"One day, in the spring of 1938,... the letter arrived." "It was formal in tone, written in a fine italic hand." ""My dear Ellen Kendall," ""Hearing from me after nine years must indeed seem strange..." ""but I can assure you, sufficient reason prompted this long silence." ""Having just heard of my wife's passing, I at once reasoned..." ""the honorable thing could only be to again assume my paternal duties,..." ""forsaken, lo, these many years."" ""Rest assured that we here at the Landing..." ""have a beautiful home, healthful food..." ""and a cultured atmosphere with which to provide my son."" "Cultured atmosphere, hell." "The only thing Ed Sansom cares about... is boxing and trophies." "He wouldn't know culture if it slugged him in the mouth." "That bastard's got a nerve, leaving his wife and kid." "And then dropping out of the damned sky after nine years!" "Well, maybe we shouldn't send him after all." "I've got enough mouths to feed!" "I say send him." "He needs time." "He just lost his mother." "He's barely gotten settled in here with us." "That mama's boy!" "He gives me the creeps." "Just wandering around here with that long face like he's looking for a tit to suck!" "You couldn't blame Aunt Ellen and Uncle Jack for letting me go." "I was a silent and difficult child, who made grownups feel uncomfortable." "And this summons from my father did not come as a complete surprise... for I'd always counted on somesuch happening all along." "We just don't have room for all that, Joel." "Well, why don't you pick out just a few things... and I'll bring the rest when I come for a visit, all right?" "Roger was my only friend in New Orleans." "We lived in a world of make-believe and tall tales." "My father had been a boxing promoter, traveling all over the country to fights." "I used to tell people he did secret work for the government... and was being held hostage by the enemy." "My mother had to work after my father was captured... but then she got sick and died... so I had to go live with my aunt and uncle... until I got this letter from my father." "How long's it been since you saw your daddy?" "How many years had we waited, mother and me?" "How many days?" "In truth, I had lost all sense of time." "I'd like a beer." "Well, I like your spirit, Baby Love." "Could you please tell me when the next bus leaves for Skully's Landing?" "Ain't no bus to the Skulls." "My father has a house out there." "I'm going to live with him." "Your father?" "What's his name?" "Edward R. Sansom." "Sansom...never heard of him." "The only people I've heard of out at the Skulls is Randolph Skully and his old-maid cousin." "Believe her name's Amy." "When Randolph's Pa died off, he left the place for a few years." "Since he come back, they's stayed in real close." "Don't nobody never see them." "Listen, my father DOES live at the Landing." "See, here's the letter." "Ain't that pretty!" "I saw Jesus Fever out back." "He's the Skullys' boy." "He's been sleeping all day in the wagon." "Oh, now don't go off in a huff." "Excuse me, sir." "I'm looking for Jesus Fever." "You're looking at him." "Could you please take me to the Landing?" "Get up there in the wagon, boy." "Mr. Fever --- Edward Sansom does live at the Landing, doesn't he?" "They say he do." "But I ain't never seen him." "Get out of there, Idabell." "You go on home now!" "~ "Swing low, sweet chariot..." ~ "Coming for to carry me home..."" "Hey, I'm Florabell Thompkins." "Glad to meet you." "Oh, good gracious, look at Jesus Fever." "He's plum asleep." "Come on, Idabell, there's oodles of room." "Huh, no use trying to reason with her,... she's got willful ways." "Ask anybody!" "I slammed the car door on Idabell's hand... and she didn't even cry!" "Now her thumb nail won't grow... and it's all lumpy and black." "~ Hey, Idabell, show him your hand!" "~ Shut up or I'll show it to you in a place you'll like." "You're nothing but a low-down pissant." "I'm going to tell Daddy on you." "Oh, good gracious." "Well, it was nice meeting you." "Come see us sometime." "We live right down the side road a way." "I'm Amy Skully." "You may call me Miss Amy." "Please --- where's my father?" "Your father is not well." "Nor is Cousin Randolph." "Randolph will be most unhappy that he missed your arrival." "but I thought it best that he stay in bed." "I've always considered this the finest room in the house...on account of the view." "Cousin Randolph was born in this bed... and his mother Angelee died here, oh not so many years ago." "We've never used it since." "We haven't any modern plumbing facilities..." "Cousin Randolph is very opposed to contrivances of that sort." "My father didn't say anything about