Read Online On the Verge by Garen Glazier - Free Book Online Page B

tight to her body but slowly they began to yield. Freya could feel the distance between them increasing, inch by inch, and she began to pull her legs under her, ready to burst up and out with all the power she could summon. Just as her feet had found purchase on the cracked sidewalk and Freya’s hope for escape grew, the woman suddenly began to convulse. Freya redoubled her efforts to escape, but as the paroxysms wracked the old indigent’s body her elbows pulled in reflexively and her fingers tightened with a ferocity Freya had previously thought impossible for a human being to possess.
    Just as Freya was beginning to think she would be pulled so closely to the woman that she might very well merge with the fetid furrows of her damp clothing, her writhing abruptly stopped and her arms exploded out with the rapid contraction and expansion of a piston. Freya was thrown several paces away.
    She rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up onto her forearms. Sweat trickled down her back. She stared silently at the crumpled heap of the old woman who now appeared decidedly frail, almost insubstantial, in the dark shadows of the city sidewalk. Time seemed to slow and then rapidly lurch forward again. Angry bile worked its way out of Freya’s stomach and onto the ground. In the next instant, time seemed to snap back into place. The homeless woman groaned and rose unsteadily to her feet. Freya lay still, unsure of what she should do next.
    The woman cleared her throat several times, mumbling to herself as she took several unsteady steps down the street. Freya tried to stand and the sudden movement caught the old woman’s attention. She turned and looked at Freya with vacant eyes.
    “What the hell is your problem?” she slurred in a voice that was tired and flat, nothing like the roiling boom of a few moments before. “Get off my street.”
    Freya was more than happy to oblige. Taking the woman’s uprightness along with the reappearance of her pupils as a sign of normalcy, if not exactly well-being, Freya walked as quickly away from that strange spot as possible. She broke into a run as soon as she felt her legs would sustain it and nearly sprinted the four blocks that stood between her and the museum.
    When she finally reached Terry Avenue and the reassuring mid-century modern exterior of the Frye Museum she leaned her exhausted body against one of the concrete pillars that formed a minimalist colonnade in front of the entrance. She put her hands on her knees and bent over in a desperate bid to regain her breath and her grip on reality.
    Terry Avenue was a quiet side street compared to the hustle of Broadway a few blocks to the west and the horns and roaring motors of James Street, the hill’s main artery, just to the south. Normally Freya appreciated the solitude the little oasis offered, but tonight she wouldn’t have minded seeing a few more passersby.
    Freya considered going home but her curiosity about Ophidia overpowered her desire to walk the other way. Plus, she wasn’t keen on traversing those few, dark blocks back to the relative safety of Broadway and the veiled glow of late-night coffee shops and seedy bars.
    She stepped away from the pillar and ran her hands through her hair, smoothing the frizzy mop as much as possible. She did the same to her jacket and pants although they both were stained and torn from her run in with the unexpected oracle. She took a deep breath and set her expression into the semblance of a determined stare and entered the shadowy colonnade, striding purposefully toward the main entrance, soothed, partially, by the quiet trickle of water from the tranquil pool that bordered the walkway on her left side.
    She passed through the tall, narrow doors reminiscent of a modern-day Renaissance basilica. They were substantial, marking a clear boundary between the outside world and the sacred ground of the museum space. Just inside those doors, the Frye greeted its visitors with a soaring