The Disappearance

by Gillian Chan

  I was wondering what to do next when Adam whispered to me, “It’s Katerina who is important.” He was definitely a smart cookie; as I thought about it, it struck me that he was probably right. And he obviously read faster than I did because he suddenly pointed further down the article and there it was!

  Katerina was described as a colorful character who’d spent her early years traveling with and looking after her brother, Jacob Mueller, who was known locally as The Prophet, their capitals not mine. So, maybe, just maybe, the name Jacob Mueller was one that had been passed down and made a big deal of in the Sparrow family.

  I was curious about this Prophet and am a sucker for that kind of weird stuff, so even though it probably wasn’t going to lead anywhere, I asked for the photocopy of the pamphlet. The clock on the wall told me that we had a while before Chaz would arrive, or so I thought. The librarian had just delivered the pam­phlet when he was there, looming over my shoulder.

  “Dry and dusty, Mike.” He sounded amused. “You never stop surprising me. Are you ready to go? What about you, Adam?”

  Adam waved the piece of paper I’d given him, and I was tickled to see that he had taken the time to write stuff down. “Yes, I got what I need.” Thankfully, Chaz was not the sort to examine things closely.

  I was beginning to genuinely like this kid; he was smart and he thought on his feet.

  I hesitated. “I need this for my history project,” I said to Chaz. “They said I could photocopy it . . .” I hoped he would take the bait. He didn’t disappoint me.

  Chaz reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill. “See if they can change that. Quick, though, because Luce called to say that they’re doing the paperwork to release Jacob and they should be ready to go in about half an hour.”

  The pamphlet was thin, no more than ten pages of cramped old-fashioned type, with an illustration at the end, one of those old-school line drawings that were used in newspapers and stuff before photographs. I didn’t have time to examine it closely, but it was pretty obvious that something was missing from the original: the last page seemed to end in a jagged tear. I copied the newspaper article, too, just in case I had missed something. I carefully put the photo­copied sheets inside my notebook, gave the items back to the librarian, and we were off.

  True to form, Chaz had parked in the loading area, and we rushed to the van, oblivious to the glares we were getting from a truck driver waiting to unload produce for the market.

  I don’t know what I was expecting when we got to the hospital, but the sight of Jacob hunched up in a wheelchair scared me. He looked smaller and thinner, lost in the blanket wrapped around him. He was staring straight ahead, but didn’t seem to register anything when the van pulled to a halt and Luce wheeled him toward it. He was a mess. Livid bruises, still freshly purple, blotched his skin. The left side of his face was a scabbed-over graze. Lucy didn’t look much better. She was pale and had dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept well, which was probably the case if my memory of nights in the hospital were anything to go by.

  Chaz leaped down from the van and bent over Jacob, talking softly to him but getting no response. Jacob con­tinued to stare into space, and it seemed like he was hardly blinking.

  Straightening up, Chaz said, “Lucy, are you sure they should be releasing him?” That’s what I was thinking, too.

  Lucy looked close to tears. “There’s nothing physically wrong with him that won’t heal.” She looked down at Jacob, patted his shoulder. “He’s eating, well, as much as he ever does. Believe it or not, he seemed to like the hospital food, all those separate bowls and packets, simple food. He even talked to one of the doctors once, told him his name and his age, but every so often he gets like this, like he isn’t here, and nothing anyone does can change that. We just have to wait for him.”

  Chaz hugged Lucy, patting her back like you would with a child. “He’s been through a tough time, Luce. You know what he’s like when things get to be too much for him. Once we get him back to Medlar House, familiar surroundings, I’ll bet that he’ll do this less and less.” It sounded like Chaz was trying to convince himself; his voice lacked its usual confidence. He paused. “What about school? The principal called me yesterday, supposedly to ask about Jacob, but really the bastard was just covering his own back. He gave me a whole load of crap about how this wouldn’t have happened if Jacob had gone to class like he was supposed to, as if he even knows if Jacob was bunking off or if those thugs grabbed him when he was on his way to class.”