you and...and Randolph in his letter." "Oh." "Randolph is a friend of your father's." "Well, Papa's in my father's house." "I had known and explored other houses quiet with emptiness, but here there were voices in the walls." "Sounds on the edge of silence." "Father?" "Father?" "Hey --- you Joel?" "I'm Missouri Fever." "Everybody calls me Zoo." "Miss Amy said to find you and feed you." "I wanted to see my father." "You can't see your Daddy today." "Now come on, I'll make you some nice hotcakes and grits." "I need to see him." "Ain't you a fright, though --- poking out that little skinny chest, you just might scare me to death." "Now come on." "I ain't going to hurt you." "Now, you might as well make up your mind to eat." "Mr. Randolph will take you to see your Daddy when he gets good and ready to." "I'm going to make you about ten pancakes." "You need fattening up." "She killed that bird with a poker." "I saw her myself." "Oh, don't fret about that." "You see, Mr. Randolph, he's a fine artiste." "He makes beautiful things with bird feathers." "See?" "He made me this snuff box." "It's covered with blue jays and robins and no telling what." "~ Ain't it pretty, though?" "~ It is pretty." "He paints pictures, too." "Whoo-ee --- he paints mighty fine pictures!" "He says he's going to paint me one of these days,... but I told him no because I got this ugly scar." "My husband Kenk, he cut my throat." "Now he's on a chain gang." "My luck holds out, he'll die there." "He cut your throat?" "!" "Papa-daddy, he say Kenk's the meanest son of a bitch ever walk on two feet." "Is Jesus Fever your father?" "He's so old." "No, he my Granddaddy." "Papa-daddy, he say Kenk ruined my life." "Say I ought to leave this place, these folks is crazy." "But I'm staying, as long as Papa-daddy need me." "When somebody needs you, it makes your body important to him --- makes you worth something." "But I made up my mind --- as soon as Papa-daddy die,..." "I'm leaving this swamp-land." "Going to get me a big job in a fine hotel... where it snow." "~ You ever see snow?" "~ Yeah, once." "You did?" "Damn!" "Tell me about the snow!" "What'd it look like?" "What'd it feel like?" "Well, snow is very very cold,... and it's very white." "Praise the Lord." "Whee, I can't wait!" "Is it shiny?" "Shiny white?" "I mean, do it sparkle like real diamonds?" "Well, it's just white...and cottony." "And, yeah, it sparkles." "It snow a lot of places." "I'll go a lot of places to see it." "I'll go to...to Washington." "And maybe I'll go to Boston, Connecticut." "~ I'm taking off my shoes, and I'll run, and run..." "~ Zoo!" "Those pancakes are burning." "Can't you do anything right?" "I'm sorry." "Usually she cooks quite well." "And would you please take Mr. Randolph up his breakfast." "He's still in bed." "Miss Amy?" "About my father --- I'd like to see him now." "Well, as you know, your father is not well." "I do not think it advisable for you to see him just yet." "Zoo --- is he really ill --- my father?" "Now listen here: we friends, that's fine." "Only don't never ask me nothing about Mr. Sansom." "Miss Amy the one that take care of him." "I only fix his vittles." "Now me and Papa-daddy got a church service in about an hour." "You go get cleaned up and you can come sing with us." "Zoo." "Can you take in all the clothes." "I believe it's going to rain." "And go shut all the windows." "¤ I don't want to ride on the Devil's side, I just want to ride with you." "¤ I don't want to ride on the Devil's side, I just want to ride with you." "¤ If you got a thirst and your water done gone, praise the Lord, bring it on and on." "¤ If you got a hunger and your food done gone, praise the Lord, bring it on and on." "¤ Praise the Lord, praise the Lord... ¤ I don't want to ride on the Devil's side, I just want to ride with you. ¤" "Well, now, Sunshine, we thinking to pray." "Well, if you're going to do it, do it!" "We praying silently." "Everyone prays their own." "Now put down that liquor and pray." "~ Amen." "~ Amen." "You got it?" "You see this, Joel?" "This going to get me to the snow." "Lil' Sunshine's charms work every single time." "Oh, this here charm guarantees no terrible happenings is going to happen." "Why don't you make one for the boy?" "He going to need it!" "The spirits don't work unless you ask yourself." "Mr. Sunshine, would you please make me a charm?" "Speaking of spirits..." "I got to take Mr. Randolph his medicine." "Damn old medicine for the Devil Hisself." "He live in the old Cloud Hotel, and it about to fall in on him." "He got to cross over a swamp full on snakes to get there." "Zoo --- are there any other women besides Miss Amy living in the big