The Year of Disappearances
Page 31

It’s probably a bad idea to listen to the thoughts of someone who loves you. Love makes minds soft and sentimental, prone to even more digressions and lapses of logic than usual. Of course, the average mortal thought process is pretty messy to begin with, continually interrupting itself with observations and expressions of physical need and desire; vampires, by contrast, tend to think in cooler, more linear patterns (though my mother was one notable exception).
Walker was thinking about himself, as most mortals do most of the time. He felt a little sleepy, fairly hungry, and consistently amorous. He had a desire to devour me (his words) and simultaneously revere me. I listened long enough to learn he was planning a romantic evening for us in Savannah; then I felt uneasy about eavesdropping. My mother would have called it meddling, but how could I resist?
I resisted. I didn’t want love to turn out to be a mere jumble of feelings.
I turned to look out the bus window. We were passing the rough stone streets that led down to River Street, the place where I’d turned invisible for the first time. My father had given me the metamaterials clothing and shoes that bend light rays, and I’d taught myself the process of absorbing the heat of my body’s electrons and deflecting light. The process had been physically tiring, but the experience entirely justified the expense of energy—being invisible was the most fun I’d ever had. Moving through crowded streets as if you’re flying, weightless, and free—could anything be better than that?
And yes, I’d packed my special trouser suit, underwear, and shoes for the field trip. After all, they were the most professional-looking clothes I owned.
The conference hotel overlooked the muddy brown river. We clustered in the lobby under a high arched ceiling made of glass and steel. Professor Hogan checked us in and announced the room assignments. I was in room 408, along with Bernadette and a girl called Rhonda.
Bernadette immediately went up to Hogan and talked to her in a low voice.
“No substitutions?” Hogan said.
We all crowded into an elevator, and Walker, Richard, and four other boys got off on the third floor. Walker blew me a kiss as he left.
Bernadette sighed—a sigh of frustration and anger, not sadness. Her thoughts were scattered, but I detected enormous jealousy and fear at the root of her feelings about me. Autumn’s murder had been Bernadette’s first experience of death, and she hadn’t yet come to terms with it. Blaming me was the best she could manage.
In our room, Rhonda talked nonstop while I unpacked, and Bernadette lay on a bed. “You can have the sofa bed,” she said to me.
“Let’s flip coins.” I pulled three dimes out of my backpack.
When we flipped, Bernadette got tails while Rhonda and I got heads. I almost regretted that she was the odd one out, because it gave her one more reason to resent me.
The keynote speaker for the caucus was Neil Cameron, a thirty-year-old U.S. senator from Georgia who had quit the Democrats to join the Fair Share Party. He ignored the podium and walked to the edge of the stage to address us. Walker and I sat in the third row. From the moment he appeared, we couldn’t take our eyes off him.
Was Neil Cameron good looking? Every woman in the room would have said so, although he wasn’t conventionally handsome. His nose looked as if it might have been broken once, and he was probably five-foot-ten at most. But his dark blue eyes were warm; I’d read the phrase “dancing eyes,” but I’d never seen them until that night. His eyes moved from face to face in the audience, lingering long enough to create the impression that he was fascinated by each one. His hair was thick and dark, his hands square and strong looking. As he spoke, his hands did a kind of dance of their own.
“Two days from now, when you leave Savannah, more than fifty species will have become extinct,” he said. “Think of it—fifty species never to be seen again. The major causes? Habitat destruction, exploitation, and land development—all actions taken by humans.”
He paused and rested his hands on his hips. “We say, it’s time for them to stop.”
He had a wonderful voice, strong and deep, melodic as my father’s, but with rough edges.
Now he leaned forward, and his hands began to move again as his eyes swept the crowd. “By the time you leave Savannah, more than fifty-eight million tons of carbon dioxide emissions will have entered the earth’s atmosphere. Each and every year, thirty billion tons of CO2 emissions are generated by humans—from their power plants, cars, airplanes, and buildings.”
Again, he placed his hands on his hips. “We say, it’s time for them to stop.”
Cameron walked across the stage and back again, spouting statistics about global warming and coral reef destruction, about deforestation and fertilizer runoff, punctuating the statistics with the same line. And by the third repetition, the crowd was chanting it along with him: “We say, it’s time for them to stop.”
I’d heard the word charisma, knew that it came from a Greek word meaning “gift.” But the word didn’t begin to describe the charm and electricity of Neil Cameron. As he moved about the stage, I thought of a line from “Richard Corey,” a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson: “he glittered when he walked.” This man had a magnetic sparkle to him that I couldn’t explain, and didn’t even try to at the time.
When he stopped walking, Cameron held out both his hands, palms up. “But who are we?” he said. “Who are we, and who is them?
“I say, America is divided into two groups: insiders and outsiders. And I, my friends, along with every one of you, we’re on the outside. We’re fundamentally different from the insiders. We care about different things, and we live different lives. They are highly protected. We are not. They have built a system of laws and customs that protects them. We live in a more precarious place. They and their system are killing the earth. We are here to save it. We are here tonight”—he spread his arms wide—”to take the first steps toward defending our home.”
The crowd broke into a kind of roar. The sound was electric, pulling us out of our chairs to clap and whistle and wave our arms. Down the row, Bernadette shouted something, and in front of us, Professor Hogan made an odd sound, a high-pitched hoot of approval. Next to her, a woman in a red dress gave her a derisive look, but didn’t stop clapping.
