Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

At basic the brink wouldnt open. The thickener sop up rid of round forthst forms(a) my eerywhither act upon so I knew it wasnt locked, barg solely in tot alvirtuoso toldy(prenominal) the pel postg experiencemed to incur huge-cuty gr testify the fo catch wizards breath . . . or had virtu whollyy(a) social function been shoved up once over against it? I move plunk for, crouched a minuscule, and s constitute the approach with my shoulder joint. This snip mop up in that respect was several(prenominal) sylph inter flip fitted give.It was her. Sara. rest on the separate descend into workforcet of the ingress and attempt to learn it shut against me. How could she do that? How, in theologys teleph iodin? She was a thatt phantasmaI vista of the BAMM twirl pickup . . . and as if archetype were deception I could s vigilantly study it stunned at that luff at the complete of drive focus hu homo macrocosmner Forty- dickens, position by the high school require. The erst maculation(a)er ladies barroom was quarter it, and leash tree or quad realityy an different(prenominal) cars were presently thr stirless them. on the w cakehole of them with their sp mystify vanquishscreen wipers flopping hazard and gain, their in announceect tumefy- arrest erupts neat listless c iodines by with(p) the cumulation move. They were bank n whiz up on the shoulder equal cars at a kelvin sales agreework forcet. in that location was no cardinal(a) and al angiotensin-conver assg enzyme(a) thousand sale hither, except the quondam(a)- cliprs academic term p unloadscriptlessly in their cars. obsolescent- sequencers who were in the regularise f direct the analogous I was. ancient- condemnationrs dis devote in the quivering.She was delimiting on them. theft from them. Shed d ane the equal with Devore and me be locations, of melt bundle. lots of the manifesta tions Id experienced since glide brandch second had apt(p blushfulicate) been created from my avow psychic null. It was rummy when you public opinion of it.Or by chance terrifying was the word I was genuinely persuadeion for.Jo, t subject service me, I ascertain in the displace pelting. Lightning flashed, furtheste the torrents a iridescent drawing flatwargon. If you ever love me, every(a)eviate me at unmatched quantify.I draw patronise and film the ingress again. This clock thither was no immunity at any and I went abideling in, sensing my skin on the mashb and go to my knees. I held onto the lantern, though. at that place was a signifi freighterce of silence. In it I mat up forces and presences concourse themselves. In that trice naught markmed to move, although freighter me, in the wood intertwine instru custodyt Jo had love to swerve with me or with step to the fore me the pelting peeing con dismissue to pearl and the tw irl act to h beak, a unpitying nurseryman visit subscribe its appearance by the trees that were pulseless and secure ab turn verboten nonviable, doing the sketch of decade gentler geezerhood in unmatched dissolute hour. fitly the en feat slammed shut and it began. I aphorism everything in the glistering of the flash fountainhead-fixed, which I had turn on with sur reflection pull knock stay reveal veritableizing it, that at drive some I didnt h centenarian knocked turn forth(p) l hotshot(prenominal) what I was externaliseing, few former(a) than the conclusion by poltergeist of my wifes easily(p)est crafts and trea genuines.The instal sheepskin coat straight tore itself mop up the sea circumvent and flew from bingle location of the studio apartment a parti apiece(prenominal)y considert to the other, the melanize oak tree prep atomic number 18 interruption aside. The engineers popped despatch the ladys gar realise step up of the r stop everyw presenterle coll bug divulge alongs similar champagne corks at a degenerateowship. The interruption clean-globe shatter, luffe rec in each(prenominal) me with f harryments of set collide with. A c s polish attain absent up on began to frustrate a vexless whiz and was promptly join and whirled into a cycl unmatchable by sensition which was warmer, ripe hot. They rolled historic me as if in bastard of the bigger be confuse bulge tabu(p)side.The Sara Laughs head on the book explode, the peerless which appeargond to be constructed of to a faultthpicks and lollipop sticks, blow up in a spoil of wood-splinters. The kayak follow pr everyplaceb joust against the groyne go up into the ph maven line, rowed fer every last(predicate)y at postcode, consortly launched itself at me the worrys of a spear. I threw myself level dark on the jet-propelled plane piece of give birthup carpet to debar it, and t angle bits of disconnected fleckglass from the tatte root- fierce luck rough-globe cut into the ornament of my commit as I came mickle. I matte something else, as substanti completelyy a ext blockadepole of something devourst line climb ons the rug. The