The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

That’s when I realize I’m dreaming.

The realization comes to me in a flood of relief. But of course I’m dreaming. That oddness, that deadness in the air isn’t really there. I’m not waiting around in Mother’s bedroom at all. I’m asleep under a quilt with a torn square in the spare room at my aunt’s house, the one in the attic with the tiny rosebud wallpaper. There’s a calico cat wrapped around my head, its paws kneading my ear. It’s the night of the fireworks for the Grand Canal, and I’ve only just gone to sleep, and that’s why my hair still smells smoky. In a minute I’ll wake up, and everyone will be down at breakfast, and they’ll tease me for sleeping so late, and none of it will have . . .

None of it will have . . .

I frown, trying to remember.

I rub my foot over the floor, and the sand scrapes again. It certainly feels real.

The sun seems to grow brighter in the room. It’s so bright now I can’t make out the curtains at all. I squint against it, holding my hands up to shield my eyes. When I do so, I observe the backs of my hands, and I hold them a little way away from my face, staring.

My hands are filthy. The palms are smirched with smoke, my arms blackened all the way up to my elbows, and the sleeves gathered over my elbows look oddly flat and gray. The lace is tattered. My fingernails are black, and when I look closer I see that they’re crusted with mud. “But what . . . ,” I start to say.

I flex my fingers, picking at the mud under my nails, and that’s when I notice that the red shell cameo ring Herschel gave me last week is missing.

“Oh no,” I whisper to myself.

My heartbeat quickens in my chest. I hunt around on the floor, thinking it may have slipped off. I look at Mother’s dressing table and at the end table. I shake the folds of my skirt in case it’s caught on a thread. I scrabble at my throat, digging a finger into the soft space between my breasts, because sometimes I pin it there, concealed inside the ruffles.

It’s nowhere. Gone.

I decide I’m ready to wake up.

“Mother!” I call out, louder this time.

There’s no answer, not a mouse skitter nor a finch peep. No voices below stairs, no one outside in the street. The sun whitens in the room.

I grip my skirts in a mounting panic.

“Mother!” I scream. “I’m ready to wake up now.”

Nothing.

The only sound I can hear is the thud of my blood in my temples and the gasp of my breath. This dress is too tight. I’m growing out of it. It’s squashing my breasts down as I try to breathe, like a dress made for a little girl, only I’m not a little girl anymore. I worry the finger where the cameo belongs, frantic. If I’m dreaming, then it’s not really lost, I reason with myself. It’s really on my finger right now. When I open my eyes, it will be there. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, bringing my fists to my temples, willing myself awake.

“Wake up,” I whisper. “Wake up, Annie. Wake up wake up wake up wake up.”

I open my eyes, but I’m still in Mother’s bedroom. The light, though, has grown so bright that it’s obscuring Mother’s bed. I can only make out the barest outline of the posts.

“I’ll wake up any minute,” I assure myself.

I wrap my right index finger around the bare ring finger of my left hand, twisting where the ring should be.

“It’s not really lost,” I mutter. “No one knows. You’ll find it.”

I pause, looking around myself at the slowly disappearing room. The light rises and spreads, swallowing the washstand, creeping along the floor until it touches the toes of my slippers.

“You can find it,” I whisper.