Read Online In Springdale Town by Robert Freeman Wexler - Free Book Online

too.” Her face had a fixed-in-place look, as if she was trying not to be scared, and her fingers curled tight over mine.
    ~
    We worked on peeling ourselves clean. Sammy had cleared most of the stuff from her head and neck. Bits of it dotted her nose, and strands hung from the frame of her glasses. “You look like you’ve dumped a bottle of one of those facial mask things all over yourself,” I said.
    “Would you like a mirror?”
    When I smiled, the stretch and crack of solidifying goo tickled my face. I ran my tongue over my lips, which tasted sweetish. A strip of the dried jelly stuck to Sammy’s cheek; I reached to brush it off. She held my hand there and leaned toward me. Her lips tasted sweetish too, fruity-tart like a plum jam. She stroked my back, passing her hand from the base of my neck down and up again. I felt her lips on my ear, and everything tingled. She moved her hands to my face and held my cheeks. Her dark eyes...what were they trying to say? We kissed again, slowly, and I understood something I never had with Caroline. We don’t need explanations for every action. Tenderness, warmth for another, don’t have to be linked with anything other than their own existence.
    I forced myself back. “Scooter, that cop,” I said. “He couldn’t have been motioning to us.”
    “Something’s wrong. We’ll have to keep going till we locate him, find out what’s happening.” Sammy raised my right hand and kissed my fingertips. She got up, pulling me with her, but we didn’t hurry. She twined the fingers of her right hand into my hair and rubbed her left across my chest. “Later...later, can I take you home and cook you dinner?” We stood close, and the pressure of her strong thigh against mine reassured me.
    The room had a normal door, with a panel of frosted glass and a metal knob. We went through it into a long hall. Ahead, something appeared to block the corridor.
    Our movements felt out of proportion to the stretched-out passage, so that we walked and walked but appeared to grow no closer to whatever awaited us. As though afraid that speech would slow our progress, we remained silent. My calves began to ache, a dull pain with each step. We held hands, and I found the contact comforting. I knew that together, we would reach...then, with a suddenness that made me pause, the shape loomed close; a few steps farther it became Scooter. He stood motionless beside a wide, rust-colored metal door. His bulk filled the hall. At first, I thought he was asleep standing up, but when we got close enough for me to see into his eyes, I had the impression that his mind had turned inward, to run some deep mental process requiring an intensity of concentration I wouldn’t have thought him capable of mastering.
    He turned his jowly face toward us, a movement so gradual that it gave me this crazy detachment, as though I watched him look at me from a place other than mine. He seemed to measure me with his eyes, as though dissecting every detail of my appearance. When he spoke, his voice rumbled and his words made no sense. “Thinner, hair different, but identical. One inside”–pointing to the metal door–“and one here. Both inhabiting where only one should.” He looked at Sammy. “Do you comprehend?” She nodded.
    “I don’t,” I said. “When we were in that jelly, I touched a truck.”
    He waved a broad hand, quieting me. “Two roads met here, crossed on another, and the force of their meeting sent waves rolling in widening curves, encompassing worlds.” He shook his head, as though trying to clear it.
    “Laureanno’s Law?” {note 19} Sammy asked, and Scooter nodded. She looked at me.
    “I’m not understanding any of this,” I said. I needed to go outside, into sunlight. Scooter reached toward me with a tree branch arm and rested it on my shoulders. The contact warmed me; I hadn’t realized I was shivering.
    “Laureanno fits the circumstances,” he said. His voice filled the space, embracing me