Icefields by Thomas Wharton

Author:Thomas Wharton
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: FIC019000, FIC000000
Publisher: NeWest Press
Published: 2009-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

51

Hal goes with Freya to the station, helps with her baggage, and then stands in the crowded waiting hall, avoiding her eyes.

—Say something, Hal.

—Don’t leave.

—We talked about it. I’m coming back next spring.

—Yes, I know.

—This is not how I wanted to say goodbye.

—I don’t think it can be helped.

In the station, waiting for her train out of Jasper, Freya glimpses Byrne as she passes the gentlemen’s smoking room. At least she thinks it might be the doctor. She stops, takes a backward step. She can see only the back of his head, his shoulders. One hand holding an open book.

She steps forward, then hesitates. The one man in this town she’s not sure how to approach.

The man that might be Byrne rises abruptly and walks out the far door. Freya waits a moment longer, then enters the room filled with blue smoke and men. Heads dart up from behind newspapers, eyes follow her. A lioness passing through the room, surefooted, indifferent to lesser powers.

She pauses to glance down at the open book left on the table.

Swedenborg’s The True Christian Religion. Freya wrinkles her nose. Lunatic theosophist stuff. She’d had it propounded to her by melancholy, bejewelled women at her father’s dinner parties. Her eyes take in just a few words before she moves past the table.

—wonderful it is that each one of that great host, in whichever direction he turns his body and his gaze, beholds the Lord in front of him.

As she turns back to the main hall she knows it was Byrne.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.