The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“But that can’t be right,” I insist.

A cute Asian girl in cutoffs and flip-flops walks past us going the opposite direction, her shoulder bag heavy with a laptop and books, and Annie shouts, “Hey! Put some clothes on!” right in her face.

The girl doesn’t even so much as glance in our direction.

“See?” Annie says pointedly.

“But I don’t get it. Why would I be able to see you, and not her?” I ask, looking back at the girl in flip-flops.

It’s not just me, I realize with a rush of certainty. It’s also Tyler. And Eastlin. Tyler actually saw her first. I was already thinking about her, the night we filmed the séance for Shuttered Eyes, but Tyler’s the one who made me go over and ask her to sit down. When I remember the séance, my heart turns over in my chest so hard I have to cough to get it going again.

God. What if she was . . . I don’t know. Summoned. Or something. What if that’s why she’s here? What if it’s all my fault?

“Annie,” I start to ask her if she knows. Why she’s here, right now.

Annie, oblivious to my thoughts, watches the girl in cutoffs over her shoulder, muttering, “Bare legs. In a library.” Then she turns back to me. “Why? I don’t really know. Maybe they’re just not looking right.”

She pauses, and I wait to see if she’s going to elaborate on this idea. Instead she glances back at me.

“You’re always trying to find the right way to look. Aren’t you, Wes.”

I stare down at her, wanting to finger the soft curls over her ears. But I don’t. Instead I swallow, and say, “I guess.”

We arrive at a bank of computer terminals, and I wiggle the mouse at one of them to wake it up. Annie is behind me, peering over my shoulder with a mixture of interest and anxiety.

I open up Google.

“So, what was your thing called again? That party you went to?” I ask, ready to type.

Her eyes jump between my fingers and the screen, baffled.

“Um,” she says. “The Grand Aquatic Display.”

Obediently I type the phrase into the search engine and hit enter. In my ear, Annie whispers, “My goodness. Will you look at that!”

But nothing much comes up. There’s a lot of random stuff that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what she’s talking about, and a scanned version of some guy’s memoir that mainly talks about who all the aldermen were who were involved, and what all the different committees were in charge of, and it’s all really dry and boring.

“Is that . . . is that a book?” she asks with wonder, reaching a hand out to touch the computer screen.

“I guess,” I say, clicking through the other results. There’s nothing much useful, but I’m not sure what else to do.

“Does it talk about anything strange happening, at the Display?” she asks.

“Not really.” I frown, scrolling through the dense memoir on Google Books. “It just says there was some huge party celebrating the opening of the Erie Canal. The Aquatic Display started in Buffalo and came all the way down the canal and then the Hudson to the city. Is that true?”

That’s pretty impressive, given that it took, like, a month for anyone to get a letter back then. And no electricity. They basically lived in the Dark Ages. It must have truly sucked.

“Yes. Papa’s in charge. They’ve been preparing for months. It’s all anyone can talk about. Yesterday there were these men with him, in his study. And someone stabbed a letter up on our door.”

“Someone stabbed a letter onto your front door? Are you serious?” I ask, eyebrows rising. “That’s so metal. What’d it say?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I never read it. But they panicked. Even Mother. That night we left the house and went to stay with my aunt Mehitable. Just before I found you, I’d sneaked out of the house to talk to Herschel, and tell him we’re removing for Hudson Square. But I never found him.”

“Hudson Square?” I ask. “Where’s that?”