The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

Why?

We don’t own slaves. We never have. Winston’s a freeman and gets his wages. I see slaves every so often, on the street or at the market, but Papa’s family never had them. And Mother’s didn’t, either—Mother’s from Connecticut. I’ve heard tell of what it’s like, in the Southern states. They publish stories in the papers. Sometimes they run away and try to hide amongst the freemen here, and when they’re caught, it gets ugly very fast. That Senegalese boy with the broken nose, he could be a runaway. There was fear, under his rage, I saw. Once I saw a black woman in the street, the top of her dress pulled down, screaming, being flogged by two sunburned white men, and the murmurs in the crowd told me that she’d run away and they’d come for her all the way from Maryland. But we’re not like that, here. I’ve heard Papa say they’re going to outlaw it, in New-York. It’s even part of his platform. Papa plans on being mayor, not that he’s ever discussed it with me, but I’ve listened at enough keyholes to know.

I finger the sealing wax, with the impressed outline of a spindle. What can that mean? What does a weaver want with us? Why would a weaver pin such a scurrilous lie on our door?

I stare at the hideous word, hard. As I stare, the word seems to twist and slither across the page like a garden snake. Slavemonger. I concentrate. The writing blurs, and I have to squint to see it.

“Wes?” I ask.

I’m on the point of asking what he thinks it means, when I glance up and observe a soft, gentle fog drifting into the library reading room. It creeps along the top of the card catalogue, oozing across the floor to the librarian’s desk, and pouring over its edge like a waterfall. It flows up the walls and streams across the ceiling, billowing like waves of smoke from a fire undiscovered.

“Oh no,” I whisper.

Fingers of fog trail across our table, coiling around my arms, swirling under the letter in my hands. I look at Wes, terrified, wondering if he sees it, too.

“Annie!” I hear him call my name, but it’s a distant call, the shout of someone in another room, or at the far end of a block, trying to make himself heard.

I can barely make him out, in the thickness of the fog. I see the outline of his cheek, and the soft mop of his hair, but I can’t see his face. The fog wraps itself around him like a blanket, pulling him into itself.

“Wes!” I cry out.

In my hands, the letter grows thinner, harder to see. Transparent, like a leaf caterpillar-eaten out of existence. I can no longer feel its texture in my hands, can’t register its weight. It fades until all I see is the last hovering outline of that horrible word, as if written on the air. Then, even that remnant vanishes, like a snake’s tail vanishing down a hole.

I bolt to my feet, flailing in the fog. My hands meet nothing. No table, no Wes. Nothing.

“Wes!” I bellow at the top of my lungs, but the noise falls dead on my ears, as though I’ve shouted into a void.

The fog creeps closer, and I stare at it, forcing my eyes to stay open. Maybe if I stare it down, I can make it go away.

The fog inches nearer the tips of my shoes, and I creep backward.

“Go away!” I shout at the fog.

Still it inches ever closer.

“Go away, I don’t want you! I want to stay here!” I shout.

A tendril of fog gently touches my toe, and I kick at it. The fog spreads and dissolves, but then re-forms itself and moves softly, smoothly over the top of my foot, sending a delicate finger up to the hem of my dress.

Tears spring into my eyes. Why must I be pulled away now? I just found the letter! But I don’t know what it means! What if this is the end, and I’m not going to be a Rip van Winkle anymore?

What if I never learn what happened?