The Year of Disappearances (5 page)

Mãe came in carrying dinner for two on a tray. (Dashay was “out,” Mãe said, her tone telling me not to ask where.)

When she’d set it down, she said, “You still look sad, Ariella.”

“I’ve been reading about politics.” I unfolded a napkin and spread it across my lap. “Father never paid any attention to them.”

“All the more reason why you should.” She handed me silverware. “If we ignore the world, we do so at our peril.”

“I guess. But I miss the old days.” The sentence sprawled across the table, a pink-tinged sentimental mess.

“So do I, at times.”

“What do you miss?” I asked.

“I miss Saratoga Springs, sometimes. Did you think I was going to say I missed my privacy here, before you came?”

“Maybe.” The thought had occurred to me more than once.

“I’m glad you’re here. It means everything.” She opened a covered dish and began spooning creamed oysters onto a bed of sautéed spinach and toast points.

“I miss my bicycle.” That thought, too, came out of nowhere. With my father, I’d almost always thought before I spoke.

“Your bike must be in storage, along with the furniture from the old house.” She handed me a plate, which I balanced on my lap.

The oysters smelled of lemon, cream, butter, and tarragon—they hinted of faraway places I’d yet to visit.

“Why don’t we go and get your bike?” she said. “We’ll need furnishings, once the house is rebuilt. Raphael said we should take what we need from the storage unit and give away the rest.”

Mãe said she’d book us a flight to Albany early in September. We’d rent a truck, go to Saratoga Springs, and drive back with our possessions. I liked the idea of seeing my hometown again, in the company of my mother.

Over dinner, we talked about my father. “You’re right—Raphael never had much of a sense of politics,” Mãe said. “Maybe because he had no sense of family, or of being connected to a group. He never knew his father. His mother died when he was born, and he was raised by an aunt.”

“Then you’d think he’d want to be around us even more,” I said. I’d barely touched the food, and Mãe’s creamed oysters were almost irresistible. “He could have stayed long enough to give us a chance.”
A chance to be a family,
I thought, finding the words too sentimental to speak.

Mãe heard them anyway. “But if someone grows up without that closeness, they don’t know how to experience it with others. They may be afraid of it.”

“I grew up without it.” I pushed away my plate. “Are you saying I’ll never be close to anyone?”

The words hurt her, but she tried not to show it.

She moved the plate toward me again. “If you want your ankle to heal, you should eat.”

I speared an oyster with my fork and took a bite.

“It’s easy to assign blame,” she said. “I blame myself for leaving you all those years ago, and for letting you go out alone in the kayak today. Those are legitimate blames. I know the part I played, and I know the circumstances. But to blame someone who can’t help being himself—that’s not fair.”

I sensed that she was right. But I couldn’t give up the story I’d written in my head of a family reunited, living in harmony. No, I wasn’t ready to let that story go.

It must have been close to midnight when I awoke. Often the tree frogs’ noise or the night song of courting birds or the bright moonlight was intense enough to wake me, but tonight I sensed nothing—no frogs, no birds.

And no moon hung in the night sky. Yet when I looked out at the moon garden, I saw the orange glow of a lit cigarette.

I limped into my mother’s room, then Dashay’s room. Both beds were empty.

So I went out to the garden alone. I moved silently, keeping close to the house until I drew close enough to see who was there.

Jesse sat on a wrought-iron bench, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Without the sunglasses, he looked handsome; his features were even, and he had large, dark eyes with long lashes. But something about the way his mouth and jaw moved suggested that he felt at odds with the world, and belligerence had become his preferred way of dealing with it. He didn’t notice me until I stood right in front of him, and he didn’t seem surprised to see me. “So this is where you live,” he said, his words slurred. Clearly the beer party had been a long one.

His shoes were crushing some of the white flowers raised by Dashay’s tears. “What are you
doing
here?” I said. And I wondered,
Where are Mãe and Dashay?

“Wanted to make sure.” He belched. “You okay.” He smiled and patted the bench next to him. “Have a seat.”

“This is private property.” I kept my voice low, but I felt furious. “You have no right to be here.”

He laughed. “Come on. Ari. Ari, you need to lighten up. Mysty and my sister said so, too.” He belched again. “Whoops. I need a drink. You got beer?”

“Go home.” I’d come close enough to read his T-shirt:
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
.

“That’s not right. Least you can give me—the dude who saved your life—is a couple beer or three.” He smiled again, trying to charm me. Then his mouth and jaw twisted back into their habitual clench.

