Before I Disappear

by Danielle Stinson

  New places aren’t easy on Charlie. It usually takes people a few weeks to get used to him. The thing with Charlie is hard to explain. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with him. It’s more like part of him is always off somewhere the rest of us can’t follow, which means I sometimes miss him even when he’s sitting right beside me.

  The wind howls. The maple tree above us releases a handful of autumn confetti. Charlie watches a neon leaf dance to rest on our windshield wiper, and for the thousandth time, I wish I knew what he was thinking. Mom used to say that if heaven is a song, Charlie is the only one who can hear it playing. I’m not sure I believe in heaven, but I do know there’s a glow about my brother. The yoke of another world he never fully shed. It lights the space around him, and it makes him different in a way others can’t help but notice.

  More than anything, it scares the hell out of me.

  “Go get ’em.” I slap him on the back in an attempt at cheerfulness that is fooling no one. “Keep your head down,” I add, though it’s pointless. Charlie doesn’t go looking for trouble. Trouble hunts him down.

  I’m still watching him climb through the window when Charlie freezes with his upper body hanging halfway out of the truck. I follow his gaze to three boys huddled together nearby. One of them moves, and I see it. A bird’s nest lying on the sidewalk.

  Charlie starts to get out. I twist in the seat and grab his belt. “Don’t. It isn’t any of our business.”

  He looks right at me. “Then whose business is it, Rosie?”

  My chest tightens. We’re officially late and Rusty may not start again, but my brother just asked me to do something, and I can count on one hand the number of times that has happened. I kill the engine.

  “Hey!” I jump out of the truck. “Leave that nest alone.”

  “The mother won’t come back if you touch them,” Charlie says, as if that settles it. One look at these three tells me this is far from settled. “Please.”

  “Please,” mimics a boy with brown hair gelled into spikes. The others take their cue from him. They close in around us, and I am instantly aware of the chain link at my back.

  The bell echoes through the schoolyard.

  The ringleader glares at us, an unnerving darkness glittering in his blue eyes. His glare twists into a smirk as he holds out the nest.

  I know what’s coming even before Charlie moves forward, his hands outstretched. He’s a few feet away when the boy lets it drop.

  Eggs shatter.

  Charlie gets down on the cement. I wait for the boys to run off and then I kneel with him. Because life can be hard and is usually unfair, but because some things are good, and my brother is one of them.

  His shoulders hunch as he picks up a broken shell. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” I don’t know why fathers disappear, or mothers stop wearing lipstick, or little boys with sticks always find someone smaller to poke.

  A tear slides down Charlie’s cheek. He doesn’t cry often, and when he does it’s never at what you would expect. Like at the beginning of movies and not at the end, or when one season gives way to another. Charlie doesn’t cry when things die, only when they’re broken in a way that can never be fixed. Like the egg in his hand.

  “Look,” I tell him. “There are still two left.” I’m wondering how that’s possible, when Charlie reaches for them.

  “We can save them,” he says.

  “Leave them for the mother.”

  “It’s too late. She isn’t coming back. Please, Rosie.”

  “We’ve got nowhere to put them,” I say, though what I’m thinking is: They’re just eggs. Nobody wants them.

  Charlie places an egg in my palm like it’s the most precious gift on earth, and for that brief moment when his hand touches mine, I almost believe it. “Put it in your pocket, near your body so it stays warm. I’ll take one and you take the other. We can do it, Rosie. We can keep them safe.” He says it with a certainty I will never understand.

  “But—”

  “This.” He cups my hands so that our palms form a nest of flesh and bone around the eggs. “This is important, Rosie.”

  Charlie’s expression goes dreamy, and suddenly, I know he’s seeing something, hearing something I don’t. Only this time, it isn’t something that causes him pain. It’s something good.