house?" "No they ain't, thank goodness." "She enough!" "Lovely, isn't it?" "I found it in a little out-of-the-way-shop in Vienna." "You can have it, if you like." "Are you Mr. Skully, sir?" "I am." "Indeed." "But you shall call me Randolph." "I had so much wanted to welcome you myself to the Landing." "But, alas, my health has always let me down." "This cigarette is for asthmatics." "Some find the aroma offensive." "Now, Joel, come closer." "Come!" "Show me your hands." "My, my." "Fascinating!" "Simply fascinating!" "I'd like to see my father." "Yes, of course, and you will...when you're quite settled." "The lifeline drawn is certainly long enough." "There's the heart line." "You may find love when you least expect it." "Yes!" "You have exciting possibilities." "Talents as yet undiscovered." "How do I discover my talents?" "I will paint your portrait." "And while I paint you, we'll talk." "You have a fine complexion." "Touches of vermillion..." "Do you not recognize your father?" "Always a smart dresser, Ed, with his bow tie and striped waistcoats." "The girl is Dolores." "I once loved her very much." "And that is Pepe Álvarez, a prize fighter managed by your father." "An utterly bewildering creature." "Brutal, yet strangely like a child." "With Dolores I felt very much alive." "A variegated butterfly, spreading his wings at last." "We traveled the world, and then in Havana where we alighted in one stifling summer." "~ We came across Pepe." "~ Havana, Cuba?" "That's the last place my mother heard from my Dad." "And of course, your father." "But we're getting ahead of our story." "A flower is blooming inside you." "And soon, when all the tight petals unfold,... when the noon of youth burns whitest,..." "You will turn, much as others have, for the opening of another door." ""Dear Roger, "You would like my father." ""He knows all about airplanes, and he has a boat and a fine Chevrolet."" "This is cold." "Take it back and heat it up, please." "Randolph?" "Zoo told me what her husband did to her." "Oh, yes, Kenk." "He always was a little unbalanced." "I, of course, objected to their marriage." "Did my father know he cut her throat?" "Now let's see --- it happened late one night... ~ in...um..." "November, I think." "~ November 16th, Dear." "He was sitting in the parlor and I said, "It's the wind"." "Of course, I knew it wasn't." "But I put a roller on the piano, and it played "Indian Love Call"." "Such a sad song, don't you think so, Sweet?" "But didn't you try to help her?" "Oh, no." "One must never interfere." "These people are very dangerous." "How does that song go, Randolph?" ""I've been calling you... ~ Is that it, Randolph?" "~ But he cut her throat!" "These people are always cutting each other." "Let's go into the parlor." "Shall we?" "Amy my dear, must you play that?" "It's a dreadful old song." "I detest it." "I can't seem to do anything right, can I?" "I need music." "I need to dance." "You don't care, do you?" "That's not true, my dear." "You never thanked me for those nice blue jay feathers that I got for you." "They're lovely." "Do you remember when this used to be the center of the world... and people from Alabama, and Tennessee, and New Orleans --- they all used to come here?" "Randolph, how do we get those days back again?" "Amy my dear, you know better." "They're the leman, we are outside of time." "All we're doing is serving the prayer meetings." "Why did you leave me here all alone all those years?" "Everything's going to be all right." "Everything's going to be all right." "What we want most is life is only be held and told... that everything's going to be all right." "Everything's a funny thing." "His papa's eyes...the boy that makes you cry after school." "His mama's long hair...and being afraid." "And twisted faces in the bedroom wall." "Randolph..." "I seen a lady in the window this morning." "I had a hunch you'd be able to see her..." "I see her often." "She may be our dear great grandmother... who died an untimely, tragic death." "The ghost's mode of dress is certainly of that period." "~ Ghost?" "~ She's quite harmless." "I've never told anyone, so I hope you'll keep it a secret." "As a courtesy to her." "I think it's time for bed." ""Dear Aunt Ellen, "I still have not seen my father." ""Amy says he's sick, but maybe he doesn't want me here after all." ""Please write."" "Pepe Álvarez, Spain..." "Pepe Álvarez, Denmark..." "Japan, India..." "Florabell, I got it." "Fiddle-dee-dee." "Here she comes." "She would steal us a watermelon." "I don't approve of stealing myself, but Idabell...she'd do anything so's it's dangerous." "Hi, Idabell." "You'll have to excuse her manners, Joel." "Get away from