THE WEALTHIE DEMONS REVENGE

appened

on m

so it came so close around me that i

he movement was without a breath of

ough me. I don't mean that it was merely near to me,I mean that

it went down the neckline .It felt like a liquid ,Finge

then it swept in and out of my mout

soundless, and yet so that I

ides of my arms and on my belly, and the fo

ed out

it ,flattened it,made a mockery

that it could never have known spring. It was the gray-green of bread mold, the color of decayed life. I could see onl

Here I saw a face. Then a place. Not quite real, too faded, too fractured, too far

I could recognize, the was something like a substance or liquid

h

ught then tha

neasy possibility, a doubt, a guess w

tioned myself; I had a life, didn't I? I was a perso

yc

but a shaky fact. The word Joyce did not come with emotio

yc

e me because I needed a name, I nee

gh that unnatural fog. I touched my face and felt tears. I touched my fa

hdrew from me, sliding away from my fle

longer in the dead, gray grass. I wanted to stand and see

ll of it, all my memory, all that I was would

not want to cooperate with each other, and I made a mess of it, rising first onto hands and

ight, still less moonlight, shone down from above. But it was not complete darkness.

ight escaped that building. Nothing about that building called to me

e foot and

deeper breath, a less agitated breath. To move was to live, wasn't it? To move wa

he definition of life and hadn't it been that

een a class

when I asked myself that question, was the only image like a st

I

ept that name as the truth. Never mind, Joyce,

yc

building, that outline of black against black, that shadow within shad

of high windows ending in pointed arches. And a suggestion, too, of a strong,

tee

but instead it made me cold and horrified, for I knew one

ructure. It was not calling me into God's presence;

a strange force, a force perhaps unknown to science that pulled me toward it

know what was inside that church. I ha

fear

e t

per to my heart. Your terr

o

fl

was a brass doorknob, it was strangely s

could make nothing of the curves and ridges, then I t

shed open the door. An answer was close now, I felt s

erhead, and where I thought I would see rafters, there was the sick

There was no altar or cross or a symbol. There was only an box set upon a low stone s

a coffi

at it was not empt

uld see a familiar f

. But why would I be lying in

my heart, twisted the blood from

ernails pressed into my palms, and the pain of it was proof that I

e in tha

anoth

hen a

This was not me. Could not be me. I could not bring the