Illyria Read Online Free PDF

did they get that in there?"
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    "Jesus, I have no idea." I rubbed my neck. "Who put it there? That's what I want to know."
    "Maybe they just stuck it inside. Or, you know, built it in pieces then assembled it."
    I gave him a dubious look. "How?"
    "I dunno. How do they put ships in bottles? Maybe it was like that."
    We both turned and peered back inside. The eerie rustling and tapping continued unabated, though nothing moved save the shadows cast by the diminutive footlights.
    "There's lights in there," I said flatly. "Those little lights? How come it doesn't burn down? Who lit them?"
    Abruptly I felt sick. Rogan grew pale. He bit his lip, then reached to thrust his hand through the opening.
    "Don't!" I stopped him, gasping, and shook my head. "Don't."
    "Why not?" demanded Rogan. But he sat up, crossed his arms, and stared at me. "Is it--"
    "I don't know what it is. But."
    I grabbed the fallen board and started to angle it back into place, then hesitated. Without looking at each other, we lowered our heads once more.
    It was all still there, the picture-frame proscenium and paint-spattered floor, gilt-and-cardboard mountains and tissue curtains and rows of paper columns stretching to an impossible distance beneath an impossible sunrise. For a long time we gazed at it, our cheeks touching, until finally I drew away.
    "We should go." I felt a sudden pang. "If someone found it..."
    We looked at each other, our hair tangled, Rogan still shirtless. He nodded.
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    Silently I replaced the panel, making certain we could remove it next time. Rogan blew out the candle and switched on his flashlight. We dressed; I grabbed my copy of Tales from Shakespeare, and we crept into the attic storeroom. I helped Rogan move the stacked boxes back into place against the wall, then followed him into his bedroom.
    We didn't talk about what we had seen. I felt exalted but also subdued, near tears. Rogan went to the window and stared at the sky, twilit now, the sun a red disk above the Palisades and a shimmering strand of lights poised between the hill where Fairview stood and the nebulous glow of Manhattan, ten miles downriver.
    "It looks so far away," he said at last.
    I crossed to stand beside him. "It's not, really."
    For a few minutes we remained there, watching until the sun disappeared behind the cliffs and the sky darkened to indigo. From a room below a television droned. I could smell roasting chicken and hear Michael talking on the phone. Rogan looked at me and smiled ruefully.
    "Latin?" he asked.
    We got our textbooks and went downstairs.
    ***
    I STAYED FOR DINNER THAT NIGHT. MICHAEL WAS
    there--he was a high school senior that fall--and Thomas, who commuted to his first year at Fordham. And Aunt Pat, who'd arrived home from her job at Gimbels to get the chicken and potatoes in the oven.
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    She was slight and briskly cheerful, her fair hair streaked with gray, her skin taut and lined from smoking.
    "Your mom says you're doing well with all your classes," she said as she handed me the string beans.
    "Yeah, pretty well, I guess."
    "Not like Knucklehead here." She looked fondly at her youngest son. "See if you can get it to rub off on him, will you, Maddy?"
    Michael made a crude face. "That shouldn't be too hard."
    Rogan kicked him under the table. "You--"
    Just then we all heard the front door open. Aunt Pat raised her eyebrows but said nothing. The rest of us straightened in our chairs, even Thomas, who had grown a beard when he started college and had yet to shave it. I paid great interest to my chicken, as I listened to the familiar sound of a briefcase being dropped, the door to the hall closet opening and closing, and then my uncle Richard's tread across the foyer and into the dining room, a heavier echo of my own father's footsteps.
    "Hello, everyone."
    It was a big doorway, but my uncle filled it. Neither he nor my father was particularly tall. Both scanted six feet, both were wiry though strongly built, broad-shouldered,