here, Henry --- you stink." "You kick Henry and I'll bust your mouth." "Daddy says he's going to do away with Henry any day now." "I can't wait." "And he says that if you don't mind your ways, he'll send you to live with Aunt Doris." "So there!" "Florabell, Idabell --- I need to talk to you." "They won't let me see my dad." "You're just lying, you whore." "Wait!" "Get away!" "Help me!" "Let me go!" "Go on home and cut out paper dolls, sissy britches." "No, sis, stop this!" "It was as if I saw the Landings and its bizarre inhabitants... through a prism, for nothing was the way it seemed." "Randolph and Amy were actors in a play, with neither plot nor motive... and I was their sole audience." "It's your move, Randolph." "Joel?" "Where are you, Joel?" "Joel!" "Father?" "Are you here?" "It's me --- Joel!" "Joel --- I wanted to explain about..." "What's wrong with him, Randolph?" "An accident." "A tragic accident." "It happened not too long after he deserted you and your mother." "But we never knew." "He was so ashamed." "Leaving you the way he did." "But that letter --- my father couldn't have written it!" "You wrote it!" "Why did you want me to come here?" "~ Why?" "Why?" "!" "~ Stop it." "Stop this arguing." "Oh, for God's sake!" "Can't you see you're upsetting your father?" "When I read that your mother'd died, I felt great sorrow for you." "So alone, so young." "No one to guide you." "No one to introduce you to the wonders of life." "Your Aunt Ellen wouldn't have allowed you to come here if she knew the truth." "You know that." "But why did he leave us?" "All right, that's enough." "Come on, calm yourself." "Come on, let's go lie down, Darling." "Let's go lie down." "Come on." ""Dear Aunt Ellen, "I'm writing to tell you I can't live here..." ""and that you must come and get me right away."" "When I looked at my father, I could feel nothing for him." "I just thought of all the things we would have done together,... all the places he would have taken me." "Boo!" "You want to go fishing with me?" "I thought you didn't like me." "What made you think that?" "Do you believe in ghosts?" "Well, sure --- everybody knows there's ghosts." "Lil' Sunshine sees'em all the time." "C'mon, Joel." "Yeah, my old man's as mean as snot, and Mom thinks Florabell is some precious puss." "Doesn't make her go live with that tacky Aunt Doris." "Well, at least your father didn't just up and leave his family." "Think, my Daddy, he got this job in Washington." "He'd be the President's... main advisor." "He was real rich and had a mansion close to the White House... but all that went right to his head." "He thought he was too good for us." "So he left mother and took up with this high-falutin' society lady." "Then this woman decided to take him for all he was worth." "And so she did." "She stole his money?" "Idabell, whiskey-women have their way of getting men to give them their money." "How?" "What kind of ways?" "Tell me!" "Well, I don't think it'd work for you." "He just keeps staring --- like he sees right through me." "Well, I ain't hardly seen him since he were brought here by Mr. Randolph." "He say: "Missouri, this gentleman is mighty sick." "And you do not have the knowledge to administer to his needs." ""Miss Amy will be taking care of him."" "Hold still, boy." "It's only the postman." "Come on, you got to be all fresh and clean so Mr. Randolph can paint you now." "Soon we'll begin your lessons." "I've other school books." "You mean I won't be going to school?" "In her letter, your aunt told me this term you missed 22 days." "I assume you dislike school as much as I do." "Well...it's OK." "Careful now, don't twitch --- I'm doing your mouth." "Teachers are so inept." ""Dear Roger, "Out here a person as young as us is a grown-up person." ""We drink alcoholic beverages and play cards all night." ""There are no electric lights, radios, or picture shows." ""And if you want to take a bath, you've got to fill a washtub with water from the well." ""Remember to write your friend Joel."" ""After a while, though, she took up her residence at Rome under the protection of Pope Pius VII..." ""who treated her with great kindness and respect." ""In 1818, she addressed a pathetic letter to the powers assembled at the Congress of Aix..."" "Aix." "It's a city." ""petitioning for Napoleon's release on the grounds that he was suffering from a mortal illness."" "Oh, yes, I remember." "Where is it...oh...aha!" "My darling son, Napoleon, I'Empereur..." "When you left, mother worked hard." "She cried." "For years she cried." "Then she got sick." "I tried to cheer her up, telling her sort of adventure stories... the ones you used to tell me... but I couldn't