Sanctity by S. M. Bowles Read Free Book Online

tighter than that,” he
stole a glance over his shoulder at me.
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, you won’t hurt me.  I am going to
need my arms to climb, so I won’t be able to hold you up. 
Have you got a good grip?”
    “Yes, Michael,” I nodded. 
    He hopped onto the railing of my balcony and
reached up to the floor of the balcony just above mine.  He
pulled us up to the next level and perched just on the outside edge
of that balcony.  He repeated this process a number of times
and I grew more and more terrified with each floor we passed. 
I was desperate not to look down and clung to Michael with my eyes
tightly closed until we reached the rooftop. 
    The surface was flat and gravelly and I
could hear it crunching beneath his feet as he took my hands and
slipped me off his back, “Here we are.” 
    I looked around wondering what it was that
he wanted to show me, “I don’t see anything Michael.”
    It was very dark and I was having trouble
seeing more than a few inches in front of me.  I stretched out
my hands and tried to find him. 
    “Oh, sorry, I forgot myself.  You can’t
see that well in the dark, can you?”
    “No.”
    “Are you scared?”
    “Yes, Michael, very.”
    “Don’t be,” he cradled me up into his arms
and walked to the corner of the roof and sat down with me on his
lap.  He stretched his legs out and adjusted me so that I was
sitting on him like I would sit on a lounge chair with my legs
stuck straight out on top of his.  He put his hands down
behind him and told me to lean back and look up at the sky.
    It all seemed very odd to me, sitting on the
roof like that with Michael in the middle of the night and I was
ready to tell him that I didn’t like it and that I wanted to go
back to my room.  “There,” he said and pointed to the sky.
    I followed with my eyes to where he was
pointing and at first I didn’t see anything at all but as I
continued to stare into the darkness something magical started to
happen.  Every minute or so I would see a shooting star sweep
across the sky.  I had never seen a shooting star before and I
was absolutely awestruck that I had seen my very first.
    “Did you see?”  Michael asked me.
    “I did,” I said nodding my head
enthusiastically.
    “Keep watching, there will be more. 
It’s called the Perseid Meteor Shower.  You can see it every
year about this time and it’s best right now.  People have
been watching it for thousands of years if you can believe it.”
    “Thousands,” I said, “and I never saw it
once.”
    “Its name comes from a Greek word; it means
the sons of Perseus, or something like that.  Perseus was the
son of a god and a great hero.  He defeated a terrible monster
called the Kraken to save the woman he loved from being
sacrificed.”
    I rolled my eyes in the dark, “That sounds
very mushy.”
    “It is,” he laughed, “but it’s a good story,
too.  There are flying horses and one-eyed monsters, gods and
goddesses, magic and mystery.  You might like it someday.”
    “I already do.”
    “Oh?” There was a questioning tone in his
voice.
    “I like it because you do.”
    I could not see his face in the dark but I
hoped that he was smiling.  We sat on the roof for quite some
time and counted all the meteors (shooting stars I insisted) that
we saw.  After a while he sighed and told me that it was
getting late and that we needed to get back inside.  I was sad
to have the night end but I was feeling very sleepy and readily
agreed that it would be best if he brought me back.
    He walked me toward the edge of the roof and
scooped me up, “it’s easier to get down than it is to get
up.”  He held me tightly to his chest and leapt all the way to
the ground.  I never had a chance to protest or tell him not
to jump; it was over before I even realized what we had done. 
He just laughed and had me hop onto his back again for the quick
climb to my balcony. 
    “I hope you had a good time tonight,”
Michael tucked