The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

I draw the cloak tighter. I still can’t believe how real the cloak feels. How scratchy and oily the felt is where it meets my skin.

I’m mid-muse on the quality of felt when hands clutch my upper arms and I’m hurled against the side of a building. My chin glances across the brick wall, ripping off a strip of skin. I try to scream, but I can’t get my breath. Someone’s hands are on my shoulders, pushing me against the wall, and I’m instantly afraid that all Mother’s warnings about walking alone at night are about to come terribly true.

“There’s money in my pocket,” I gasp. “You can have it.”

“We don’t want your money,” a young male voice hisses in my ear.

I close my eyes. Oh my God. Please. Please don’t.

But instead of fumbling at my skirts, the hands spin me around, pressing my back against the wall. My eyes are shut tight, my fists balled at my sides, ready to fight and kick if I can.

“Why were you asking about the Aquatic Display?” another voice barks.

This is not what I was expecting would happen. I open one eye.

In the darkness, I recognize the contours of the faces of the two young men who were sitting together in the back of the beer hall.

“You followed me,” I say.

“Shut up. Why’d you ask about the display, and then go into that shop?” the one in the skullcap demands. He has a metal pin on his lapel, in the shape of a broken spindle.

“What?” I’m confused.

“What do you know about it?” the dark one shouts, flecks of spittle hitting my cheeks.

I cringe away from him, holding my breath.

The other one draws so near to me that I can feel hot air from his nostrils along my cheek.

“What did Herschel tell you?” he whispers.

Herschel!

“Nothing!” I cry. “I haven’t seen him!”

“She’s lying,” the Senegalese boy says. He’s missing a tooth, and his nose has been broken at least twice. It zigzags painfully down his face.

“I’m not lying,” I say, drawing myself up taller. I lift my bruised chin and stare down my nose at him. “I’ve been looking for him. I went to the store thinking he’d be there, but he wasn’t.”

The boys exchange a glower. The one holding me by my cloak tightens his grip, knotting his fists together and pressing me harder against the brick wall.

“You tell us what he told you,” the one in the skullcap mutters, his lips almost touching my ear. “You tell us right now. And you’ll tell us what your father knows, too.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and scream, “No! You can’t hurt me! You can’t!”

I raise my fists and flail at the boys, but instead of hitting flesh, my hands hit nothing.





CHAPTER 3


I flop back into the booth, and I can’t tell if I’m hurt or angry. She wasn’t in the ladies room—I checked. And she’s nowhere in the diner. Annie ditched me. And she didn’t even eat anything. Finally I swallow a few bites of her cold bacon, just so it doesn’t go to complete waste, and now I’m just sitting here seething. It’s nine in the morning, and I’m so hurt and confused I could punch a wall.