I moved as close to him as I dared. “Look at me.”
Can a drunk person be hypnotized?
I wondered. That hadn’t been mentioned in the articles I’d read online.

For the record, the answer is yes. It took longer than I care to remember now—long minutes of me urging him to stare back at me, to breathe deeply, to hear only my voice, to go deeper and deeper into relaxation, until I felt the little click of engagement, the moment when he couldn’t look away, and I knew that I was in charge.

“You will go home.” I paced my voice slowly, evenly. “You will drive slowly.” I assumed that he’d come by boat, since our front gate had an alarm system. “You will not exceed the speed limit tonight. Or ever again.”

Suddenly I began to enjoy myself. “You will never come back here. You will not be able to drink beer. The taste of it will nauseate you.” I wondered how far I should go, and decided I’d gone far enough. “Go now. When you arrive home, you’ll regain your conscious state.”

And he rose obediently, turned, and headed for the dock.

I went inside, back to bed, congratulating myself on a job well done.

But not done well enough. Next morning at breakfast, Mãe and Dashay let me know that in emphatic terms.

At first they were contrite about not being home when it happened. They’d gone to Bennett’s house—Dashay first, Mãe later, looking for Dashay. Bennett had not come home.

Then they interrogated me about what I’d said to Jesse. Mãe reminded me that she didn’t approve of hypnosis in general, but given the circumstances, she could understand why I’d done it.

“The girl had to defend herself.” Dashsay looked exhausted, but she spoke vigorously. “And telling him not to speed or drink, that can only help him. Maybe save a few manatees, maybe his own life.”

I smiled. I craved their approval.

Then Mãe said, “What else did you say?”

“I told you everything.”

“You didn’t tell him that when he became conscious again, he wouldn’t remember what you’d said?”

The looks on their faces told me I had more to learn about the art of hypnosis. “They didn’t mention that in the articles I read online,” I said. Most of them had been scripts to help someone quit smoking or lose weight—scripts designed to be remembered.

“Oh, Ariella.” My mother’s words had heavy gray bottoms like snow clouds.

I sat without moving, numbed by her worry.

After a while, Dashay said, “Maybe he won’t say anything. Maybe the alcohol will make him forget.”

But I was remembering something my father had said. “Remember that what you learn carries weight. With knowledge comes the obligation to use it justly.”

H
ave you ever heard a good song that had the word
eternity
in its lyrics? I haven’t.

Since I received a portable music player from Mãe for my birthday, I’d downloaded hundreds of songs and looked up their lyrics on the Internet. When I did a search for
eternity,
what came up were lines such as: “I know we’ll be happy for eternity.” “We will be together for eternity.” “I’ll wait for you for all eternity.” All written by mortals, who didn’t have an inkling of what they were talking about.

I was thinking about writing my own song when my cell phone rang. Mãe had bought me the phone to “stay in touch with friends.” So far I’d used it only a few times. When it rang, I jumped.

“That Ari?” The voice was distorted, but I could tell it was Autumn’s.

“Hi,” I said.

“We’re going to the mall. You want to come?”

The alternative was helping Leon sand window frames. “Sure,” I said. I couldn’t read any emotion in her voice, and I was curious to see what sort of reception I’d get. Even if it was hostile, I figured that at least I’d know what Jesse had told them about the night I’d hypnotized him.

They showed up at the front gate an hour later. Autumn had said half an hour, so I’d been waiting awhile when the dusty brown car appeared, moving slowly up the road.

Jesse was driving. He smiled at me and waved—not what I’d expected.

Autumn sat in the front, and I slid in back next to Mysty. Jesse’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Morning, Ari. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

Mysty looked from me to Jesse and back again. Autumn turned around in her seat. “Jesse says you two had quite a
talk
last week.” She winked at me.

She and Mysty both wanted to know what had happened. That meant Jesse hadn’t told them.

I decided to be as honest as I dared. “I gave Jesse some advice,” I said. “Slow down and don’t drink.”

Mysty’s blue eyes were skeptical, but Autumn said, “It worked. This whole week, he hasn’t had even one beer for breakfast. Or any other time that I’ve been around.”

“He’s sure not driving the way he did,” Mysty said. “It took us two years to get over here. What’s up with that big fence around your house?”

“It’s to keep out hunters,” I said. Many vampires gate their houses for security reasons. It’s not that we can’t handle intruders; it’s that we prefer not to.

Jesse kept glancing back at me, his eyes full of devotion. He thought I was pretty. He didn’t have a clear memory of being hypnotized, only a sense of admiring me, trusting me, and thanking me for the opportunity to be a hero.