never tell them like you could." "I saw you out running again last night." "Why do you do that?" "I'm practicing." "When I leave this place, I'm going to leave fast." "Papa-daddy cough all night." "You think he's going to die?" "When I get to the snow, I'm going to get myself a big job... and when you ready to leave this crazy place, you can come live with me." "I'm sure my Aunt Ellen's coming to get me." "You think that a fact, huh?" ""The salvation of his leadership by Sheridan's victories and by Sherman's capture of Atlanta..."" "Ah!" "The Civil War!" "I wish I had some sports books or something." "He looks so bored with this Civil War stuff." "Perhaps Lincoln's assassination will perk him up." "Someone tried to assassinate me, once." "If by assassination one means the destruction of another's dreams... and the plundering of another's soul." "I wonder what became of the assassin?" "And I wonder what became of me." "Yes." "I wonder what became of me." "Randolph spoke a language only he seemed able to understand." "He said his life was just a joke which he played on himself." "Today, you said you'd tell me about my father, remember?" "I remember." "I know... ~ we'll have a picnic." "~ A picnic?" "Where?" "In the garden?" "Oh, dear me, no." "Nature's exuberance is so overpowering." "In Havana, we rented a lovely pink villa by the sea." "Dolores liked to sit naked in the sun." "She was like a child." "Nothing held her interest for long." "And thus, on a summer's evening, the air scented with jasmine,..." "Pepe came into my life." "They were drinking and laughing together... in a sidewalk café." "There was an intimacy in their attitude which made me still inside." "As I stood and watched them,... unseen." "Dolores looked into Pepe's panther eyes... and was lost to me." "And I to her." "Was my father there?" "I believe he was." "Later, Dolores asked whether I'd care to meet her new friends." "The prize fighter and his manager." "It seems strange... now we were always together." "Ed telling silly jokes, Pepe and Dolores gazing at each other." "It was quite obvious they were in love." "As I looked from one to the other,..." "I began to realize with some alarm that it was not of her I was jealous...but of him." "We're alone, dear child --- isolated each from the other." "So fierce is the world's ridicule." "We cannot speak, nor show our tenderness." "The brain may take advice... but the heart?" "Love having no geography... knows no bounds." "Weight it down, sink it deep --- no matter!" "It will find the surface." "Any love is natural and beautiful... but lies within a person's nature." "Only a hypocrite would hold a man responsible for what he loves." "I hope you agree with me, dear boy." "Agree with what?" "Never mind." "All difficult music must be heard more than once." "Randolph was right." "We were all outside of time, encircling the present." "Zoo dreaming of snow, my father's eyes traveling the world." "Ready?" "Now it's the Mardi Gras." "Ed was a Franciscan monk, and Pepe went very appropriately as a bandit." "Dolores devised my costume." "Françoise, I'm a lovely countess at the court of Versailles." "I have silver hair and satin slippers... a mask, and I'm wrapped in silk, dispassuante pink." "I advanced before the mirror, I saw her face me." "then, pleases to rapture, for I am very beautiful." "I appear at the top of the barroom steps..." "Pepe doesn't recognize me... and begs me to dance." "It's the most wonderful evening of my life." "Toad into prince, tin into gold... fly, feathered serpents... the hour grows old." "And yet, would you believe this?" "A few months later he was gone... and Dolores with him." "They ransacked my room and took my money." "What little remained." "Did he ever know?" "Know what, my dear?" "That it was you." "It wasn't really me." "There are ghosts, flitting momentarily before tired eyes." "Ed was furious." "Called me dreadful, hurtful names." "He blamed me, but of course it was he who'd turned Pepe against me." "Caused him to run off...without so much as a goodbye." "We had rolled the dice, and we had both lost." "Our futures were rushing away to some distant sunset." "And so, here we remain." "Two empty husks, remembering what?" "Other people's voices, echoing in forgotten rooms." "What happened then?" "Then...then..." "Ed rushed out into the street... like a man in a daze." "I heard a horrible screech of tires." "The driver swerved, but it was too late." "When it was clear that the doctors could do nothing for him,..." "I brought him here." "Amy finally agreed to look after him." "And I suppose we shall all go on together --- until the house sinks,... until the garden grows up and