  “No problem there,” answered Luce. “He’s not allowed to go back until he’s been cleared by the pediatrician here, and they set up an appointment with him for ten days from now.”

  I hadn’t realized that I had been holding my breath, but these words from Lucy let me breathe again with relief. Jacob was safe. He’d be at Medlar House with whoever was on duty, and I would be there to watch over him, making sure that Paddy didn’t try anything.

  Lucy unwrapped the blanket and Chaz leaned down and picked Jacob up. Chaz was a big rangy guy, but still, it seemed like it took no effort at all. He carried Jacob easily up the steps of the van and buckled him into the seat across the aisle from mine. I tried to catch his eye, but Jacob just kept staring straight ahead. When the van rumbled into life, he shuddered, then shut his eyes.

  Jacob was back with us.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly. Jacob had talked to me, but only when no one else was around. So it was hardly likely that he’d do it now, but it didn’t stop me hoping. I watched him all the way back, responding to Lucy with no more than grunts when she tried to make conversation about what I’d found in the library for my supposed history project. She gave up and turned her attention to Adam.

  Boy, was he good. He conjured up this whole story about a geography project on where he lived and was going into all this detail about how I’d helped him figure out how to find historical information about the street Medlar House sat on. He gave me a sly smile and added, “The family that lived there when it was first built was called Sparrow.”

  I gave him a warning look and he slid down into his seat.

  Chaz hadn’t exactly glared at me when I gave Lucy the silent treatment but he hadn’t looked pleased, either. I wanted to stay in his good books, so as soon as we pulled into the drive in front of Medlar House, I was out the door first. I stood there holding the front door open as Chaz exited the van carrying Jacob, followed by Lucy and Adam. Chaz ignored the gawkers who, sensing that something unusual was happening, appeared miraculously out of thin air, and headed straight up the stairs toward our room. Lucy started trying to herd everyone else back to whatever it was they’d been doing. Me, I just followed Chaz. After all, it was my room, too, and maybe once I’d got rid of Chaz, Jacob would talk to me again. Yeah, I wanted him to confirm what Adam had told me about who’d beaten the shit out of him, but more importantly, I now really believed he spoke to the dead. I’d heard them. I wanted him to do it again.

  Still in polite-and-helpful-boy mode, I managed to maneuver myself ahead of Chaz and open the door to our room. When I started to follow him in, though, he stopped in the doorway.

  “Not so fast, big boy.” He looked down at Jacob, who, with his shut eyes, gave every appearance of being asleep. “Let him have some space. I know you found him, but it’s not like you’re great buddies, is it?”

  What could I say? If I told Chaz that the reason I wanted to hang out with Jacob was so I could talk to my dead brother, he would have wasted no time rushing me off to the nut house.

  I didn’t argue. There was no point. I could wait until night.

  Like I said, the weekends are shit awful in places like Medlar House. It was lunchtime, more chaotic than usual because we were being supervised by Bob and this other guy, Larry. Lucy had gone home and Chaz was sitting on the landing outside our room, making sure that Jacob was left al
one. All I wanted was to be alone so I could look at the pamphlet I’d photocopied. Without my room as an option, I thought I might have to knock a few heads to find a quiet place to read by myself. Luck was on my side. Since Chaz was staying, which was weird because he’d said that he wasn’t on duty, Larry suggested that he and Bob take everyone down to the public pool for a swim, and anyone who didn’t want to go could stay with Chaz. Bob looked sour at the idea but gave in. Oh, the screaming this provoked, the rushing around looking for swimsuits and towels. When the dust settled, everyone but me, Adam, and, surprisingly, Matt was gone.

  I figured I had two hours of peace.

