All Around Atlantis Read Online Free PDF

judgment. Francie closed one hand tightly around her new handkerchief, and with the other she gripped the handle on her box. The city rose up around her through a peach-colored sunset; now there was no more time.
    The man who stood at the door of the apartment (K. McIntyre, #4B) was nice-looking. Nice-looking, and weirdly unfamiliar, as if the whole thing, maybe, were a complete mistake, Francie thought over and over in the striated extrusion of eternity (that was then and this is then; that was now and this is now) it had taken the door to open.
    She was filthy, she thought. She smelled. She’d been wearing the same dress, the same socks, for days.
    â€œCan I help you?” he said.
    He had no idea why she was there! “Kevin McIntyre?” she said.
    â€œNot back yet,” he said. His gaze was pleasant—serene and searching. “Any minute.”
    He brought her into a big room and sat her down near a fireplace, in a squashy chair. He reached for the chain of a lamp, but Francie shook her head.
    â€œNo?” He looked at her. “I’m having coffee,” he said. “Want a cup? Or something else—water? Wine? Soda?”
    Francie shook her head again.
    â€œAnyhow,” he said. “I’m Alex. I’ll be in back if you want me.”
    Francie nodded.
    â€œCan I put your package somewhere for you, at least?” he asked, but Francie folded her arms around the box and rested her cheek against its plastic wrapping.
    â€œSuit yourself,” the man said. He paused at the entrance to the room. “You’re not a very demanding guest, you know.”
    Francie felt his attention hesitate and then withdraw. After a moment, she raised her head—yes, he was gone. But then there he was again in the entranceway. “Strange day, huh?” he paused there to say. “Starting with the blimp.”
    The night before Francie left school, when she’d known so much more about her mother and her father than she knew now, she and Jessica had lain in their beds, talking feverishly. “Anything can happen at any moment,” Jessica kept exclaiming. “Anything can just happen .”
    â€œIt’s worse than that,” Francie had said (and she could still close her eyes and see Cynthia coming up that hill). “It’s much, much worse.” And Jessica had burst into noisy sobs, as if she knew exactly what Francie meant, as if it were she who had brushed against the burning cable of her life.
    Her body, Francie noticed, felt as if it had been crumpled up in a ball—she should stretch. Strange day . Well, true enough. That was something they could all be sure of. This room was really nice, though. Pretty and pleasantly messy, with interesting stuff all over the place. Interesting, nice stuff…
    Twilight was thickening like a dark garden, and paintings and drawings glimmered behind it on the walls. As scary as it was to be waiting for him, it was nice to be having this quiet time. This quiet time together, in a way.
    Peach, rose, pale green—yes, poor guy; it might be a moment he’d look back on—last panels of tinted light were falling through the window. He might be walking up the street this very second. Stopping to buy a newspaper.
    She closed her eyes. He fished in his pocket for change, and then glanced up sharply. Holding her breath, Francie drew herself back into the darkness. It’s your imagination , she promised; he was going to have to deal with her soon enough—no sense making him see her until he actually had to.

Across the Lake

 
    At first, what rob saw from the back seat appeared to be projections of stone on the bluff just above—columns of lava, or basalt. Then the smoky morning split into gold rays, the black forms flickered human/mineral, human/mineral, and a shift of sun flashed against machetes, lighting up for one dazzling instant the kerchiefs tied over faces as masks, and the clothing—the