  Seconds pass. Charlie’s eyes clear. He smiles at me, and for a few seconds, the world is a lovely place full of strangers holding open doors. I’d do anything for one of those smiles, which is why I place the egg in my pocket and zip up the jacket I won’t be able to take off for the rest of the day.

  THREE

  In the parking lot after school, I study the hinge on the driver’s-side door.

  It’s clean.

  A mess of brown scrapings crunch under my feet. Apparently, I knocked a few years’ worth of rust loose when I slammed the door shut this morning.

  I try the engine, and my good luck gets even better. It turns over smoothly, causing a strange lightness to blossom in my chest. The feeling evaporates when Rusty backfires with a BOOM that echoes through the parking lot.

  A crowd gathers, and I stifle a groan. It’s the first bit of attention anyone at this school has paid me all day. Laughter explodes in my ears, but it dies off almost as abruptly as it starts.

  When I glance up, Ian is tossing something into the bed of a pickup truck two parking spots in front of Rusty. He’s wearing faded jeans and an oil-streaked tee—more blue-collar than bad boy, but one look from him is all it takes to drive off the crowd. It’s eerily similar to the scene that plays out at the diner every morning. More than ever, it makes me wonder what his deal is. If he’s really guilty of the crimes Frankie accused him of, why would he come back here? Why wouldn’t he run far away to some other town where nobody knew his name?

  I’m about to restart the engine when something collides with my door.

  Startled, I look down into a small face dominated by a pair of massive glasses. The boy crouched beneath my window looks like he wishes he could disappear—something that is highly unlikely due to the thing on his back, a yellow monstrosity that bears more resemblance to a school bus than a school bag.

  Brown eyes blink up at me through thick lenses. “Hey.”

  Before I can come up with a response, a commotion at the front of the school draws my gaze. A group of boys is gathering on the sidewalk. They look pissed.

  There’s a muffled oath from under my window.

  “Friends of yours?” I guess.

  “Business acquaintances.” The boy can’t be any older than thirteen, which means he must’ve skipped a grade or two to get here.

  “What kind of business, exactly?”

  “The kind where I write half the football team’s term papers in exchange for their not making my life a living hell.”

  “You must not be doing a good job,” I say as the boys scatter to flush out their prey.

  “I did too good of a job. Now the principal is onto us, and those Neanderthals want to use my body as a punching bag.”

  Two of the pack break off in our direction. The area is completely open. There’s no place to hide.

  My hand moves to the door handle and pauses there. I have a rule. It involves not going out of my way to make enemies or friends because both are liabilities I try to avoid. But Fort Glory isn’t business as usual. If we’re going to be sticking around, it means getting involved, and I’d rather throw in my lot with Rowena and the stranger hiding behind my car than those creeps at the front of the school.

  I wedge the door open. “Climb in.” When the boy just stares at me, I repeat, “Get in the truck. Now.”

  The boy tosses his backpack into my lap and curls up like a cat at my feet. I drum my hands on the wheel. The Hands for Hearths interview is in less than an hour. The elementary school got out ten minutes ago. How long will they keep this up?

  Right on cue, the boy opens his bag and produces a book filled with so many highlights, it’s pract
ically glowing. The title is the first thing I notice:

  THE DEEP ATOMIC RESEARCH COLLIDER (DARC): Confirming String Theory by Unlocking the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions by Arthur Jackson.

  The second thing I notice is the familiar neon pamphlet he’s using as a bookmark.

  “Some light reading?” I ask.

  The boy doesn’t look up. “If you consider a work of pure genius by one of the greatest minds since Einstein ‘light reading.’ Then, yes.”

  My lip twitches at his tone. “Sounds pretty heavy.”

  He snorts. “Dr. Jackson’s work with the DARC is about to change the way we look at the universe and our place in it.”

