Excerpt from The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I stayed in the hospital for nearly two weeks. I didn't see much of my brother, but Nina went daily to my house to feed Giselle. When I was finally allowed out, still using a walker because of the weakness on my left side, Nina picked me up and drove me home. I saw that my sister-in-law had also stocked my refrigerator. I think she may have vacuumed. I understood why my brother had been drawn to her. Nina was logical, a great believer in order, and like my brother, she was not a fan of emotions. She stood there and wrung her hands while I sat on the couch and wept.

"Sorry," I said to Nina. She nodded and waved me on. I kept at it, running through nearly a box of tissues. It was my first cry in a long time, and I overdid it. I sat there sobbing, shudders running through me. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by everything, a wreck, true enough. My hair had fallen out in clumps and there was that dreadful clicking noise in the back of my head. I still wasn't able to hold down solid food. The doctor had told me the symptoms were similar to someone suffering from radiation poisoning. That's how I felt—to my bones, to my toes—poisoned. All down my afflicted side there was a wrenching sort of feeling, as if something had been twisted. A short in my electrical system, I supposed. My very essence, my inner self was gone. I reached for things and couldn't feel them. It was as though everything solid had slipped away from me. Inside, my heart felt frozen.

The weather was still humid and stifling; no outsider could be prepared for Florida. We weren't even close to summer, still the heat exploded in midair, then settled; it weighed you down. All the same, when Nina asked if I'd like anything, I asked for hot tea. I sat there shivering, colder than ever. Ice in my veins. Ice behind my eyes as well, it seemed. While my sister-in-law fixed the tea, I looked out the window. Everything out there was the color of ice. I wondered if the bougainvillea was scarlet: I'd never noticed it before. Now the vine was pale and ghostly, frostbitten and shivering in the heat. I felt as though I had one foot in this world, and one in the next. I couldn't even get the death wish right this time around. I was like a person who'd tried to commit suicide by jumping out a third-story window, succeeding only in breaking every bone. Still alive, still more or less intact, still trapped in the same life.

Before she left, Nina told me a physical therapist would be coming to see me. When the therapist appeared the next morning and rang the bell, I didn't open the door. Maybe I didn't want to be healed. Maybe I deserved whatever I got. Maybe this was the fate I deserved. I sat on the couch with Giselle, imagining I was safe from the well-meaning and the helpful. But my brother had an extra key, which he'd handed over, and the physical therapist let herself in. She introduced herself as Peggy Travis. As though I cared. As though I intended to make this personal. I suppose Peggy was wearing a red striped dress, but it was gray to me. She went through the list of exercises we'd be doing to strengthen my left side. I excused myself. Fumbling with my walker, I went to the bathroom and threw up.

"It's very common to feel sick." My unwelcome visitor had actually come up behind me and was watching me vomit. "For some people it lasts only a short time, for others it's different."

From The Ice Queen, pages 3-31 of the hardcover edition. Copyright © 2005 by Alice Hoffman. Reproduced with the permission of Little, Brown & Co.