Vanishing Act ✔️

4

Sean turned frantically from side to side. She never left his side. She followed him everywhere, even when he told her to get lost. He used to have a tree fort out in the woods behind the lake, but he had to dismantle it, because Carrie kept following him there. Dad said it wasn't safe for her to be climbing up the make-shift ladder that he and Tommy Reed had nailed into the side of the tree.

"She's liable to fall and break her neck," his dad had told him.

A week later, the ladder, fort and all, had been pulled down. His parents couldn't have asked Carrie to have just stopped following him. No, it was all about her. She always stayed at his side and he had to suffer her every whim.

Of course, today, she didn't stay. Now, she was gone. He turned around. Still, there was no sign of Carrie. Last he'd seen her she was just off to his right with her arms crossed mid-tantrum. Now, where she had been there were only two tiny shoe prints in the mud, each deeper on the outside where she had been leaning on the edges of her shoes.

Sean's stomach dropped. He felt queasy, and more, he felt an emptiness welling up inside of him. If he let it, it would surge up and swallow the world whole, nothing left but a vacuum of nothingness. Mr. Zedlitz once told him that space was a vacuum, empty and cold. He had a song about it that he sang as he strummed along on his guitar. Mr. Zedlitz had been his fifth grade teacher. He was an odd man, but memorable. Space was a vacuum, a great empty stretch of nothing, and that was exactly how Sean felt, overwhelmed by this great nothing, this never-ending void.

Sean shook his head. What had drawn his mind to Mr. Zedlitz? Where did that come from? Was it shock? Someone had told him about that once. They had been talking about his uncle Johnny at the time. Johnny had fought in Vietnam, and as his dad put it, Johnny didn't come back right in the head. Dad said it was shock. Mom told him they didn't call it that anymore. It was called something else now. What was it? PTSD. It was PTSD. Dad didn't buy that mumbo-jumbo. He'd done his tour and he'd come back just fine.

Sean slapped himself. The pain woke him up, forced the shock (shock was the right word for it) away. He couldn't let his mind wander. Carrie was gone and he had to find her. All he had left of her were her footprints in the mud. Spokes of hay and crushed grass poked up from the footprints, bent and broken where she had been standing. Footprints.

That was it. Sean scanned the ground, and sure enough there were tiny footprints in the mud, trailing away from where she had been standing. These were more shallow, but they were there all the same.

For a moment that void began to close. There was a little spark inside of what just might be hope. He dashed alongside the footprints, and he could see it, now. He'd follow them, Detective Sean Garrett, through a labyrinthine maze of fair tents, cheap games and snack booths all the way to some hidden stage with some lame puppet show, and there he'd find his sister, kicking her legs in the air as she sat on a wooden bench that was way too high for her. It would be a simple case, and a pretty stupid one, but he'd solve it, like some great sleuth; and everything would be okay. Mom and dad wouldn't even have to know, but if they did know, they'd know he had found her; and they wouldn't be mad. They might even be proud.

Sean stopped and his delusion shattered. The trail of footsteps hadn't lasted any more than a few feet before it became lost among a hundred other footprints along the main thoroughfare (which was nothing more than ten feet across of earth and mud worn down from thousands of fair goers year after year).

As he looked up from his lost trail, he was in the crowd, surrounded by strangers eating cotton candy and fried Twinkies. In Sean's growing anxiety their faces seemed to contort into hideous masks. Their smiles became maniacal laughter, grins salivating chunks of batter, and oozing half-dissolved clouds of blue cotton candy. A passing look of concern was another accusatory stare. The crowd was a pulsing beast, throbbing with a life all its own; a monstrosity reeking of frying batter, wet grass, body odor and the stench of livestock.

Sean veered out from the crowd. Maybe, he thought, from the sidelines he could catch a sight of his sister.

No. Even off to the side, separated from the mass of fair goers, Sean had no luck. The writhing crowd continued in a snake-like mass as far as he could see.

"Carrie," he shouted! Nothing. He cupped his hands over his mouth to amplify the sound. "Carrie!" Still nothing. He thought he saw a girl turn a few feet up, but when their eyes met, she was only a stranger; probably one Carrie of hundreds here at the fair.

"Hey, kid, you okay?"

Sean turned. The vendor at one of the booths was leaning against his elbows and looking down at Sean over his booth's counter. He was leaning beside a toy gun, mounted to the counter, a plethora of stuffed elephants and gorillas hanging from hooks behind him. He couldn't have been more than twenty, grizzled, with a grim reaper tattoo circling his neck. The reaper appeared to be finishing off a scantily clad blonde that lay prone at his feet beneath his scythe.

"Kid? You looking for your mom?"

"Mom?" It came out a question. He didn't mean to even say a thing. Why would he be looking for his mom? What kid goes around a fair shouting for his mom by her first name?

"Yeah, your mom. You look lost." The tattooed vendor lit up a cigarette and relaxed onto one arm. "There's a customer service station just back that a way." He pointed off in the opposite direction of where Sean believed Carrie had gone. "You could probably have her paged."

For a moment Sean considered this. He could page Carrie Anne Garrett, have her called over the loud speaker. It was the smart thing to do. Of course, if he did that, his mom and dad would know without a doubt that he had lost her. Plus it was in the wrong direction. He just needed to find her damn show.

"No, I'm not looking for my mom." Sean turned, ready to continue; yet as he did he was confronted by the same intimidating wall of people, laughter, and B.O. He hesitated.

"Well, you're definitely looking for something, kid." The vendor breathed in deep on his cigarette. Why the hell wouldn't this guy let up?

"No, I'm not. I just..." Sean stopped. An idea occurred to him; perhaps this buffoon could help after all. "Actually, yeah, I'm looking for a puppet show."

"Aren't you a little old for puppet shows?" He let out a stream of smoke, then breathed it back in through his nostrils.

"Look, do you know where there's a puppet show or not?"

The tattooed man shook his head and that void snapped into place inside Sean. This was hopeless.

"There is a stage just around the bend there, though." The man pointed off towards a little gap in the food stands, about one hundred yards up on the other side of the crowd. "I don't think they've got any puppets, but they do put on shows every couple of hours." The tattooed man checked his watch. "You're a little late though. Last one started almost thirty minutes ago. It's about to wrap up."

That was all Sean needed to hear. He broke off into a run.

The tattooed man shouted after him. "You sure you don't need to find someone?!"

Sean didn't answer. That spark of hope had returned. He knew where to find Carrie. He was certain of it.