Ballad Read Online Free PDF

say something and Dee laugh, a relieved laugh, as if it had been awhile since she’d heard something funny and she was glad humor still existed.
    I lay down in the fountain—invisible, I couldn’t feel the wetness—and looked up at the darkening sky, the water rippling over my vision. I felt safe in the water, utterly invisible, utterly protected.
    Dee and James walked to the edge of the satyr fountain and stood directly over the top of me, close to each other but not touching, separated by some invisible barrier they had constructed before I’d arrived on the scene. James cracked jokes the whole time, one meaningless, funny line after another, making her laugh again and again so that they didn’t have to talk. His agony would’ve made a gorgeous song. I had to find a way to make him take my deal.
    Dee and James stared at the satyr, who grinned back at them, permanently dancing upon a tiny oak leaf in the middle of the water. “I’ve heard you practicing,” Dee said.
    “Stunned by my magnificence?”
    “Actually, I do think you’ve gotten better since the last time I heard you. Is that possible?”
    “Entirely possible. The world is a wonderful and strange place.” He hesitated. Lying in the water, I could read his thoughts more easily. I saw his brain form the question, how are you holding up here? But instead he said, “It’s getting colder at night.”
    “Friggin’ freezing in our room sometimes!” Dee’s voice was too enthusiastic, glad of an easy conversation. “When do they turn on the heat, anyway?”
    “It’s probably a good thing they haven’t. If they turned on the heat now, it’d be hot enough to toast marshmallows in the rooms during the day.”
    “That’s true. It’s still really warm in the afternoon, isn’t it? I guess it’s the mountains.”
    I saw James struggle with his words before he said them, the first deeply sincere statement he’d made since finding her underneath the streetlight. “The mountains are gorgeous, aren’t they? They kind of make me sad for some reason, looking at them.”
    Dee didn’t reply or react. It was like if he wasn’t saying something funny, he wasn’t speaking at all.
    She moved away from him, around the edge of the fountain. He didn’t follow. Dipping her hand in the water, close to my feet, she said, “This fountain’s really weird. Why is he smiling like that?”
    James reached over and patted the satyr’s butt. “Because he’s naked.”
    “I’m just glad he’s in front of your dorm instead of the girls’. I think he’s a nasty little piece of work.”
    “I’ll deface him for you, if you like,” James offered.
    She laughed. I could almost imagine her singing when she laughed. “That’s okay. But I’d better get inside. Don’t want to be caught by that crazy teacher again, after curfew.”
    He reached a hand toward her like he was going to take her hand, or her backpack, or touch her arm. He said, “I’ll walk you back.”
    “It’s okay. I’m going to run,” Dee said. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
    The line of his shoulders seemed tired all of a sudden and his hand went into his pocket. “Indubitably.”
    Dee flashed a smile at him and pelted back toward the girls’ dorm, backpack flapping against her body as she ran. James stayed by the fountain long after she’d disappeared, motionless as the satyr, his close-cut hair turning redder in the sunset light and his eyes half shut. I lay in the water and waited.
    Long minutes passed, the sun slowly burning down toward the trees, and I kept looking at that gold glow that flickered inside him, the promise of creative greatness. Why hadn’t he said yes? Was it only because he’d turned me down that I now wanted him so badly? I could make him incredible. He could make me warm, alive, awake.
    I’d give him a dream. That’s what I’d do. I’d show him just a little of what I could do, and next time he saw me, he wouldn’t be able to say no.
    Above me, James started. He