On the Verge Read Online Free Page A

nightmares of painted demons and serpents and lost souls.

F reya woke with a dull headache. She felt hung over but couldn’t think of why until, reaching for her water glass on the nightstand, she knocked over a half-empty wine bottle instead. Then she remembered coming home after a long day at school punctuated by her strange encounter with that woman, Ophidia, in Parnassus. She’d been dead tired after pulling an all-nighter the previous night to prep for Dakryma’s exam, and had collapsed into bed at the earliest opportunity.
    That’s when the nightmares had started.
    Ophidia was there, her face constantly morphing from cold, dark beauty to hellish chimera. A long white finger shushed and beckoned Freya through the dark, and she desperately followed it, filled with a strange craving that was simultaneously carnal and spiritual. She woke from these disconcerting visions feeling the excitement of a lover tempted and the mortification of a transgressor caught in the act.
    She had lain in bed for quite some time, uneasy and restless, the cool moonlight creating inky shadows where her nightmares might still be lurking. Finally, realizing that sleep wouldn’t be returning any time soon, she stumbled from bed and hurried to turn on the lights, stubbing her toe on the corner of her aunt’s old wooden cabinet in the process. A heavy object crashed to the floor.
    After a litany of curses and a few more missteps, Freya finally made it to the light switch. Her eyes were dazzled momentarily by the brightness, but when they adjusted she saw the broken pieces of painted ceramic on the floor. She knelt down and picked them up, the cause for her tears shifting from pain to sadness. She pressed the halves together momentarily repairing the face of a green, vintage-style devil, her hands seeming to cup its odd little face.
    It was actually an ashtray. The devil’s gaping mouth, framed by fanged teeth on the top and a pointed tongue on the bottom, formed a wide bowl, while twisted horns rose up from the imp’s furrowed brow, and two glossy eyes stared malevolently at the smoker who dared flick ashes into his gullet. It had belonged to her parents, one of the few things she still had of theirs. She had been about to toss it in the box of other items to be donated after her parents died, but had placed it on the old oak shelves of her aunt’s cracked and twisted cabinet instead.
    She hadn’t known it at the time, but it was to be the first object in a collection of odds and ends that all leaned a bit toward the dark and esoteric. There were several raven skulls, a Victorian mourning broach, even a taxidermy pygmy owl, among other equally strange pieces, but the devil meant the most to her.
    She replaced the broken curio on the shelf and accidently nicked her finger on the razor-sharp edge of a wicked looking dagger she’d picked up at an antique shop downtown. It was jet black with a tiny white skull and crossbones inlaid in the handle, the kind of thing that made you wonder who had owned it and what it had been used for. But tonight it only made Freya spew more profanity while she rummaged around for a bandage.
    Wine had seemed called for after the strange dreams and upsetting accident, but now, bleary-eyed and miserable, she regretted not stopping after a single glass. She curled into a ball in the wan morning light, not sure what to think about the last twenty-four hours of her life until she finally decided that the only cure for her particular malady was a lot of coffee. She brewed herself some Café Vitta in her well-used French press and sat down in her chaise, determined to begin this new day with as much normalcy as possible.
    She took a sip of the strong coffee from her favorite “I don’t do mornings” mug. It was just the right size for a night owl’s morning cup, tankard-like. The bright notes of the bold blend made her feel a little less like a cranky revenant until she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that