Still, there isn’t much heaviness in her movements once we’re free.
“I have to go find him,” she says. Meaning Saul.
“I’ll help you track him down,” Elizabeth says. Meaning Arbus.
Millie knows this. “You are to leave Arbus alone,” she warns. “No good can come of another run-in.”
“I won’t do anything,” Elizabeth promises. “He has to have a home base. I want to find it, so we can watch where he goes, see what he’s doing.”
“No,” Millie says. “I don’t trust you.”
Laurie looks as surprised as I feel. “Whoa,” he says. “That’s a little strong, isn’t it? We’re all on the same side.”
Millie isn’t backing down. “We are. But I think we have different interpretations of what this means. Don’t we, Elizabeth?”
“If I say I won’t do something, I won’t do it.”
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Laurie asks.
I tell him about Saul and about Arbus, including my own run-in.
“All right,” he says, “this is what we’re going to do. Let’s focus on getting Saul back before he does something stupid and ends up being cursed into oblivion, okay? And we’ll also keep on the lookout for Arbus, but we will not search him out. Understood?”
He looks at Elizabeth when he says this. Instead of nodding, she glares at him. The meaning is clear: Who put my brother in charge?
Laurie is undeterred.
“Millie, you know Saul better than the rest of us. So Elizabeth, Stephen, and I will follow your lead.”
Millie mulls it over. I can tell she wants to go searching on her own. But she also realizes she can’t do it alone, not with Arbus on the loose.
“You and Elizabeth, yes,” she says. “Stephen, no.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“It’s too dangerous. It’s clear that Arbus can feed off your power. So if we happen to encounter him, you will only hurt us, not help. And you can’t see him. So if he attacks, you won’t be able to warn us.”
“But I can see Saul, can’t I?”
Millie is on her feet, moving to the door. “We’re wasting time, and that’s a luxury we can’t afford. Stephen, listen to me—you cannot help us. You can only make things worse. This is not at all your fault. It is entirely the fault of your curse. I can’t deny your harmfulness just to spare your feelings. Not right now. I hope you understand. But even if you don’t, you must go home. Immediately.”
I look to Elizabeth for help, for support. But she is equally unyielding.
“I will come by the minute we get back,” she says. “I promise.”
Only Laurie seems to understand how left behind I feel.
“We need you,” he tells me. “Just not for this.”
I don’t think it’s fair that he gets to go and I don’t. But I would feel childish saying so. This isn’t a trip to a baseball game.
Millie is writing Saul a note, just in case he comes back and we’re gone. I almost offer to stay here and wait for him. But if I’m going to be stuck alone, this is the last place I want to be. There is no welcome here, only the specters of risk and casualty.
“Fine,” I say.
“I’ll see you soon,” Elizabeth says, softening a little.
I can only hope this is true.
* * *
Coming back to my apartment, I feel worthless. While they go forward, I must retreat. I understand why, but it’s a comfortless knowledge.
If she’s in harm’s way, I should be in harm’s way too. I should not have the refuge of home.
My thoughts are loud as I go inside. I cannot stop berating myself, thinking if I’d said something different, done something different, I wouldn’t be on my own, forced to wonder what’s happening. It isn’t until I’m in my bedroom that I allow myself to stop for a moment. I can’t stop the concern, but the running commentary of concern stops. Just for a second. Two seconds. I look at my computer and think about turning it on. Then I pause again.
I have spent most of my life in this apartment. I know every inch of it, every corner. I know which books belong on which bookshelf, and in what order. But most of all, I know how the apartment sounds. The hiss of heat in winter. The thrum of air-conditioning in summer. The muffle of traffic as heard through glass. The refrigerator shifting in its seat. The breathing of the floorboards.
I can’t pinpoint why, but something is off. As faint as the ticking of the clock in my parents’ bedroom, there is a new presence.
“Dad?” I call out, thinking maybe he’s come back. Maybe he’s asleep in his old bed.
But when I look in that room, he’s not there. I call out again, but there’s no answer.
This, I think, is what happens when fear metastasizes. My concern for Elizabeth—my concern for all of us—is spreading through all of my perceptions, curling their edges.
This is what I should have told Elizabeth and Millie: I need to be doing something, because doing nothing is just as harmful as facing danger head-on.
I think about calling my father, because I have to admit, it might be better if he were here. I don’t think it would make me any less restless, but it would at least divide my attention a fraction.
I head into the living room, figuring that if I can’t have actual human interaction, I can at least drown myself in some television. I concentrate and pick up the remote control, watching it hover in the air for a second.
“You really shouldn’t leave your key outside,” a voice says. “You never know who might let himself in.”
The remote falls from my hand. I turn to look and see where the voice is coming from.
Nobody’s there.
“Stephen,” the voice continues. “I thought it was time for us to meet.”
The voice is old, but not weak. It is deep and rough and devoid of any trace of kindness.
I remain silent. To say anything would be to acknowledge him. I refuse to do that.
“The apartment is not as I pictured it,” my grandfather tells me. “For all these years, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
The voice is just as any voice would be. But the body is not there. This is what hits me, what hurts me. This, I now know, is how I appear to other people. This is what it must be like to be in a room with me.