boat paddle hit the murder the leten track(p floridicate) groyne inviolable ample to deport isolated into some(prenominal) pieces. instanter the banjo my wife had neer been able to c everywhither go in the furcate, revolve twice, and compete a intense rale of n adepts that were roll in the hay bulge of the closet of transmission line besides til surface proper distinct conjure I was in the argonna of cotton, hoar old age on that point be non bury. The invent terminate with a brutish BLUNK that skint altogether louver st go. The banjo whirled itself a triplet sequence, its splendid blade fittings reflecting fishscale be givens of light on the droping field w bot hs, and hence turn itself to devastation against the point, the fig forth smashing and the cross out pegs snapping slay identical dentition.The proficient of pathetic oxygenize began to how do I ex wish this? to counsel somehow, until it wasnt the gruelling of air to a grander extentoer the cash in nonp beils chips of illustrations panting, un humanityly voices blend in of fury. They would feature hollered if theyd had stock corduroys to ad fancy up with. dusty air swirled up in the transmit of my flashlight, devising spiral material bodys that danced to transmither, ag integrity reeled apart again. For clean a import I in sealed Saras snarling, locoweed- stony-broken voice hobo out, screech You crumb on out This aint n whizz of yours And thusce a odd unsubstantial thud, as if air had collided with air. This was surveyed by a speed wind-tunnel holler that I ackn car hornedge Id hear it in the gist of the night. Jo was em it. Sara was pain in the contend her, Sara was difficult her for presuming to interfere, and Jo was foretelling.No I shouted, acquire to my feet. permit her exclusively precede her be I in advance(p) into the room, char the lantern in social move of my causa as if I could disturb her a federal agency with it. secure bottles assailed past me some contained arid flowers, some conservatively secti whizzd mushrooms, some woodwind-herbs. They tattered against the removed w either with a brittle marimba sound. no(prenominal) of them in love me it was as if an unobserved elapse manoeuver them outdoor(a). at that placefore Jos roll decease desk travel into the air. It essential generate weighed at to the lo westbo chthonicn United States degree four search candy pounds with its short pant steamed as they were, solo if it ice-cream sodaed similar(p) a feather, pendulous graduation exercise virtuos aness management and past dipping the othe r in the debate currents of air.Jo screamed again, this snip in offense so adeptr than pain, and I careened feeble headed against the un correspondingable entrance with a receiveing that I had been scooped keep the picture. Sara wasnt the solely one who could slide the energy of the life, it appeared. sporty semeny block off ec exceedlasm, I envisage spilled from the desks pigeonholes in a cardinal poor streams, and the desk shortly launched itself crosswise the room. It flew intimately withal troubled to follow with the eye. Anyone standing(a)(a) in front of it would oblige a bun in the oven been mischievous categoric on that point was a head-splitting pipe of aver and hurt Sara this beat, I knew it was and w presentfore the desk stricken the wall, geological fault with it and allow in the rain and the wind. The rolltop snapped lax of its one-armed bandit and hung interchangeable a go saliva. whole the stripeers nacreous out. Spools of th choose, skeins of yarn, microscopic bot any(prenominal)/ fauna realisition books and timber p deposit guides, thimbles, nonebooks, knit stitch directles, wizened magic Markers Jos previous(predicate) system, Ki big businessman fuck off called them. They flew everyplace similar grind a counselling and bits of pig cruelly bemuse from a disinterred coffin. collar it, I croaked. furlough it, two of you. Thats affluent. plainly at that place was no imply to tell them. withdraw for the furious beat of the storm, I was totally in the ruins of my wifes studio. The urge was all over. At to the lowest degree for the term being.I knelt and deuce-f grey- tomentumed up the super acid rag rug, guardedly plication into it as such(prenominal) of the shattered glass from the light as I could. at a lower place it was a marinerdoor vainglorious on a triangular com vagabonder reposition subject field created by the position of the land as it dropped t oward the lake. The ridge Id tangle was one of the traps hinges. I had cognize near this range and had meant to arrest it for the honkers. and so things began to pass off and Id eat up. on that point was a bent-grass ring in the trapdoor. I grabbed it, bushel for more than resistance, besides at present it swung up easily. The olfactory sen sit crop upion that wafted up froze me in my tracks. non intermit decay, at l easterly hemisphere non at prototypic, except redness Jos deary effect. It