Page 6 of Vanish

I blinked and slowly took in my surroundings, struggling to determine where I was and remember how I had gotten here. I tugged on the threads of my memory, trying to recall how I had ended up here, but my recollection cut off after a certain point.

Even midst my hazy memories, the corridor where I stood contained an air of familiarity, even if the recollection felt out of reach, drifting farther away from me. Wisps of details faded in and out of my mind, impossible to grasp despite my vain attempts, like trying to cling to fog.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been here; time had no meaning—without form, similar to my body. Instead I was nothing more than a consciousness that seemed to be part of the air itself, allowing me to float anywhere I pleased. I explored the hallways, searching for any meaning I could hook my lost memory to.

I seemed to be have been aware until a short while ago. From the forgotten fragments I could piece together, I had arrived to this unknown place with someone, but upon their departure I seemed to have lost a part of myself, as if it’d left with them. I wandered the twisting labyrinth of dark stone, searching as much for this mysterious person as I did the answers that eluded me.

From the ornate ornamentation adorning the vast structure, I surmised I was in a palace. Though I couldn’t remember my identity prior to my mind submerging in this confusing fog, I couldn’t escape the sense of inadequacy that made me feel like the last person significant enough to find herself in such a grand location. How had I gotten here, and what was my purpose? Despite my invisibility I found myself shrinking against the wall, as though even in my disappeared state I didn’t deserve to take up space in such an imposing place.

Occasionally servants or prestigious officials bustled by without a glance, not even granting me the attention they might a piece of furniture or a decoration, as if I wasn’t even there. I searched each face for the person I seemed to be seeking in hopes I might recognize him when I saw him again, but their features were as foreign as the rooms I meandered, leaving me as lost as when my awareness first returned to me.

Midst my confusion, I managed to piece together enough clues to surmise that my memories had disappeared, swallowed by whatever force must have consumed my body, leaving me no knowledge of who I was or what I was doing in such a strange place. I felt trapped in a state of in-between—of being here and yet not.

Was this the fate of all who had succumbed to the disappearing curse?

I blinked when that errant thought suddenly penetrated my confusion.Disappearing curse?Something about that knowledge felt familiar, even as I couldn’t recall further details. Whenever I tried to grasp them, pain throbbed my temples, forcing me to cease my efforts and allow the glimpses of memory to slip away.

My wanderings eventually led me to a study where three officials conversed. The elderly man appeared to be an advisor, while the other aging man was dressed in the fine regalia of a king, and the handsome young man…my breath hooked the moment I recognized him. His name filled my mind, the only clear recollection midst my broken reminiscences.

Lucien.

My memories returned in a rush—the fate of my traveling entourage en route to my arranged marriage, my fiancé’s sudden arrival on the scene, his dismissal of my fate with immediate plans to replace me. His determination to immediately move forward had been painful enough when I’d heard of his intentions shortly after I had disappeared, only for me to stumble upon the very meeting where he sat deep in the process of his betrayal, as if fate had lured me here to cruelly toy with my already fragile heart.

Why had I been frantically searching the palace for a man indifferent to my disappearance?

Discussions of potential alliances to rescue the land from the worsening curse faded in the background, my entire attention eclipsed by Lucien’s expression—hardened as it always was, still without any hint of the heartbreak I desperately yearned to glimpse, evidence of my deepest fear come to fruition that he had never cared for me.

Time passed in a daze during their discussion until the king and the official finally left, leaving Lucien alone. Even after their departure he didn’t move, staring at the closed door until all at once his rigid posture faltered and he slumped in his seat with a weary sigh.

“Lisette.”

It took me a long moment to recognize the word that penetrated my heart as my name—the longing with which he’d spoken it made it sound almost foreign, as if belonging to another person entirely. I sorted through my scrambled memories but couldn’t recall Lucien ever addressing me so informally and personally, let alone using such a tone when he spoke to me.

From the details I was able to rescue from the foggy forgetfulness, Lucien rarely noticed me outside his duties as my intended, nor had I never witnessed him possess such an un-regal composure. I stared at him hunched over the desk with his fingers burrowed in his hair, a position where he remained for several minutes before his head suddenly snapped up, his gaze locked on me.

I startled. “Can you see me?”

As before no sound broke through the vanishing curse. How ironic that I had so often chosen silence when I had a voice to use, and now that I needed to speak I found myself incapable.

Even though he couldn’t answer a question he hadn’t heard, Lucien stared directly at the place where I stood before blinking several times and sharply shaking his head. “For a moment I thought I saw…I must be going mad.”

His white-knuckled grip clung to the edge of the desk as he slowly stood—as if needing to hold something in order to remain grounded—and stumbled towards the window to stare out across the descending darkness. I followed. Though his gaze remained riveted to the view, he stiffened at my approach, his head tilted slightly to follow my invisible movements, as if he could sense me even without seeing me.

I dismissed the errant thought the moment it appeared. Even though I could barely sense myself, I couldn’t seem to let go of my yearnings to be noticed. But no good would come for wishing for the impossible—if no one had been able to see me before being struck with such a curse, there was no way anyone could part the curtains of true invisibility, let alone an indifferent fiancé already making arrangements to replace me. And yet I couldn’t shake the sense that some subconscious part of him was aware of me.

I took a deep breath, trying to feel the body I knew had once been there. Air entered my lungs, moving my shoulders upwards and sending sensations down my arms and legs. Though I was unable to see myself, I felt assured that I wasn’t gone completely.

Puzzlement furrowed his brow as he cast frequent glances towards wherever I stood, as if his mind rather than his eyes followed my invisible movements, the most notice I could recall him ever giving me from the snippets of our failed courtship.

I had no reason to linger, but now that my aimless wanderings had led me back to him, the draw that had first compelled me to follow him to the Brimoire palace intensified to keep me riveted to his side, as if the engagement contract binding us hadn’t broken with my vanishment. Even when my hurt over his indifference towards me shifted to frustration that I couldn’t leave, part of me feared that without him I would lose the last connection binding me to the visible world.

Eventually he moved away from the window to return to his desk in an attempt to work. Though I was in a room of towering bookshelves that contained potential information regarding the devastating curse afflicting me, I couldn’t pull my attention away from him.

I learned more about him in the hour I spent unseen by his side than in all of our years of courtship. Small and seemingly inconsequential details stood out, each of which acted as a dark smudge to the perfect princely portrait I’d come to know—from the impatient way he fidgeted with his quill as his attention on his stack of documents faltered, to the way he burrowed his fingers in his hair, leaving it rumpled to match his increasingly haggard appearance. Yet while all these insights chipped away at the model of rigid perfection I’d always seen, I found myself appreciating him all the more as I caught glimpses of his humanity.

Every few minutes he would look up from the work that the lack of his usual diligence prevented him from accomplishing in order to search the room. Each time his gaze settled on whichever spot I currently hovered; his look remained unseeing…yet I couldn’t shake the wishful hope that he could somehow sense me.

His lack of notice served as a continuance for the way it’d been between us since the very beginning. My memories drifted back to the day I learned of our engagement, created even before our first meeting. Prior to the event, Crown Prince Lucien had been nothing more than the name of a neighboring kingdom’s future monarch—until the contract that had bound us was arranged by my father without any care for my consent.

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