Spider Legs Read Online Free Page A

most sailing vessels to dock alongside such a mass. The unfortunate ship that crashed into one of these islands of ice usually sank, and the water was so cold that even an Olympic swimmer would have died from exposure.
    Kalinda had no intention of being shipwrecked on an iceberg and took extra care to stay clear of the mammoth chunks of ice. She carefully steered the boat into a narrow channel between two icebergs, and then in the direction of an impressive rhinoceros-shaped berg with a huge arch in the middle. It was wide enough to hold a football field. On the northern side of the berg was a huge, upward pointing prominence that reminded her of a rhinoceros's horn. From this distance it seemed that a chunk of ice was missing from an area of the rhino's face, forming a dark area which composed the rhino's eye. Kalinda got out her new expensive sophisticated camera and snapped a fewpictures. The camera had special protections against water splashed from any direction.
    After a minute, she put the camera down. The dark area forming the “eye” on the iceberg seemed a bit strange, she thought, so she decided to take the boat closer for a better look. Just as people enjoyed watching clouds and finding animal and other shapes in their random patterns, sailors often looked at ice formations and imagined sea serpents and mermaids, and other more provocative patterns. She wondered if she should wake Garth up from his nap to see the berg with its pinnacles towering more than fourteen stories high. But of course it wouldn't evaporate before he got his chance.
    Kalinda reached over to a radio on the bridge, turned it on, and began bobbing her head to the rhythm of the golden oldie “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes. Another few minutes passed; then a sudden wild scream startled her. It came from above. She looked up to see a large seagull circling with wings outstretched and motionless. Just a seagull.
    The rhinoceros-shaped iceberg now loomed above her, more beautiful than any sculpture created by the hands of humans. The sun gave a kind of smooth brilliance to the whiteness of the iceberg hulk. Wherever there were cracks there were also veins of pale violet melt water that had flowed into the cracks and had refrozen. Again she gazed up at the ice horn pointing up at the blue sky like a hitchhiker's thumb. But where was the dark area that formed its eye? She looked some more. There it was, to the left.
    The eye formation on the iceberg moved. Kalinda gasped. As the craft edged ever closer to the berg, her hands slipped on the wooden steering wheel. They were cold and clammy.
    The eye moved again.
    “Garth, wake up.” There was no noise from below the hatch. She killed the engine. “Garth?” As she walked to the hatch, she felt a nervous shiver go up her spine. She poked her head inside and saw her husband motionless on their small bed. His eye-lidsfluttered with the rapid movement of his eyes. Garth was dreaming.
    Kalinda hesitated. She was alarmed about what she had seen, but she knew it was probably some natural phenomenon that Garth would immediately explain. On the other hand, his dreams were often special. If she let him wake naturally, he would share his dream with her before it faded, and they would both be richer. For a long time she had been interested in the rich and largely untapped realm of dream symbolism. Kalinda had taught Garth certain psychological methods for momentarily awakening to report his dreams to her before he fell back to sleep to continue his dreaming. They both practiced and enjoyed remembering their dreams. The sharing of dreams had improved their understanding of themselves and brought them closer as a couple. So she stifled her probably baseless fear and waited; she knew it would not be long.
    It wasn't. In a moment he opened his eyes, saw her, and immediately spoke his dream, knowing that she would remember it better than he would, because she was fully awake and rational. Freshness was