The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“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.

“To me,” she says.

Just then some short kids in bright white sneakers come in carrying a huge boom box. I didn’t even realize they still made those things. It’s massive, with gigantic speakers, and it’s blaring Kanye. The kids plop it down onto the floor like it’s no big thing and all stare at the pizzeria menu, adjusting their athletic shorts and shifting their weight back and forth.

“Hey! Turn that crap down!” hollers the guy behind the counter, Paul, who yelled at me for loitering that day that I thought Annie ditched me. The kids mutter and resist, but eventually turn it down, sulking. The promise of pizza outweighs the promise of Yeezus.

“It was from the United Brotherhood of Luddites, Annie,” I say.

I rummage in my camera bag for the newspaper articles that the librarian helped me find, and fan them out on the table in front of us. Annie leans over and peers at them with interest.

“You found them!” she exclaims.