A Dream of Ice Read Online Free Page A

gets you to the middle!”
    She flashed back to the design she had seen in Galderkhaan, the swirls and crescents that left the center isolated, mysterious. She gave him a big hug and kiss and sent him to her bag to get her keys. She let him work on putting the keys on the new ring while she quietly apologized to her mother.
    â€œLook, I didn’t mean to come down so hard on you,” Caitlin began.
    Nancy hushed her. “I’m going to give you some advice from your grandmother, a miner’s daughter. She once warned me that if you go too deep into something, you can lose your way or get buried. I resentedthe metaphor. Life wasn’t a coal mine. But you know something? She was right. A person should have—a person needs —a full and diverse life. So,” she continued, “when I hear your father say that he can’t even start a conversation with you about your choice to go to Iran, it occurs to me that you need a piece of advice: if no one can even tell you no, if you can’t even consider it, you’re in a very dangerous place.”
    Caitlin thought a long time before answering, twisting ribbons of chocolate icing onto her fork. Finally, she said, “What did Great-Grandpa do each morning when the coal cart came to him, big and dark and very, very insistent?”
    Nancy smiled. “He got in. But—and this is important, dear—not blindly and not alone. That’s why he became a labor organizer, and maybe you’ve got his rebellious blood.” Nancy’s smile warmed. “How about a compromise?” she said. “Find yourself someone who you will trust now and then. Someone who can tell you the truth if you need to hear it, in a way you can take it.”
    â€œI’ve got this one.” Caitlin thumbed at Jacob, grinning.
    He held up the key chain, jangling the keys like bells and pursing his lips as if he were blowing a trumpet.
    â€œI’m serious,” Nancy said as she cleared the plates.
    â€œI know,” Caitlin replied, “and thank you. I will consider it. I promise.” Then she immersed herself in another hug from Jacob and a comment about his wizardly key-chain ways.
    It was soon time for Jacob to get ready for school and Nancy announced she would take him today; her birthday present to Caitlin was time for a long, hot bubble bath. They hugged warmly as they said good-bye.
    And then Caitlin was alone in the apartment. She sat down again at the dining table, gazing at the cat and thinking about her mother. People didn’t have to be the same. They didn’t have to agree with each other. But they didn’t have to judge each other either, simply support each other’s choices.
    Arfa twitched, stretched, and jumped down from the couch. He ambled to the table, rubbed his muzzle across her ankles, then sat back on his haunches with his eyes mostly closed, purring. Caitlin regarded him and realized that the tips of his whiskers were moving. Although it was hard to see, she was sure that all the fur on his face was blowing backward as if he were facing into a breeze.
    She looked toward the window, which was shut against the fall chill. There was no breeze, no vent, no fan—nothing. Then Arfa stood up, walked around behind her, arched his back, and rubbed his side against empty space, as if it were someone’s leg.
    In the still, airless room Caitlin felt a sudden cooling in the small of her back, as if icy breath had been blown down her spine and pooled there. Simultaneously the cat turned to her, hissed silently, and hurried away.
    Caitlin didn’t blame her.
    Something was here.
    Something that didn’t belong.

CHAPTER 2
    A t noon, the C train was mostly empty. Caitlin shared her car with only a few transit workers at the far end and a young Hispanic couple somehow cuddling around their backpacks.
    Smelling of bubblegum—the only flavor of bath bubbles she could find in the apartment—Caitlin headed