Autumn and Mysty noticed the way he looked at me. Autumn said, “We going to the mall, or what?” She stared out the window, her eyes invisible behind sunglasses that always made her look bored.

The mall near Crystal River was my second shopping mall; the first had been outside Saratoga Springs, NY. Both had movie theaters and Sears and such—but the Crystal River mall suffered from a pervasive retail malaise. “Going Out of Business” signs were on half the stores.

Nonetheless, on a Saturday morning, this was where local teenagers came to parade. A long line waited at the Piercing Pagoda, and another snaked from the movie ticket counters. Autumn and Mysty headed for a clothing store. Jesse stopped walking, and I hesitated, not sure where to go.

“Do you ever look up at the sky at night and wonder who’s looking back at you?” Jesse said. His eyes had a dreamy look. He tipped back his head and gazed at the mall ceiling, as if he were at a planetarium.

“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes.” My father had given me a telescope for my fourteenth birthday.

“Ever think about what it would be like to get out there in deep space?”

“Yes.” I’d often imagined it.

He shook his head. “I’d like to travel at the speed of light, so that when I came back, I’d be the same, but the rest of the world would be different. All my friends would be old guys, and I’d still be in my prime.”

“It’s theoretically possible.” But not likely to happen in Jesse’s lifetime, I thought. And even if it did, not likely to happen to Jesse.

Then Autumn and Mysty were there. Autumn had her cell phone to her ear, and she was saying, “Okay, okay. Whatever.” She hung up. “I got to go meet my parole officer.”

From Mysty’s eyes, I knew this date came as news to her.

“I can’t miss another one,” Autumn said. “We can leave you guys here and come back for you after.”

Mysty said, “Great.” She looked down at her shoes, pouting.

I wondered why Autumn couldn’t drive herself. She was old enough. But then I considered the possible reasons she might need to see a parole officer.

“It’s not far,” Jesse said. “We’ll be back soon.”

“Sooner if you stop driving like an old man.” Autumn punched his arm. Then she seemed confused, as if she’d expected him to hit her back.

Mysty and I had lunch at a place called Friendly’s. Before I’d taken two bites of my tuna sandwich, she’d devoured a cheeseburger and eaten half of her French fries. She noticed that I wasn’t so fast, and she wondered if eating slowly kept me thin.

“You haven’t lived here long?” I asked her.

“Four or five months.” She dragged a French fry through a puddle of ketchup. “My stepdad, he moved us here. He got a transfer to work at the power plant.”

“You like it?”

She popped the fry into her mouth and tried to chew slowly. “It is
so
boring. I thought I’d die of boredom, until I met Autumn. And Jesse.” She blushed, and suddenly she looked much younger.

So she thinks she loves him,
I thought.
And she thinks I’m competition.

The server asked us if we wanted refills on our sodas. Without waiting for us to reply she dumped half a pitcher of cola and ice into our glasses, liberally splashing the table in the process.

“Jesse is a nice guy,” I said. “But I’m not interested in him.”

She looked cheerful, but only for a moment. “He likes
you,
” she said. “When we were coming to pick you up, you were all he talked about. ‘Ari said’ this and ‘Ari said’ that. I mean, you got the guy to stop
drinking.
” She spoke as if I’d performed a miracle.

“He’s stopped for a few days,” I said. But I had a feeling he wouldn’t resume, unless I told him to. And for a moment, I admit, I basked in my power to make a man do as I commanded.

Her head tilted to the right, Mysty smiled. She knew what I was thinking. She really was a pretty girl, I thought, noticing her tanned skin and carefully curled hair. Everywhere we went, people stared at her. Even though we both wore jeans and T-shirts, hers fit better than mine.

“I want you to teach me,” she said. “Teach me how to make Jesse like me. Teach me how to talk to him, the way you did that night.”

I wasn’t going to try to teach her hypnosis, but maybe I could help her some other way. “You could teach me something, too.” I gestured toward two teenage boys in the next booth. Their eyes had been fixed on her since we walked in.

She got the point. She winked at me.

After lunch we strolled around the mall. From time to time Mysty pointed out clothes that would make me look “hot” and told me I should use my hips more when I walked; when I stood still, she said, I should keep most of my weight on one foot and bend the knee of my other leg, to emphasize the shapes of my calves. In between these lessons, she told me her life story and the stories of her parents and older sister. Her stepfather was inclined to drink when he wasn’t at work, but he was “a sweetie,” not “a creep” like her “real father.” Her mother was “an old hippie” called Sunshine who’d named her daughter Mystic Rose; now Sunshine worked as a clerk at a local drugstore, where people called her Sunny. Mysty had two stepbrothers living in Tennessee.

