The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

In a flash I’m angry with him. Can’t he see that I have to go? But he’s such a warm figment, and the corners of his eyes look moist and his eyelashes are trembling.

“I . . .” I hesitate, unsure what to do.

“Look,” he reasons. “If you have to go right now, I can just wait. Okay? You go do whatever, and I’ll just wait down here. It’s no big deal. I mean. You won’t be long, right?”

“Um . . .” I can’t tell how long I’ll be. How can I know? I hear my mother’s footsteps in the hall overhead, and the door to my father’s study slam. Running feet in the hallway between my siblings’ rooms. It’s the day of the letter, and I have to go.

“Please?” Wes whispers to me. His eyes are yearning, his hand crumpling the paper that he was trying to show me.

I’m inside the front hall now, my hand on the banister, and the hall is just as it should be, with the hat stand and the carpet runner. Perhaps I won’t be as long as all that. I have to go see Herschel before we flee to Hudson Square, because Herschel hasn’t given me the cameo yet. If Wes walks with me, I’ll be safer, in the street. And the truth is, I crave that stolid boy warmth next to me. That crinkling smile of his. His funny wrong words. Is it wrong, to be escorted through the streets by one boy on the way to meet another?

“All right,” I whisper to him so that Mother won’t hear.

The one time Mother spied me talking to Herschel, I spent two days locked in my bedroom and Beattie slept on the trundle in Mother’s room. I still have a pale stripe on my left hip, from where the welt healed. I can’t have her see me talking to some strange overgrown boy in short pants.

“Wait down there,” I say in my lowest voice. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Okay.” Wes grins in a way both winning and foolish, like a puppy with a pullet in its mouth. I grin back. So maybe Wes shouldn’t walk me all the way to Herschel’s shop. Maybe he can take me ’til I’m a block away, and I can carry on alone thereafter. “Okay. I’ll be right here.”

My feet newly light, I start up the stairs to where my mother is waiting.

“Wait!” Wes shouts, and I freeze where I’m standing and give him a deadly look. I can’t have Mother and Papa knowing about him. He has to be quiet.

“I don’t know your name.” The words tumble out of my figment in a rush of explanation and excuse. “What’s your name?”

I consider the question, and then bestow on him my most excellent smile.

“Annie,” I whisper. “I’m Annie.”

I just have time to see his entire face break open in a dazzling grin.

Then the door slams behind me on a passing breeze, shaking the walls of the town house as I hurry up the stairs.

“Mother!” I shout. “Mother, I’m here!”





CHAPTER 5


Mother’s face is pale and drawn when she looks down at me over the banister. She’s just come out of Papa’s study.

“There you are,” she says, and her grip tightens on the handrail.

“I’m sorry,” I rush to apologize, but I don’t know what I’m apologizing for.

Mother’s eyes narrow at me, and when I reach the top of the stairs she takes hold of my sleeve and pushes me up against the wall.

“Listen to me,” she says in a voice so quiet it fills me with dread. “I want you to go into your bedroom and help your sister pack.”

“Pack?” I repeat, but of course I know exactly what she’s talking about. She’s talking about the letter. “Is Lottie helping her?”

“Lottie’s gone home,” Mother says.