  “Yeah?” I stretch my hands over my head, hoping to ease some of the tension in my shoulders. “If this Dr. Jackson is such a big deal, how come I’ve never heard of him?” School has never been high on my priority list. That being said, I’ve always had a soft spot for science. It’s something I get from my dad. He had a knack for knowing how things worked. He used to rescue stuff from the dump. Busted TVs. Old appliances. Then he’d take them apart and put them back together again better than before. I could watch him work for hours. It was like magic. No. It was better than magic, because there were reasons for everything he did. Rules that never changed. Then one day, he handed me a screwdriver, and I knew that I was born to hold one.

  Call me a sucker for anything practical.

  The boy shrugs. “Like other visionaries, Dr. Jackson has his haters. You’re gonna want to remember his name. He’s my uncle,” the boy adds, explaining a lot.

  “Your uncle works at the DARC?”

  “He doesn’t just work there. He designed the modifications to the old collider.”

  “What’s the deal with this collider anyway?” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious. It’s not that Rowena’s paranoia is rubbing off on me. It’s that I can’t help wondering about the machine that is this town’s unofficial mascot. If all the hype is real, the DARC is massive. Massive enough to ring the town and a huge chunk of the nearby woods. My head hurts just thinking about how many people it would’ve taken to build something like that.

  My dad would’ve loved it.

  “The DARC is the most powerful particle accelerator in the world,” the boy says without skipping a beat. “It sends beams of particles flying around miles of underground tunnels and then slams them together at 99.99 percent the speed of light.”

  “And people would do this why?”

  The boy rolls his eyes, but I get the feeling my questions aren’t annoying him. If anything, his voice warms. “At that energy level, new particles are created just like they were during the Big Bang. It’s like…” He searches for the right words. “Figuring how the universe works by learning about its most basic parts.”

  Unbelievable. Fifteen billion dollars so scientists can smash invisible bits together to try to create even more invisible bits. And according to Rowena, they aren’t even the first ones to do it. “I thought they already had a giant collider in Europe,” I say. “Why spend all that money to reinvent the wheel?”

  “Not to take anything away from the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, but the DARC is in another class. It’s a little bigger, but a lot stronger. And thanks to Dr. Jackson it has … other things going for it.” The boy shifts. A beam of sunlight touches his brown skin, highlighting the ugly bruise at the corner of his right eye.

  The DARC is suddenly the last thing on my mind.

  My hands stop drumming. “Is it normally like this around here?” I ask quietly.

  The boy catches my drift right away. “No. The last month has been … rough.” The gloomy look he shoots the school makes me want to drive straight to Charlie. “There were three suicides last week and three times as many fights. That’s not counting the riot at the football game over the weekend. People are totally losing their shit.” It’s an eerie echo of Rowena’s warning from this morning.

  “You think the tabloids are right?” I ask. “That something strange is happening in Fort Glory?”

  “You’re asking the wrong question.” The boy flips a page. “To anyone unbiased it’s clear that something strange is going on. The more important question is why.”

  “I heard that it has to do with the DARC.”

  His chin jerks up. “Who said that?”

  I nod at the pink pamphlet in his hand.

  “Right.” He scowls. “Rowena Mae’s been spreading her propaganda about the DARC since it started running again.” His lips twist into a smirk. “This is the same woman who insists the government is using the Home Shopping Network to brainwash people.”

  “Is that right?” I ask, hiding a flash of annoyance. “Because she told me the problems in town all started when the DARC went back online. Seems like a pretty big coincidence. Does your uncle have anything to say about it?”

  “Just that it’s all superstition and fearmongering. The two greatest enemies of science throughout the ages. If you don’t count religion.” The answer flies off the tip of his tongue, but his voice is strained. Like he’s pushing too hard. Like, maybe, just maybe, he isn’t as convinced as he’d like to be.

  I’m suddenly more eager than ever to be on my way.

  I crack the door. “You’re all clear.”

  Taking the hint, the boy tucks the book into his pack and scrambles out onto the asphalt. “I’m Blaine, by the way. Blaine Jackson.”

  “Rose.”

