Invisibility

by Andrea Cremer

  Chapter 27

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.

  But not even that. Now, twenty-three. Less.

  People say that time slips through our fingers like sand. What they don’t acknowledge is that some of the sand sticks to the skin. These are the memories that will remain, memories of the time when there was still time left.

  * * *

  Three minutes.

  I hold her for three minutes. I am strong enough for three minutes. We haven’t really gone anywhere, but it feels like we’re returning to each other. The assumption of the word reunion is that, once you’re together again, you are united. Two as one. Pulling close to someone is only a temporary symbol. It’s the way you breathe with each other that’s the telltale sign.

  * * *

  Thirty-seven thoughts, all present in three minutes.

  You are here.

  Something’s happened.

  All I’ve wanted is for you to be here.

  He’s been here.

  I’m scared.

  The fact that I’m scared is scaring me.

  I need you.

  Don’t cry.

  I just want to stay like this, like this, like this.

  You see me.

  He is going to destroy us.

  I should have never led you to this.

  You would be so much better off without me.

  I have done this to you.

  He has done this to me.

  Hold me.

  Hold.

  Hold on.

  What’s happened?

  I need to tell you.

  I don’t need anything else besides this, this, this.

  Not true. There is so much more to the world than two people.

  I am cursed.

  Loving me is what curses you.

  I need to let you go.

  Hold on.

  We need to kill him, but if he dies, I will be like this forever.

  If we try to kill him, he will kill us instead.

  I am okay with dying, but you have to live.

  I should not be thinking these thoughts.

  I should just hold you.

  Like this, like this.

  I want this to be the sand that stays on my fingers.

  You. When everything else is gone, I want to remember you.

  I have to stop thinking like it’s over.

  Twenty-three hours.

  I wish we could stay like this until then.

  * * *

  Four knocks in quick succession on the door.

  Laurie calls out from the other side. I let go, dissolve back into the room. Elizabeth answers the door, letting in not just Laurie, but Millie and Saul as well.

  “The gang’s all here,” I say. “Even our favorite mover of furniture.” Although it seems like Elizabeth and Millie have forgiven him, I’m not entirely ready to let Saul off the hook for barricading us in the hexatorium.

  Saul is unapologetic. “You would’ve been better off staying there,” he says.

  “Are you safe?” Millie asks, looking around the room.

  This is one of the good things about having them here: If Arbus were still around, they’d see him.

  I explain what happened, and the four of them go through the whole apartment, just to make sure we’re alone. I feel like a kid who’s sent his parents off to banish a ghost in the middle of the night, one he is sure is just out of view, hovering in the deadly shadow zone where specters and monsters reside.

  When they’re certain he’s gone, we regroup. Elizabeth and Laurie fill me in on why Saul did what he did, and I’m almost amused that Arbus can make so many people feel so vulnerable at once.

  Say what you want about my grandfather, at least he leaves a mark.

  * * *

  “So,” Laurie says, looking at the clock on his phone, “we know he’s going to be back in twenty-two hours and forty minutes. That’s enough time to spring a trap, right?”

  “If it were that easy,” Saul replies gruffly, “I think it would’ve been done by now.”

  “We need to think,” Millie says, as if we’d been planning otherwise.

  “We need to kill him,” Saul asserts.

  “No!” Elizabeth says. “If we kill him, all the curses remain out there in the world.”

  “And here in this room,” Laurie points out.

  Saul shakes his head. “You children don’t understand. You’re not going to get Arbus to take back his curses. Never. The best you can hope for is that he revokes one curse in order to put on another—and you kill him in the space between. But even then, he can only revoke one curse at a time. So you’ve got one shot. And all the other curses will remain. You don’t kill him in order to kill the curses of the past. You kill him to prevent the curses of the future.”

  I know Saul is unyielding in his convictions, so I turn to Millie. “Isn’t there another way?” I ask her. “Short of murder. Isn’t there some way of draining his power, turning him into someone ordinary?”

  Millie shakes her head. “If there is, I’ve never come across it. I’ve looked. Believe me, I’ve looked. But death seems to be the only way to stop a cursecaster. In the old days, there was banishment or confinement. But that’s not how our world works anymore. You can’t just banish someone. They’ll only end up somewhere else.”

  “So basically I have the choice between killing my grandfather and joining him?”

  Millie looks alarmed. “It’s not really a choice, is it?”

  I tell her no. But still, I’m thinking there has to be another way.

  * * *

  Saul is restless. He keeps looking at the door, shifting from foot to foot.

  Finally, Millie says, “What?”

  “If Arbus broke in here once, there’s nothing to stop him from coming in again,” Saul says. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Not all of us. Just her.

  Millie notices this too.

  “It’s not about me,” she gently chides. “We must look at the overall picture.”

  “Well, let’s look at the overall picture from back home,” he says. “We can protect ourselves there.”

  I can see Millie’s going to protest further, but the truth is that I want her and Saul gone. I am not going to figure this out with them around, especially if I know that Saul will throw me headfirst into Arbus’s clutches if it means saving Millie.