  Matt and Adam were in the common room, watching some old movie, when I went in. I thought about turfing Matt out, but the look of fear in his eyes when I grinned at him menacingly convinced me that he wouldn’t give me any trouble. And Adam seemed quite comfortable with him, which surprised me. Maybe all the shit he had taken had come from Paddy alone. Matt must have stood by and done nothing to stop it, though, so he wasn’t exactly a good guy, but maybe Adam was just the forgiving type.

  I sat down at a table by the window. My bad eye aches if I try to read in anything but good light. I knew that the tiny print was going to be murder to read, but I wanted to find out just who this Prophet was.

  Adam looked up from the screen and mimed coming over, but I shook my head and was surprised when he didn’t protest, just settled back down on the sofa and said something to Matt that made him smile.

  I’d given up on the idea that this pamphlet would be any help in finding out who Jacob really was. It was coincidence, nothing more, that this woman had brothers whose names were the same as Jacob and his brother, Caspar.

  Now, if you think I like big words, you’d be blown away by old Katerina Mueller/Sparrow, because she used the longest, most obscure words I’ve ever come across. The pamphlet’s opening sentence set the tone:

  “Although of late, I have been a sojourner in darkness, I scribe here on what was the golden time of my tatterdemalion existence: the time I was companion and amanuensis to my brother Jacob Mueller, late of Dundas, known to all as The Prophet.”

  I’m pretty smart, but some of the words she used stumped me completely. It didn’t really matter; I was able to tease out the gist of what she was saying. She and her brothers had been born on a farm somewhere near St. Jacobs—or Jakobstettel, as it was known then—but they were only her half brothers and were older than her by quite a bit. They were born in 1850 and 1852, and she had been born in 1862. It got confusing then, because she suddenly went all coy, hinting at some great evil, an “unnatural act” that happened when she was three, without ever explaining what it was, only that she and her oldest brother, Jacob, had to flee for their lives. There was a whole passage here about the innocent saved from a cruel fate. I presumed she was talking about herself, but it wasn’t really clear. Jacob seemed to have been her original savior, but afterward, she was in the care of “those who had nurtured and raised my poor, dead mother,” and Jacob had “vanished from the face of the earth and the knowledge of all its denizens for a period of months, which led those who cared for him to believe him in heaven with the angels.”

  I really was getting a headache now, but old Katerina managed to hold my attention, especially when Jacob mysteriously reappeared, then lived with her and her mother’s relatives until he was old enough to “peregrinate through the highways and byways making use of his God-given gifts to bring solace by esoteric and arcane means to those in mourning for lost loved ones, through messages and also by drawing likenesses of the departed so accurate that they made those who saw them weep. He also shared knowledge of wonders yet to come, thus earning the sobriquet of The Prophet.” Katerina seemed to have traveled with him, and it sounded like they made a living doing some kind of show in barns and halls wherever they ended up. She was obviously happy then, because she stated that she had no need of “a child of my own flesh, finding fulfillment in acting as helpmeet to my brother, who paid the price for his gifts by receiving wariness and fear from the very ones whom he helped, living a lonely life bereft of companionship save that of his devoted sister.”

  They seem to have done this for some years, until her Jacob died of an ague he contracted when they were caught in a snowstorm as they returned to their home in Dundas one winter. She finished by writing that although she had settled into the life of a wife and mother with Mr. Ephraim Sparrow of Hamilton, she still thought fondly of the days when she and Jacob had wandered freely, “my life tinctured with the grace of the glorious unknown, and I hope that by selling this pamphlet, I would not only preserve the memory and knowledge of my dear brother but would also raise sufficient monies to build a lasting monument to mark the place where he settled.”

  There was an appendix entitled “Wonders Yet to Come as Foreseen by The Prophet, Jacob Mueller,” but all that was there was one line about how there would be boxes containing images of people who moved and spoke. Then there was the tear, so I guessed that there had been a few more wonders. After all, one prediction wouldn’t have exactly inspired confidence in his prophetic abilities.

