Page 281 (1/1)

Nessa pauses, then asks, "What about your father?"

"My father was a siion, it was horses That, and ot bad When theyto him, she was just like anybody else Perhaps a little more devout than most, but that wasn’t so unusual in these parts It wasn’t until later that she started having spells Visions, episodes, waking dreams, whatever you like to call them"

"Was the piano hers?"

Nessa has correctly intuited this "My irl, but she caood Soone on to a real career, but then she met my father, and that was that They were very traditional in that way She still played sos about it"

Logan takes a steadying breath before continuing: "Then one night I woke up and heard her playing I was very young, six,I’d heard before Incredibly beautiful, hypnotic almost I can’t even describe it It swept me up completely After a while, I went downstairs My h she wasn’t alone My father was there, too He was sitting in a chair with his face in his hands Myat the keys or anything else Her face had a kind of erased blankness to it It was as if so her body for its own intentions It’s hard to explain--ht--but I knew instinctively that the person playing the piano wasn’t my mother She’d beco, really ‘It’s not real, it’s not real’ "

"It "

"It was There he was, this proudwith tears It rocked et the hell out of there and pretend the whole thing had never happened, but then ers for eht in the middle of a phrase, as if somebody had thrown a switch She stood up froht past ,’ I askedwith her?’ But he didn’t answer me We followed her outside I didn’t knohat tiht She stopped at the edge of the porch, looking out over the fields For a little while nothing happened--she just stood there, the sa At first I couldn’t tell what she was saying One phrase, over and over ‘Co ‘Coet it"

Nessa is watching his face intently "Who do you think she was talking to?"

Logan shrugs "Who knows? I don’t remember what happened after that I suppose I went to bed A few days later, the sahtly ritual Oh, Mo the day she seeed, too She became harried, obsessive, or else wandered around the house in a kind of daze That’s when the painting started"

" ‘Painting’?" Nessa repeats "You mean, pictures?"

"Come on, I’ll show you"

He escorts her upstairs Three tiny bedroo of the hallway is a hatch with a cord Logan pulls it down and unfolds the rickety wooden stairs that lead to the attic

They ascend into the cra a dozen deep, his an kneels and draws the protective cloth aside

It is like opening a door onto a garden The paintings, of various sizes, depict a landscape of wildflowers, the colors burning with an alround of an, these are beautiful"

They are Bound up in pain, they are, nevertheless, creations of stunning beauty He takes the first one and brings it to Nessa, who holds it in her hands

"It’s…" she begins, then stops "I’ to say haunting" She looks up "And they’re all the same?"

"Different viewpoints, and her style improved over time But the subjects are identical The fields, the flowers, the ocean in the background"