  “How about this?” Elizabeth says. “Why don’t the two of you go back to the hexatorium for now? Laurie and I will stay with Stephen—we can even smuggle him into our apartment. If he’s with me, I’ll be able to see Arbus coming. And in the meantime, we can try to come up with a plan for tomorrow. Because there has to be a plan.”

  Millie nods. “Come by at eight,” she says. “There are a few things I want to look into. Then we can figure out what to do next.”

  We all cling to the illusion that we’re a team. But I think we all know: Arbus could break us apart in a second. Some of our loyalties are thinner than others.

  * * *

  When it’s just me, Elizabeth, and Laurie, I can let my guard down a little more. We might not have any answers, but at least I don’t have Saul glaring at me like I’m the Trojan who opened the gate for the horse.

  “Why is it that there are five of us and only one of him, and I still feel like we’re outnumbered?” Laurie asks.

  “Because he wants it more than we do,” Elizabeth responds.

  “Wants what?”

  “To destroy us. That’s the problem, isn’t it? He wants to destroy us more than we want to destroy him. Because we have a moral code and he doesn’t. In a fair world, this would give us an advantage. But now? Not so much.”

  She’s denying her own fury, and I wonder why.

  “We can’t let the jerks win,” Laurie says. “I mean, that’s what this is about, isn’t it? That’s what it’s always about. Look—do I want to chop off his head and hoist it in the air as a trophy? Not even a little bit. But I don’t want him to win, either
. There’s no way we can let him win.”

  “That’s the problem with having a moral code,” I say. “We want to destroy the jerkish part of the jerks, but we want to save the human being underneath.”

  “And do you think that’s possible?” Elizabeth asks. “He’s an old man. You’re his only family. Is there any chance of persuading him to change?”

  I wish I could believe it was an option. But I can’t.

  “No,” I say. “If I turn him down, that’s it. It’s all over. He’s not going to back down.”

  “So he has to die,” Laurie says.

  “No,” I say.

  “Then he lives.”

  “No.”

  We hang there for a moment, in the uncertain gap between each no.

  Then Elizabeth says, “Exactly. My point exactly.”

  * * *

  I step away from them. I say I’ll be back in a second. I just need to be in another room. I need to think about this without them in front of me, without seeing the consequences playing across their lives.

  I retreat to my bedroom, as I have for as long as I can remember. Surrounded by all the touchstones of my youth, I wonder if I am strong enough to walk away from it all. Because that’s the question in my mind now—if I left, would Arbus follow me? What would happen if the invisible boy vanished? If I left this small, small world I’ve constructed, would it remain safe?

  I think of my father, of his life in California. What if I started there? Even if he doesn’t want me around, I know he would help me.

  It’s possible. Entirely possible. Emptily possible. Because even as I consider it, I know there’s no way I will leave. I want to escape, yes. But it’s not the future I want to escape into. I want to take the path that leads back to us, not away from us. It’s selfish, I know. Perhaps destructively selfish. But I can’t be selfless enough to erase everything I’ve found in these past few weeks.

  My mother stayed. She is here with me now because she stayed with me then. I’m sure she thought about running too. She ran once, when there was truly nothing to live for. But then she stayed, when she found something, and that something was me.

  “What should I do?” I ask her now, knowing the silence I will get in return. Even though I know she can’t answer, I still like to think she’s listening.

  I hear Elizabeth’s footsteps approaching down the hall. She calls out my name, giving me warning, the chance to tell her I want her to stay away.

  “In here,” I tell her.

  We wear our concern so nakedly with each other. I see it on her face and know she must see it on mine.

  She doesn’t ask me if I’m okay. She knows. Instead she asks, “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Millie hasn’t taught you how to turn back time, has she?”

  Elizabeth shakes her head. “She’s keeping that one to herself.”

  “That’s too bad,” I say, “because what I’d really love right now is for us to exist in the world as we knew it five weeks ago. I want us to be there, to be like that again. No Arbus. No Millie. Just the two of us meeting each other and having the world be so purely ours.”

  “All couples get nostalgic about the start of their story,” Elizabeth tells me, coming closer. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “But not all couples are going to have the next day that we’re going to have.”

  She wraps her arms around me. I make myself there for her.

  “We can’t do this alone,” she whispers. “You know that, right? It has to be both of us. Together. There’s no other way.”

  This isn’t true. There are plenty of other ways.

  But it’s also true, because neither of us is going to take another option.

  * * *

  Protection. For so many other couples, this is a metaphorical vow. It is the emergency form of caring, the defense mechanism against the unexpected. But Elizabeth and I have woven it into the fabric of who we are together. So I must not try to separate it, or separate us. I must wear it all.

  * * *

  We walk back into the living room and find Laurie lying back on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

  “Any revelations?” Elizabeth asks.

  “No,” he says. “But you could probably use a new coat of paint.”

  I look up and see the chips and cracks he’s talking about.

  “Not a priority right now,” Elizabeth tells him.

  “Well, we can just add it to the list of things we’ll do when we’re through with this, right?” Laurie says, undeterred.

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” I say.

