The Disappearances

“What?” I ask.

But he sets his jaw and doesn’t answer.

Dr. Cliffton sprinkles us with Embers and we step outside. Paper lanterns swing from the orchard branches, and strains of live music filter from somewhere in the distance. Trails are lined with glass mason jar luminaries and flowers. We pass a cluster of hens pecking seed, a pile of pumpkins, children spilling out of a hayride. The mood is more festive than I expected; there is a current of energy, or maybe relief, that the day is here. That the unknown is almost known.

“There are some of your friends, Will,” Mrs. Cliffton says, waving. “Do you want to join them?”

Will acknowledges them, and my heart rises with happiness when he says, “I’ll find them later.”

Together we drop off our provisions and head toward the lake. Punting boats slice through the water, which has a different mood entirely today, choppy and blue instead of the black glass of the other night. People perch on picnic tables and sprawl on blankets in the grass, eating golden-fried doughnuts rolled in cinnamon. A girl with strawberry blond hair is nestled between the roots of a tree, reading a book. Her glasses are too big, and every so often she lifts her face to smile at the sky. Younger children scamper up the branches above her, sending down sprays of blood-red leaves. Their hands pluck apples from the topmost branches, the only ones that remain.

Dr. Cliffton leaves us and joins three men who are fishing from the near dock. He struggles with his cane in the sand, and the men hurriedly make room for him to take a seat on the hunks of driftwood. One says something that makes him laugh, and they offer him a fresh catch still sizzling in butter over the flames from a sandpit. A few of my classmates are roasting Betty Lou marshmallows until they puff out in crisp pillows. A young boy with large brown eyes sits in the sand nearby, letting it fall through his fingers, blowing intermittently on a silver whistle. On any other night I’m sure someone would tell him to stop. But tonight no one does.

We leave Dr. Cliffton and continue on through the rest of the grounds. There are tables of rich food everywhere—?apple butter slathered over thick biscuits, squash soup with fresh cream, savory meat pies with scored crusts that Mother would have loved, loaves of lemon and lavender cakes dusted with flower petals, bottles of wine and mugs of spiced cider and dark hot chocolate. Miles never takes off the gloves, yet he reaches out to touch everything: the bark on the trees, the tassels hanging from tablecloths, an iridescent wind chime carved from mother-of-pearl. Melted ice cream streaks across the gloves like comets.

Even in the midst of the excess, there are signs that everyone’s provisions have been pooled for this one night. As Dr. Cliffton assembles his telescope to offer glimpses of planets, a flush of small children run by, their baskets filled and shirts upturned to hold their candy. One of the littlest ones takes a tumble, her stash scattering along the ground like marbles, and everyone around her bends to help collect them again.

I straighten at the distinctive sound of a candy cracking into shards under a shoe.

“Malcolm,” says a voice.

Dr. Cliffton stands from where he had crouched to inspect one of the little girl’s sugar-coated almonds in the fading light.

“Victor.” Dr. Cliffton nods curtly to the man in front of us. There’s a boy standing next to him who looks vaguely familiar. They both have a sharp look to their faces and pointed chins, though the boy lacks the small mustache that makes his father look almost like a rat.

“I suppose it’s off to the races again tonight,” Victor says to Dr. Cliffton, and the words jar my memory. I recognize the boy now. Leroy Larkin. The one Will raced against that night on the lake. “No rest for the two of us when the Disappearances keep coming,” Victor continues. He smiles, but it is all teeth, no warmth.

“Best of luck to us all,” Dr. Cliffton says stiffly. He doesn’t return Victor’s smile. “That the next Disappearance is something minor and the Variant can be found quickly.”

“I heard Cleary is planning a run for Sterling’s next mayor,” Victor says. “But maybe you’d be better suited for the job. A little change of pace, perhaps, Malcolm? Find another way to be the people’s savior?”

“Have a good night, Victor,” Dr. Cliffton says pointedly, turning back to his telescope.

Victor Larkin squeezes his son’s shoulder. “Come along, Leroy,” he says. “Matilda,” he says, tipping his head to Mrs. Cliffton.

Will mutters something under his breath, crouching to find another candy. I bend to help him look, even though the young girl with the basket is long gone.

“That’s the other Variant inventor?” I ask quietly.

Will grits his teeth. “I wouldn’t really put Victor Larkin and my father in the same sentence,” he says. “Mr. Larkin invented some of the Enhancements. The Tempests, for instance. But he also came up with the Hypnosis Variants. They’re outlawed everywhere, but that doesn’t stop him.” Will shoves his hands into his pockets. “He doesn’t seem to have any problem selling his integrity to the highest bidder.”

“Hypnosis Variants?” I ask, but I’m interrupted by Miles.

“So when is it supposed to happen?” he asks, popping one of the girl’s forgotten almonds into his mouth. “The Disappearance, I mean?” he adds in a loud whisper.

Dr. Cliffton clicks the last part of his telescope into place and checks his watch. “Anytime. At the original fair it wasn’t until close to six o’clock. One year it was around two o’clock, another four. It seems later in the day when Sterling hosts. So now we just wait, and watch.”

“Maybe nothing will disappear this year,” Miles says, crunching on the candy. “And then it will all be over.”

And the way Mrs. Cliffton’s back suddenly straightens like a rod, the way the excitement builds as the hours pass without a Disappearance tells me that this is exactly what everyone is hoping.



When the sun begins to set, the luminaries and lanterns flame with fire and Glimmers. I buy a flower necklace from Viv, the woman from the Marketplace, and a woven flower crown from one of her daughters. The girl wears them stacked along her arm like floral bangles. The one she places on my head has peach dahlias, orange lilies, and sprigs of delicate white buds that look like dots of pearls. I can feel Will’s eyes on me the moment she pins it into my hair.

Up ahead a man sits playing the banjo on a low branch that stretches parallel to the ground. A father and his young daughter are dancing together to the spirited music, she laughing as he swings her around, and my crown feels heavy when I turn my head away from them.

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