The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“No,” she says, uncertainly. “Not exactly. It’s more the thinking about it that does it. Looking closely. I just used the sunbeam because it’s easier to see.”


We sit side by side, chewing over this idea. A woman in leggings and huge sunglasses strides past, her heels clacking loudly on the sidewalk. She doesn’t say anything to us, but chucks some quarters onto the sidewalk between my sneakers without a backward glance. Confused, I watch her go. Then I hang my head and start picking the quarters up, one at a time. My head buzzes with questions. Like, what is she going to do? How does she move around? What are the rules, for this kind of thing? How long will she be here? They all crowd together in my mouth, each vying to come out first, but then I realize that I’m taking too long to say something, and I should probably say something. She needs me to say something.

“Does it hurt?” I finally ask Annie in a whisper.

Her eye rolls to its corner and stares at me.

“Sometimes,” she says.

“But . . . how did it happen?” I ask.

Did she know? Did she feel it? What’s she been doing, between then and now?

“I have no idea,” she says, her voice so quiet it almost doesn’t exist.

“So when you vanish . . . ,” I begin, my mind trying to keep up with the sudden fact of the impossible. But I don’t know how to finish the thought.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve been having trouble with time lately. With knowing where I am.”

She faces me and puts her hand on my arm. I have to force myself not to flinch away from her touch, but her hand feels like it always does—cool, real, flesh over delicate bone. Just to be on the safe side, I don’t look at it. Instead I look into her black eyes.

“Will you help me?” she asks.

“But I don’t know what to do,” I confess.

I’m never ready for anything.

I wish I did know.

I wish I were filming this, right now.

“I have to figure out what happened,” she says.

I stare at her long and hard.

“What’ll happen then? If we figure it out, I mean,” I ask.

She reaches over and places her fingertips on my mouth, in that way that she has. Her touch makes my lips feel warm and prickly.

“Shhh,” she says. “I can’t think about that now. I just know that I can’t solve this by myself. And I have no one else to ask. No one else sees me like you can.”

I love having her fingers on my mouth. It makes me want to keep talking, so she’ll put them there again.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

As I say it, I hope that I’m telling her the truth.

? ? ?

So she’s a . . . Rip van Winkle.

Okay. Maybe.

I eye her as we walk together through the Village, and it’s actually sort of fun, watching her look at everything. If it’s true, she’s never been in a car. That’s crazy. Does she even know how big the city is? How does she get from place to place? Right now she’s just walking like a normal person. But that’s not how she got into my room. She must have gotten in some other way. Can she walk through walls? Can she even control where she goes?

What is she thinking about?

What happens when she disappears?

Is she stuck like this forever?

I have this vague plan that maybe we should go to the library, though the truth is, I’m not a big library guy, so I’m not really sure what we’d accomplish there. But when I suggested it, she brightened up, said, “The Society’s still here?”—whatever that means—and so off we went. It made me feel good, that I could come up with a plan. As long as I don’t let on that I’m making this up as I go.

Should I be explaining everything to her? Like, this is what an airplane is and stuff? No. Maybe she doesn’t want to know. She’ll ask, if she wants to know.

God, I wish I were filming this right now.

My phone vibrates in the pocket of my shorts, and I pull it out to take a look. It’s a text from Tyler, saying he’ll look at my camera if I want him to, and he’s around after twelve. I text back that I’m heading to campus, and does he want to get coffee?

Annie watches my thumbs move with a curious smile.