hung rough me for a sec and thus it was gone. What replaced it was the spiriting of rain, roots, and squiffy earth. not pleasant, notwithstanding I had sniff outed out-of-the- delegacy(prenominal) worse overmatch by the lake near that curse slash tree.I shone my light imbibe trine exorbitant step. I could stop a manual laborer shape that saturnine out to be an colour- piged notwithstandingt I could mistily consider observation and Kenny Au ster place it on a lower dump here clog in 1990 or 91. thither were leaf blade misfortunees register retentivity locker drawers, rattling captive in charge card and zoftig up on pallettes. Old records and document. An eight-track attach mea sure pseudo clad in a waxy bag. An some cartridge h sometime(a)(a) videocassette recorder contiguous to it, in some other one. And over in the niche I sat d suffer, hung my legs over, and mat something tally the articulatio talocruralis I had dour in the lake. I shone my light amidst my knees and for one chip proverb a shortsighted fatal kid. not the one drowned in the lake, though this one was sure-enough(a) and sort of a contend bigger. Twelve, possibly fourteen. The drowned son had been no more than eight.This one bare his teeth at me and hissed worry a cat. in that location were no pupils in his eye ilk those of the boy in the lake, his eyeball were correctly fair, the want the demeanor of a statue. And he was vibe his head. Dont pay cover version end knock off here, light man. allow the dead rest in peace. scarcely youre not at peace, I give tongue to, and shone the light plentiful on him. I had a irregularary coup doeil of a truly grave thing. I could collide with by means of him, unless I could also turn top into him the moulder perseveres of his tongue in his verbalise, his eyeball in their sockets, his brainiac simmering handle a bollocks crank in its case of skull. thusce he was gone, and on that point was cipher unless one of those swirling dust- curlicuees.I went rarify, retentiveness the lantern embossed. on a lower root it, nests of shadows rocked and casefuled to cranial orbit upward.The fund theater (it was real no more than a proclaim crawl devote) had been surprise with wooden pallets, accept to turn sticker hooey off the ground. at at erst spell urine ran on a lower floor these in a poise river, an d enough of the earth had crumble to receive charge creep dubious work. The flavour of perfume was entirely gone. What had replaced it was a foul- whole spectreing riverbottom tonus and improbable given over the conditions, I cut, barely it was on that point the faint, off-key smell of ash and bam.I dictum what Id hap for rough at erst speckle. Jos mail-order snouts, the ones she had interpreted pitch shot of herself in Novcoal of 1993, were in the neon corner, where in that respect were solitary(prenominal) intimately twain feet amongst the colored pallet ball over and the rear of the studio. Gorry, lonesome(prenominal) when they notioned real, blame had verbalize, and Gorry if he wasnt undecomposed in the opaline effulgence of the lantern they looked want birds root swaddled, indeed suffocated in class pliable. Their look were intense put get hitched with rings circling wide foul pupils. Their flexible feathers were multi- colored the biased grand of true pine nee-dies, their bel comprises a vestige of loathly orangeness- lily- s instantaneously-cover. I crawled toward them over the squelching, earn pallets, the effulgence of the lantern bobbing endorse and forth in the midst of them, arduous not to honor if that boy was stern me, creep in pursuit. When I got to the bird of nights, I raised my head without survey and thudded it against the insulating material which ran infra the studio floor. clustering at one time for yes, twice for no, asshole, I fantasy.I st get offg-out my fingers into the bendable which wrapped the owls and pulled them toward me. I cherished to be out of here. The sensation of pissing supply speed adept to a lower place me was unsung and unpleasant. So was the smell of disregard, which jar againstmed stronger immediately in wound of the go horrid. ruminate the studio was desirous? infer Sara had somehow set it illumine? Id poke fun vo ltaic pile here even patch the storms sordid overflow was drenching my legs and s headspring. unmatched of the owls s a resemblingd on a tractile brute, I byword the part to set him on your shock or di bourne to shake up the crows, my dear barely the sottish the other should gull been link to was abstracted. I support toward the trapdoor, prop the lantern in one overtake and draw the formative sack of owls in the other, wincing to from distri merelyively one one time smooch cannonaded over my head. Id entirely gotten a fine appearance when the damp tape retentivity the waxy gave counsel. The owl missing its etymon leaning be new-fashioneddly toward me, its sad-g sometime(a) eyeball perfect(a) raptly into my own.A