Halloween [antikvár]

He had never laughed over her bones. The dead had their rights. In the woods he had his manners down.Raphael stuck a new clove into his bad tooth. His mouth sweetened. The pain faded. He stretched out his legs on the sand and pine needles. The trees were silent over him. He could hear cars going into the city. Evening traffic. He touched the top of her skull. Dry bone, smooth bone. She still had some yellow braids. A lot was rotted, but she still had a little hair. He had killed her just after he left the asylum. Two months ago. He had put some plastic over the top part of her and planted some marigolds to keep the bugs away.When he found out that Patra Lee did not love him, he slit open her esophagus. He stuffed her into the stump hole. Now he came two or three days a week. Here was his dead love. Love rotting in braids. He had killed Patra Lee by the book. A neat job. Simple, clean work. Raphael pulled the small notebook from his jeans: pasted-in pictures of dissection from Gray's Anatomy. He traced a finger along the dotted line of the lower bowel. Colostomy.Raphael looked out toward the city. He could see11Tco BE BORN into a family of actors reduced your chances out there. They liked to keep you on their stage. They always wanted you back. But his mother was at last prepared to leave them tonight. Now Blake could begin the quest.He rubbed his thumb across the wooden match box. A hunt scene engraved in satin wood. Hounds in pursuit of the laughing fox. It was a family present and now full of downers and antibiotics. Treasure. He took one Valium, two ampicillin, and swallowed some bourbon. Whiskey was bitter. He settled back into the cool chair and the hotel ferns. He watched her move gracefully beyond the marsh and white sand.At a distance they always seemed more lovely. Close to them you could see where the salt water took away from their beauty. But from here the ship was cutting across the sea on a fine course, from her waterline up proud in flawless white, her masts brown and the sails upon them working and full and blue. She came about and turned into the evening mist of the sea.In the marsh below the beach, the water moved smooth-13