An icy draft twined its way into my bones, coming out of nowhere. I clutched my arm, rubbing my skin to combat the shivers.No, no, no,I thought.Stop.
“I said put it away.” I spoke sharply.
Marigold drew back, looking stung. “Sorry. I’ll go up to my room.”
“Take your book—”
She was already gone.
Good.I shivered, still rubbing my arms. I wanted to tell her my story from the beginning. Truly, I did. But I knew her. My middle daughter, ever bright and inquisitive, who had a talent for thwarting me at every turn. She already suspected I could disappear; once she learned the extent of my secret, she’d stop at nothing to try and save me. She’d poke and probe and even try to disappear with me on the misguided faith that it might help.
Just like how she’d left the photography book on the kitchen table.
I approached it, curious yet apprehensive, a mouse knowingly drawn to a trap.
There, staring back at me, was a portrait of my teenaged self. I’d been modernized: My yellow dress now had a belt at the waist and a subtle white collar, I’d been given lipstick, and the poof in my hair was higher. But my smile was the same. Radiant. Blissful. Young.
You’ll never smile again like the girl on the bottle,Sai Ma had said.
Her vicious words had become a worm in my heart gnawing a hole that wouldn’t heal. Simply thinking about her, my head felt light. My skin danced with cold, my muscles turning brittle as glass, then air.Stop.Stop!
I fumbled at the stove, turning the knob to its highest setting. I hugged myself as the orange flames flickered to life, digging my nails into the meat of my arms.Don’t go.
I used to be able to control it. It had been as simple as a breath in, a breath out. Not anymore.
Now the vanishment would come upon me against my will, and without my shadow mooring me to this world, when I disappeared I truly became nothing. I spirited into an oblivion where I didn’t even recollect my name. There I stayed, longer each time, until somehow I remembered to come back.
I was terrified, but what could I do?
It’s only going to get worse,Mama had said when I confided in her.You cannot fight it.
Maybe not, but I would keep trying. I hunched as close to the burner as I dared without catching my sweater on fire, but I—my body—felt nothing. Closer and closer I leaned, until I could feel a whisper of heat brush my skin, clashing against my glistening cold.
It was the shock I needed.
Blood rushed back to my cheeks, feeling returned to my arms and my legs. I turned off the flame, trembling. I’d acted quickly, I was lucky. This time.
Once I was whole, I closed the book and tossed it into the trash.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Marigold
A few weeks later, at Stanford, Marigold plopped a dusty brown suitcase onto her boyfriend’s desk. “Will you draw something for me?”
“Depends on if it’s legal.” Kenji leaned forward on his elbow wearing a lazy grin. “What’s inside the case, Nixon’s White House tapes?”
“Very funny.” She sipped his soda. “It’s my mom’s. Been sitting around in our attic for years.”
“It looks locked.”
Marigold picked it open in two swift maneuvers. “Not anymore.”
Kenji whistled. “Should I be worried how smooth that was?”
“Yes.” She was wearing her old favorite gloves—the ones she’d found years ago in the very same suitcase she was currently opening to carefully remove its contents. A wooden comb, a few sweaters that smelled like mothballs, the yellow polka-dot dress.
“Wait, that’s the—the dress from—”