  Every fight for survival is really a fight to return to the inconsequential concerns of the mundane. I can picture us in this room—sheets over the furniture, paint dripping off rollers, paint splattered all over our clothes. We are happy in the hypothetical future. I cling to that.

  * * *

  “We really need to head back,” Laurie says. “Mom is going to be worried soon.”

  “You’re coming with us,” Elizabeth tells me. “I wasn’t lying to Millie—we’re keeping an eye on you, and an eye out for Arbus. I don’t want you alone here, just in case he decides to come back early. Laurie and I will make an excuse to leave at eight, and you’ll come with us. But in the meantime, you can be witness to a good, old-fashioned family dinner.”

  This sounds great to me.

  * * *

  Elizabeth and Laurie’s mom must hear us coming down the hall. She opens the door before either Elizabeth or Laurie can get out a key.

  “You’re late,” she says to Laurie.

  Then she turns to Elizabeth.

  “Sorry,” she says. “That was rude.” She offers Elizabeth her hand. “You must be one of Laurie’s friends from school. I’m his mother. Would you like to join us for dinner?”

  Chapter 28

  I GET THAT MY MOM doesn’t know I have an invisible boyfriend whose grandfather is a maniacal black magic user. I get that she doesn’t know said crazy evildoer is in town, was in our building, is the reason Central Park is shut down. But I don’t have the patience for this.

  “Ha, ha,” I say. “I know I’ve been out a lot, but come on.”

  “I’m sorry?” Mom frowns; she’s looking at me like she’s trying to figure something out.

  Laurie, ever the mediator, steps between me and Mom. “So what’s on the menu? Chinese? Italiano? Or perhaps the elusive, yet scrumptious, homemade mac and cheese?”

  Mom’s face falls a bit. “Oh.” She glances at me with an “I’m a bad mother and hostess” face. “If I’d known you were bringing a guest, I would have . . . but work.”

  “Mom!” I break in. “Please. You know we don’t expect you to cook. This is the twenty-first century. You’re supporting our family in Manhattan by yourself. Forget the mac and cheese.”

  “Ummm.” Mom looks at me like she doesn’t know if she should laugh or scold me. Her gaze turns pleadingly to Laurie.

  “Introductions?” she asks, and she forces a smile in my direction. Her eyes are on me, curious, confused. Unknowing.

  It doesn’t sink in until I feel Stephen’s hands on my shoulders. The trembling begins in my own hands but quickly overtakes my arms, legs. I managed to keep it out of my face, knowing a trembling lip is a two-second prelude to tears.

  Mom doesn’t know who I am. She looks at me and sees a stranger.

  For Mom’s memory to be erased, there must have been an eraser. Here. In our home.

  Maxwell Arbus didn’t only visit his grandson. He took the time to stop by my apartment and leave a parting gift.

  I stare at Mom, knowing that to her it must be awkward and inappropriate, but I can’t help believing that if I gaze at her long enough, she’ll know who I am. She has to know me.

  Please, Mom. Please.

  Mom manages to hold on to her smile, though it’s become uncertain. I can no longer bear looking at her, so I look at my shoes.

  Laurie doesn’t miss a beat. “Come on, Mom.” He spea
ks in an exaggerated, game-show host voice. “It’s family dinner.”

  “Oh!” Mom gives Laurie a huge, approving smile. “You’re acting—this is a homework exercise, right? Are you two siblings in a scene that you have to perform?”

  Touching his finger to his nose, Laurie grins at her. He quickly shoots me an I’m-so-sorry-but-what-the-hell-else-can-we-do glance. Beneath his white flash of teeth, I see the twitch of panic in his face.

  Mom laughs, clapping in delight. “What fun! Now I have a son and a daughter. Whose name is . . .”

  “Elizabeth,” Laurie offers.

  “What a lovely name.”

  I force myself to look up.

  Mom smiles at me, then glances over her shoulder into the waiting apartment. “I hope I remembered correctly that you love your Chinese takeout spicy and vegetarian.”

  “That’s me.” Returning her smile is painful. I want to scream, It’s me! I want to hug her and shake her and plead until she can recall that my favorite ice cream is peppermint bonbon, that the only time I sing is along with the radio on road trips, and that I’ve pledged myself to a career that will likely mean she’s forever underwriting my life.

  But Mom can only look on me with the kind, polite reserve of a stranger.

  Stephen leans in, whispering, “I’m right here. I’ll be right here the whole time.”

  That’s when I realize I can’t do what I want. I can’t run from the building, not stopping until I get to Millie’s and demand that she fix my mom, my life. Instead I have to sit in an apartment that belongs to my family and be treated like I’m a stranger passing through because of Laurie’s homework assignment.

  I wish I could stop seeing the curse. Once I knew it was there I can’t shut my awareness of it off. Bursts of light appear in a steady pulse, hovering before my mother’s eyes. Blinding her like an unending camera flash. I know I could draw the curse, but I can see it’s been created to last—which means it would take a serious toll on me. Or kill me. Knowing that a confrontation with Arbus could happen at any time, without warning, I can’t afford to be weakened by attempting to free my mom’s mind. Soon I can’t look at my mother. The flashes make my eyes burn and my head ache.