Odd Interlude Part One Read Free

craziness—coming at me like an avalanche.”
    The feathers of soft light flutter not just across her face but also in her eyes as she squeezes my hand. “What do you most want, Oddie? What hope drives you? The hope of a little rest, some leisure time? The hope of an uneventful, quiet life as a fry cook, a shoe salesman?”
    “You know it’s none of that.”
    “Tell me. I’d like to hear you say it.”
    I close my eyes and see in memory the card that came out of a fortune-telling machine in a carnival arcade six years earlier, when with Stormy at my side I had bought a precious promise for a quarter.
    “Ma’am, you know what the card said—‘You are destined to be together forever.’ ”
    “And then she died. But you kept the card. You continued to believe in the truth of the card. Do you still believe in it?”
    Without hesitation, I reply: “Yes. I’ve got to believe. It’s what I have.”
    “Well then, Oddie, if the hope that drives you is the truth of that card, might not the acceleration that frightens you be what you actually want? Might you be quickening toward the fulfillment of that prediction? Could it be that the avalanche coming at you is nothing more than Stormy?”
    Opening my eyes, I meet her stare once more. The fluttering wings reflected on her face and in her dark eyes might also be the flicker of golden flames. I am reminded that fire not only consumes; it also purifies. And another word for purification is
redemption
.
    Annamaria cocks her head and smiles. “Shall we find a castle with a suitable room where you can do your version of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy to your heart’s content? Or shall we just get on with this?”
    I am not out of smiles, after all. “We’d best be getting on with it, ma’am.”
    Our only luggage is a hamper of food for us and the golden retriever, which was packed by our friend Blossom Rosedale in Magic Beach. After Raphael finds a patch of grass in which to pee, I follow the dog and Annamaria to Cottage 6, which she has taken for herself, and I leave the hamper with her.
    On the stoop, delivery made, as I turn away, she says, “Whatever happens here, trust your heart. It’s as true as any compass.”
    The white German shepherd, Boo, has been with me for several months. Now he accompanies me to Cottage 7. Because he is a ghost dog, he has no need to pee, and he walks through the door before I can unlock it.
    The accommodations are clean and cozy. Sitting area, bedroom alcove, bath. The unit seems to have been remodeled and upgraded within the past few years.
    There’s even an under-the-counter fridge that serves as an honor bar. I take a can of beer and pop the tab.
    I am exhausted but not sleepy. Now, two hours before dawn, I’ve been awake twenty-two hours; yet my mind spins like a centrifuge.
    After switching on the TV, I sit with the remote in an armchair, while Boo explores every cranny of the cottage, his curiosity as keen in death as in life. Satellite service provides a huge smorgasbord of programming. But nearly everything seems stale or wilted.
    As far as I can tell from the cable-news channels, the thwarted nuclear terrorists in Magic Beach have not made the news. I suspect they never will. The government will decide that the public prefers to remain ignorant of such disturbing near disasters, and the political class prefers to
keep
them ignorant rather than arouse in them suspicions of corruption and incompetence in high places.
    On NatGeo, in a documentary about big cats, the narrator informs us that panthers are a variety of leopard, black with black spots. A panther with golden eyes stares directly at the camera, bares its fangs, and in a low, rough voice says, “Sleep.”
    I realize that I am less than half awake, in that twilight consciousness where dreams and the real world sometimes intersect. Before I drop off and spill the beer, I put the nearly empty can on the table beside the armchair.
    On the screen, a panther seizes an