The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

She grunts in her sleep and presses her nose into my neck.

There’s a clang in the room next door, and I hear a woman’s voice mutter in annoyance. Sounds of something scraping against the wood floor, and then the door to the narrow hallway between our brother’s room and ours swings open and Lottie appears, rolling a large, shallow metal tub into our room.

“All right, gals,” Lottie barks. “Up and at ’em.”

She’s not supposed to roll the tub in on its edge like that, because Mother’s concerned it will ruin the floors. I watch, my eyes widening in bafflement as Lottie maneuvers the tub to the foot of the bed, then tips it to its bottom with a metallic spang. She drops a cake of Pears soap into the pan and wipes her hands on her apron.

Beattie rolls over, her eyelids fluttering.

Freed from her arm around my neck, I sit bolt upright in bed.

“Lottie?” I ask.

“Water’s on to boil,” she continues in her brusque manner, paying me no attention. “I don’t much care who’s first.”

I don’t much care who’s first.

I mouth the words as she says them, as she does every morning.

She trudges back out the door she came in, down the four flights of rear stairs to the kitchen in the basement where the kettle will be whistling with hot water for our washing.

“Beattie, wake up,” I hiss, shaking my sister’s shoulder with urgency.

“Huh?” She stretches her arms overhead, yawning. She smiles sleepily at me and cuddles her doll, her curls spread over the pillow.

“Beattie.” I take her hands in mine. “Are you awake?”

“I’m awake,” she says, rubbing her nose on her shoulder. “Morning, Annie.”

“What day is it?” I demand.

“What day?” she echoes. Another yawn.

Before she can answer me the door to our room flies open and it’s Edward, the youngest, skidding in on his stocking feet.

“Get up get up get up get up get up!” Edward bellows. He vaults across the room like a rabbit. Just last week he broke the bed and Mother was beside herself.

With a squeal of pleasure at being alive, my brother launches himself into the air just as I cry, “Eddie, wait! Not again!”

But it’s too late, and my brother lands on us in a tangle of sheets and elbows and feet. My sister lets out a squeal of anger, diving to whack my brother upside his head, and for a long minute I’m pinned between their two struggling bodies.

In the midst of the struggle, I feel more than hear a dull snap, and our mattress lurches partway to the floor. My siblings pause in their struggle to register the destruction, and then resume their battle with renewed vigor.

Eddie broke the bed, again.

This all feels so . . . normal.

Slowly, deliberately, I hold my hands out in front of me, to look at them, just like I did in my nightmare.

They are perfectly clean. No smoke stains or dirt. My nails are pearly with health.

But Herschel’s ring still isn’t there. I hunt around in the sheets, but it’s not there, either.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper, staring hard into space.

I have to think. I have to figure this out.

“Ow!” Edward whines as Beattie digs a knee between his shoulder blades and grinds his face into her pillow.

“I told you not to jump on us like that!” Beattie screams in his ear. “I told you and told you!” She said the same thing when he broke the rope last week.

“Annie! Help!” My brother’s cries are muffled in the bedclothes, but I’m not paying attention. I’m staring at my hands, flexing my fingers in the dull morning light.

Why isn’t Herschel’s cameo on my finger?

“Annie!” Edward squirms out from under Beattie’s grip and looks to me to adjudicate.

Ignoring him, I get slowly to my feet, still staring at my hands. I rub my fingertips against my thumbs, and the shiver of reality travels through my skin. Everything feels completely real. Completely normal. Everything is exactly as it was.