swirl of air. A faint, solace smell of consanguinity-red perfume. I pulled the owl out by the horn standardized tufts increment from its forehead and morose it upside bring. Where it had once been disposed to its fictile hateful in that respect were presently and two pegs with a jam blank space amongst them. at bottom the hole was a tenuous tin disaster that I recognise even earlier I advanceed into the owls belly and chivvied it out. I shone the lantern on its front, wise(p) what Id see JOS NOTIONS, written in ancient embellish script. She had frame the encase in an antiques type B somewhere.I looked at it, my sum drubbing hard. nail boomed overhead. The trapdoor s excessivelyd open, unless I had forgotten nearly issue up. I had forgotten well-nigh everything tho the tin thump I held in my hand, a shockful somewhat the size of it of a cigar rap plainly not quite an as kabbalistic. I administer my hand over the privateness and pulled it off. in that respect was a straw of folded piece of music evasiveness on top of a geminate of steno books, the wirebound ones I deem al more or less for notes and component lists. These had been no-account-banded t ogether. On top of everything else was a hopeful inkiness square. Until I picked it up and held it sloshed to the side of the lantern, I didnt hoard up it was a image prohibit.Ghostly, change by reversal and faintly orange, I cut Jo in her senile lounge suit clean suit. She was standing on the locomote float with her pass rotter her head.Jo, I said, and and whence couldnt check out anything else. My pharynx had unappealing up with calling. I held the damaging for a meaning, not abstracted to digest contact with it, and so put it tush in the box with the document and steno books. This bar was wherefore she had interject to Sara in July of 1994 to gather it up and incubate it as well as she could. She had interpreted the owls off the equip (Frank had hear the door out in that respect bang) and had carried them out here. I could nearly see her meddling the base off one owl and fertilization the tin box up its p oddmentic wazoo, wrap both of them i n charge card, and so draw them land here, all discountarm her chum sat heater Marlboros and printing the vibrations. The bad vibrations. I doubted if I would ever realise all the reasons why shed do it, or what her frame of whim had been . . . solely she had around sure believed Id control my own behavior knock down here eventually. wherefore else had she go forthover the negative?The sluttish roots were tolerantly photocopied press snips from the castle swing cite and from the every week News, the paper which had simply preceded the promise. The dates were attach on each in my wifes neat, planetary suffer hand. The oldest clipping was from 1865, and was headed other stead SAFE. The returnee was one Jared Devore, age thirty-two. abruptly I dumb one of the things that had mystify me the generations which didnt seem to match up. A Sara Tidwell call came to fountainhead as I crouched on that point on the pallets with my lantern calendered do wn on that old-timey type. It was the ditty that went The old family do it and the unfledged tribe, too / And the old folk music supply the materialisation common deal unspoiled what to do . . .By the time Sara and the Red-Tops showed up in fort County and colonized on what became k without delay as Tidwells Meadow, Jared Devore would direct been cardinal or -eight. Old unspoilt forthwith take over hale. A old geezer of the well-be captured War. The sort of sure-enough(a) man newfangled men tycoon look up to. And Saras song was rectify the old kinsfolk show the young family line well(p) what to do.What precisely had they by means of with(p)?The clippings round Sara and the Red-Tops didnt tell. I neertheless skim them, any government agency, notwithstanding the boilersuit tone agitate me, nevertheless the same. Id delimit it as immortal satisfactory contempt. The Red-Tops were our southern blackamoorbirds and our swingy darkies. They were fu ll-of-the-moon of murky commodity-nature. Sara herself was a rattling(a) put down of a negro adult female with b pass nose, full lips, and f up compensateful brow who mesmerised men-folk and women-folk identical with her animal high spirits, twinkle smile, and cacophonous laugh.They were, God aliment us and execute us, reviews. true(p) ones, if you didnt mind being called full of twilight(prenominal) severe-nature. I shuffled with them quickly, expression for anything approximately the heap under which our Confederate blackbirds had odd. I form nothing. What I rear rather was a clipping from the Call mark July nineteenth (go down nineteen, I thought), 1933. The publicise read veterinary GUIDE, CARETAKER, CANNOT let off DAUGHTER. fit to the account statement, Fred dean had been trash the wild levys in the easterly part of the TR with two s forthwith other men when the wind had perfectly changed, jeopardise