The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“Spit it out already!” my father shouts.

“He thinks it’s a private quarrel, Peter,” my mother says, and the timbre of her voice turns me to glass. “That this . . . brotherhood, or whatever it is . . . isn’t trying to scuttle the corporation. They’re trying to scuttle you.”

Another creak as my father rises from his seat and stalks across the room.

“In which case,” his young corporation colleague continues, “we see no reason to bother the governor. Provided your family’s security is sure, of course.”

“Which we’re prepared to arrange,” the other corporation functionary hastens to add. “At our expense. At least until the canal is officially open.”

“These crackbrains!” my father explodes, pounding his fist onto the roll-front desk with a thud.

“I’ve already sent a message to Mehitable,” my mother rushes to soothe him. “She says we can stay in Hudson Square as long as we like. And it’s only another week ’til the celebration. Then we’ll be out of danger.”

“Oh, splendid,” my father says, molassesey with sarcasm. “Mehitable, no less. She’s as giddy as these dashed Luddites. Crackbrains all of them!”

“I’ll add, Mrs. Van Sinderen, that the corporation’s investigating the threats,” the authoritative young man says. “We’ll find the culprits in ample time.”

“And what happens then?” Mother asks.

Papa laughs mirthlessly, joined by the other two men.

“Ragtag and bobtails,” my father mutters. “Sons of whores. What difference does it make?”

I catch my breath, and clap my hand over my mouth.

The figures on the other side of the door all freeze, listening. A moment of anxious silence settles on the second floor of our town house. We all lean in, listening to each other without breathing.

Without warning, footsteps rush across the study floor and the door flings open. I hurry to stand up and appear as though I were happening by on my way to Ed’s room, but my mother’s pinched face, pale with rage, tells me that my ruse has failed. Behind her I spy my father standing at a chaotic desk, purple-black bags under his eyes, flanked by two younger men in tight waistcoats, their hair slicked down where their high hats usually are. One of them is holding a knife. It’s the same knife I saw the stranger use to stab the note onto our front door. They all look up at me, startled into silence.

“Dash it all, Annatje!” my father shouts. “You heard your mother! Get your things together!”

“We’re going to Aunt Mehitable’s,” Mother reiterates, her voice artificially calm.

“Yes, Mother,” I say.

I crane my neck over her shoulder, to see if I can glimpse the note. The young man holding the knife sees me looking, and hides the blade behind his back. My father catches up the note and stuffs it into his pocket before looking with lowered brows out the window.

“Don’t forget the dress we picked for you to wear for the festivities,” Mother reminds me. “And your slippers. Tell Beattie. The newspapers will be there.”

“All right.” I hesitate.

Should I invent an excuse to leave? But what lie can I spin that would persuade her to let me go?

My eyes shift between her and Papa and the panic-faced corporation men. Papa turns his back to me, fingertips rubbing over his forehead, and one of the men whispers in my father’s ear.

I can slip out. Lottie’s already left, and Winston won’t say anything. If I pretend I’m going right to my room, they’ll stay in the study hatching their schemes, and I can get away to see Herschel. Just for a minute. If I’ve lived this day before, as I’m increasingly certain I have, then I have to find a way for him to give me the cameo.

I ache for it.

For the cameo, and for how he stares at me beneath his studied brows, and for what he says when he slides it on my finger. His eyes look soft, when he stares at me. Like Wes’s eyes, I think in passing.