weeds hide us in their depth." "And we have the reigning champion, Pepe Álvarez!" "He comes with a left, a left, and a right!" "But didn't Dad even talk about us?" "~ Momma and me?" "~ Why, yes, he did." "I believe he was sorry for what he'd done." "But...try to understand --- he was like a man possessed." "You know..." "I've written to my friend, Roger, and Aunt Ellen." "I guess they've forgotten me, too." "No one could ever forget you, dear Joel." "They...they're simply busy." "Distracted by things and people they see." "Read these poems." "And your imagination will soar above the mindlessness of common humanity." "Randolph kept an atlas in his room." "And every week he would select places at random from around the world... and write to Pepe Álvarez, just care of the postmaster." "And as the weeks went by, I waited for Aunt Ellen to come and get me." "Hey, Lord." "Hey, Lord..." "Hey, Zoo." "What are you digging?" "Papa-daddy told me the time's drawing nigh --- I better start digging." "Takes girls a long time to dig a grave." "Probably a whole week." "He say if I wait 'til he croaked, he'll stink up the whole place while I get it dug." "I'm..." "I'm sorry he's dying." "Me, too." "Zoo?" "Do you think dead people are as lonely as we are?" "Hey --- what kind of talk is that?" "I love you, Zoo." "And you've got to love me." "I do love you, Baby." "I'll help you dig." ""If flowers fall today, tomorrow dies." ""All that we wish to stay, tempts and then flies." ""What is the world's delight, lightening that mocks the night."" "Each feather has, according to Sizengunnar, a particular position,... and if one were the slightest awry,... it would not look at all real." "But what good is a bird that can't fly?" "I beg your pardon?" "The other one was real." "It could fly." "But Amy killed it." "Flight is in the mind." "There are countless millions of blue jays, but there will never be another creation exactly like this." "I have a game." "I bought it for Amy many years ago." "She always liked games." "Do you like games, Joel?" "~ How many do you have?" "~ Eleven." "Randolph?" "What is it?" "Well...what is it?" "Oh." "That's the game that you and I used to play together all the time." "We used to do so much together." "We will allow you to play with us if you wish." "I'm the one that's always shown you love." "And affection." "I'm the one that's always been good to you." "Now, my dear --- you mustn't carry on so." "Calm yourself." "Before you become ill." "It's just --- I'm so lonely, Randolph." "Everything's going to be all right." "That's what you always say, isn't it?" "But when is it going to be all right, Randolph?" "When is it going to be all right?" "I ain't never kissed a girl before." "Don't think like I'm a girl, you'd better remember that." "Get off of me." "Get off of me." "You look so skinny and white." "Hey!" "Come back here!" ""Dear Roger, "I guess we're doing a lot more kissing and probably other things, too, ha ha..." ""I told my father all about it." "He thought it was swell." ""If you want to know what happened next, then you had better answer my letter."" "You wanted to see me, Mr. Fever?" "The man built Skully's Landing --- he give me this." "He say it been in the Skully family a long time." "Say he want it to always stay here at the Landing." "You keep it --- Mr. Randolph, he didn't want it." "Gosh!" " Thank you, Mr. Fever." "What he see?" "Answer me, cat!" "You see something?" "Ain't got no time for to joke, cat." "What's he laughing at, Zoo?" "He been laughing for two days but he won't tell why." "All he do is cough and laugh." "I reckon the Lord told him something funny." "You'all --- it's getting powerful dark." "For Jesus, there were no mourners --- only Lil' Sunshine, who came to work his magic on the grave." "I can't go." "I just got a feeling I got to stay." "Whatever he did, even if he never loved me." "I'll still stay 'til Dad dies." "Honey baby, your Dad has been dead a long time." "He just waiting to be buried." "Promise me you'll leave one way or the other." "No, I can't promise." "I can't." "And now I knew that I was here, and the whole world was out there" "And in between was all of time." "Missouri Fever will discover that all she has deserted is her proper place in a rather general puzzle." "We gave her a home." "She's just like the rest of them." "Ungrateful and selfish." "Perhaps if she had treated her better." "I treated her better than you did." "I've treated her like she was family." "Heaven forbid!" "Do we have any coffee?" "If you two think I'm going to wait on you hand and foot, and take care of Ed,... and take care of this entire house all by myself, then you're crazy." "And