Swarm (30 page)

The boy's mother swept in on him, until Flicker could see nothing but the floral print of her dress. She jumped into Mr. Durant's eyes.

He was staring again:
POLICE SEEK ANSWERS
.

“Listen,” Flicker said. “There are . . . techniques for making this work. You can use stories, or mnemonics, like this bracelet of mine with Thibault's name on it. You can get
past
this.”

She was babbling now. None of this would make sense if you didn't know about superpowers. But at worst they would
all forget what had happened here, and she and Thibault could try again in an hour or so.

But the family disaster seemed to have its own momentum now. Emile was still crying, trying to form words and failing. Auguste was glaring at Thibault, and his mother was looking straight at Flicker.

“What did I do?” her voice reached over her son's sobs. “How did I drive him away?”

“He's right here!”

Thibault's hand wrenched in hers. “Flick, please don't.”

“I see pictures of him. And for a second I can't remember! What kind of mother . . .”

“Ms. Durant—”

“I wonder if my mind is
damaged
in some way.” She knelt, clutching Emile closer. “Maybe I'm going to forget all three of my sons, one by one.”

“Maman.”
An anguished voice came from Flicker's left.

Flicker realized that she was losing Anon too. Six people here, all their focus on Ms. Durant, all this anxiety. The damn Curve.

But then the woman stared at Thibault. “I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault,” he said.

Her eyes moved to Auguste. “I lose track of my boys for a moment—in a store, on the street—and I think I must have forgotten them, too. For a second I worry that I lost them years ago, and I'll never see them again!”

“Stop this!” Mr. Durant cried. “Why do you act like a madwoman in front of our two boys?”

“
Three
boys!” she cried back at her husband.

The yelling was making it hard to focus. By reflex Flicker's hand went to her bracelet.

T—H—I—

“This is hurting them.” Thibault's voice came from beside her. “I have to leave.”

He stood and walked away from the table, down the hall.

She followed. “Wait! We can try again in—”

Her phone trembled in her pocket, playing the sound of a car crash—a message from Chizara, who never texted except for emergencies.

“Speak text,” Flicker said, and the phone obeyed in its familiar dispassionate tones.

“Swarm. Is. Here. In. Cambria.”

THIBAULT STRODE DOWN THE HALLWAY
, grabbing framed photos off the wall. He hardly needed to look, he'd done this so many times in his mind, in moments of rage and frustration when all his Zen deserted him.

“What are you doing?” Flicker stood at the door to the hallway, her different forms of awareness darting after him like bright ghosts.

“I have to fix this,” he said.

“Whatever you're doing
sounds
pretty drastic, Thibault. Maybe you should stop and think for a second.”

“Think? I've been thinking about this for years. About how one day I might have to erase myself, the way this family erased me four years ago. To disappear, for their sakes.”

“We don't have time for this,” Flicker said. “If Swarm's
really in town, everyone will be freaking out!”

“Go help them if you want. I have to finish this.” Thibault went farther down the hall, snatching the studio photo of the three brothers, the blurry snapshot of himself with the seventh-grade French prize.

His father appeared at Flicker's shoulder, attention spewing out of him like a firehose. He'd chosen
now
of all times to see Thibault?

“What do you mean, coming here and making your mother cry!”

Flicker's mouth fell open with outrage. She would jump in and start defending Thibault unless—

He chopped at the jet of his father's attention, but it didn't disappear completely.

“It's okay, Dad,” he said coldly. “I'm going.”

The jet shrank, and one more hack was enough. The anger switched off in the man's eyes, and he slowly turned away, took a step back into the kitchen. “What's upset you,
chérie
?”

It was like being dead, and watching life walk on without him.

“Thibault,” Flicker said. “Don't do this now, when you're hurting.”

“I have to, before I lose my nerve. Swarm can wait.”

He strode into the home office. There were big shopping bags folded and slotted down beside the filing cabinet. He shook one out and thrust it at Flicker, who'd followed him in. “Hold this?”

With no eyes in the room, she reached out toward his voice. Her hands were shaking. He wanted to hold them, to reassure her. But he couldn't risk losing momentum.

He went through the cabinet like a machine, taking his old school file, his medical insurance papers, anything else that had his name on it, dropping it all in the bag.

Flicker flinched with every
chunk
of weight into her hands.

“I don't understand.”

“I'm saving them all pain,” Thibault said.

“Looks to me like you're giving up on them.”

“That too, I guess.” He flicked through the bottom drawer. That folder of memorabilia—drawings he'd done as a kid, pages from composition books when he was learning to write, some hilariously terrible grade-school poems. He dropped it into the bag with the rest.

“But your mom is trying so hard,” Flicker protested. “She
wants
to remember you. Can't we work with that?”

“All we're doing is messing with her brain.” He took the bag from Flicker's hands. “She doesn't know what's real anymore.”

“
You're
real, Thibault. She knows that.”

“That's what's driving her crazy,” he said. “She lost her son, Flick—as in
misplaced
him. Can you imagine what it's like to realize that a hundred times a day?”

“Kind of,” she said faintly. “Same thing happens with my boyfriend every now and then. But I've figured out some strategies. So can she.”

“
You and I spend time alone,” he said. “Too many people live here. I'd always be fighting the Curve.”

Flicker's phone erupted in her pocket, a tinny version of “Hail to the Chief.” Her ringtone for Nate, but she didn't answer it.

