Songs_of_the_Satyrs Read Free Page B

shoved to the foot of the bed. His body wrestled, fighting wakefulness with energetic legs. He felt like he could run a mile or two while his upper half trailed behind.
    Chris drew back his sheet, felt a chill as the cool air touched his feet. His ankles extended a little too far out of his loaner pajamas. He’d made her promise not to tell anyone, even if they were only long johns.
    He felt the weight of his eyelids, wondering whether he would sink deeper into true sleep. Or should he open his eyes and start all over?
    Another position maybe.
    He rolled over on his side, rested his cheek on the back of one hand. He felt unsettled. Sleep was the only way it would disappear.
    The streetlamp outside set the curtain aglow.
    His heart raced. He heard the faint sound of voices—a lullaby or prayer. A rite of passage.
    He listened to Maria rustle and moan and then emit a giggle that sounded more like a bleat. Her arm flopped over the edge of the bed, fingertips just inches from his nose. He gently poked the palm of her hand. Her arm retracted.
    Chris propped himself up on an elbow, watched as she pulled her arm in. She nuzzled her hand briefly then wiped her cheek with the back of it. One quick sleepy motion, and then her thumb was in her mouth and she rolled over, turning her back to him. She twitched slightly and was sound asleep again.
    Some debutante.
    Chris giggled, pressing his face into the pillow. No way would he sleep now.
    Once Maria’s breathing was steady again, he crept across the room, putting his ear to the door and grasping the brass knob. He gently turned it. The door wouldn’t budge.
    He tried the other direction and pulled. No give. Then he remembered, at night, they kept it latched on the other side.
    She had told him how they had found her one night, standing on the pool steps. Sleepwalking.
    “It was the shallow end,” Maria had told him, annoyed at having to be locked up like a caged animal.
    “Creeeepy,” Chris had said, shaking his head slowly, looking at her in amazement.
    “You’re creepy!” Maria had pushed him away from her, and he had fallen exaggeratedly over on the couch.
    He turned away from the door and surveyed the room, then stopped at the window on the way to Maria’s desk. He could barely make out the mailbox in front of the house. Fine points of light radiated from its corners, casting little rainbow halos. Faint outlines of cars lined the street. A figure moved past, a dark blur.
    Chris’s heart picked up its pace.
    On the bulletin board over her desk, a bunch of pictures were tacked up, photographs and drawings, including one Chris had done for her—a black stallion running wild. He scrunched his nose at it, a moment of embarrassment and an urge to take it down.
    Maria’s library card was wedged in the corner between the cork and the wood. He pulled it out, bent it back and forth testing its strength, and returned to the door. He had to work it a bit, but was finally able to wedge the card between the door and the frame, slipping it up and down a couple of times until he felt the latch. He turned the knob, pushed the latch up, and was free.
    At once he was assaulted by the heady smell of incense, thickening as he proceeded down the hall.
    The voices were coming from much deeper in the house, beyond the family room, beyond the kitchen. The living room, where he rarely went.
    The house was dark, but he thought he was familiar enough with it to get some water without being discovered. He waited in the hallway for his eyes to adjust.
    He moved toward the voices, toward the source of the smoky scent.
    The voices started to thin out, falling off little by little, until there was silence.
    He plotted his course.
    He now heard music, barely audible, with intermittent, sparse conversation that he could not make out. He looked in that direction, toward the other side of the family room where a short hallway would lead him to the dining room. Beyond that was the living room.
    From where