  By the time I finished the pamphlet, my head ached worse than ever, but that wasn’t the cause of my shaking hands or the cold sweat that was now running down my face. What freaked me out, made the hair at the back of my neck stand up, was the line drawing just before the appendix, which claimed to be “a veritable likeness of The Prophet, Jacob Mueller, in the Halcyon Days of his Youth.”

  If you aged him a few years, it was the spitting image of the Jacob Mueller who was lying asleep in our room upstairs. I must have gasped out loud—the likeness was so uncanny—because it brought Adam to my side. Matt looked quizzically at us from across the room.

  “That’s Jacob, only older! We found something,” Adam whispered, almost hopping up and down with glee. “This must be his family. When we read the article it said that one of his sister’s daughters moved away. You need to find her children, Mike—they are probably the ones who drew up the tree!” I couldn’t help smiling at his enthusiasm, but I didn’t have time to think about how I was going to achieve this, because just then the swimming party burst in. Paddy started flicking Matt viciously with his wet towel until he squealed in pain. Seeing Adam standing by me at the table, Paddy grimaced and once again mimed cutting his throat. The joy in Adam’s face evaporated and his shoulders hunched as he inched closer to my side.

  Chapter Nine

  That night, Jacob surprised me. Helped by Chaz, he limped down for dinner, taking his usual seat oppo­site me. Like the morning before his beating, he kept sneaking glances at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. Only I was always looking. Finally, he realized that I was watching him as closely as he was watching me, and as he ducked his head in a strange little nod, I could have sworn he smiled. Chaz, who seemed dead on his feet, was oblivious to this byplay, and concentrated entirely on making sure that Jacob ate something.

  After the meal ended, I was on clean-up duty with Matt, who was the exact opposite of Jacob in that he was doing everything he could to avoid eye contact with me. I couldn’t resist. When he was scraping stuff into the compost bin, I crept up behind him and tapped his shoulder. He leaped about three feet in the air, then shrieked when he saw me there.

  “Don’t hit me!” His face contorted in fear.

  I gave him my best feral grin. “Now why would I want to do that, Matt?”

  Backing away, he nearly tripped over the bin, righting himself only by clutching at the wall. He was sweating and his eyes flickered from side to side, looking for a way out or for rescue in the form of someone else coming into the kitchen. “It wasn’t my idea.” He was stuttering and breathless, desperate to exonerate himself. “It was Paddy. He said it would be a laugh, and got some other kids involved, the ones who always like to give the kids from here grief.”

  This was better than I’d hoped. I didn’t say anything,
just continued to stare at him.

  It did the trick. The words came tumbling out. “They jumped Jacob at recess, dragged him to the bleachers.” Matt shuddered, swallowed hard. “He didn’t even try to fight them off. He just lay there, like he was dead.” Tears were coming now, and he struggled to speak. “Mike, you gotta believe me, I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t. I watched is all, and I wish I hadn’t. I wish I hadn’t. Fuck, I wish I hadn’t been there at all, because then I wouldn’t have heard them.” Matt looked like he was going to throw up. “The others didn’t hear anything. I know—if they had, they would have stopped and they would have run, too. It was voices, Mike, I heard voices whispering from the shadows.”

  It was a struggle to keep anything from showing on my face, but I managed it, fighting down the exultation inside me. Matt had heard something under the bleachers, too. I wasn’t a complete nutjob.

  Matt slid down the wall, sitting with his legs drawn up to his chest. He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He had his head down on his knees and although his voice was muffled, the words indistinct and clotted with snot, I could still hear him. “Most of them, they didn’t matter, some weren’t even talking English, but I heard my gran’s voice, Mike. She was crying and she kept saying my name. Then she was going, ‘Don’t let them do this, Matt. It’s not right. I raised you better.’” He looked up at me then, his eyes big with tears and fear. “I felt her hand on my shoulder, the way she used to rest it there. I ran then, Mike. I ran like hell because my gran’s dead. She’s been dead for two years, which is why I’m in this shithole.”