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"Is that better?" "It is, actually," Jack said,...
10:52 AM, Wednesday, February 3, 2010
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"Is that better?"
"It is, actually," Jack said, and Wireman noddedif those little girls were herecan
ghosts write on canvas?"
"If they can move Ouija board planchettes and
write in window-frost, I imagine they could write
793
on a canvas," I saidThen, rather reluctantly, I
added: "But I don't see ghosts unlocking my front
doorOr putting a canvas up on the easel to begin
with
"There wasn't a canvas there?" Wireman asked
"I'm pretty sure notThe blank ones are all
racked in the corner
"Who's the sister?" Jack wanted to know"Who's
the sister they're asking about?"
"It must be Elizabeth," I said"She was the only
sister left
"Bull****," Wireman said"If Tessie and Laura
were on the ever-popular other side of the veil,
they wouldn't wholesale chanel jewelry have any problem locating sister
Elizabeth; she was right here on Duma Key for over
fifty-five years, and Duma was the only place they
ever knew
"What about the others?" I asked
"Maria and Hannah both died," Wireman said
"Hannah in the seventies, in New York - Ossining,
I think - and Maria in the early eighties,
somewhere out westBoth married, Maria a couple
of timesI know that from Chris Shannington, not
Miss EastlakeShe sometimes talked about her
794
father, but hardly ever about her sistersShe cut
herself off from the rest of her family after she
and John came back to Duma in 1951
where our sister?
"And Adriana? What about her?"
He shrugged"Qui?n sabe? History ate her up
Shannington thinks she and her new husband
probably went back dolce and gabbana bucket handbag to Atlanta after the search for
the babby-uns was called off; they weren't here
for the memorial service
"She might have blamed Daddy for what happened,"
Jack said"Or maybe she just couldn't stand
to hang around
I remembered Adriana's pouty I-want-to-besomewhere-
else look in the family portrait and
thought Wireman might be onto something there
"In any case," Wireman went on, "she has to be
dead, tooIf she was alive, she'd be almost a
hundredOdds of that are mighty slim
where our sister?
Wireman gripped my arm and turned me to face him
His face looked drawn and old"Muchacho, if
something supernatural killed Miss Eastlake in
795
order to shut her up, maybe we ought to take the
hint and get off Duma Key
"I think it might be too hermes birkin 35cm late for that," I said
"Why?"
"Because she's awake againElizabeth said so
before she died
"Who's awake?"
"Perse," I said
"Who is that?"
"I don't know," I said"But I think we're
supposed to drown her back to sleep
ix
The picnic basket had been scarlet when it was new,
and had faded only a little over its long life,
perhaps because so much of it had been spent
tucked away in the atticI began by hefting one
of the handlesThe damn thing was pretty heavy,
all right; I guessed about twenty poundsThe
wicker on the bottom, although tightly woven, had
sagged down someI set it back on the carpet,
pushed the thin wooden carry-handles down to
796
either side, and flipped back the lid on hinges
that squeaked slightly
There were colored pencils, montre cartier ronde most of which had been
sharpened down to stubsAnd there were drawings
made by a certain child prodigy well over eighty
years agoA little girl who'd fallen out of a
pony-trap at the age of two and banged her head
and awakened with seizures and a magical ability
to drawI knew this even though the drawing on
the first page wasn't a drawing at all - not
really, but this: I flicked it upBeneath was
this:
After that, the pictures became pictures, growing
in technique and sophistication with a speed that
was beyond beliefUnless, that was, you happened
to be a guy like Edgar Freemantle, who had done
little more than doodle until an accident on a
building site had taken his arm, crushed his skull,
and nearly ended his life
She had drawn replica cartier tank watches fie
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