The Year of Disappearances

by Hubbard, Susan

  It all sounded beneficial, but I had reservations. Then a question sprang in my mind: “What happened to Autumn?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Who’s that?”

  “Mysty’s friend. Another girl who disappeared.”

  “I can check the files. What’s her last name?”

  While Malcolm was at the file cabinet, I looked around me, trying to dispel my anxiety. Why was he telling me all of this? The room’s walls, painted cinnabar red, seemed to be closing in on me.

  He pulled out a card. “Autumn Springer. Her parents must have quite a sense of humor. Yes, she was recruited, but not in Homosassa Springs. The recruiter trailed her to Georgia.” He looked up at me. “The recruiter was Sal Valentine. I’ve met him. He’s very persistent.”

  “She was murdered,” I said. “Her body was found in the Okefenokee Swamp.”

  He glanced back at the card. “All it says here was that she proved resistant and was dismissed as a candidate. That can happen, you know. The scouts try to identify recruits who want to change, but sometimes they make mistakes.”

  “And the mistakes are killed?”

  “I truly don’t know the circumstances, Ari.” Malcolm replaced the card and shut the file drawer. “Next time I see Sal, I’ll ask, if you like. He’s due to bring in three people tomorrow.”

  Sal Valentine. Now my harbinger had a name. “He tried to recruit me, too,” I said.

  Malcolm frowned. He riffled through another drawer in the cabinet. “Yes, you’re here. You were identified as a candidate last December. Well, sometimes mistakes are made. The scouts leave written instructions, and they mark recruits—usually with a small scratch on the forearm or leg. But the recruiters don’t always follow instructions. They’re thugs, most of them.”

  I thought of Mysty’s mother scratching me, back in December; but that had been an accident. Hadn’t it? I put my hands on my forehead, trying to calm myself. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Kill you?” He walked to the sofa, sat down next to me. “My dear Ari, no. I’ve devoted so much time already to keeping you alive. You’re one of my favorite freaks.”

  “I’m a freak?”

  “You’re an aberration of nature.” His voice was like plum-colored velvet. “You’re one of only a few living half-breeds, as far as we know, and as such you’re of significant interest and value to biomedical research. We don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “If you’re not going to kill me, why are you telling me all of this?” I stared into his pale eyes. “What if I tell someone?”

  He gazed back at me, his expression insulted but unalarmed. “Tell the world. No one will believe you. And in any case, our operations are set up so that we can disappear and relocate them in literally seconds.” He leaned his head back against the sofa cushion. “No, I don’t think you’ll do anything like that. I rather think you’re likely to join us.”

  I moved as far away from him as I could, without leaving the sofa.

  “Perhaps you’re not ready yet.” He sounded sad. “But I respect your intelligence. The stuffy ways of the Sanguinists can’t suit someone like you. My only concern is that you seem to have fallen in love—it shows in your eyes, you know. Is it with that young man who accompanied you earlier?”

  I blocked my thoughts and didn’t answer.

  “Well, even if it is, you have choices,” he said. “Haven’t you heard about Revité?”

  I nodded. He gestured toward his satchel. “If that’s the way you want to go, I have some and I’ll give it to you. You can revert to a mortal state and live a conventionally mortal life. I wouldn’t advise the change—it would be a loss in terms of our research, and I think you’d be bored to death—but no one can force you to remain one of us. Vampires, unlike humans, do have free will. And believe it or not, I’d like to see you happy.”

  I pressed my hands against my forehead again. He’d told me too much, too fast.

  “How’s your father?” he asked abruptly.

  I saw no point in lying to him now. “Not well.” It was the first time I’d thought of my father today, and the thought made me feel guilty. “He needed time to recover from the fire, and then he took some tainted serum. Something that had quinine in it. You weren’t responsible for that?”

  His shock seemed genuine. “I’d never do anything to hurt Raphael. He’s my oldest friend.”

  “That’s how he thought of Dennis,” I said, “and look what he tried to do.” I still couldn’t quite believe that Dennis had set the fire.

