Sisters, I have an idea for a trick I’d like us to play.

What is the trick you have in mind, sister?

We find a mark and follow him, learn his comings and goings. Then on the day of the trick, we all wear the same dress—the powder-blue one.

Oh, that’s a very pretty dress.

I prefer the avocado-green. But if it helps us play the trick, sisters, I’ll wear the blue.

Wonderful, yes, it will help enormously. Then I’ll follow the mark onto the subway and make sure he sees me. I can bring along a book or a handkerchief to drop on the ground to get his attention.

You could make eyes at him. That’s my favorite way to hook a mark.

We have such deep, dark eyes, they can never look away.

Maybe you can strike up a conversation.

Perhaps, but only pleasantries. We must keep a certain distance from the mark, or the rest of the trick won’t work.

So then you follow him to his destination?

Yes, but I don’t leave the train. I let him go, and wave good-bye as the doors close.

Then he sees you whisked away into the tunnel. Gone.

Yes, which is why he’ll never suspect to see you on the street, exiting a coffee shop, in powder-blue with your dark eyes just like mine!

Delicious! He’ll think I’m you!

Oh, what a surprise!

Do I speak to him?

You mustn’t speak to him; you mustn’t imply that you know him. But you must pretend to be surprised too, so much so that you spill your coffee on him. And you must scream!

Scream?

Scream bloody murder! Claw at yourself, tumble over a fire hydrant as you back away from him in terror!

He’ll be so overwhelmed!

And then you run away, sister, as fast as you can!

What a marvelous trick that will be.

That is only the beginning. For you, sister, must be lying in wait at his place of work.

Which we’ll have learned from observing him before.

Yes, and you’ll conceal yourself in the women’s restroom.

But if there are multiple such restrooms?

You will put yourself in the one nearest to the entrance, for he will seek out the first available men’s room to clean the coffee from his suit.

And I’ll leave the women’s room just as he approaches, and scream bloody murder at him!

No, you mustn’t scream.

Oh, but I’d like to be a sister who screams.

No, you must remain silent and treat him as a perfect stranger. He may start with fright, or he may scream, or he may attempt to engage you in conversation, sister, but you must resist, pretend you’ve never seen him before. Should he speak to you or reach out to you, you must pull away and react unfavorably to the encroachment.

This is a complex part to play, I’ll relish it!

Yes, it is subtle but no less important. And then you leave, and we allow him to settle, confused, into his workday.

Aha! Then as soon as he leaves for lunch, there I’ll be to greet him!

No, sister, the final trick will be much tastier if we wait. He will have seen the same woman three times already, in impossible places relative to each other. Left to his own devices, this will puzzle him for the rest of the day.

But we must strike at maximum confusion!

Patience, sister. If we allow him to rejoin his routine, his confusion will multiply with our next intervention. You, sister, will frame yourself in a window visible from his office, across the street. At some point during the afternoon, he will pause to ponder and stare out his own window. That is when you wave to him.

With a frozen smile on my face? Slow and creepy?

No, sister, with a look of genuine joy. You should be pleased to see him.

Oh, I will be, anticipating the rest of this trick.

Yes, I suspect it will be good.

So do I.

He will not believe you’re real, and he may leave his office to fetch a coworker back to see you.

But I’ll hide from view!

Right. You mustn’t be seen by anyone but the mark.

So when the coworker leaves and he settles back into work—

With increased confusion…

Indeed, I reappear and wave again?

Yes, and beckon to him. He will think himself insane, but with a bit of luck, he’ll slip away and come to your building.

Do I wait for him there?

Yes, but it must be a building with a glass entrance, so he’ll see you and know which door to enter. You must wait far back enough that you can slip into the stairwell before he catches up to you.

A chase! Do I take the stairs up or down?

You’ll take them up, sister, but only one flight, and then crouch low. That’s when a sister on a lower level will start running downward.

I’d like to be that sister! I can run very fast.

Brilliant! So he’ll follow her!

Just a glimpse of my powder-blue will suffice to lure him down after me!

Indeed, and you’ll be far enough in advance of him to reach the bottom and pass through a door into a dark room. Most likely a storage space of some kind.

He’ll follow me through the door, naturally.

And you’ll wait for him to do so, positioned behind the door so that as soon as he’s entered, you’ll close it definitively behind him.

And turn the lights on?

Yes. And there he will see all of us, sisters. Some of us perched atop shelves, others standing on boxes stacked at various heights, collected in groups here and there, but most gathered in a crowd around him at the door, all two hundred of us, sisters, all in our powder-blue dresses, staring with our dark eyes.

Oh, the look on his face!

Cody and Eric held one arm while I zipped up and buttoned—it was hard because of the cup, but I’m glad I wore it, because otherwise the jeans would’ve cut me right in half. I had a pad on my butt for chafing too. And I just sat there. That’s all I had to do, all night. Two hundred bucks.

*

They set up camp below me. Cody kept shouting “Time!” and I’d be like, “Nine-oh-nine and all’s well!”

The campfire smoke kept blowing in my face.

I could see the tops of the trees, like they were just staring at me.

