The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

? ? ?

For a long while, nothing much seems to be happening. We’re sitting around the card table in a watery darkness, because the summer afternoon sun is creeping in around the edges of the velvet curtains. Tyler and I are holding hands, which is weird, but then I’m also holding hands with a desiccated 1970s downtown type, so who’s to say what’s weird anymore. Sheila MacDougall is chanting, and Tyler’s eyes are closed. Tyler’s less afraid of seeming foolish than I am, I have to give him that. He throws himself into stuff, full throttle. My default, when I’m uncomfortable, is to get really self-conscious. And I’m uncomfortable most of the time. That’s why the camera makes everything easier. It gets my attention off myself.

My eyes keep drifting to the ceiling in boredom.

Divots. Too dark to count, though.

I’m starting to think this was a stupid idea. I should’ve just waited for Annie in the library. Anyway, how do I know she’s even coming back?

But she has to come back. The cameo, that’s her regret. She’s got to find it. And she’s got to find it soon. That’s the key, somehow.

She’s got to come back.

She’s got to.

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.