The Urban Fantasy Anthology by Peter S.; Peter S. Beagle; Joe R. Lansdale Beagle Read Free Book Online

are so veryvery lazy.”
    “That’s because today is a day especially made for being lazy.”
    “No, today’s a day for building an empire of stores and if you won’t help, I’ll do it myself.”
    “I’ll help later.”
    She nodded. “When all the hard work will probably be done.”
    “That’s the risk I’ll have to take.”
    She stuck her tongue out at me, then shifted to bird shape and a black crow went winging off above the oaks that line Stanton Street. I laid my head on the shingles again and went back to my very successful lounging.
    I was so good at it that, eventually, I fell asleep.
    When I woke, it was dark. Chlöe was still standing on the peak of the Rookery, and the trees around me were now filled with sleeping black birds. Above, the sky held a wealth of stars, only slightly dimmed by the city’s pollution. I looked for Zia. She wasn’t back yet so I slid to the bottom of the roof and then dropped the remaining distance to the dew-damp lawn. Cousins stirred in the trees at the soft thump of my descent on the grass, but went back to sleep when they saw it was only me.
    I left the grounds of the Rookery and walked along Stanton Street, heading for downtown, where I supposed I’d find Zia. I wondered if she’d actually had any success getting her silly plan off the ground, or if she’d gotten distracted after leaving me and was now up to who knew what sort of mischief.
    I could understand her getting distracted—it’s such an easy thing to have happen. For instance, there were so many interesting houses and apartments on either side of the street as I continued to walk through Lower Crowsea. It was late enough that most of them were dark, but here and there I found lit windows. They were like paintings in an enormous art gallery, each offering small and incomplete views into their owner’s lives.
    Zia and I like to visit in people’s houses when they’re sleeping. We slip in and walk through the empty rooms, helping ourselves to sweets or fruit, if they’re the sort of people to leave them out in small welcoming bowls or baskets. There might as well be a sign that says “Help yourself.”
    But we really don’t take much else when we go inside. A bauble here, some unwanted trinket there. Mostly we just wander from room to room, looking, looking, looking. There are whole stories in the placement of vases and knickknacks, in what pictures and paintings have been hung, where and in what order. So we admire the stories on the walls and windowsills, the shelves and mantles. Or we sit at a desk, a dining room table, or on the sofa, leafing through a scrapbook, a school yearbook, a magazine that’s important to whoever’s home this is.
    We’re curious, yes, but not really all that snoopy, for all that it might seem the exact opposite. We’re only chasing the ghosts and echoes of lives that we could never have.
    So as I continued past Stanton Street, I forgot that I was looking for Zia. My gaze went up the side of the apartment building that rose tall above me and I chose a unit at random. Moments later I was inside, taking in the old lady smells: potpourri, dust and medicine. I stood quietly for a moment, then began to explore.
    “Maddy?” an old woman’s voice called from a room down the hall.
    It was close enough to my name to make me sit up in surprise. I put down the scrapbook I’d been looking at and walked down the short hall, past the bathroom, until I was standing in the doorway of a bedroom.
    “Is that you, Maddy?” the old woman in the bed asked.
    She was sitting up, peering at me with eyes that obviously couldn’t see much, if anything.
    I didn’t have to ask her who Maddy was. I’d seen the clippings from the newspaper, pasted into the scrapbook. She’d been the athletic daughter, winning prize after prize for swimming and gymnastics and music. The scrapbook was about half full. The early pages held articles clipped from community and city newspapers, illustrated with