you can just make your own food." "Do me a favor, my dear, dash up to my room and fetch me the sherry from my cupboard, will you?" "I've decided that next year we'll sell my paintings in Europe." "Would you like to see Paris in the spring?" "Well, there's nothing like it." "Ven à Venice, London, the Galleries..." "Idabell!" "~ Where are you going?" "We must talk." "~ I haven't got time." "Time?" "Dear me." "I thought that was where we were overstocked." "Idabell --- what's the matter!" "?" "Daddy shot Henry." "Dead as a doornail." "Next it'll be me he gets rid of." "I ain't going to live with no Aunt Doris." "Come with me, Joel, please!" "Nobody's ever coming to get you." "You're going to be stuck here all your life." "Please come with me!" "Please!" "I can't, Idabell, I just can't." "I want to know something --- what's going on in that house?" "How come I don't never see nobody around?" "Joel, how come I ain't never seen your Daddy?" "I thought I was your friend." "Daddy, well, he's real sick." "He's dying of...yellow fever." "~ I don't want to run away with no liar, no way." "~ Idabell, wait!" "Idabell, I'm telling the truth --- honest!" "Where will we go?" "Idabell said there was a traveling fair in the next town to Noon City." "We could cut through the swamp and hitch a ride with them." "We'd go to California and get jobs picking grapes... and find a preacher to marry us." "Goodbye, Father." "My only father." "Goodbye, Randolph." ""If you got a thirst and the water done gone..." ""Pray to the Lord, pray on and on." ""If you got a hunger and the food done gone,..." ""Pray to the Lord, pray on and on." ""Hey Lord, hey Lord, hey Lord, tell me true..."" "My sword!" "Leave it alone." "Go on out." "~ Get out of the water." "~ It bit me!" "I got to get you back to the Landing, quick!" "Help, somebody, please!" "Joel, he's been..." "Joel's been snakebit!" "Somebody help!" "Joel's been snakebit!" "Help, Joel's been snakebit!" "Oh my God!" "Randolph!" "~ What?" "~ Joel's been snakebit!" ""Little ones to him belong." ""They all weak, but He is strong." ""Yes, Jesus loves me,..." ""For the Bible tells me so."" "How's Joel?" "He going to be all right." "He ain't come to, yet, he could have died, but the fever done broke" "I reckon that don't please you at all." "What do you mean?" "I mean what I said." "How dare you say that to me?" "!" "You know what I was thinking..." "While them white boys were pounding me with their fists and their dicks?" "I was thinking that from then on, I ain't never going to be used again." "I lay there, praying and crying... and some kind of peace come over me, just washed over me like nice sweet cool water." "And you know what that peace told me?" "That peace told me, "Zoo, you ain't got to be a nigger if you don't want to be one." ""You can be a fine Negro woman." "It's up to you."" "For God's sake, can't you pour coffee, please?" "I got to take Mr. Ed his breakfast." "I think maybe you can pour your own coffee." "It's Zoo." "~ It's..." "~ I didn't make it to the snow." "Now, I want you to eat this soup for me." "~ I tried to leave, too." "~ I know." "Don't you talk, now." "I have a gift for you." "I found this in a trunk in the attic." "I believe she would want you to have it." "I knew this was going to happen, and now it's too late to stop her coming." "Randolph, darling, what are we going to do?" "The world I came back to seemed lonelier than ever." "Idabell had been sent away to live with her Aunt Doris, just as she'd always feared." "She'd come to say goodbye, but they wouldn't let her see me." "Thank you." "The Demarest Academy is a fine boarding school." "If we had received your letter, I'm sure that Mr. Sansom would have delayed his business trip." "Mr. Randolph?" "Is that you?" "It is I, and little Joel is with me." "Well. it's a mighty long while since you come here, Mr. Randolph." "Not since you were a child, much like that sweet boy." "You used to come toting your drawing book." "Don't you know that if I came here as a child, then most of me never left?" "I've always been, so to speak, an unpaying guest." "At least I hope so." "I should so dislike thinking that I'd left myself somewhere else." "We've come for Joel's charm." "You have one made for him, haven't you?" "Oh, you bet I got it." "Good seeing you, Mr. Joel." "My Momma used to work here, cleaning this place." "All her life she lifted and toted for the rich folks." "Told me she used to daydream about leaving here." "Wanted me to amount to something, but I always knew..." "I'd never amount to nothing." "So I stayed here after everybody left." "In this here room --- I'm somebody!" "And every night I looks to the heavens and