Liesl & Po Read Free

been dark.
    Will shifted the box from his left arm to his right. He had been standing on the sidewalk a long time, and the box had grown heavy. He did not know what to do. That was the problem. Above all he feared that something bad had happened to the girl, and he felt—strangely, since he had never met her or spoken a word to her in his life—that he would not forgive himself if that were the case.
    He stared at the stone porch and the double doors that loomed behind the iron gate at 31 Highland Avenue. He thought about going through the gate and up the stairs and knocking with that heavy iron knocker.
    “Hello,” he would say. “I’m wondering about the girl in the attic.”
    Useless , the alchemist would say.
    “Hello,” he would say. “During my nightly walks I could not help but notice the girl who lives upstairs. Pretty, with a heart-shaped face. I haven’t seen her in several days and just wanted to see if everything is okay? You can tell her Will was asking for her.”
    Pathetic , the alchemist would say. Worse than useless. As ridiculous and deluded as a frog trying to turn into a flower petal. . . .
    Just as the alchemist’s remembered lecture was gaining steam in Will’s overtired and indecisive mind, the miraculous happened.
    The attic light went on, and against its small, soft glow Liesl’s head suddenly appeared. As always, her face was tilted downward, as though she was working on something, and for a moment Will had fantasies (as he always did) that she was writing him a letter.
    Dear Will , it would say. Thank you for standing outside my window every night. Even though we’ve never spoken, I can’t tell you how useful you have been to me. . . .
    And even though Will knew that this was absurd because (1) the girl in the window didn’t know his name, and (2) she almost certainly couldn’t see him standing in the pitch-black from a well-lit window, just seeing the girl and imagining the letter made him incredibly, immensely happy—so happy he didn’t have a word for it, so happy it didn’t feel like other kinds of happiness he knew, like getting to eat a meal when he was hungry, or (occasionally) sleep when he was very tired. It didn’t even feel like watching the clouds or running as fast as he could when no one was looking. This feeling was even lighter than that, and also more satisfying somehow.
    Standing on the dark street corner with the black, quiet night squeezing him like a fist from all sides, Will suddenly remembered something he had not thought of in a very long time. He remembered walking home from school to the orphanage, before he had been adopted by the alchemist, and seeing Kevin Donnell turn left in front of him and pass through a pretty painted gate.
    It was snowing, and late, and already getting dark, and as Will had passed by Kevin Donnell’s house, he had seen a door flung open. He had seen light and warmth and the big, comforting silhouette of a woman inside of it. He had smelled meat and soap and heard a soft trilling voice saying, Come inside, you must be freezing. . . . And the pain had been so sharp and deep inside of him for a second that he had looked around, thinking he must have walked straight into the point of a knife.

    Looking at the girl in the attic window was like looking into Kevin Donnell’s house, but without the pain.
    And at that moment Will vowed that he would never let anything bad happen to the girl in the window. The idea was immediate and deadly serious; he could not let anything bad happen to her. He had some vague idea that it would be terrible for himself.
    Church bells boomed out suddenly, shattering the silence, and Will jumped. Two o’clock in the morning already! He had been gone from the alchemist’s for more than an hour, and he had yet to complete the tasks he had been sent out to perform.
    “Go straight to the Lady Premiere,” the alchemist had said, pressing the wooden box into Will’s arms. “Do not stop for