I don’t have to slide into the background to witness what happens next. The electric quality to the dark outline of his frame strengthens and sparks from within, like a thin cloud alive with lightning. Without breaking his gaze, the man mutters words I can’t make out. The black line explodes like a bright camera flash and begins to form a new shape that stretches from the doorway across the room. Small smoke-like ovals build their way towards the oblivious mother, each dark shape overlapping the next.
Links on a chain. A chain that will bind this woman in a curse. I can’t breathe.
The casting is so stark, so vivid that I can’t believe the other museumgoers wander idly past the chain that links the cursecaster to his victim. The man in the suit brushes against the caster as he pulls out his phone to take a call in the Garden Court. The security guard puffs up and goes after the phone rule breaker but doesn’t give the caster a second glance.
I don’t know what the curse is meant to do. But those black, ethereal chain links are making the hairs on my arms stand up. They’re filled with so much power. I can feel it like a static charge even at a distance. This is the kind of curse Millie was worried about me taking on. Even before it has reached the woman, I can tell it’s a curse that would take a greater toll on my body than the subway curse. But maybe all my secret curse drawing, all my inoculations have built up enough that I could take it on.
It doesn’t matter. I have to stop it now. I can’t let that chain touch her.
I run straight at the caster. He’s so pleased with whatever he’s about to do to the woman that he doesn’t move. Or else he, like most people, wouldn’t believe anyone would tackle them in the Garden Court of the Frick.
He’s got more bulk than I anticipated. Crashing into him is like hitting a brick wall. Fortunately this wall collapses. He hollers before he hits the ground. I land on top of him but roll away as if he was aflame. I know I have to get out of here. I scramble up, taking a second to make sure the chain isn’t there. It’s vanished.
The mother in the living hall has scooped up her son. She’s staring at me in openmouthed shock. With her son in her arms, she rushes from the room.
I hear a barking voice and see the security guard coming at me. I hop up and bolt for the entrance, forcing my legs to run though my muscles are racked with trembling.
I run and run. I don’t know how I’m running because my mind is frozen, stuck in the Frick.
I know who he is.
When I slammed into him, when my arms and legs were tangled with his, I could feel that charcoal line pass through me and I saw him. A lonely, angry man. A man who eats food like any other man but whose nourishment is the anguish of others. A man who wants others to fear him. A man who lives to control. A man who shares the blood of an invisible boy.
I knew, beyond a doubt, that I’d just tackled Maxwell Arbus.
I collapse at the angel fountain like a supplicant. Tourists gawk at me, and a man wearing an I NY visor comments loudly that New Yorkers are all crazy. I ignore the stares and sit down with my back against the fountain’s base. Part of me wonders if Arbus got beyond the shock of someone plowing him over in time to memorize my face. I can’t help but be terrified that he might have followed me and will appear from between the columns of the terrace to wreak vengeance on me.
But the terrace remains peaceful, if busy with sightseers and park regulars, and the angel benevolent as she looks down on me.
When I manage to catch my breath, I’m surprised at my first clear thought.
He wasn’t what I was expecting.
Then I laugh out loud when I realize that Stephen’s grandfather wouldn’t be Lord Voldemort’s identical twin. My sudden high-strung giggles earn me more wary looks from the tourists.
I lever myself against the fountain until I’m standing. My legs tremble like jelly, but I have to get home. Millie’s face and reproving frown flit through my mind, but I can’t go to her. Not first.
Stephen deserves to know first. He needs to know.
* * *
Maxwell Arbus is here. In Manhattan. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Maybe he’s somehow learned of his daughter’s death and has come to look at her final place of residence. He might even be searching for an invisible grandchild. If he even knows that Stephen was born.
The implications of Arbus’s appearance in New York rain down on me in a torrent. I may not be ready to face him, but it doesn’t matter. I have to hope that I’m strong enough, that I’ve built up enough of a curse immunity to survive his.
Though the steamy air and scorching concrete proclaim it’s still summer, I know that these days of freedom are numbered. Mom has begun peppering me with back–to-school questions. I have to pick my classes for the fall. When I’m confined in class, Stephen will be alone. Vulnerable. What if Arbus finds him and I’m not there? I can’t wait. We have to find Stephen’s grandfather before he finds us. I have to tell Stephen that the man who made him invisible has returned, that, despite the risk and Millie’s warnings, we’re out of time.
I’m running a race where winning means losing, and I’ve just spotted the finish line.
Chapter 21
MY ENEMY.
My grandfather.
I don’t know how to think of him.
If I am the invisible boy, is he the invisible man?
But not invisible. Only invisible to me. To the boy he cursed.
He is visible to Elizabeth.
He is visible, and he is here, and he has done something to her.
* * *
I make Elizabeth tell me the story again and again. I devour every detail, hoping that once I consume them, I will know more. I want a picture to emerge. I want to put a face to the name, so I can blame it for everything.
“We have to tell Millie,” I say. It seems obvious to me. But Elizabeth is hesitant.
“She’s going to say I’m not ready. She’s going to say I was foolish to interfere.”
“What you did was brave. She’ll know that.”
I say it, and then I realize: if Millie is in fact going to see Elizabeth as brave, Elizabeth’s going to have to be much more convincing than she is now. She doesn’t look brave at all. She looks guilty.
“Is there something else?” I ask gently. “Something you’re not telling me?”
We are in our usual position, next to each other on the couch. Our comfort zone, she called it one night as we nestled in to watch a movie. But right now, she doesn’t curl into me. She doesn’t smile. She’s heard my words and she’s trying to rearrange them into an answer, but it’s not working.