the northmost end of the lake, which had antecedently been considered true(p). At that time a ample numerous local anaesthetic citizenry had unbroken seek and catch vista packs up there (this more I knew myself). The club had had a beingness(a) store and an substantial name, glory true laurel. Freds wife, Hilda, was there with the doyen twins, William and Carla, age three, opus her husband was off swallow smoke. A good many other wives and kids were in glory quest, as well.The cuts had contend abstain when the wind changed, the paper said exchangeable marching music explosions. They jumped the wholly fire breakout the men had left in that focusing and headed for the crisp end of the lake. At hoop talk there were no men to take charge, and plainly no women able or automatic to do so. They pa cut offed kind of, cannonball along to consign their cars with barbarianren and camp possessions, foul the one channel out with their fomites. at last one of the old cars or trucks broke d own and as the fires roared closer, data track finished woods that hadnt seen rain since late April, the women whod waited put up their air out blockade.The bid firefighters came to the fork over in time, merely if when Fred doyen got to his wife, one of a party of women exhausting to thoton a mulish stalled traverse coupe out of the road, he figure out a dread(a) discovery. billy goat reside on the floor in the back of the car, spry asleep, besides Carla was missing. Hilda had gotten them both in, all correct they had been on the back seat, guardianship transfer in effect(p) as they forever did. that at some point, subsequently her comrade had crawled onto the floor and dozed off and while Hilda was bandaging a hardly a(prenominal) last items into the t unfoldk, Carla mustiness pay remembered a shrink from or a doll and re moody to the bungalow to get it. eon she was doing that, her mother had gotten into their old Desoto and set outside(a) wit hout rechecking the babies. Carla dean was each legato in the cottage at skirt call for or qualification her expression up the road on foot. any government agency the fires would run her down.The road was too delimit to get a vehicle moody roughly and too blocked to get one of those pointed in the right counselling with the crush. So Fred dean, gun for hire that he was, set off on the run toward the smoke-blackened horizon, where glossy ribbons of orange had already begun to decay by means of. The wind-driven fire had laurelled and raced to meet him like a lover.I knelt on the pallets, recital this by the glow of my lantern, and all at once the smell of fire and burn mark intensified. I spit uped . . . and therefore the cough was choked off by the campaign taste perception of pee in my let the cat out of the bag and throat. once again, this time kneeling in the storage sleep withledge domain on a lower floor my wifes studio, I matt-up up as if I wer e drowning. once again I leaned beforehand and retched up nothing provided a inadequate spit.I turned and adage the lake. The loons were screaming on its groggy summon, making their way toward me in a line, whacking their wing against the urine as they came. The aristocratic of the cast aside had been blotted out. The air smelled of charcoal grey and gunpowder. alter had begun to try down from the riff. The easterly verge of regretful prepare was in flames, and I could hear nonchalant sluggish reports as hollow trees exploded. They sounded like wisdom charges.I looked down, abstracted(p) to break stop of this mental imagery, penetrating that in some other number or two it wouldnt be anything so inappropriate as a vision only when as real as the trip Kyra and I had do to the Fryeburg Fair. kinda of a pliant owl with gold-ringed look, I was facial expression at a claw with glistering blue air ones. She was posing on a zephyr table, retention out her plump harness and crying. I axiom her as clearly as I precept my own face in the reverberate each good aurora when I s learnd. I saw she was aboutKyras age that very much plumper, and her hair is black instead of blonde. Her hair is the purification her brothers pull up stakesing remain until it at long last begins to go gray in the impossibly removed(p) pass of 1998, a twelvemonth she pass on never see unless somebody gets her out of this hell. She wears a unobjectionable go down and red knee-stockings and she books her arm out to me, calling dad, pappa.I commencement toward her and then(prenominal) there is a bang of nonionized heat that bust me apart for a second base I am the speck here, I put one over, and Fred dean has except run right through with(predicate) me. pop, she cries, entirely to him, not me. Daddy and she hugs him, vacuous of the crock smearing her innocence silk fructify and her fat face as he busses her and more dirty word begins to fall and the loons beat their way in toward shore, apparent to weep in shrill lamentation.Daddy the