Page 56 of Satisfied By the Slime
I flow upward, spreading myself flat and wide, thinning until my substance is barely a quarter inch deep.
The color drains out of me as I press into the surface, matching the off-white of the ceiling.
My glow dims, and from below, I am plaster.
So long as one doesn’t look hard enough.
Three knocks.
Mrs. Pritchett’s knuckle pattern, which I’ve memorized: two quick, one firm.
She knocks the way she talks, establishing a rhythm and then punctuating it.
A pause.
She knocks again.
“Maisie? Truck’s gone but your studio light’s on.”
Her voice carries through the front door with zero attenuation, a voice engineered by decades of calling across property lines.
“Gary’s with me. We’ve got a situation.”
From the ceiling, I can feel them both through the porch boards. Mrs. Pritchett shifts her weight side to side, restless, the golf cart keys jangling against her hip.
Gary stands still.
His heartbeat is elevated, a steady thrum. He’s carrying something, the weight distribution in his stance uneven, favoring his right arm.
Mrs. Pritchett tries the door handle.
Locked.
Maisie locked it whenshe left.
“Well, she’s not here,” Gary says. His voice is quiet and level.
“Her studio light is on a timer, I know that, but the porch light is off and she always leaves the porch light on when she goes to town. Always.”
Mrs. Pritchett’s observation lands with prosecutorial weight.
She leans toward the window beside the door. I feel the pressure of her forehead against the glass, the slight fog of her breath.
“Huh.”
“What.”
“I don’t know. Something just seems off.”
“Well, that’s not enough for a warrant, Deborah. Anyway, we can come back.”
“I want to leave a note. Do you have paper? I never have paper. Harold says I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on, which is rich coming from a man who put his reading glasses in the refrigerator yesterday.”
A rustling.
Gary, apparently, has paper.
“Okay. Okay, so here’s what she needs to know.” Mrs. Pritchett’s voice drops half a register as she slowly mumbles what she’s writing: “Maisie: Strange happenings afoot. My blue and white Bel Air—gone. Tire ruts in the dirt leading south toward the wash, then nothing. Like someone drove it off the edge of the earth. Please report if you have information.”
