Aurora had stood looking around the place. The front room, only three-large-men deep and one-tall-man high. The back room, even smaller, with the cot, and shelves lining the walls, ideal for books and candles. The tiny aqua-tiled kitchen with a window box, the pink-and-white-tiled bathroom with a shell-shaped sink. All the walls painted pale blue. From where she had stood, she saw a few palm trees and a ninety-four-foot steel sculpture of a rainbow on a movie studio lot. In the window next door hung a pink neon sign that read “Psychic,” though Aurora hadn’t noticed anyone come or go through the door beneath the sign. She’d seen flocks of escaped parrots in the eucalyptus trees and a lone peacock crying like a baby in the park among the ravens. A stringy-haired vampire girl, in a mask of white sunscreen and wearing a backpack thicker than she was, had walked with flat feet, lifting her knees, as if she had strings attached to them.

Just now, a man with an orange pylon on his head rode by, a little white dog perched upright in the bicycle basket. Like a beauty queen, he waved at Aurora, then chimed the bell.

Even here lurked things both beautiful and strange.

Lost Woman Song

Lost Woman Song

Aurora woke predawn, the baby curled against her, his damp skin adhering lightly to her own. They’d fallen asleep that way, nursing, before she’d put him back into his bassinet. What if she’d rolled over on him in the night? What if he fell down between the bed and the wall? There was never a moment, even as she slept, where she didn’t worry. And she knew this would last her entire lifetime, even when he became a tall, strong man. She watched him sleep now. He shuddered with a tiny sigh and waved his hands in the air. She held out one finger, and he curled all five of his fingers around, then stilled.

Just then she heard the sound outside of the bungalow.

It made her think of the way Cyrus had disappeared a year ago, vanished in the night. Why hadn’t she heard any sounds; why hadn’t she awakened? This fact still haunted her. They say you never sleep well again after the birth of a child, but Aurora had not slept well since Cyrus was taken. And every sound in the darkness or half-darkness now jarred her alert. Dog, too, as if he somehow knew. He was already awake, looking toward the front door. Yard lumbered behind them.

Aurora got up and slid her hands under the baby’s star-fished body, lifted him as if he were made of wet sand, and set him in the bassinette. He didn’t open his eyes. She kissed his damp forehead and walked to the door with Dog padding beside her.