Luminous Read Online Free PDF

of the tub in case it moved on its own, its innocent shimmer betraying nothing of its true nature.
    Beautiful. Powerful. Terrible. It’s so much bigger than me.
    She gingerly picked it up and carried it to her closet, hanging it next to her thin skin of air. The two impossible things looked eerily beautiful together, as if she should have a wardrobe full of unlikely things. It drew her and chilled her.
    She found a garment bag and stuffed the skins inside, zipping it closed. She shut the closet door and pushed her desk chair up against the knob.
    Consuela changed into her own skin, adding another layer of underwear and flannel pajamas, tucking herself into cool sheets, warm comforters, and familiar feather pillows. She willed herself into an unsettled sleep, waiting for Mom, or Dad, or morning, to come.
    Â 
    It was impossible to tell whether she was awake or in a dream. Or if she had been dreaming that she’d been asleep, and she was only waking up now.
    She lost her train of thought like a helium balloon.
    She was in her room—or the dream of her room—inspecting her bedroom door. It sounded like there was a party going on downstairs, whispering with voices and music and the shuffle of feet on hardwood floors. It was hard to hear from where she was. She felt like a kid put to bed early while the grown-ups stayed up late.
    Consuela pressed her face flat against the crack under the door and listened. There was something elusive, whispering enticingly at the edge of her senses. She strained to hear what could almost be heard, tried to follow a flicker of what might have been shadows down the hall, could almost smell something like chafingdish smoke or identify a snatch of conversation made by voices she ought to have recognized. Consuela tried, but she couldn’t place any detail—it haunted her like a lingering taste of anise and orange peel, something half remembered from childhood. For some reason, she never thought to open the door.
    She pressed herself deeper into the carpet until the fibers stung her cheek and the tip of her nose wedged beneath the lip of the door. It was no good.
    Sighing, she stood up and returned to bed, tucking herself into the dream-within-dreaming, wrapped in an unrequited feel of almost.
    Â 
    // Bones. //
    Consuela couldn’t tell if she’d woken up in the world or in a dream. She wondered if she was beginning to lose the distinction between the two.
    She pulled off the covers and sat up, straining to hear. Nothing. She relaxed.
    // Bones. //
    Consuela’s hair stood on end. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she believed in burglars. Although the voice had an ethereal, unreal quality—as if electric violins formed whispered words. Where had she heard it before? She couldn’t think about it now; there was someone in the house!
    She looked for what she might use as a weapon. A chair? Her old soccer trophies? She tried remembering her freshman-year gym class on personal safety, but she was full of gibbering thoughts. Panic, she recognized. Not good.
    Afraid to move in case someone was listening, Consuela had frozen half off the bed, her calf muscle spasming in its awkward pose. This is crazy. I’m imagining things. I’m still sleeping. I’ve been asleep since yesterday. I’ve drowned in the tub. I’m anesthetized in the hospital and am having a CAT scan on my head. This was some nightmarish hallucination. Nothing seemed quite real. She wondered if cell phones and cable TV really did affect your brain.
    // Bones. //
    Consuela fell onto the carpet. It took her a second to realize what had happened: her legs had given out in fright and she’d collapsed onto the floor. I thought that only happened in movies.
    She grasped for her necklace, her tiny topaz cross. A present from her father. She wanted him here, but didn’t dare shout. Are Mom and Dad awake? Did they hear that? Could this be real . . . ?
    // Bones. //
    â€œSTOP