“Not always,” I say. “But, I guess, mostly.”
She smiles down at the cellophane she’s unwrapping from another jam tart. “Thom used to live just over the border. He found out about the Disappearances when we were younger, and he never breathed a word about it, even when he moved two towns away. Over the years he’s gained our trust.”
“And also because you’re in love with him.”
“Yes.”
“So there are exceptions.”
“Sometimes.” She takes another bite. “I mean. Look at you.”
“Do you think you’ll end up with him?” I ask, crossing my ankles under the table. “Do you think it’s possible for . . . people from different places to be together?”
She looks at me with a slight frown. Then she sighs. “I don’t know. It gets more complicated every seven years.”
“It’s not so bad here,” I say. “Thom could live here and use the Variants. It’s not that big of a sacrifice.”
“Oh yeah?” she says. “Would you do it? Be willing to forfeit things you don’t even know are going to disappear? We could live through ten, eleven more Disappearances. And maybe when enough gets taken, it adds up to not be worth it.”
I stay silent. “But the Variants. They replace the missing things eventually.”
“There’s no guarantee that Variants will be found for everything that’s going to disappear. Sometimes it takes years. For some things, it could be never.” She pauses. “I don’t want to ask Thom to make that choice.”
“Would you ever consider leaving here for him?”
She laughs a short laugh. Looks down at the napkin crumpled in her hand. “I want to tell you I would. But at least here I get a chance to have some of those things back with the Variants. If I leave, I really lose them.”
I want to argue with her vehemently. To convince her that maybe Thom could be worth it.
“Then we’ll just have to find a way to end the Disappearances, won’t we?” I say lightly.
“Sure,” she says, her mouth turning down into a wry smile. She unwraps her last tart and hands it to me. “I thought that’s why you were here.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
October 29, 1942
Disappearance Day
At half past two on Disappearance Day I pull on my red coat and knock on Miles’s door. He sits cross-legged on the floor, sketching.
“Ready?” I ask.
He’s wearing gloves that are huge on him, loose and bunching around his fingers in drooping folds even as he clutches his Variant pencils.
“Aren’t those a little big for you?” I ask.
“They’re Will’s,” he says. “He gave them to me,” he adds purposefully. I don’t fail to notice the chill in his tone.
“Everything okay?” Things have thawed between us in the wake of the Dream Variant discovery, but now Miles stands and pushes past me without answering.
I sigh. He’s just like Mother, with his impossible moods. Maybe he’s as anxious as everyone else about what the day will bring.
“It’s too depressing to be home tonight,” Mrs. Cliffton says when we climb into the car. She sprinkles Variants over her compact and applies a deep red lipstick. “So with the Harvest Fair, we make it into a celebration. We rise up to meet it.”
Sterling is hosting the fair this year, so we park the car and join the line snaking into the high school. Dr. Cliffton lugs his telescope case, and Will balances Mrs. Cliffton’s platter of cheeses. A large sign with imposing letters hangs on the front door. It says HARVEST FAIR—?TICKETS REQUIRED. STRICTLY ENFORCED. Mrs. Cliffton nudges Will, her hair flaming like cinnamon against the fall sky. Her eyes crinkle. “It’s peppermint air,” she says, inhaling.
We hand over our tickets and enter the long hallway of the school, our footsteps echoing past darkened classrooms, and we leave our coats on a set of empty desks. Mrs. Cliffton’s deep blue dress, belted at the waist, has a full skirt that swishes at her knees. I have on my best dress, short-sleeved and moss-colored, with a high collar that used to perfectly hide Mother’s necklace. I try to fix Miles’s cowlick, but he shoves my hand away and glares at me.