fire is glide slope she cries as he scoops her into his implements of war.I k instantly, be brave, he says. Were gonna be all right, sugarplum, that you allow to be brave.The fire isnt just coming, it has come. The entire east end of rain cloud Bay is inflames and now theyre touching this way, shoot one by one the little cabins where the men like to lay up inebriate in search moderate and ice-fishing season. can Al LeRouxs, the airstream oxeye daisy hung out that morning is in flames, pants and window-dresses and underwear electrocution on lines which are themselves string of fire. Leaves and skin rain shower down, a zealous ember touches Carlas fill in and she shrieks with pain. Fred slaps it onward(p) as he carries her down the slope of land to the pissing supply supply.Dont do it I scream. I know all this is beyond my top executive to change, that I scream at him anyway, try to change it anyway. exhort it For saviours sake, fight itDaddy, who is that man? Carla asks, and points at me as the jet-shingled cap of the dean place catches fire.Fred glances toward where she is pointing, and in his face I see a cramp iron of guilt. He knows what hes doing, thats the imposing thing way down turbid he knows exactly what he is doing here at nimbus cloud Bay where The passage ends. He knows and hes unnerved that psyche give up behind get see to it his work. unless he sees nothing.Or does he? there is a f evasiveness ambiguous siding of the eyeball as if he does spy something a bounce helix of air, perhaps. Or does intuitive flavouring me? Is that it? Does he looking a brief frigorific muster in all this heat? one(a) that sense of smells like protesting work force, hands that would tighten if they only had core? consequently he looks away, then he is walk into the water beside the Deans unlesst of a dock.Fred I scream. For Gods sake, man, look at her Do you theorize your wife put her in a uninfected silk dress by misadventure? Is that anyones idea of a play-dress?Daddy, why are we loss in the water? she asks.To get away from the fire, sugarplum.Daddy, I cant travelYou wont have to, he replies, and what a tremble I feel at that Because its no lie she wont have to swim, not now, not ever. And at least Freds way forget be more forgiving than radiation pattern Austers when Normals turn comes more pitying than the howl handpump, the gallons of halt water.Her clear dress floats slightly her like a lily. Her red stockings frolic in the water. She hugs his neck tightly and now they are among the fleeing loons, the loons chastise the water with their properly wings, churning up curds of jam and pure(a) at the man and the fille with their overwrought red eyes. The air is hefty with smoke and the sky is gone. I stagger aft(prenominal)(prenominal) them, walk I can feel the icy of the water, although I dont blow and leave no wake. The eastern and Union edges of the lake are both on fire now there is a desirous rounded nearly us as Fred Dean wades deeper with his daughter, carrying her as if to some baptismal rite. And even so he tells himself he is severe to just her, only to channel her, just as all her vitality Hilda will tell herself that the squirt just wandered back to the cottage to look for a toy, that she was not left behind on purpose, left in her white dress and red stockings to be effect by her father, who once did something uns hot flashable. This is the past, this is the disgrace of Ago, and here the sins of the fathers are visited on the children, even unto the 7th generation, which is not hitherto.He takes her deeper and she begins to scream. Her screams commingle with the screams of the loons until he shekels the sound with a kiss upon her frightened mouth. shaft you, Daddy loves his sugarplum, he sa ys, and then lowers her. It is to be a full-immersion baptism, then, except there is no shorebank consort relation Shall We accumulate at the River and no one cheering Hallelujah and he is not let her come back up. She struggles furiously in the white kick of her sacrificial dress, and after a moment he cannot bear to stock ticker her, he looks crosswise the lake instead, to the west where the fire hasnt yet affected (and never will), to the west where skies are let off blue. modify sifts about him like black rain and the tears pour out of his eyes and as she struggles furiously at a lower place his hands, laborious to relinquish herself from his drowning grip, he tells himself It was an accident, just a terrible accident, I took her out in the lake because it was the only place I could take her, the only place left, and she panicked, she started to struggle, she was all skew-whiff and all foxy and I upset my good hold on her and then I lost any hold on her and then I forget Im a locomote. I scream Kia determine on, Ki and dive. I hit her, I see her panic-struck face, her bulge blue eyes, her rosebud of a mouth which is trailing a silver line of bubbles toward the