*

I had to pee. But I had the cup on, so I couldn’t really do anything about it besides just let go. They heard the trickling and saw the jeans were wet, so they took a bunch of pictures. Eric told me the pee would dissolve the epoxy, and I believed him.

They had a bottle of Jack, and Cody came up and poured some in my mouth, but then it mostly got in my eyes, totally on purpose. I told him I’d break his nose when they pulled me back up.

He was like, “You could just stay up here.”

I said, “Fucker,” and laughed so he’d think I was less mad.

*

“Time!”

“Two forty-seven and all’s well!”

“It’s pretty late, I think we’ll sleep in tomorrow!”

*

My calf cramped up, and I couldn’t fix it because my legs were just straight. I yelled, and they came up to the cliff and said I was faking to get out of being there all night.

We argued for a while, but they wouldn’t pull me up, and they went back down and I still had this like rock in my calf. I stared at the moon and tried to think about how I’m up in the sky like the moon, and the moon doesn’t have legs that cramp up.

*

The trees watched me the whole time. They were all grouped up to stare at the human stuck to the rock. I kept feeling like one was gonna grab me.

*

Every time I started to drift off I felt like I was falling. And I’d wake up and feel the ground coming fast and the trees spinning, and I’d try to grab the rock behind me, and I felt like I still had to wake up to stop falling.

*

Sunrise was the warmest feeling. Everything was pink and red, and then too bright for me to stare directly at it, so I blocked the sun and looked at everything else.

The trees looked like they’d all turned around to watch the sunrise too.

But the first two cars drove right by. No swerve, no brake lights, no reaction, and I couldn’t see their faces so I didn’t know if they even saw it. And then there were no cars for a while, so I spent time trying to find better placement and like crawling trajectory so they’d see it, but not so visible that they could just stop and get out and see it was just a toy. The point was it had to trigger a split-second honest reaction.

You’ve already figured out most of the story. It’s easy to guess just by looking around. But you’re missing the details, the extra thought that went into my plan, the stuff that made it interesting to me.

I saw another light through the trees way off over there—which scared me for a second, because I was using my phone flashlight and I was jumpy about the idea of someone else being out here too. But it was a car, so I put the baby into position on the gravel shoulder, pointed at an angle so when the car came around the corner the baby would be, not facing them, but angled toward them so they’d see its face. Seeing the face made it less likely they’d mistake it for a rabbit or something. And seeing the face is scarier. The expression is funny—it’s smiling, and its eyes are pointed to the side like the baby doesn’t see you or doesn’t care. It was funny to imagine someone in the future trying to fall asleep and having flashbacks of this plastic doll face they saw in the woods.

I have a thing like that with a drawing of a giraffe in a book from when I was really little. The giraffe’s neck is tied in a knot. It’s supposed to be funny or cute, and on the next page the other animals help untie it, but whenever I see or think of giraffes I think of the one with the knot in its neck and I can’t breathe.

That’s not important. I don’t have to remember to tell you that.

With the first two cars I’d figured out a good time to release the baby so it’d be in the middle of the road when the car finished the turn. So I flipped the switch and held the baby crawling in the air, and waited for right when I saw the headlights pass between the two thick trees, which meant it’d be like another fifteen seconds before the car hit the straightaway, which is about how long the baby would take, at this angle, to crawl to the middle of the road. And when the headlights blinked between the two thick trees I put the baby down and it started crawling, and I ran off the road.

When the car started the curve I could tell the baby’d be right on the yellow line when the car saw it, it was so perfect. Around the curve the headlights stabbed through the trees and bushes right across the baby’s face, but of course the driver still couldn’t see it yet. I ducked under the ferns, and I figured since I was hiding on the side the baby was crawling toward, then even if the driver stopped and was brave enough to get out of the car they wouldn’t find me. At least not right away, because they’d first look where the baby was crawling from, and I could run if I had to.

But the baby must’ve caught on a rock or leaf or something, because it turned before the yellow line. When the car came around and saw it, they swerved the way they weren’t supposed to, and they found me anyway without even seeing me. Their headlights spotted me for like a split second, stared right into my eyes.

I remember all of this. I’m trying to remember all of this so I can tell you later when my mouth works again. I can hear you asking questions, and I have the answers. You get that it was supposed to be a joke. “Gone wrong,” you said, which okay, I can’t move or talk now and that wasn’t my plan, so yeah, gone pretty wrong.

Part of me’s glad the driver’s okay, because this wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone, but I’m not looking forward to any lectures or “get well soon” stuff from her. She’s still sitting there wrapped in a thick blanket not saying much more than what happened, so I can’t tell what kind of person she is.

They’re moving me now, carefully changing my position to lie straight on their rolling bed thing. Stretcher. Or gurney, it’s a gurney. So I’m leaving now. Remember the timing of those two thick trees. Remember where I hid. The car is there, wrapped around the tree that was just behind me, which was near the start of the straightaway. The driver must’ve reacted super quick. Impressive.

I don’t see the baby anywhere. Probably stuck in a bush, or you put it in one of those plastic evidence bags. Imagining that makes it hard to breathe.