They were under this house, and
the storm had... They were under this house, and
the storm had brought them to lifeI could see
them pushing up through the boneyard blanket of
the shells, pallid jellies with green hair and
seagull eyes, crawling over each other in the dark
and talking, talking, talkingYes! Because they
had a lot to catch up on, and who knew when the
next storm might come and bring them to life again?
Yet still I paintedI did it in terror and in the
dark, my arm moving up and down so that for a
little while there I seemed to actually be
conducting the stormI couldn't have stoppedAnd
at some point, Wireman Looks West was doneMy
517
right arm told me soI slashed my initials - EF -
in the lower left corner and then
tiffany and co bracelets broke the brush
in two, using both hands to do itThe pieces I
dropped on the floorI staggered away from my
easel, crying out for whatever was going on to
stopAnd it would; surely it would; the picture
was done and surely now it would
I came to the head of the stairs and looked down,
and there at the bottom were two small dripping
figuresI thought: Apple, orangeI thought, I
win, you winThen the lightning flashed and I saw
two girls of about six, surely twins and surely
Elizabeth Eastlake's drowned sistersThey wore
dresses that were plastered to their bodiesTheir
hair was plastered to their cheeksTheir faces
were pale horrors
I knew where they had come fromThey had crawled
out of the
chanel tote shells
They started up the stairs toward me, hand in hand
Thunder exploded a mile overheadI thought, I am not seeing
this
"I can do this," one of the girls saidShe spoke
in the voice of the shells
518
"It was red," the other girl saidShe spoke in
the voice of the shellsThey were halfway up now
Their heads were little more than skulls with wet
hair draggling down the sides
"Sit in the char," they said together, like girls
chanting a skip-rope rhymebut they spoke in
the voice of the shells
They reached up for me with terrible fishbelly
fingers
I fainted at the head of the stairs
xx
The telephone was ringingThat was my Telephone
Winter
I opened my eyes and groped for the bedside
rolex replica watches lamp,
wanting light right away because I'd just had the
worst nightmare of my lifeInstead of finding the
lamp, my fingers struck a wallAt the moment they
did, I became aware that my head was cocked at a
strange, painful angle against that same wall
Thunder rumbled - but faint and sullen; it was
going-away thunder now - and that was enough to
bring everything back with painful, frightening
519
clarityI
had fainted because -
My eyes flew openMy ass was on the landing, my
legs trailing down the stairsI thought of the
two drowned girls - no, it was more, it was an
instant of total, brilliant recall - and shot to
my feet without feeling my bad hip at allMy
concentration was fixed entirely on the
cheap chanel handbag three
light-switches at the head of the stairs, but even
as my fingers found them I thought: Won't work,
the storm will have knocked out the power
But they did work, banishing the dark in the
studio and the stairwellI had a nasty moment
when I saw sand and water at the foot of the
stairs, but the light reached far enough for me to
see that the front door had blown open
Surely it had just blown open
In the living room, the phone quit and the
answering machine kicked inMy recorded voice
invited the caller to leave a message at the sound
of the beepThe caller was Wireman
"Edgar, where are you?" I was too disoriented to
tell if I was hearing excitement, dismay, or
520
terror in his
chanel replica handbags cheap voice