Telling me her story was her way of letting me know that she trusted me. All I gave her back were generalities: a vague sense of my parents being separated, my mother breeding horses and bees, and some generic tips on how to handle Jesse.

“Look into his eyes when you talk to him,” I said. “It’s amazing how few people really look into each other’s eyes. Look deep, and speak slowly. Tell him what you want.”

Mysty treated this advice as if it were a revelation. As I spoke, she touched my arm with her small tanned hand to signify agreement and thanks. I moved farther away, so that she couldn’t reach me. Then I felt it—the familiar tingle up and down my skin that comes when someone is watching me.

I looked around, but saw no one. A few boys were eyeing Mysty.

My instinctive urge was to run away.

“Tag,” I said, knowing how stupid it sounded. “You’re it.” And I ran off, down the mall. Mysty raced after me. After a minute I ducked into a side passage that led to a cash machine. She came after me, slapped my arm. “You’re it!”

I put the index finger of my other hand against my lips. We stood still for a few seconds, catching our breath.

Then Mysty said, “Ow!” She held out her arm. “Look, something pinched me, hard. I didn’t see anything, did you?”

I hadn’t seen a thing. But I’d felt the presence of something approach us, pause, then go on. I looked at the bright red mark on her arm. “Maybe it’s an insect bite.”

By the time Autumn and Jesse returned, Mysty considered me her best friend. She sat next to me again in the back seat on the drive back to Sassa, chattering about clothes, scratching at the welt on her arm. “You think this is a spider bite?”

“Who knows?” I said.

The car’s air conditioning didn’t work. Even with the windows open the air was thick with cigarette smoke and the musky smell of Autumn’s perfume.

Mysty reached over and touched my arm again. “Feel how cool you are!” she said.

Autumn turned around, sunglasses on, her face impassive.

“Feel her!” Mysty said.

Autumn stretched out a hand and let her fingers brush my arm. “Cold,” she said.

“How do you do that? You’re not even sweating, and it must be ninety degrees in here.” Mysty’s eyes were wide with wonder.

For a second I considered telling them the truth: vampires don’t perspire, and our normal body temperature is lower than that of humans. Instead I said, “You know the old saying: ‘Cold hands, warm heart.’”

“My uncle says that.” Mysty was easily distracted. She went back to scratching her arm. Jesse simply smiled, oblivious. But there was something wary in Autumn’s face, in the set of her mouth and jaw. She turned around again without saying anything. Once again, I found that I couldn’t read her thoughts.

“Stop scratching,” I said to Mysty. “You’re making it bleed.” The streak of blood across her arm made me nervous. I forced my eyes to look away.

“You can let me out here,” I said when the car reached our front gate. “Thanks.”

Mysty said, “Ari?”

I’d already opened the car door.

“Can I call you?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. I stepped out of the car. “Autumn has the number.”

They were watching me, and I didn’t want them to see the code I used to unlock the gate. I sent Jesse the thought
Go now,
and a second later he drove away. The last thing I saw was Mysty’s face in the back window, her mouth framing the words
Thank you.

The house looked less like a ruin now. The workers weren’t there—some sort of holiday was being observed. Labor Day, I think. Mãe and Dashay were finishing a late lunch in the kitchen, and I helped myself to salad.

I sat down. Both of them stared at me. “You’re
smoking
?” Mãe asked.

No, I told them. My friends were the smokers. The smell of their cigarettes lingered in my clothes and hair.

Mãe said, “Friends? Those troublemakers we saw at Flo’s?”

“Don’t be a snob,” Dashay said to her. “Who else is she going to be hanging out with?”

“Are there any
other
ones around?” I asked. “My age, I mean. I’m the only one my age at Flo’s.”

“I thought you knew the facts of life,” Mãe said.

“I do,” I said, feeling confused. “Dennis taught me.”

“That explains a lot.”

She and I had mixed memories of Dennis. He’d been my father’s assistant and our close friend. He’d taught me how to swim and ride a bicycle, as well. But he was mortal, and sometimes he made mistakes. The last time I’d seen him, he’d asked me to make him a vampire—a request that shocked me.

“Dennis is no expert.” My mother cleared a space on the table, carrying plates to the sink, and returned with a notebook, a ruler, and a pen. She ruled in the lines for a chart, then began to fill it in. I watched, fascinated.