  “Kind of ironic.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You work at the Dusty Rose diner, don’t you?”

  “How do you—”

  “Small town.” Blaine shrugs as if this fact is the single greatest trial of his existence. “Also, I was there last Friday, and I met your mom. She seems nice.”

  I flush. My mother is nice, but most people are too concerned with what they see on the surface to care about what’s going on underneath.

  Most people walk through life missing the best parts.

  A throaty rumble echoes through the parking lot. It’s coming from Ian’s truck. He’s been sitting in the driver’s seat, watching our little drama unfold in his side mirror. I can feel his eyes on me as he pulls out of the lot.

  “So, Rose,” Blaine says, drawing my attention back to him. “Are you as handy with all tools as you are with a power saw? Not stalking you.” He holds up his hands. “I sit behind you in Advanced Woodshop.”

  “I like to build things,” I say.

  “That was fairly obvious.” Blaine rocks back and forth on his sneakers. Though he’s playing it cool, I get the sense he’s leading up to something—that it wasn’t an accident he chose to hide behind Rusty instead of one of the other cars in the lot.

  “I’ve got a project in the works that requires someone with your specific skill set. I’d make it worth your while.”

  “How?” My mind flies to our empty savings jar.

  “If you’re interested in colliders, I’m your best resource.” Blaine shrugs. “I interned at the DARC all summer as an assistant to my uncle. If that doesn’t interest you I’ve also got some tutoring money stashed aside. We could work something out.” Blaine taps the door with his knuckles and backs away. “Think it over.” He glances up at the sky. Worry lines snake across his brow. “But maybe don’t take too long.”

  * * *

  I know something’s wrong the moment I pull up to the school and Charlie isn’t waiting for me by the curb. A few years ago, when we were living in Minnesota, Rusty’s tank sprang a leak. I had to walk five miles to get gas. It was a snowy day in February. When Mom and I finally arrived at the school, it was dark and cold, and Charlie was still there, half-frozen and waiting right where I’d told him to.

  My heart gives an anxious squeeze when I spot his orange backpack abandoned near a clump of bushes. I gave him that backpack when we left Minnesota for Kansas. It looks as new now as it did then, and if you look closely, the tags are still attached to the zipper, carefully tucked away inside
the front pocket.

  I hop out, leaving Rusty running behind me. I cut through the bushes and come to an abrupt stop on the other side. Charlie is ten feet in front of me, backed against the chain-link fence behind the baseball diamond.

  “Are you stupid?” demands the boy from this morning as he pushes Charlie back with a sharp rattle.

  Charlie raises his hands. He isn’t trying to hit the boy. He isn’t even trying to defend himself. He’s shifting his arm so it hovers protectively over the bulge in his pocket.

  The boy notices. “Give it up.”

  “Why?” Charlie says, but I’m the only one who knows what he’s really asking. Why do people always destroy what they don’t understand? Why do we use our hands to break when they should be used for building?

  “You just made a big mistake, freak.”

  The boy punches Charlie in the stomach. My brother goes down hard. He doesn’t move his arms from their protective stance, not even to break his fall. I watch his face hit the ground, and everything inside of me clenches.

  I lurch forward. Thorns snag at my shirt, trapping me in place. I yank at the fabric with both hands. A few feet away, the boy stands over Charlie.

  His next kick is a hammer and my world is made of glass.

  The boy raises his arm again, but this time I am there. Knuckles collide with my cheekbone, sending shockwaves through my jaw. It hurts. But I’m not thinking about that right now. I’m thinking about my brother in the dirt at my feet, the deep scratch across his forehead and the gravel embedded in his hands as they pat the side of his faded green hoodie.

  I turn toward the person responsible. “Enough.”

  The boy pales. He didn’t mean to hit me, and he’s trying to decide how much trouble he’s in. “Whatever.” Something in his tone tells me I won’t be the last girl he strikes in his lifetime.