  Malcolm nodded, slowly. “I agree. Dennis isn’t the malicious sort. But maybe he was only the agent.”

  “What?”

  His face was solemn. “Have you considered the possibility that your father’s real nemesis isn’t me, or Dennis, but someone else?”

  “Who?”

  I thought the name just before he said it: Root.

  “But she’s taken care of him since before I was born.” Throughout my childhood, Root had been there, working with my father to make the tonics and sera that sustained not only us, but a network of vampires. “Why would she turn on him?”

  Malcolm sighed. “Why indeed. Well, I suppose that I could be wrong.”

  “Yes.” But my mind had already seized the idea and begun to embellish it. I’d always hated Root. It was almost too easy to cast her as the new villain.

  Chapter Sixteen

  With mock courtesy, Malcolm offered to walk me back to the hotel. I declined his invitation. We both knew that I could take care of myself.

  As I walked down the steps, I thought of one last question. I turned around. “What were you doing tonight at the hotel?”

  He stood in the doorway, looking down at me. “We have some ambassadors working at the caucus,” he said. “I thought I’d check in and see them in action. We take an active interest in politics, you know. It’s one more way we can try to shape the future.”

  He said good night again and closed the door.

  As I passed the cast-iron fence that surrounded the house, I had a view of the courtyard behind it. Parked in a row were three beige Chevrolet vans. The sight of them made me want to run, but I kept my pace steady.

  The cool night air outside smelled faintly of the horses who pulled carriages carrying tourists through the streets. After the stuffy air of the house, the smell was welcome, triggering memories of home. And the scent also brought me a story that Mãe had told me on one of our road trips.

  When she and my father first lived together in Savannah, she went through a box of his old letters and photographs without his permission. She was curious, she said.

  In the box she found a photograph of a beautiful young woman with wavy blond hair and “the face of an angel,” Mãe said. Instantly, she was jealous.

  For the next few weeks she never mentioned the photo to my father. But the woman’s face was often in her mind, and it made her feel deeply bitter and angry. She despised this woman, whose name she didn’t even know.

  Mãe knew her feelings weren’t rational, but she indulged them anyway. They began to poison her love for my father. Every time she looked at him, she pictured him with her.

  Finally, one night she broke down and told him what she’d done. He seemed displeased, but not surprised, and she wanted him to react more emotionally than that. So she got the photo and tore it up in front of him.

  He said, “What a pity. That’s the only photograph I had of my cousin Anna.”

  Mãe felt stupid and ashamed, but more than that she was disappointed. She’d invested so much energy into creating a rival. And for weeks after that, the image of the blond woman would come to her, make her begin to seethe again before she realized her feelings were completely unjustified.

  “Hatred easily becomes a habit,” she’d said.

  Her story told me how stupid I’d been to hate Malcolm. I’d created a myth about him, about his manipulations and misdeeds, and I’d carried a mental image of him with me, taking pleasure in loa
thing it. Now I had to let that image go.

  When I’d left the house near Oglethorpe Square, he’d asked me to give his regards to my father. “One day, I hope that he and I will work together again,” he said. “And perhaps you’ll work alongside us.”

  I’d said only, “Good night.” Yet for the first time I sensed his true feelings for my father: immense respect and deep, genuine affection. Whatever he’d done, he’d done for what he thought were good reasons.

  The cold air and exercise began to clear the fog in my brain. But I felt tired, too tired to think about Root. Whatever she might have done, for whatever reasons—I’d come to terms with all of that tomorrow.

  It was close to midnight by the time I reached the hotel. The lobby was still busy; delegates and tourists sat at the lobby bar, and a few Hillhouse students sprawled along a sofa watching sports on a large-screen TV. One of them waved to me. I waved back, but walked on toward the elevator. I’d had enough conversation for one day.

