely,” Tyler agrees. “Do you like pizza? Have you ever had it? Just you wait. It's awesome.”

By the time we're all squared away with slices and sitting around one of the aluminum tables near the back of the no-name pizzeria
in the former drawing room of Annie's house, Tyler's started to calm down a little. Long enough to put the camera down on the table, anyway, and get some pizza into his mouth.

Annie keeps looking around herself with an expression that I can only describe as mild shock. I've bought her a slice of pepperoni. She's probably never had pizza before. I wonder what she'll think of it.

I wonder if she can eat.

Tyler's wolfing his down and all three of his slices are gone in about two seconds.

“God,” he says, shaking his head. “I was starving. I must've burned through a week's worth of adrenaline up there. You scared the pants off me, I'm not gonna lie. Jesus. I just about pissed myself.”

Annie smiles sweetly at him. “Did I? I'm sorry,” she says.

She takes my hand under the table, her thumb tucked against my palm in an oddly intimate way, and I feel the customary shiver that tells me she's close by.

“No, no! It's cool. I was just surprised, is all.” He grins at her. “It's incredible. Wes, isn't it incredible?”

“No question,” I say, catching Annie's eye. “Incredible.”

“So? How does this work, anyway?” Tyler asks, firing up the camcorder again. If anyone else in the pizzeria notices that he seems to be filming an empty chair, they don't let on.
Kids,
they're probably thinking. Making an art film. Who knows why kids do what they do.

Annie blushes. “Um . . .” She glances at me, nervous. “I'm just starting to figure it out. But one thing I know for sure is, that woman you paid didn't do anything.”

“She didn't?” He's surprised.

“No. I didn't even know she was there 'til I got there. Is that her business or something?”

“Kind of,” I say.

“She pretends she can find . . .” Annie hesitates. “People like me?” A glimmer of sadness passes across her face.

“There's no one like you,” I whisper to her.

Tyler makes a retching sound. When I glance up to glare at him, he grins at me.

“So? How'd you find us? Where were you? Were you there the whole time?” Tyler peppers her with questions, the red eye of the camcorder blinking with interest.

“Dude!” I exclaim.

But Annie's laughing, and I love the sound of her laughter so I have to stop talking and watch her while she does it.

“I was kind of . . . Gosh. It's hard to explain,” she says, frowning.

“Try us,” I urge her, my pinkie finger brushing accidentally on purpose against her sleeve.

“Yeah,” agrees Tyler, making minute adjustments to the focus. She must be looking hazy to him through the camera, the way she did to me. “Just tell it to us like it's a story. Don't worry if it doesn't make any sense. We'll edit it down later.” He grins to show he's just kidding, but he's probably not.

“Well.” She leans on her elbows, gazing at the slice of pepperoni pizza between them. “For a long while I wasn't quite sure where I was. In time.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, putting my fingertips on her arm. It feels warm and fleshy. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that she's . . . she's . . . a Rip van Winkle.

“I woke up standing in my mother's bedroom. I thought it was the next day. But everything was strange. Not like my mother's bedroom usually is. More like a dream of my mother's bedroom. I don't know how long I stood there, but I couldn't move, the way you sometimes can't, in dreams. And after a time, the room started to change. Then
all at once I heard Wes say
Listen
. Since then I'm pretty sure I've been sort of . . . both places at once. Here, with you. Right now. But also . . . Then. Like in a memory.” She sounds uncertain.

“A memory?” Tyler asks, entranced. I have the passing thought that if nothing else, this experience is definitely going to turn Tyler from art film to documentary. The idea of it makes me feel pleased with myself.

“Sort of,” she says. “I think, when he touched my elbow, Wes sort of pulled me out of where I was. But I was afraid, and I screamed, and I think being afraid makes me go somewhere else, because next thing I knew I woke up in bed with my sister, like it was any other day. Except it was a day I'd already lived. And sometimes I fall—that's not the right word, but it feels that way—back into now. My memory days are all days I've lived before, but they're happening differently from how they happened the first time. I can do things I didn't do before.” Annie stares at us, begging us to understand with her eyes. I wish I could. Right now, it's what I want most in the world.

