Strange is the Night Read Online Free Page A

and walk right past the puddle at the end of the drive.
    Yet, when William said, “No more” and “I’m sorry” Robert shook his head. Done was done and he could never go back to the time of before .
     
    Robert took up work as a freelance writer, doing everything from fluff pieces in newspapers to writing articles for travel magazines about the best multivitamin to take while combating a cold abroad. It wasn’t glamorous and it barely paid better than flipping burgers would have. That was when it paid at all because there were query rejections and articles that were sent back; there were times when he was being paid by the word and the article was whittled down to three hundred words.
    They got married anyway because, wedding vows weren’t going to make them any poorer. It was a cool day in early autumn and they had the ceremony in the backyard of Robert’s family home, a rambling old farmhouse full of good memories despite all of the broken mirrors. Most of Robert’s family was in attendance, including his favorite aunt—minus her bastard husband. William’s blind mother was there and she wept and clapped when they kissed. The rest of William’s family was either dead or lived too far away to come.
    That night they danced and ate cake and drank too much homemade wine. They slept wrapped around each other in Robert’s childhood bed, neither one of them willing to consummate their marriage on a narrow twin bed with a squeaky mattress and Robert’s parents right down the hall. The next morning they went downstairs, hungover, but still so happy they could barely keep from giggling like schoolchildren with a juicy secret.
    Robert’s mother made them omelets and his father made them strong coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. While they were eating, they went through some of their smaller gifts, including a plain brown envelope. When they opened it, they found a stack of cash inside and Robert’s mother told them they had all pitched in to take up money so they could have a honeymoon. Until that moment, William and Robert had planned on taking a long weekend in bed together before getting back to work; the real honeymoon would come later when they could afford it.
    The money was really for them to do with as they pleased, but they found they did want to go on a honeymoon though to where they did not know. When William suggested a road trip, Robert couldn’t argue with that—it was a great idea. As they rushed home to pack he couldn’t help but think with a mix of fear and anticipation that travel in this world would mean more extensive travel in his world as well.
    They left that afternoon and drove late into the night, swigging coffee and buying crappy gas station food for the hell of it. William drove while Robert watched the mirrors and told him if he saw anything of interest. The farther west they drove, the more the landscape in Robert’s world changed as well. The rolling hills and plains and seas of grass faded away; the distant roar and crash of the red ocean disappeared to nothing. Robert jumped and barely stopped from grabbing William’s arm as a sloth-like creature the size of a black bear with smaller spider-things feeding off its lumbering bulk staggered out in front of their car and collapsed. When William asked what it was, Robert only shook his head because saying, “More death,” was not a good answer. He still didn’t want William to know about the ugliest side of the reflection world; it was part of his promise to protect William from the dark.
    As they drove, they climbed higher and higher into a cloud forest on the other side of the mirrors. Alien flowers bloomed from the sides of giant tree trunks, pulsing in the darkness with light and soft sounds like sighs. They were breathing, Robert realized. The trunk of one tree rippled and opened along a seam, revealing slimy looking insides thick with mucus-like sap, then snapped closed, devouring a whole row of dreaming flowers. A fog of