“I guess when it comes down to it,” I say, “I don’t really understand life.”
“You haven’t had much practice,” Laurie says. “But I don’t know that practice makes it easier.”
“Who needs cursecasters?” I ask. “The amateurs do just as much damage.”
Laurie laughs at that—a laugh of recognition, not humor.
“It appears that we’ve each had a lot of time to contemplate human nature,” he says.
“Mostly I found that it gets boring after a while. Contemplation never really accomplishes anything.”
Laurie nods. “I just wanted to be back on my feet.”
“And I decided I wanted to stay on my feet. It’s the difference between jumping and leaping, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“When you jump, all you’re going to do is fall. But leaping? Leaping is when you think there’s something on the other side.”
“And you have a sense that we’re about to leap?”
“I have a sense that we already have.” I pause. “You know you don’t have to be a part of it, right? I was born into this. And maybe Elizabeth was too. But this isn’t your fight. I can’t speak for Elizabeth, but I would completely understand if you didn’t want to leap.”
“What? And watch the two of you on the other side, not being able to do anything about it? Forget that.”
He turns to look over the railings again.
* * *
I know my mother wanted to have another child. I heard them talking about it, but I never really understood what the true terms of the argument were. Would the curse have still applied? Did it matter?
I like to think she didn’t want me to be alone. That she wanted me to feel like this, like I had someone else on my side.
* * *
“I have a question,” Laurie says after a minute. “You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’m just wondering about the end result of this. It’s to break the curse, right? And that means you becoming visible. Do you think you’re ready for that? Because being visible makes you really vulnerable.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready,” I say. “But I think I’d like to try.”
* * *
A noise wedges itself into the silence—the door opening. For a moment I actually think I have to hide. It’s as if Laurie has made me forget what I am.
Laurie also looks around for a place to hide, expecting someone from building security. There isn’t really anyplace to go, unless he wants to climb the water tower.
But it’s not building security. It’s Sean, looking bashful and happy.
“I was hoping to find you,” he says to Laurie.
“Pretend I’m not here,” I whisper. “I’ll leave.”
Laurie can’t say anything back. I wait for Sean to clear the doorway, so I can go back down. But instead he stands there.
“I texted you three times,” he says. “And the last two, I felt really stupid doing it.”
“I’m sorry,” Laurie apologizes. “I’ve just been busy.”
“With what?”
“My sister’s been dragging me around.”
“And I can’t come with?”
“It’s just—she has to go to—um—counseling.”
Sean’s not going to let it go. “What for?”
“You know—adjusting to a new place. She needs a new therapist. So we’ve been, like, shopping around.”
Sean is a New Yorker—this should not sound implausible to him. And, indeed, he buys it.
“My father sent me to a therapist once, when he thought I was spending too much time staring at Aquaman. Like, too late, Dad.”
“That must’ve sucked,” Laurie says, and leaves it at that. I realize: Sean doesn’t know what happened to him. Sean is part of his new start.
Sean moves closer, clears the door. I know this is my cue to leave.
“Easy things are worthless,” Laurie says, and I realize he’s talking to both Sean and me. “It’s the hard things that matter. Those are the things worth leaping for.”
“Like Aquaman?” Sean asks, a little confused.
“Like Aquaman. Or the Wolfman, if you’re into that. Or the Invisible Boy. If we don’t fight other people’s curses, what are we left with? Just a swift fall to the earth, and where’s the meaning in that?”
I know I can’t answer, not with Sean right there. So I have to rely on silence to send my message. I have to rely on Laurie to know that I wish he had been with me the last time I was on the roof. I have to trust that he knows I’m glad that I stayed.
Chapter 18
I AM FROZEN IN my chair.
Killing him. The curse is killing him.
Millie dabs at the corners of her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. She looks at me as though she expects she’ll need to rummage another hankie up for me too. But I don’t have tears. My horror is slowly melting into anger, being pushed aside like an iceberg carried on a warm ocean current.
“What do you mean, probably?” I ask.
My tone makes Millie jump in her seat. “Excuse me?”
“How can it probably be killing him?”
Millie shifts uncomfortably in her chair. “I’m just trying to warn you. To prepare you for the worst. It’s impossible to know for certain . . .”
Her hesitation tells me she’s holding something back. “But?”
“Curses have a certain morbid logic to them,” she tells me. “A natural course to run. Stephen’s curse wasn’t a punishment for him, it was a cruel blow to his mother, Arbus’s daughter.”
“I don’t understand.” I am frustrated, fidgeting. I want to bolt from Millie’s hexatorium so I can find Stephen. It’s as if each moment I sit here, waiting for her explanation, it’s another moment he’s slipping away. He is no longer simply invisible. He’s going to disappear forever.
Millie purses her lips. “Arbus designed the curse to render a child invisible, taking his existence—along with all the joy and exuberance that should accompany the arrival of an infant—and keeping him hidden from most of the world, even from his own parents. Arbus is nothing if not careful in his casting—he made sure that Stephen would stay alive, to always haunt his mother. Arbus wouldn’t have left anything to chance.”