Courage.
Even the very thing I feel rising within me as I twist my needle back up inside the bird.
Hope.
Not Variants, I think. But Virtues.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Monday following Disappearance Day is familiar but not, like the slightest wrist turn of a kaleidoscope. The lab table scored with crosshatches, the row of bottles the color of sea glass, the glint of cold sunshine through the window, and the scrape of my chair as I take my place between George and Beas. Beas doesn’t look up. Her eyes are swollen, and for once there is no music in front of her. She’s not doodling notes along the page margins or humming under her breath.
She slides her head down into her arms and says through them, “I broke up with Thom.”
“What?” George and I both say.
“Honestly, I don’t see the point,” she says. “And that’s all I want to say about it.”
“All right.” George’s eyebrows raise. After a beat he says, “I heard Eliza’s sister is coming home.”
“From the opera?” I ask.
“Well, how’s she meant to sing now?” Beas asks bitterly, not raising her head. Even Dr. Digby leaves her be, and she doesn’t say another word for the rest of class.
I’m trying to remember the words to Whittier’s “At Last” to write for Beas, when the bell rings and she abruptly stands. “Beas—” I say. I scramble to gather my books and head after her, but Eliza is waiting at the door. She takes Beas by the arm.
“I know you can’t see it now, but there’s someone better for you here,” Eliza assures her as I walk past them. Beas lays her head on Eliza’s shoulder and doesn’t look at me. Eliza continues, making a point to raise her voice. “That’s why people from Sterling belong with other people from Sterling—?and not with outsiders.”
I walk toward my locker. That’s what I will always be to George and Beas and Will. Someone who can leave at any moment and will never truly understand. I fiddle with the lock, wondering if my attempts at comfort over the Disappearances will ring hollow. Or worse—?patronizing. This is the first time I can see the Disappearances for what they really are. A disintegration. Methodical and relentless. They tangle together in a jumble of hooks and splinter outward.
When I open my locker, a folded note flutters out. I reach to pick it from my shoe with dread. It is a boy’s handwriting, cramped and small.
I bet you can hear it.
Can’t you?
I crumple the paper. It could be from anyone.
Of course I can’t, I want to scream.
I take a deep breath.
Temporary, I tell myself. I watch Beas’s and Eliza’s retreating backs. Temporary for me.
And me alone.
The hallways at school remain eerily quiet for the rest of the week. The atmosphere is one of stunned defeat—?in the gymnasium as I hurl Stars, at home as I sort scrap metal with Mrs. Cliffton for the war effort. Will lopes off with his toolbox in his hand, mumbling about finding something to fix. On Thursday, one week after Disappearance Day, Beas shifts in her chair next to me in lab and I glance at her knee. For the first time ever, there is nothing inked across her skin.
More silence, everywhere.
“Do you think the Clifftons would mind if I came home with you?” George asks as we’re packing up our books. “I have some Variant ideas for the music that I want to run by Dr. Cliffton.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say. I hesitate. “Beas, do you want to come?”
“No thanks,” she says, and slides off her seat to the door.
Mrs. Cliffton’s car isn’t where it normally is, parked along the curve of the side lane. My muscles ache with a dull hum from yesterday’s Stars practice. I’m so sore I can barely pull on my coat. I scan the emptying lawn. “Do you see Miles anywhere?”
“Shh,” George says tensely. I hear it now, too: a boy’s voice, sneering just out of our sight. It’s coming from the orchard.
