“I know you can’t see it now, but there’s someone better for you here,” Eliza assures her as I walk past them. Beas lays her head on Eliza’s shoulder and doesn’t look at me. Eliza continues, making a point to raise her voice. “That’s why people from Sterling belong with other people from Sterling—?and not with outsiders.”
I walk toward my locker. That’s what I will always be to George and Beas and Will. Someone who can leave at any moment and will never truly understand. I fiddle with the lock, wondering if my attempts at comfort over the Disappearances will ring hollow. Or worse—?patronizing. This is the first time I can see the Disappearances for what they really are. A disintegration. Methodical and relentless. They tangle together in a jumble of hooks and splinter outward.
When I open my locker, a folded note flutters out. I reach to pick it from my shoe with dread. It is a boy’s handwriting, cramped and small.
I bet you can hear it.
Can’t you?
I crumple the paper. It could be from anyone.
Of course I can’t, I want to scream.
I take a deep breath.
Temporary, I tell myself. I watch Beas’s and Eliza’s retreating backs. Temporary for me.
And me alone.
The hallways at school remain eerily quiet for the rest of the week. The atmosphere is one of stunned defeat—?in the gymnasium as I hurl Stars, at home as I sort scrap metal with Mrs. Cliffton for the war effort. Will lopes off with his toolbox in his hand, mumbling about finding something to fix. On Thursday, one week after Disappearance Day, Beas shifts in her chair next to me in lab and I glance at her knee. For the first time ever, there is nothing inked across her skin.
More silence, everywhere.
“Do you think the Clifftons would mind if I came home with you?” George asks as we’re packing up our books. “I have some Variant ideas for the music that I want to run by Dr. Cliffton.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say. I hesitate. “Beas, do you want to come?”
“No thanks,” she says, and slides off her seat to the door.
Mrs. Cliffton’s car isn’t where it normally is, parked along the curve of the side lane. My muscles ache with a dull hum from yesterday’s Stars practice. I’m so sore I can barely pull on my coat. I scan the emptying lawn. “Do you see Miles anywhere?”
“Shh,” George says tensely. I hear it now, too: a boy’s voice, sneering just out of our sight. It’s coming from the orchard.
“Maybe some of your teeth will solve this new Disappearance, too,” the voice threatens, followed by the sound of scuffling. I drop my bag in the dirt and start running, my heart pumping between rage and fear, my fingers curling into fists as I turn the corner.
But Eliza beats me there. She flies out from the side door of the gymnasium and reaches our brothers first. Yanks hers, hard, by the elbow. When he turns, I recognize him from the Harvest Fair.
“Yow!” he whines, and I stop short.
“Walt,” Eliza says in a voice that could wither a stone. “He’s a baby compared to you. At least pick someone who can put up a good fight. Without a worthy opponent, you’re nothing more than a bully.”
She lets go of his arm roughly. “You’re a Patton,” she says with disgust. She sniffs. “That’s beneath you.”
She turns away, and when she notices me standing there, she glares at me with an intensity that could melt glass. But I’m grateful that she defended Miles, even if she did it in the most insulting way possible. And—?I wonder vaguely—?did she just admit that she sees me as her equal?
She stalks away, calling to Walt over her shoulder, “And you’ll be lucky if I don’t rat on you to Mother for being such a little pig.”
Walt follows after her, chuffing. He glares at each of us in turn and kicks plumes of dust into the air to curl back on us. It settles along my teeth as grit.
George brushes off his schoolbag. “He’s a peach,” he mutters.
Miles doesn’t try to shield himself from the dust cloud. He bends to examine the stones studding the dirt at his feet, and the dust collects in his hair.
He wouldn’t want me to fuss over him. So I stand still, a safe distance away from him. “You okay?” I say, and when he nods, I thrust my hands into the pockets of my coat. Finally Mrs. Cliffton pulls around the bend.
“Sorry!” she calls to us, rolling down the window. “I got caught up in a phone conversation I could not end for my life.” She pinks when she sees George, and I know who must have been on the other end of the telephone line.
George either doesn’t pick up on this or doesn’t care.
“Could George come over to study?” I ask Mrs. Cliffton.
“Only if he agrees to stay for dinner, too.”
“Thank you,” George says. He lowers his voice as we walk to the car. “Who would have thought today’s knight in shining armor would be Eliza?” He looks carefully at Miles, as if gauging whether he’s truly gotten away unscathed.
Miles looks small and innocent when he climbs into the front seat without saying a word. But I am all too familiar with the set of his jaw as he squints out the window, rubbing the stones smooth between his fingers.
I know my brother. And I think they’ve all underestimated him.
At home, George and I spread our books out on the kitchen table near the warmth of the oven. Genevieve is rubbing a rainbow of spices into the chicken she’s preparing, trading out glass pans of au gratin potatoes and green beans for the loaves of bread she’s baked fresh for dinner. She clucks her tongue and fusses like a hen, complaining that we’re in her way, that we prattle on worse than two old women, but she keeps a steady stream of cookies and sandwiches appearing on our plates.
“Do you think Beas will be all right?” I ask George, cupping the crumbs into a line on my plate.
“She will,” he says, his mouth full. “Give her a few more days.”
But I know this Disappearance has cut her deeply. The absence of music is like a necklace that has snapped, scattering its collateral damage like wayward beads. I want to collect them all again—?the dancing and singing, records and concerts and balls—?and find a way to give them back to her.
“So what do people think is happening?” I ask.
“Theories abound,” George says. “That it’s some sort of curse. That it’s a change in brain or sensory function—?something passed down through families as a genealogical trait. We’ve explored the idea of it being something in the air or water or soil. That we were all having a psychotic break. Or maybe,” George muses, squinting, “maybe it’s just something random and unfortunate, like being struck with a disease.”
“George—” I hesitate, still seeing Walt’s attack on Miles. “Why do people keep targeting me and Miles when there are so many other possible Catalysts?”