The Accidental Siren Read Online Free PDF Page A

girls
play beneath a mysterious shroud of whispered secrets, of notebooks
brimming with rainbow hieroglyphics, of exchanged glances between
mothers and friends who knew something that I didn’t. Words like
“love,” “menstrual,” “change,” “going out,” “ Ryan Ryan
Ryan, ” or “bra;” hushed ramblings of exclusive “learning
experiences” between Livy and our mother or Livy and her friends;
words from conversations so exclusive that I was asked to leave the
room; words I deciphered in bits and pieces with an ear glued to my
sister’s bedroom door.
    Apparently, girls were different...
special... delicate ... but nobody would tell me why. To a
flubbery sixth-grade boy who didn’t know his penis from a
pogo-stick, girls were like poems: weird, incomprehensible and
boring, but those “in the know” assured me that they were
beautiful.
    “What’s so beautiful about girls?” I would
implore.
    And the secret society of adults would reply
with a smirk and wink as if I was merely a boy who couldn’t
possibly have the mental maturity to comprehend such grown-up
concepts as love and bleeding vaginas; “You’ll understand
someday, James.”
     
     
    2. MARA
     
    “ She’s almost done.”
    “What?” I asked. “Who?”
    “ Mara.”
    I dismounted my bike and propped it against a
moth-haloed lamppost. I keeled forward with my hands on my knees,
panting from the half-mile ride from Whit’s house to the opposite
end of his suburb. I checked my watch, I was five minutes
early.
    Why is there a lamp in the woods , my
subconscious asked, but I was too fixated on the boy beside me and
the home before me to care. A row of tightly-sculpted bushes stood
belly-to-belly against the entire perimeter of the house and heavy
curtains created a sliver of light in every window of the first
floor. The boy was no older than fourteen, but already sported a
patch of dark whiskers above his lip. “Do you live here?” I
asked.
    “ Shhh!” hissed the boy, then another
behind me.
    I looked back. Four boys, still as
headstones, peeked from behind the tree trunks. Their eyes were
glazed and focused on the back of the two-story home.
    I reached in my pocket, pulled out the
newspaper clipping and held it to the lamplight. “Super-8 camera
for sale. Like new. Bag, lens, two rolls of film included. $40.
Call 616-555-9088 for details.” I had scribbled the address
below the number in blocky, boyish handwriting: “557 Sycamore
Ave. Whit’s suburb. 8:30 PM.”
    I shoved the paper back in my pocket and
addressed the mustached boy as quietly as possible. “Is this
five-five-seven, Sycamore?”
    “ Shut the fuck up.”
    I reeled at the nasty language. My neck
prickled and my palms began to sweat. I nearly leapt on my bike and
flew back to Whit’s, but I noticed a small tape recorder in the
boy’s outstretched hand as if he was making an offering to the
home.
    I almost asked him what the heck he was
recording– but then I heard it; a song so subtle that it
took the boy’s tape player to prioritize my senses. A girl’s voice; a child . Sweet; high like a songbird without the shrill. It
was a church song. It came from the house.
     
    “T’was grace that taught my heart to
fear,
    And grace my fears relieved.
    How precious did that grace appear,
    The hour I first believed.”
     
    The tiny voice was unencumbered with falsetto
or an overzealous vibrato; gentle, unwavering, innocent... crystalline .
     
    “The Lord has promised good to me.
    His word my hope secures.
    He will my shield and portion be,
    As long as life endures.”
     
    The melody didn’t pierce the night, but dissolved into it, giving warmth to the darkness and calming
my racing heart. I found myself in reverent submission after only
two verses, and when a twig snapped behind me, I hissed, “Shh!”
     
    “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
    That saved a wretch like me.
    I once was lost but now am found,
    Was blind, but now I see.”
     
    Silence. I waited. We