The Disappeared

The plane between Ellie’s world and wherever she was now had a fuzzy quality. She could see past it, but immaterial grains buzzed across the surface, reminiscent of television static. A moment ago, she’d slid her hand through it, only to snap it back in shock when it didn’t reappear on the other side. She wriggled her fingers to make sure they still worked.

The people directly on the other side of the plane were oblivious to it, so in that sense it reminded her of a two-way mirror. Those people also happened to be her parents. She could see her mum scurrying around their white-tiled kitchen, calling her name. Ellie was relieved she didn’t have to answer, and felt a renewed hot flush of embarrassment at the incident that had caused her to end up here. She wanted to curl up in a ball and cry until there was nothing left of her. At least here she could do that, and no one would disturb her, no one would force her to come downstairs with the pretext of dinner, only to be served with a dollop of excruciating questions.

Her mum was running her fingers through her hair, starting to panic as she’d searched everywhere in the house to no avail. Good. Ellie thought that a day or two of distress might cause them to discover a new-found appreciation for her. Maybe they’d stop trying to lecture her, and maybe they’d finally buy her the new iPhone that she’d been asking for for months. That would wipe the smirk off Sandra Benham’s pretty little face.

Her brain began to torture her by replaying the incident. She’d been walking home from school and, as usual, trying to avoid any of her classmates on the way back. That was tricky in such a small town where hers was the only secondary school and at least a third of the students lived on the council estate between Granby Road and Hove Street. Hope had bubbled up inside her at the sight of No.52 Hove Street; the ivy growing up its front trellis was soothingly familiar. It was small, but it was home. However, the hope scuttled down her trouser leg, and fled as swiftly as it had arrived, at the sound of a shout.

“Oi, Frizzlet!” came the grating drawl of Sandra Benham. “You dropped something.”

She hadn’t dropped anything, she hadn’t dropped anything. She was used to the barb directed at her mane of brown hair; if she could ignore them for thirty seconds, she could shut the door on the world.

“You dropped your knickers for Freddie Flowers!” A screech of derision arose behind her back. “Don’t ignore us, Frizzlet, we know you did. Everyone knows you did. Did you kiss his spotty face?”

“Shut up! I didn’t!” Ellie shrieked over her shoulder. Ahead of her she saw the front door to No.52 opening. No, no, no. Please don’t let her parents see this. Her mum poked her head out from behind the green door. 

“Even your mum knows Frizzlet!” Sandra yelled.

Her mum frowned as Ellie bundled past, struggling to contain the tears in her eyes. It got worse. Her mum stepped outside and confronted Sandra. Ellie stood in the hallway and wanted to die of shame; she’d never hear the end of this.

She caught her reflection in the mirror over the radiator; puffy-eyes peeked out from under her curls and she looked away in disgust. Under her breath she’d muttered to herself, “I wish I could just disappear.” 

The next thing she knew she was here, behind this strange film, looking in on the world. She was sure she’d uttered those words in the past, but this had never happened before. Why now?

She turned away from the window to her home and examined the place in which she was standing. She hadn’t taken it in at first because it was grey and empty. There was no sense of depth, no horizon, only a foggy feeling of nothing. She took a few steps forward. There was no change in the landscape, but the transparent window showing 52 Hove Street moved alongside her.

With nothing better to do she stood and watched her dad flump himself down on the couch, put on the TV and crack open a can of beer. He didn’t appear at all bothered by the apparent absence of his daughter.

“Stop fussing, Jackie,” he said to her mum, “she’s probably ran out the back. She’ll come back when she’s hungry or it gets cold. If she doesn’t then it’s one less mouth to feed.”

Rage ignited like a wildfire through Ellie’s blood. If that’s what he thought then maybe she’d just stay put. She was in no mood to go back to people who didn’t want her anyway.

She heard footsteps, not from the window, but from behind her. She spun around, and saw two figures approaching through the grey. A tall woman in a dark overcoat and top hat was prancing towards her; prancing because she was so spindly that the rise and fall of her legs could be described no other way. Next to her was a boy, who Ellie guessed was a similar age to herself, dressed in a frilly, white frock with a ridiculous pink bow on the top of his short crop of blond hair.

“Hey you, fresh girl!” yelled the boy.

The thin woman elbowed him. “Don’t call her that Tabby, it’ll scare her off.”

Ellie was so startled by the strange appearance of the two newcomers that she forgot her anger.

“Who are you? Where am I?” she asked as they stopped before her.

The woman gave a deep bow, complete with an extravagant flourish of her top hat and a rotten-toothed grin.

“I’m Genevieve, and this is Tabby. We are the forgotten ones. Some call us purgatory travellers or knights of the grey realm-“

“Only you call us that…” The boy interrupted.

“-But most here refer to themselves as The Disappeared,” the woman continued. She extracted a long, bony finger and placed it hard on the centre of Ellie’s ribcage. “You are exactly where you wanted to be.”

“I didn’t want to be anywhere!”

“And that’s precisely where you are. Nowhere.”

Ellie thought that was ludicrous, but she didn’t have a better answer. “So, you wished to disappear as well?” She pointed through her window. “Can you believe my dad is just sitting there, not bothered that I’m missing?”