Tyler looks lost in thought, weighing what she's said. “You know,” he remarks. “Memories always change.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“They've proved it. Like with science. Brain imaging, or whatever. I'm serious, I read about it. We think we record a memory in our brains, like me recording this conversation on video, right now. But that's not actually how it works.”

“It isn't?” I ask. How does Tyler know all this stuff? I'm starting to think I should subscribe to
Discovery
or something, just so I can make inane small talk as well as he does.

“Yeah. Didn't you read that? It was in the
Times
. I remember because it made me think about filmmaking. Every memory we have changes slightly each time we think about it. We add stuff we learn in
other places, or we forget stuff that doesn't seem important anymore. Or you think you remember something, like from your childhood, but actually you've just seen so many pictures of it, and your parents have told you about it, so you think you remember it, but you don't. A memory is a process. Instead of a thing. Like a story we tell ourselves that changes from the standpoint we're looking at it.”

Annie considers this long and hard. And so do I. The idea frightens me. Do I actually remember my life? Is this moment, happening right now, with Annie and Tyler in the pizzeria, and that same guy I filmed for
Most
working behind the counter and pretending like he doesn't remember me, is this all that's ever happened? The pizza of forever?

I grip Annie's hand tight under the table, and she squeezes back.

“Which days have you been seeing?” I ask. But the moment I form the question, I know what days she means. And if Sheila MacDougall is right, and they only get as long the second time around as they did the first, then I'm about to find out how much time we have left before she's screwed.

She levels her gaze at me, and there's sadness in the corners of her eyes.

“The days just before the Grand Aquatic Display,” she says. “I've been reliving them. In order. But a little differently each time.”

I swallow, hard.

“How many do you have left?” I ask, and there's an almost physical pain in my throat when I say it. “Before that night.”

She waits a long minute.

“I just left my aunt's house,” she says. “On the morning of.”

“Christ,” I say, burying my head in my hands.

Tyler's excited because he's catching this all on tape. I can tell he wants to be stage-managing this conversation, for heightened dramatic impact, and he's having trouble restraining himself.

“What's the Grand Aquatic Display? Sounds like an off-brand SeaWorld.” He laughs at his own joke, but Annie and I don't join in.

“It's—” she starts to explain.

“It's a party,” I rush in, speaking over her. I don't mean to be a jerk and interrupt, but I don't want her to have to talk about it for Tyler.

I don't want her to have to look too closely.

“So, what you're saying is, we only have one day left,” I say to Annie.

Wordlessly, she looks at me and nods her head.

“Okay,” I say. “That's not much time to find your cameo.”

“What cameo?” Tyler interrupts, but we ignore him. “Like a guest appearance?”

“Jesus,” I say. Her grip on my hand tightens under the table. I don't want her to know how hard this will be, but I can't hide it. I'm a filmmaker, not an actor. “So, wait,” I continue. “Before, when you'd disappear. What made that happen?”

She frowns, and says, “It would happen when I got afraid. Or upset. I'd just . . . I don't know. I can't explain it.”

“So that's why you vanished while we were looking at the note,” I say, my eyes widening.

She nods.

“What note?” Tyler prompts me so I won't forget to explain to the camera what's happening.

Irritated, I look the camera in the eye. “The week before the Grand Aquatic Display, someone left a death threat on Annie's door. Or, they thought it was a death threat.”

“But it wasn't,” Annie adds.

“And we found it in the library. Wait—” I turn to Annie, confused. “It wasn't?”

She shakes her head. “I don't think so.”

“What did the note say?” Tyler breaks in.

“Slavemongers,” Annie says.

My ears prick up when I hear the added
s
on the end.

“You don't think it was a threat?” I ask.

“No,” she says, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Wes. I think it was a warning.”

“To who? About what?” I'm confused.

Maybe it's my imagination, but it looks to me like she goes a shade more pale. If that's even possible.