Our Lady of the Ice Read Online Free PDF

whether or not the heat was turned up enough, whether or not the power blacked out.
    Eliana smoked her cigarette down to the filter, lit another one. The bartender turned the pages of his newspaper. A bell chimed, thelights blinked twice. The bartender sighed, tossed the paper onto the bar, and sat down.
    “Better hold on,” he said.
    A pause. Then he leaned over and blew out the flame on the candle burning next to the cash register.
    “What?” said Eliana.
    The bell chimed again.
    The train began to rattle and whine. The chairs and tables knocked against the floor. Eliana jammed her cigarette into her ashtray and blew out her own candle too. The polar winds shrieked on the other side of the wall. Now she understood why there were no windows—it was bad enough feeling the Antarctic air slipping in through the invisible cracks in the train’s construction.
    Eliana set one hand over the top of her drink glass, her bones vibrating inside her skin. She curled the fingers of her free hand against the seat of her chair. The bartender looked up at the bottles of liquor shaking against the mirror like he hoped they’d fall.
    The rattling stopped.
    Another chime, like an exhalation of breath. The bartender stood up, swiped his newspaper off the counter, and resumed his previous position as if the rattling interlude had never occurred. Eliana sat for a moment, breathing hard.
    “First time?” the bartender asked without looking up.
    “Yeah.” With shaking hands, Eliana lit another cigarette.
    “You get used to it.” The bartender turned a page of his newspaper.
    The rest of the trip passed uneventfully. Eliana was the only person who got off at Southstar Station. The platform was empty too, and small, although well kept-up, with a metal bench and a wisteria tree dropping dots of purple. No ticket counter. It took Eliana a moment to connect the names and realize this was a private station.
    “Jesus,” she said.
    A house loomed in the distance, emerging out of a field of golden grass. Eliana stepped off the platform. She was surrounded by a quiet, arrhythmic susurration, the grass rippling in tandem—false wind. She felt it on her skin, that dry, artificial warmth. It wrappedaround her as she cut a path toward the house, trampling down the grass. There was probably a designated way, some stone path leading to the front door, but Eliana was too overwhelmed, and too determined, to figure out where it was.
    The grass brushed feather-soft against her bare hands, making her jump. She hated its constant, babbling whisper, like it was trying to tell her something that she couldn’t understand.
    She was grateful to arrive at the house. It was large, as she’d expected, although quite contemporary, with lots of flat modernist lines and gray brick and huge windows. It was hard to imagine that it existed in the same city as the little shanty houses where Eliana had grown up.
    She pressed her thumb against the doorbell and waited.
    The rustle of the grass was sounding more and more likes voices. Eliana rang the doorbell again.
    This time, someone answered.
    It was a man, tall and slim and dressed in simple cotton clothing. He blinked at Eliana and said, “How can I help you?”
    As soon as he spoke, Eliana saw it. The andie. He had almost fooled her, but his voice was too measured, too soft, too pleasant. She remembered her mother saying once that they unsettled you if you looked too closely, and she thought she could see why now—there was something too much about him. Too much of what humans thought made them human.
    “I need to speak with Marianella Luna. I told her I’d be coming by.”
    “Ah yes, of course.” The robot smiled. “Eliana Gomez, yes? Come in. I can show you to the library. I’ll let her know you’re here.”
    He stepped back, still holding the door open. Eliana went inside. The lighting was the same as it had been out in the golden grass, muted and indistinct. The robot led Eliana into the library, past a