Thibault pushed past her, carrying the bag upstairs. Flicker followed.

Halfway up, there was a buzz in his back pocket. He whipped the phone out as he ran.

Scam,
it said. His own family couldn't remember him, but Ethan could?

“Sounds like the Zeroes are panicking,” Flicker said.

“Let them.”

In his parents' bedroom he dug in the bottom drawer of the dresser, where his father put stuff he didn't want to deal with. Here was that pen set from a long-ago birthday, engraved
FOR DAD, FROM THIBAULT
. Ancient notes left out hopefully:
Pick up T, soccer, 4pm
. A few letters he'd sent from the Magnifique, when he couldn't stop himself late at night, like drunk-dialing an ex. He grabbed it all, hating how it stank of Dad's confused grief and guilt, and pushed it into the bag.

Flicker stood wary, listening. “Sounds like they have a lot of reminders of you. Maybe they just need you
around
more.”

“They need me gone. To be free.” Here came that dying feeling again, as he swept into the bag all the pictures and handmade cards Mom had laid out on her bedside table, trying to
remember him. She might hunt for these things for a while, but when she didn't find them, her memories would fade.

Peace at last. Closure, of a kind.

“Thibault, listen!” Flicker cried. “I feel like we made some progress down there in the kitchen. We can make this a project.” She sat on the bed. “I make you more visible to them. I attach you to something that's easier to remember, the same way Lily's stories about you did for me.”

Some small piece of china he'd bought for his mother broke as it fell into the bag. He looked up at Flicker, into the stream of her words, each of them tightening his chest.

“We'll keep trying,” she went on. “We'll start with your mom and Emile. And then we'll
make
your dad and Auguste take notice.”

“And what if we
die
?” he said.

She jerked back like he'd slapped her.

“You know the stakes here, Flicker. You saw that crowd tear Davey apart. Swarm hunted those two until he caught them. He didn't give up.”

“But—”

“But nothing, Flicker. If I die when we walk out of this house in five minutes, or next week, or whenever he gets to us, you think I want to leave my family like
this
?”

Flicker put her hands to her face.

“Dad and Auguste in denial, but finding all this
evidence
around the house for the rest of their lives? Emile confused,
calling my number and getting nothing? Mom losing her grip on reality?” He heard the note of despair in his own voice, felt the sting of self-pitying tears.

Get control. Find the Zen. Abjure connections.

He put his hand on Flicker's shoulder—as if to reassure her, but really because she was his lifeline to reality, to still
existing
.

“Maybe I'll come back one day, okay?” He tried to keep his voice steady. “Maybe we'll get a chance to do that project. But with Swarm in Cambria, I can't leave them like this, in limbo.”

A sudden tear dashed down Flicker's cheek. He hardly saw it before she wiped it away.

“Okay,” she said, her voice collapsing. “But the Zeroes need us now. Let me help you do this faster.”

“Downstairs,” he said, to steady her. “Where Auguste is watching TV. The photo albums are over the left speaker. Grab the pale blue one and the orange one—shit, can you find them by colors?”

“I'll get Auguste to look at them.” Flicker stood up and was gone.

He had everything of Mom's. In Auguste's room there was only that Patty Low poster that Thibault had signed for his birthday.
Love from your bro, T.

So pathetic. Just one step away from
Remember meeeeeee!

Emile had made it easy, putting all his Thibault stuff on his desk, like he was trying to remember him these days. The thought of his little brother assembling all these objects hit
Thibault with an anguish that almost stopped his breathing.

He was quick, efficient, as coldly Zen as he could be. Into the bag with it. Gone.

Here came Flicker. Someone was following her up the stairs. God, he didn't want to face Dad again.

But it was Auguste, all busy sight lines. He watched as Thibault opened the pale blue album and started taking out photos.

“What are you guys doing?”

A photo of the family around the campfire dropped into the shopping bag.

“I'm borrowing these for an art project,” Thibault said. “Only the ones I'm in.”

Auguste's attention flicked from the album to Thibault's face and back. Thibault reached up and snipped that twitching signal.
Dead to you, bro. Don't worry about me even a second longer.

Auguste's attention slid to Flicker. As Thibault closed the first album, she took it from the pile and held it out.

“Would you mind putting this back on the shelf downstairs, Auguste?” she said calmly.

“Sure.” He took it, frowning, and walked away.

A few minutes later Thibault dumped the last album on Emile's desk, stood, and picked up the bag.

It felt as heavy as stones.

“One last thing,” he said.

Flicker followed him out and along the hall. Her senses were all on high alert—it was like being wrapped in attentive cotton wool. He pushed through it toward the landing.

But then he passed his old bedroom—Grand-mère's now, the door closed for her morning nap. “Um, two last things.”

Quietly he turned the door handle.

The room was dim, curtains drawn. There lay Grand-mère, curled asleep under a throw—small, harmless, breathing slowly. He felt a terrible ache in his chest for her, for all these people he'd perplexed with his power. People he really did love, when it came down to it, and who'd have loved him just fine if they could've held him in their minds.

He bent and kissed Grand-mère's soft cheek, then went back to Flicker, who couldn't see how his eyes swam.

“Almost done,” he said in a hoarse whisper, not trusting his voice.

Downstairs he led her, to the kitchen again. Dad had his back to the door. Mom and Emile looked up, but Thibault wiped their attention out of the air, wiped the anxiety from their faces, crossed to the table, and picked up Emile's phone.