There were a dozen or moreI leafed through them,...
There
were a dozen or moreI leafed through them, then
turned back to one and tapped it"This is the one
that was in the newspaper article
Wireman said, "Go a little deeperYou ain't seen
nuthin yetmore family, rendered in pencil or
charcoal or in jolly watercolors, the family
members almost always with their hands linked like
paperdollsthen a storm, the water in the
swimming pool lashed into waves, the fronds of a
palm pulled into ragged banners by the wind
There were well over a hundred pictures in all
She might only have been a child, but she had also
been unbottlingTwo or three more storm
picturesmaybe the Alice that had uncovered
Eastlake's treasure-trove, maybe just a big
thunderstorm, it was impossible to say for surethe Gulf again, this time with
flying fish the size of black and white chanel cambon handbag for sale dolphinsthe Gulf with
pelicans that appeared to have rainbows in their
mouths
I stopped, my breath caught in my throat
Compared with many of the others I'd gone through,
this one was dead simple, just the silhouette of a
ship against the dying light, caught at the
tipping-point between day and dark, but its
simplicity was what gave it its powerCertainly
I'd thought so when I drew the same thing on my
first night in Big PinkHere was the same cable,
stretched taut between the bow and what might in
Elizabeth's time have been called a Marconi tower,
creating a brilliant orange triangleHere was the
same upward shading of light, orange to blue
There was even the same scribbly, not-quitecareless
overlay of color that made the ship -
skinnier than mine had been - look like a phantom
out there, tiffany & co replica jewelry trudging its way north
"I drew this," I said faintly
"I know," Wireman said
800
I thumbed deeper, hurrying through big bunches of
watercolors and colored pencil drawings, knowing
what I would eventually findAnd yes, near the
bottom I came to Elizabeth's first picture of the
PerseOnly she had drawn it new, a slim threemasted
beauty with sails furled, standing in on
the blue-green waters of the Gulf beneath a
trademark Elizabeth Eastlake sun, the kind that
shoots off long happy-rays of lightIt was a
wonderful piece of work, almost begging for a
calypso sound-track
But unlike her other paintings, it also felt false
"Keep going, muchachofamily, four of them,
anyway, standing on the beach with their hands
linked like paperdolls and those big Elizabeth
happysmilesthe house, with what
looked like rolex watches on sale a Negro lawn jockey standing on its
headthe ship, that gorgeous white swallow
John Eastlake screamingblood running from his
nose and one eye
I stared at it, mesmerizedIt was a child's
watercolor, but it had been executed with hellish
801
skillIt depicted a man who looked insane with
terror, grief, or both
"One more, muchacho," Wireman said
I flicked back the picture of the screaming man
Old dried watercolors rattled like bonesBeneath
the screaming father was the ship again, only this
time it really was my ship, my PerseElizabeth
had painted it at night, and not with a brush - I
could still see the ancient dried prints of her
child's fingers in the swirls of gray and black
This time it was as if she had finally seen
through the Perse's disguiseThe boards were
splintered, the sails tiffany heart lock necklace drooping and full of holes
Around her, blue in the light of a moon that did
not smile or send out happy-rays, hundreds of
skeleton arms rose from the water in a dripping
saluteAnd standing on the foredeck was a baggy,
pallid thing, vaguely female, wearing a decayed
something that might have been a cloak, a winding
shroudIt was the red-robe, my redrobe,
only seen from the frontThree empty
802
sockets peered from its head, and its grin outran
the sides of its face in a crazy jumble of lips
and teethIt was far more horrible than my Girl
and Ship paintings, because it went straight to
the heart of the matter without any pause for the
mind to catch upThis is everything awful, it
saidThis is everything you ever feared to find
waiting in the darkSee how its grin races off
its face in the fake louis vuitton bag moonli