  As I unlocked the door of room 408, I expected to find my roommates awake, probably drunk again. But the room was quiet, lit only by the lamp next to Rhonda’s bed. Her bed was empty. I made out two forms in the other bed, two heads on the pillows, and my first thought was: Bernadette and Rhonda? In my bed?

  I came into the room, shutting the door quietly. But it wasn’t Rhonda in bed with Bernadette, I saw now. It was Walker. It was Walker.

  Maybe I made a noise. Bernadette stirred, turned her head, rested her chin on Walker’s shoulder. I couldn’t tell if her eyes were open.

  For the second time that night, I wanted to run. Instead I made myself walk to the closet, pull out my knapsack, stuff my things inside. Before I left, I couldn’t resist taking a last look at the bed, at Bernadette’s profile against Walker’s neck. She seemed to be smiling in her sleep.

  That night I slept—or tried to—on a sofa outside one of the second-floor meeting rooms. I don’t recall how much I did sleep; I remember long hours staring at the taupe-colored shade of a squat brown ceramic lamp on the table next to me, trying not to think, trying not to feel.

  Finally I gave up. I found a chair by the plate-glass windows overlooking the river and watched the dirty water lighten as the sun rose in a place I couldn’t see. I’d succeeded in making myself feel numb, but every two minutes or so the numbness gave way to a sensation like goose bumps along the inside of my skin. Gradually the goose bumps became sharper, like pinpricks, and threatened to intensify into stabs.

  I went back down to the lobby and asked for stationery and a pen at the front desk. After writing a note to Professor Hogan (saying simply that I had to leave for personal reasons), I sealed it and handed it to the clerk.

  Briefly I thought about going back to the house near Oglethorpe Square, asking Malcolm to let me stay there. I’d fit right in with the other zombies now.

  But what I really wanted was to go home.

  Florida was miles and miles away, but Tybee Island lay perhaps fifteen miles to the southeast. I put on a thick layer of sunblock, strapped on my backpack, and prepared myself for a good long walk.

  I’m forever surprised and impressed by the kindness of strangers. So many times, when I’ve felt ready to give up, they’ve made the small gestures that sustained me.

  That day I lost direction twice. The first time I stopped at a gas station to ask about street names. The clerk looked at my backpack and said, “You walking?”

  After he told me the best route, he insisted that I take a free bottle of water.

  The second time, as I trudged along the shoulder of Route 80, a woman in a yellow two-seat convertible pulled over on the road’s other side. “Where’re you headed?” she shouted across to me.

  So I arrived at the cottage on Tybee Beach in fine style, sitting in the convertible’s passenger seat, the car radio blaring rock and roll. “You be careful now,” the woman said as I climbed out. When I thanked her, she said, “Whatever it is, you’ll get over it.”

  My face must have told her much more than I’d said.

  As I stood in the bright sunlight, knocking on the cottage’s front door, I felt a wave of lethargy pass through me. What was I doing here? I could have stayed where I was. So what if Walker slept with Bernadette? Was it really such a big deal?

  Mãe opened the door. She looked more haggard than she had the last time I’d seen her. But she threw her arms around me, almost as if she’d expected to see me. When we pulled apart, she said, “Today he’s worse. Yesterday he seemed much stronger. He even said a few words. But today he’s taken a turn.”

  She led me into the kitchen, past the table, cluttered with cups and plates, into my father’s room. His face was turned toward the wall, but his arm, still attached to an IV tube, looked thinner and frailer to me.

  I felt someone watching me and instinctively looked to the left, straight into the eyes of Mary Ellis Root. She sat in a chair at the foot of his bed, an open journal in her lap. Her dark eyes gleamed at me.

  When we didn’t greet each other, Mãe said, “Mary Ellis came by yesterday. She’s been reading to Raphael, trying to catch him up on some research.”

  I wanted to run away. Instead, I came closer to Root, careful to block my thoughts, keeping my eyes on hers. The gleam in her left eye seemed to contract, to flicker.

  Root said, “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?” Her voice was gruff, yet oily.

  “I’m taking a break.”