I say... you lookee here, Momma,... this room is MINE!" "Now ain't you proud!" "Tonight we drink to your outstanding success, my friend." "You must drink with me." "These are Joel's treasures." "You know how little boys like to collect things." "He brought some of them with him, but he just couldn't fit them all into his suitcase." "You know, I still can't understand why he hasn't written." "It's just not like Joel." "Oh, please --- please don't be upset." "I'll make sure he writes." "Thank you so very much for coming to visit us." "Everything's going to be all right." "So long, Mr. Randolph." "~ So long, Joel." "~ Goodbye, my friend." "Look for me." "I felt all through me a kind of balance, as though I understood Randolph absolutely." "I saw how helpless he was, how like a child, how terribly alone." "Joel, where are you going?" "We're losing the mule." "Joel..." "Nature..." "What?" "Oh!" "Randolph, I been thinking." "My Dad has two sisters." "They could take care of him." "Then Amy and Zoo could live their own lives." "And me and you'd be able to tour the world together." "We might even be able to catch up with Pepe." "That would be some of your worries gone." "I know that I shall never have an answer." "But it gives me something to believe in...and buys peace." "Listen to me, Randolph." "We need to make plans." "Plans?" "Plans?" "The future to me is strangely unexciting, dear Joel." "Imagination is the key to life." "But what good is imagination if you don't have the guts to live it?" "What's going to happen to us, Randolph?" "So few things are fulfilled." "It's wanting to know the end that makes us believe in Good --- or witchcraft." "At least believe in something." "When we go to Pairs, I'm sure you'll..." "~ Amy!" "~ Are you all right?" "~ Yes." "~ Aunt Ellen!" "~ She came!" "~ Joel, for heaven's sake." "Give a hand, please." "Randolph --- you knew." "Why didn't you tell me she was coming?" "You see, boy, you mustn't become so emotional over such trivial things." "Amy, why didn't you tell me?" "Don't blame me --- none of this was my idea!" "Come on, Randolph, please." "I want to know the truth." "Why do you two have my father here?" "I'm not at all ashamed for what I did." "Believe me, he deserved what he got." "What did you do to my father, Randolph?" "Let go of me!" "Should have chucked you out years ago." "What did you do to my father, Randolph?" "He shot him." "That's what he did." "He shot him." "And then he brought him back here." "And he didn't even call a doctor." "She doesn't know what she's saying!" "He's been laying upstairs in that bed for nine years." "While I tended to him." "While I wasted my life." "He didn't desert us." "He couldn't come home because he couldn't get out of that bed." "I would have told you everything." "If only we...we had more time." "More time to talk." "Then why did you send for me?" "I was trying to atone for what I'd done." "Forgive me." "You made me like you." "I loved you." "I wanted you to be happy here." "You're a liar, Randolph." "I hate you." "You're a liar." "Someone was coming towards me --- a reek of sweat and cheap cologne." "Who was it?" "Ed?" "Shouting at me!" "There was a blinding light gripping me, shaking me." "Pepe could have been a world champion." "When I remembered that Dolores kept a gun hidden under her bed,..." "Havana could be a dangerous place." "I warned him, but still he came towards me." "Shouting: "Pepe hated you!" "Despised you!" ""All those presents: gold watches, silk shirts..." ""And all the time...he was laughing at you."" "Suddenly, I couldn't listen anymore." "With a squeeze of the trigger..." "I would be free." "Free to hope." "Free to dream." "Randolph --- you forgot my birthday!" "Well, it feels like my birthday." "My father didn't do anything to hurt you, did he?" "I mean, Pepe ran out on the both of you." "Forgive me, Joel." "Forgive me." "Maybe a letter did reach him." "He just didn't see any sense in responding." "It'd be like writing to a ghost." "You must forgive me." "Tell me that you do." "I was hoping we'd have more time." "Maybe if you'd gotten help for my father, he wouldn't be in that dark attic." "Maybe he could tell me he loved me." "I couldn't." "I couldn't." "They'd lock me up." "I would die." "But you are locked up already." "Don't you realize?" "We're all locked up." "Don't leave me." "Don't go." "I told Zoo I'd come back and get her." "Everything's going to be all right." "But I never did come back." "My father died that winter, and his body was sent back to New Orleans to lie alongside that of my mother." "But part of me did stay at the Landings." "And wherever I go, whatever I do, that voice never leaves me."