Cameron stood silent in the center of the stage beneath a spotlight, watching us, seeming to drink in our approval. Was I the only one to notice that he cast no shadow?
When the noise died, Cameron said, “Thank you,” and that made the cheers begin again. Walker looked at me and shook his head. “Wow,” he said.
Volunteers came along the aisles, handing out sheets of paper and envelopes for donations. The papers were loyalty oaths: statements that we would support third-party candidates and pledge not to vote for Democrats or Republicans. Like everyone else in the room, I signed my form and passed it back. Later, much later, I’d wonder how Cameron got us all to sign. Nothing he’d said was news, really. But that night, buoyed by the man himself more than anything he said, no one hesitated.
Cameron was the first to leave, the crowd trailing him to a reception set up in an adjoining room. People formed a ragged line, waiting for a chance to speak to him. Walker and I waited, too.
And that’s when I saw Mysty.
At a table near us, volunteers had clustered to collect and sort the loyalty oaths. One of them, a girl with dark brown hair, seemed oddly familiar to me. It wasn’t her hair or even her face, but the way she stood, her weight on one foot and the other knee bent, and the tilt of her head. Mysty, I thought. Yes, her nose was the same. But her eyes were brown, and they had an unfamiliar listlessness.
I moved to get a better look. Her hands were shuffling papers. Her right wrist had no tattoo, but as I grew closer I saw it: a faint pink outline shaped like a rose. It was her. She must have had the tattoo removed.
“Mysty?” I said.
She looked up at me, no sign of recognition in her eyes. “My name’s Pauline.”
“How are you?” I said, feeling stupid.
“I’m okay, how are you?” Her voice lacked a Southern accent now—its inflections and tone were colorless—but its cadence and pitch were unchanged. They belonged to Mysty.
What has happened to you? I wondered, sure that she’d never tell me. I couldn’t even listen to her thoughts—all I heard was a soft buzzing, like the sound of a fly in a large vacant room.
When Neil Cameron took my hand to shake, I wanted him to hold it. His touch was cool and smooth, and his hand enveloped mine lightly. Behind me, Walker coughed.
“Ariella,” he said, looking at my name badge. “A beautiful name. It means ‘God’s lion.’ Where are you from, Ariella?”
“Florida,” I said. I didn’t think of saying Saratoga Springs. I felt lucky I could remember the word Florida.
His eyes lit up. “Oh, I’m from Florida, too. I was born in Deltona. Do you know where that is?”
I nodded. I wanted to ask him how long he’d been a vampire.
His eyes fixed on mine then, as if he’d heard my thought. I realized that he was still holding my hand.
Walker coughed again, and Cameron let my hand go. “I’ll be seeing you soon,” he said. His eyes lingered, reluctant to leave my face. Yes, I know it sounds like a romance novel, but that’s how it felt.
I moved away, dazzled. Behind me, I heard Walker introduce himself, his voice sounding nervous. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mysty and another young woman walk toward the door. I thought they might be heading for a restroom, which I wanted to visit myself, so I followed them. No, that’s not entirely truthful. I followed them. I have no idea why.
The two of them walked through the lobby and out the sliding glass doors. Both put on earbuds and turned on MP3 players. I trailed their scent (Mysty wore perfume or lotion with an apple fragrance, while the other girl smelled like cinnamon) across the parking lot and down the sidewalk that bordered the river. Even if I hadn’t seen the outline of the tattoo, I knew I was following Mysty. No one else walked the way she did.
We passed restaurants and bars and souvenir shops. Then they turned left and began to make their way up a steep cobblestone street. I’d been here before—this was the place I’d first turned invisible. I saw no reason not to do it again.
The elation of invisibility came instantly the second that I ceased to be seen. I felt I could do anything! No one could watch and judge me now. No one could make me feel like an outsider, because I was no place at all.
Mysty and her friend moved down Abercorn Street through Reynolds and Oglethorpe squares, then turned right. I flitted along behind, happy as a dragonfly about to descend upon its prey.
A few blocks later they reached a cast-iron fence surrounding a four-story brick house; they turned and strode up to its front door. I hung back, in the mossy shade of a live oak tree, watching.
The door was painted black, matching the fence and the shutters, and black lamps with flickering lights inside flanked it. The brick walls were covered in ivy. Eighteen windows faced the street, all heavily curtained, none showing any sign of light.
Someone I couldn’t see opened the door. They stepped inside. I waited a few minutes, in case they returned. Then, disappointed, I let myself be visible again and headed for the hotel.
The reception was still under way when I came back. People gathered around tables holding platters of hors d’oeuvres and a punch bowl. Some carried glasses of red liquid that made me feel thirsty. It was a mixed crowd—old and young, men and women. Some were expensively dressed, and others wore jeans. The woman in the red dress stood out in her sophistication. She had dark, wavy hair and she was beautiful, but her expression conveyed habitual scorn. As I watched, she crossed the room and broke into a conversation Neil Cameron was having with an older woman. When her face lost the disdainful look, it was utterly charming.
Some part of me wanted to be like her—effortlessly amusing, worldly, elegant. The girl in the pink sweater longed to become a woman in a red dress.
Walker was nowhere in sight.
I headed for the bar, where I showed my fake ID and bought a glass of Picardo.
A voice behind me said, “Make it two.”
I didn’t need to turn around. Even if I hadn’t recognized his voice, the pleasure I felt told me it belonged to Neil Cameron.