Read Online The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen by Katherine Howe - Free Book Online

me.
    The eyes are formless puddles of black.
    It’s her.
    â€œOh!” I exclaim. I take a step backward in shock, my scalp tightening, and the hair on my arms stirs with electricity.
    She looks exactly as I remember her, the curls over her ears, the pale cream skin. The mole, God, that mole! But in the morning light she looks even more . . . It’s like she captures the light. Like it moves through her, and gathers within her, and makes her exude a fragile glow. I swallow and realize that I’m staring, and I haven’t said anything, and that’s totally weird, and I’m probably freaking her out. When I open my mouth to speak I discover I’ve been holding my breath.
    She looks at me. Confused, like she’s been asleep. Or maybe she came out to get the paper, and forgot her keys, and she’s locked out. She obviously wasn’t planning on talking to some guy on the stoop before she’s even had any coffee. She blinks, and the tiny movementover her eyes shakes me loose from myself and I get it together to actually say something.
    â€œHey! Hi!” I say. Smooth, Wes. You are so, so smooth. You are so smooth, you could give glass lessons.
    What? What does that even mean?
I think in a panic.
    At first she looks taken aback. Like I surprised her. When I speak, though, her face brightens. She even smiles. When she smiles, it unlocks a beam of light in my chest, like I’ve leveled up in a video game I didn’t know I was playing.
    Her lips are the color of dried rose petals, and the minute the thought crosses my mind I marvel crazily that I would even come up with a metaphor like that.
    â€œHerschel?” she says.
    â€œHuh?” I ask.
    I look around behind me, thinking maybe she’s talking to someone else. But the street is empty, save for the guy hosing down the bodega corner and an elderly woman in orthopedic shoes pushing her grocery cart down the sidewalk across the street.
    â€œOh!” Her eyes grow confused. She shrinks behind her knees.
    â€œHey, no. I’m sorry. I’m Wes. From the other night. Remember?”
    â€œWes,” she says slowly. She gives me a long, steady look. Studying me. Those dark eyebrows knit over her eyes. A little wrinkle forms between them, and it might be the most enticing wrinkle I have ever seen. My mouth goes dry.
    â€œYeah. Um. I was here with that other guy? Filming the séance. Last week?” My eyes search into hers. She has to remember.
    â€œThe séance,” she repeats, thinking. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do with the word I’ve given her. Then her black eyes glimmer with recognition, and I feel my pulse thud in my throat. “Oh yes! I remember. Of course.”
    She sounds uncertain, though. There’s definitely something offabout her. Like she’s saying the right things because she’s practiced, not because it’s what she really means. It crosses my mind that maybe this girl is hiding something. Maybe she’s like Maddie. Maybe she goes there to sleep, too.
    Or maybe she’s, like,
on
something.
    I peer at her more closely, and she smiles prettily up at me. The eyes are definitely bottomless, but not in a druggy way. When she smiles, her mouth looks like a bow on top of an expensive present.
    â€œAre you okay?” I ask.
    â€œOkay. I was just waiting,” she says, tipping her head to the side as she looks up at me.
    â€œI was actually hoping I’d see you again,” I say without thinking it through first.
    â€œYou were?” Her smile widens. She’s blushing, and it makes me dizzy, that I’ve made her blush.
    â€œDefinitely,” I say. “In fact, it was absolutely imperative that I find you. Did you know that?” I wonder who this guy is, who’s flirting so effortlessly with a hipster New York City girl. Because it’s definitely not Wesley Auckerman from Madison, Wisconsin.
    â€œAw,” she says,