“Questions, questions, so many questions. We’ll have time. Why don’t we sit?” The woman flicked her streaky grey hair off her shoulder and sat cross-legged.

Ellie tentatively joined her; sitting down when there was no visible floor was entirely disconcerting.

“Of course, we all wished to disappear at one time or another. Some of us more recently, and others long ago. Tabby and I happen to quite like it here, so we stay.”

“Nufin’ to go back for anyway,” Tabby piped in, “family’s long gone and that world was full of spiders.”

A seed of dread began to grow at the back of Ellie’s mind. Sure, she was irritated at her parents, but she’d want to go back at some point, wouldn’t she?

“As for your window,” Genevieve continued, “we can’t see it, just like you can’t see ours.”

“I can get back though, right?”

“Some end up going back, they figure out redemption, forgiveness, blah, blah blah. But,” Genevieve gave a mischievous smile, “from here you can do things you never could back there. I think there might be someone who caused you to step into our little world. Have you ever wished an unfortunate accident on that someone?”

Ellie’s brow furrowed. “Sandra Benham, yes of course, but-”

“Well then, it’s your lucky day! Let me show you how it works.”

Genevieve shifted behind Ellie and sent a long, gangly leg either side of Ellie’s hips.

“Hold out your arms in front of you,” she commanded. Ellie’s heart was pounding, but she obeyed. Genevieve placed her arms on top of Ellie’s, and interlaced their fingers together.

“No one can see or hear you through your window, but you can influence the world by pulling on the fibres of its fabric. Make as if you’re going to pick up an object.”

Ellie saw a jar of peanut butter on the kitchen counter, and reached her arm forward with open palm as if to grab it. The tingle of a million microscopic pinpricks jabbed the skin on the back of her hand, where Genevieve was touching her. It was painful, but scintillating. The jar lifted off the surface and promptly dropped as Ellie gasped.

“That’s incredible!” she whispered, blue eyes wide and staring.

“Yes, isn’t it just?” Genevieve said distantly, as if she were remembering her own first time. “Now, let’s walk. Show me where this Sandra girl lives.”

10 Granby Road was only five minutes from Ellie’s house. As they walked through the grey nothingness, the world through the window moved too. Ellie’s legs felt weak. Countless times she would’ve given anything for revenge on Sandra, but now that the chance had presented itself there was a hard stone in her stomach.

It appeared to be night in Ellie’s world, which Genevieve said would make their plan easier. Her hands guided Ellie’s to pick the lock of the front door, and stopped them from trembling.

“I’m not sure we should be doing this,” said Ellie, “it feels wrong.”

“Remember we aren’t in your world anymore. They can’t see us, so we’re breaking no rules or laws.”

Their vision moved up the stairs of the dark, terraced house with no worry of being heard, since they weren’t really there. They did have to be careful when opening the door to Sandra’s bedroom. Genevieve asked Ellie what this girl had done that had made her to want to disappear.

“She’s always spreading rumours about me, and she bullies me about my hair,” Ellie replied, picturing Sandra’s bitchy face and smug drawl, and feeling herself swell with ire.

“Then why don’t we give her an unexpected haircut?”

Ellie smirked. That felt like a brilliant way to punish Sandra, there’s no way she’d show her face in school with all her hair chopped off, and even if she did, she’d surely be humiliated enough to leave Ellie alone.

They found some scissors in the bathroom and checked that Sandra was fast asleep, before Genevieve helped Ellie ever so delicately snip the golden locks from Sandra’s scalp. 

“There,” Ellie pronounced. She felt like she’d just ingested a helium balloon, light headed and joyous. This new power was a rush. She couldn’t wait to see Sandra’s face in the morning.

“She spread rumours about you too, didn’t she?” Genevieve whispered into her ear. “You could always cut out her tongue.”

“What!” Ellie cried. She shoved Genevieve off and jumped up, backing away from her slowly. “That’s horrible, why would you say that?”

Genevieve shrugged. “Liars should be punished, don’t you think?”

“Not like that!” Ellie looked around her. She suddenly realised she had no real idea who these people were, and their odd appearance, which she’d thought was rustic and charming at first, now felt grimy and cloying. Goosebumps ran down her neck, but there was nowhere to run and hide.

Genevieve seemed to read her mind. “Not many places to go around here.”

Ellie glared at her. “I want to go back,” she murmured. Then, when nothing happened: “I wish to go back home!” she yelled into the grey abyss.

“Not as simple as that. I told you it’s about remorse and the like, you aren’t going to get out of here just because you’re scared.”

Tabby joined in with a grin. “Stuck ‘ere wiv us aren’t you, Frizzy!”

Ellie felt the blood drain from her face. She wasn’t wanted at home. She wasn’t wanted here. She had no choice. She squeezed her eyes shut and shrieked, “I wish I could disappear!”

A wall of silence hit her ears. The noise coming through the window had gone. The sound of Genevieve and Tabby’s breath, which she didn’t even realise she could hear, was gone. She opened her eyes. Blackness. The darkest black she’d ever known. She looked down and couldn’t even see her body. Come to think of it, she couldn’t feel her body either.

So this was it, the void. Here, there was truly nothing; she had finally, completely disappeared. She should feel terrified, but she didn’t. No one could reach her here, no one could trouble her. She had peace, forever.