The Fading Read Free Page B

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     that was the tip of his nose. He watched the place in the air where it felt like hishand was, and down, down, until he felt his fingers fall on his leg … except that his leg was gone too. Both legs, and his
     swinging feet. The sheer crazy surprise of it made him dizzy. He could see right through to the chair and he felt like he
     was floating.
    Noel squirmed forward and to his delight his feet stopped him from falling. He stumbled back, his butt sliding the chair across
     the floor. He ran toward Mommy, thinking,
Look, look what happened! I hiding, I hiding!
but something made his voice stop inside him. He sensed already there were two ways to go with this new thing. He could tell
     her, or use this time (it wouldn’t last long, he sensed) to play hide and seek. Mommy was always good at finding him, even
     though he knew sometimes she pretended it was hard, but this time would be different.
    He couldn’t help teasing her, though, brushing his hands against her legs as he ran by. It was a dare, a clue, but she didn’t
     turn around.
    ‘Where you off to, Noeller Coaster?’ she said.
    ‘Closet!’ he answered, running into the hall, but he was going to trick her. She would think he was in the closet, but this
     time he would hide in Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom, behind the curtains. He could probably hide right in the middle of the room
     if he wanted, but somehow that didn’t seem like much of a game. He swirled into the heavy blue drapes, the dry smell of dust
     and sun-warmed cloth tickling his nose. A few minutes passed before she called out again.
    He couldn’t remember the last time this hadhappened, but he knew it
had
happened before. It didn’t feel as strange as it should. It felt like a dream, or like Uncle Charlie visiting. It was something
     that you never thought about until it happened again, and then it was a neat surprise that changed everything. He wondered
     why he couldn’t do it more often, and he guessed it was just one of those things like learning to walk or remembering to use
     the potty. It took some practice and maybe someday, when he was a big boy, he would be able to do it whenever he wanted.
    He could hear her searching his bedroom now and he shivered with excitement. When she got close and he yelled
Boo!
she would be so surprised. Time seemed to stretch on and on, his whole world slowed.
    In the vague but instinctual way children grab at complex thoughts, Noel wondered how come he never saw Mommy or Daddy this
     way, changing, disappearing. They never talked about it and he didn’t think they had a name for it. Maybe the very thing this
was
, whatever it was, also happened to be the reason he never saw Mommy or Daddy doing it – because there was nothing to see.
     People were either there or not there, in the room or in the other room. Probably there were lots of times Mommy and Daddy
     did it in front of him and he didn’t even know.
    She entered the room. He held his breath and forced himself calm. He could see her outline on the other side of the curtains,
     her tall curving body as she paused, looking around, looking right at him. He wanted to yell
Boo!
now but he also wanted to make it last as long aspossible, because, once she knew, the game would end. And maybe he resisted showing her because there was something thrillingly
     powerful when he was like this. For the first time he could remember, he had an advantage on Mommy, a trick that would help
     him win the game.
    Mommy was in her closet now, pushing her dresses around. The hangers were sliding and tinkling, and she was huffing and puffing
     around the room, right past the curtains and the window light warm on his back, the sun shining through his back, inside him
     in a way that made no sense but made him feel light and free.
    By the time he decided to follow her and give up because he sensed she didn’t want to play the game any more, she was opening
     the front door and there was his trike on the sidewalk and that