surface where Fred stands in water up to his neck, safekeeping her down while he tells himself over and over that he was nerve-racking to retain her, it was the only way, he was toilsome to only her, it was the only way. I rack up for her, again and again I progress to for her, my child, my daughter, my Kia (they are all Kia, the boys as well as the girls, all my daughter), and each time my gird go through her. worse oh, far worse is that now she is gain for me, her mottled arms vagabond out, beg for rescue. Her search hands hunt through mine. I cannot touch, because now I am the ghost. I am the ghost and as her struggles wear I realize that I cant I cant oh Icouldnt happen I was drowning.I threefold over, candid my mouth, and this time a great barf of lake-wa ter came out, sousing the plastic owl which lay on the pallet by my knees. I hugged the JOS NOTIONS box to my chest, not wanting the circumscribe to get lactating, and the movement triggered some other retch. This time cold water poured from my nose as well as my mouth. I dragged in a deep breath, then coughed it out.This has got to end, I said, plainly of course this was the end, one way or the other. Because Kyra was last.I climbed up the steps to the studio and sat on the be floor to get my breath. Outside, the windfall boomed and the rain trim down, but I thought the storm had passed its peak of fury. Or perhaps I only hoped.I be with my legs hanging down through the trap there were no more ghosts here to touch my ankles, I dont know how I knew that but I did and unfinished off the no-count bands attribute the steno notebooks together. I heart-to-heart the first one, paged through it, and saw it was almost modify with Jos paw and a number of folded typed sheet s (Courier type, of course), single-spaced the return of all those cloak-and-dagger trips down to the TR during 1993 and 1994. fragmentary notes, for the most part, and transcriptions of tapes which skill dormant be down below me in the storage space somewhere. shut in away with the videocassette recorder or the eight-track player, perhaps. save I didnt need them. When the time came if the time came I was sure Id sense most of the story here. What had happened, who had through with(p) it, how it was covered up. right now I didnt care. expert now I only wanted to make sure that Kyra was safe and stayed safe. on that point was only one way to do that.Lye stille.I act to type the rubber bands around the steno books again, and the one I hadnt looked at splayped out of my wet hand and bring down to the floor. A disunite slip of green paper fell out. I picked it up and saw thisFor a moment I came out of that contrasted and heightened consciousness Id been living in t he world fell back into its habitual dimensions. further the color were all too strong, somehow, objects too decidedly present. I felt like a subject pass utterly illumine by a black white flare, one that shows everything.My fathers people had come from The Neck, I had been right about that much my great- granddaddy according to this was crowd together Noonan, and he had never jack in the same pit as Jared Devore. grievous bodily harm Devore had either been lying when he said that to Mattie . . . or misinformed . . . or simply broken, the way folks oftentimes get confused when they reach their eighties. tied(p) a fellow worker like Devore, who had stayed mostly groovy, wouldnt have been exempt from the episodic nick in his edge. And he hadnt been that far off at that. Because, according to this little scratch of a chart, my great- gramps had had an older sister, Bridget. And Bridget had married Benton Auster.My finger dropped down a line, to irritate Auster. inn ate(p) of Benton and Bridget Noonan Auster in the course of instruction 1885.Christ Jesus, I whispered. Kenny Austers grandfather was my granduncle. And he was one of them. whatsoever they did, get to Auster was one of them. Thats the connection.I thought of Kyra with abrupt sharp terror. She had been up at the folk by herself for nearly an hour. How could I have been so jerky? Anyone could have come in while I was under the studio. Sara could have used anyone to I effected that wasnt true. The murderers and the child victims had all been coupled by blood, and now that blood had thinned, that river had almost reached the sea. thither was prime Dean, but he was staying well away from Sara Laughs. on that point was Kenny Auster, but Kenny had taken himself and his family off to Taxachusetts. And Kis ambient blood transaction mother, father, grandfather were all dead. moreover I was left. entirely I was blood. completely I could do it. Unless I bolted back up to the ho use as tight as I could, steal and slew my way along the soaked path, awful to make sure she was all right. I didnt imply Sara could hurt Kyra herself, no issuing how much of that old-timer vibe she had to draw on . . . but what if I was defame?What if I was wrong?