The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“Home?” I ask. “But for how long?”


Lottie is from a mean smattering of huts in the countryside far up the island, a hardscrabble village named Seneca. No one knows why it has an Indian name, since I don’t think any Indians live there. I’ve never actually been, and Lottie won’t tell me about it. She hates to go back home, though she’ll never say why. Lottie doesn’t like talking about herself with us as a rule. Winston is from there, too, though, and goes home some Sundays, when Mother and Papa let him get away. Sometimes his wife’s owner will let her and the children go there, too, but rarely. Winston gets a faraway look on his face, when one of those home-going Sundays is coming. He has a small parcel of land of his own, with a tiny house that he built, covered with wooden shingles that he split. Winston is free, and always was, as far as I know, but not so many freedmen can buy land. Even land no one else wants but the Irish.

“I don’t know,” Mother hisses through clenched teeth. “Now hurry. Winston’s going to drive us in half an hour.”

She shoves me through the door of my bedroom and then hurries down the hall back to Papa’s study.

Beattie is nowhere to be seen, though there’s a heap of finery and coats on our still-listing bed. I hear drawers opening and closing in Ed’s room next door. I stand alone in the center of the room, my skirts in my hands, vibrating with indecision.

“Dammit, Eleanor!” an angry male voice shouts through closed doors.

My mouth goes dry.

I never knew what the letter said. But in this shadow version of my past, this bizarre reliving of a day that already happened, perhaps I can find out.

On silent cat feet, I creep out of my bedroom and down the hall, careful to avoid the creaky board at the head of the stairs. Papa’s study is at the front of the house, overlooking First Street, next to Ed’s room. I reach his closed door and, holding my breath, lean down until my ear hovers just next to the keyhole. One hand tucks my pigtail behind my ear.

Papa and Mother are both inside, with at least two other men.

“. . . let them threaten us like this,” Papa is in the middle of saying.

“Peter,” my mother says in her cold and reasonable voice. “Nothing has to change. The flotilla is underway. The celebration will go on. Nothing will stop it.”

“Do you know what the governor will do, if he hears the threats are escalating?” one of the unseen men says.

“There’s nothing to do,” my mother insists. “The canal will open. The corporation will succeed. There’s no stopping it, even if the governor wanted to. Which he does not.”

“I don’t know,” my father says.

He sounds weary. There’s a creak, as of someone sitting down heavily in a desk chair. Footsteps cross the room, and a shadow moves over my face where I hover, listening.

“In any case,” another male voice says, “they’ll soon see it’s for the best. These agitators act from fear. They’re essentially ignorant.”

“Indeed,” my father agrees. A long pause wears by while we all wait to hear what he might say next.

“When they see how cheap corn gets, the violence will stop. It stands to benefit the paupers most of all, anyhow,” the other man remarks.

“We might tell the governor in any case,” my father says at length.

A thrumming of tension swells throughout the room.

“But, Mr. Van Sinderen,” the younger of the two men says. “We don’t want to distract him. It’s only your . . .” He stops himself, aware that my mother is listening to him with icy attention. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, madam. But it’s only your family that’s received the threats.”

“What are you suggesting?” my father growls.

“Well,” the unseen man demurs. “It’s possible that the . . . don’t you at least think that perhaps . . .”