The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda (top non fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

from one end of the garden to the other. Even in winter, the colors that burst from Leo’s plants were more vibrant and exotic than those at the botanical garden. “There’s a small citrus grove in that hot house, and the grasses that grow around it are all lemon-scented.” He showed me a sandy patch where he and Erik had planted Eastern spice plants and another area they’d dedicated to Mediterranean herbs. He told me that the plants that grew alongside the villa, underneath his bedroom window, were fragrant at night.

We left the manicured lawns and gardens and headed into the woods. Soon I could see a ramshackle building surrounded by chicken wire. From a distance it looked constructed of dozens of boxes piled on top of one another.

“What is that?” I asked.

“This is what I wanted to show you. It is something I cannot bear to part with.”

He set off in the direction of the fenced enclosure. As we drew near, I realized that the boxes were actually dozens of stacked rabbit hutches. “Rabbits?” I asked, looking past the fence.

“Those are Erik’s rabbit ghosts.”

The hutches were empty.

“The rabbits were part of the reason Erik was drawn to Theo’s magic. Each night, Theo made a rabbit disappear. Each night it was a different rabbit. Sometimes it was two rabbits. Other magicians would eventually have retrieved them from a sleeve or a top hat. Not Theo. His magic was a one-way street.”

I nodded, remembering Theo’s performance at La Gaite and the chill I felt when the rabbits vanished.

“Erik always wondered where the rabbits went. So he built homes for them if they came back.”

I wound my fingers through the fence.

Leo removed my hand and held it. He looked me in the eye, “You know as well as I do that those rabbits are gone.”

I nodded.

“After Erik disappeared, I started coming out here. I used to daydream that one day he’d reappear with his ghost rabbits.” Leo shrugged. “But I cannot wait for him. There is no point.” Leo continued up the path into the woods. “However, there is one thing of his that I do want brought back to life.”

“His fabrics?”

Leo wrapped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me alongside him.

In a few moments, we came to a tiny saltbox house with shingle siding. “Erik’s studio,” Leo said, opening the door. Inside was a large drafting table and numerous art supplies, including a silk screen and several cameras. Fabric swatches were pinned to one wall.

Leo unlatched a large cabinet and pointed inside. “Silk, felt, wool, chamois—who knows,” he said. I turned around, taking in the contents of the studio. “You can do whatever you like,” Leo said.

“What do you want me to do?”

Leo looked at the contents of the cabinet. “Erik put so much into his textiles, it seems a shame that his absence should ruin them for the rest of us.”

He took me by the shoulders. “Bring them to life. You said fabric sings to you.”

“Yes.”

“Well, take your time. I cannot bear the silence. Cut, sew, whatever you like.” He paused and looked me in the eye. “Unless, of course, you don’t want to.”

I laughed. “I’d love to.”

The designer stooped down and kissed my cheek. “I don’t know what to expect. But I expect something great.”

The moment the door closed, I pulled a stool from underneath the drafting table and looked out the window. A long thicket of ferns reached from the studio to the winter pond. Their fronds were thicker and rougher than their deciduous cousins. Beyond them, I could just make out the river. I closed my eyes and listened to the arboreal silence. Then I stood up and opened one of the large cabinets.

Bolts of hand-dyed, hand-printed, computer-printed, and embroidered textiles were immaculately folded and stacked from my feet to high above my head. I reached up and let my hand run down the bolts like a pianist testing a keyboard. After a moment, I sat down with my back against the bolts. Then I heard my brother’s voice.

It was Max’s land voice, dry and crystal clear, and it was rising from the bolts behind me. “Lapsed water baby,” he said. “Mel melts the snow,” he chanted. “But will she ever understand why?”

“Max?” I whispered.

“Mel who swam with a whale.”

His voice was coming from the bottom of the pile. I reached my hand into the bolts, lifting and removing some of the fabric until the voice became clearer. “You should try it sometime. Sometime you should try to swim through the surface of the moon.”

From the bottom of the pile, I pulled out a velvet. It was turquoise with dark blue and green paisleys. It had the colors of the open sea, from the crystal blue water that hovers at the surface to the murky green that lives in the lightless middle ocean. “Someday you’ll join the boy who swam through the moon.”

“You know,” another voice above me chimed in, “you know, I never really believed in magic. It’s totally for little kids. Like, who really thinks that a rabbit can get pulled from a hat, right?”

I leaned into the cabinet.

“But I’d do anything not to have to wear that stupid uniform anymore. Who wants to be remembered for working in a diner? That might be cool enough for my friends, but I went out with a bang. I was the girl who died center stage. That’s how you live forever. Wasn’t it amazing? Wasn’t it magic?”

“Yes,” I repeated despite myself. “Yes, Greta, it was amazing.”

“You gotta have guts to do what I did. Sure, I’m gonna miss the prom and stuff like that. But I’ll get more pages in the yearbook than anyone else in the history of the school.”

Greta’s voice was chirping from above my head. I stood on my toes and pulled out the bolts until I came to a yellow cotton printed with red polka dots. As I withdrew the fabric, I heard a distinctive gum-snap. “I wonder what sorta stuff my friends