  The light in her eye moved again, enough to convince me.

  “You look hungry, Ariella.” Mãe’s voice sounded sweet and warm. “Come and take a look at what we have in the fridge.”

  I didn’t want to leave Root alone with my father. But I needed to talk to Mãe, so I went. In the kitchen, I took her arm, pulled her down the hall, into the small bathroom. I shut the door.

  “We have to call Dashay,” I said. “She can help us deal with this. I think Root may be the one who made Father sick.”

  Mãe’s eyes were wide. They looked weary, but I saw no suspicious gleam.

  “Please, Mãe. Call her now and ask her to come. Tell her there’s a sasa waiting for her.”

  “Ariella, what are you talking about?”

  “I’m sure I’m right,” I said, although I wasn’t. “Please.”

  She looked at my face, my eyes, and shook her head. Then she said, “Very well.”

  While my mother went to use the telephone in her room, I went back to my father’s bedside. His face was still turned to the wall, and Root apparently hadn’t moved. She seemed to be reading the journal in her lap. I pulled a chair between her and my father and sat in it.

  “Remember that pill I asked you to test?” I said. “The one called V?”

  She raised her head. The mole on her chin had sprouted new hairs—four of them, about an inch long, dark and bristly.

  “What about it?” she said.

  “You made a big mistake,” I said. “That was no sugar pill.”

  The light in her left eye intensified. “Are you telling me what was in that pill?”

  “I’m telling you,” I said, wondering what it was I was trying to tell her, wondering why my thoughts were so scattered. I shook my head, pressed my hands to my temples. Inside my brain, I heard a kind of buzz.

  Mãe came in and put her arms on my shoulders. “You’re tired,” she said, her voice soft. “Go on now, have a snack, and then take a nap in my bed. I’ll stay here and keep Mary Ellis company.”

  The confidence in her voice told me she’d talked to Dashay. I left the room without saying another word.

  Her bed smelled of lavender and chamomile, and its cotton sheets were worn soft as flannel. I fell asleep almost before I took my shoes off.

  Someone was standing in the bedroom doorway, watching me sleep.

  I heard my voice say, “Mama?” As far as I knew, I’d never said the word before. Perhaps as a baby I’d said it, hoping that she who had never been there before would suddenly manifest herself, respond to me. />
  “Not your mama.”

  My eyes opened. Dashay sat on the edge of the bed, her brown eyes steady on mine. She stroked my forehead with both hands and pushed back my hair. “You’re all right,” she said. “Broke your heart, looks like. First time always hurts the worst.”

  She lifted her hands and sat back. “Now you better wake up. I just had a look in at your old friend Ms. Root. We have some work to do there, you and me.”

  I sat up and reached for the water bottle next to my bed. But Dashay pushed my hand away from the plastic bottle.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  I told her about the kindness of the gas station attendant.

  She read the label: “Orion Springs. Bottled in Miami.” Then she moved the bottle out of my reach. “He may have been kind, all right. But I’ve been hearing stories about bottled water from Miami. I’ll tell you some later. Meantime, you stay away from that stuff.” She held the bottle up to the light. It was a third empty. “You feel funny?” she asked me.

  I laughed, and it wasn’t a happy sound. The spectrum of all I’d felt in the last day fanned through me.

  She lifted a patchwork tote bag from the floor and rummaged though it. She lifted out a glass bottle and handed it to me. “Drink this. It’s from the springs back home.”

  I took a long drink from the bottle, felt the cool water flow down my throat, into my veins. My thoughts began to form clearly again. From the window came the crash of the ocean; the tide must have been coming in. I breathed deeply and drank again. When the bottle was two-thirds empty, I said to her, “I hope you brought more.”

  “Local water’s okay.” Dashay set down her bag. “At least, it tasted fine last time I was here. But yes, I did bring some more. So you finish what you have there. Wake up, get your thoughts straight. Then we need to go to work.”

  I drank the rest of the bottle. “Mãe’s still with my father?” I asked.