The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman Read Free Book Online

guinea pigs.”
    “Oh, I don’t mind. At least they give us snacks. And not just carrots.”
    Renny grinned, then got up and headed to the refreshment table. I saw that he, too, limped. The foot the lightning had gone through had shriveled and was misshapen and the leg seemed to have nerve damage. Hence the tremor, the wobbling when he walked. I looked away. I didn’t want to think about Renny lining up his putt on the green, out for a great day, nothing more.
    I wanted things cold, the way they’d always been. And yet, I felt moved by these people in some way I didn’t understand. Perhaps it was because each one was ruined so uniquely, every undoing so against all probability. I turned and saw that the Naked Man was sitting with his head in his hands, eyes closed. He was sleeping. A woman next to me, struck while pruning her hedges, held a finger to her lips.
    “Poor thing,” she whispered.
    I noticed that the Naked Man wasn’t wearing a wedding band, that there was dog hair on his pant leg, short black hair, probably a Labrador retriever. Maybe he’d gotten what he’d wanted, or what he’d imagined he’d wanted. But he moaned in his sleep, and we all turned to him, startled by the sound. There it was, like a toad let out in a garden. Sorrow.
    The Naked Man didn’t open his eyes until the group was breaking up. Then he told us this sleep disorder was happening to him more and more; he couldn’t stay awake. He would be having a conversation with someone, and the next thing he knew, he’d be fast asleep, snoring. He couldn’t tell the difference between his life and a dream. That was his problem. He’d talk to his girlfriend, Marie, about what they’d done the day before, and she’d look blank. Then he’d understand — it hadn’t been real. The canoe on the river, the car on the road, the storm or the clear sky he’d been so certain of, all of it disappeared as soon as he opened his eyes.
    “I want to be awake,” the Naked Man said. “That’s all I’m asking for.”
    We all looked away when he started to cry. I, for one, hoped he would remember this as a dream. A hazy room of stunned and silent people who were decent enough to give him his privacy. Before he knew it, he’d be out walking his dog and he wouldn’t even remember us, the strangers who wished the best for him, who wished he would indeed wake up.
    We all had our photographs taken that night. It was part of the study. Quite necessary, we were told. One by one, we went into the examining room. We took off our clothes and stood in front of a white screen. As I stood there shivering, I recalled a fairy tale, “The Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was.” It was a tale I’d disliked as a child about a boy who is so brave he can play cards with corpses and subdue ghouls without ever once flinching. When my brother read to me, I always insisted he skip right over to the next one. I didn’t like stories in which Death was a major character. Even for me, this tale seemed too illogical. Who on earth could look at death and be unafraid?
    When my time came to be photographed I got into position and did as I was told. I turned left and then right. I kept my spine against the white paper. My photographs would go in my file, the same as everyone else’s. My expression would resemble the Naked Man’s — blinking in the cold brightness. Maybe that was what kept Lazarus Jones away. He who had no fear, who had wrestled with death and returned far stronger than he’d been before. He wanted his privacy; some people believed a man who told his secrets was a man who lost his strength, and maybe Lazarus Jones was such a man.
    I got dressed slowly. I was the last to go. I had just started driving again, which was probably foolish. I wasn’t yet well. Sometimes I felt so nauseated I had to pull over to the side of the road to vomit. Once, I had found myself on the highway out of town and I wondered how I’d gotten there, and how I’d ever find my