Dear Sister (I'm Doing Swell)

It has been four days since I’ve opened my front door. Since then, the leaves have turned, the sky has disappeared, and Virginia Woolf has remained resting on the mantle where I had taken to framing her. I could, I suppose, go on for an eternity explaining what has happened since I read To The Lighthouse: God found the universe, Columbus found the Bahamas, many more books of far greater quality found their way from ashes to dust.

Yesterday the Sinclairs rang the doorbell and left a note on the door. I watched them from the window. They used three-inch masking tape, the kind that only sticks when it wants to. Whether or not I’ll ever find what they wrote to me is up to destiny, but I bet they were frightened by my screaming.

I’ve let them roam the house much more lately. When I woke up in that dank pit of a basement, I’d found that the candles had been blown out, and the whole house had gotten much cooler. I haven’t run the shower or washed the dishes. Water is supposed to scare them, after all. It’s in my notes, at the top of the thirty-third page; I’ll bet they’re standing on the table, their hands wrapped around their knees, hoping the waves don’t get any higher. Whenever I imagine them so afraid, peering into the hardwood and seeing the tide come in, I’m tempted to send them back to the basement. But if I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a million times: spirits don’t know they’re trapped, and you can’t just tell them. It’s a learning experience. They have to help themselves.

Tomorrow I’ll try to talk to them again. I have to. Now that they’re free, they must be warming up to me. I’ll ask them who they are, how many. I’ll ask them if they know this town isn’t a lake anymore, and they’re not drowning — they’ve already drowned, so long ago. I’ll make them take a breath. That, I’ve been dreaming of doing, like in a Shyamalan film. Take a deep breath, I’ll tell them. Then they’ll remember what air tastes like. I’ll say, Don’t go swimming in a dry place. It doesn’t work. Something’s always bound to happen.

In turn, they will tell me what they know. I’ve already gotten it set up in the basement. Candles, a cup, and some sand from the dunes. I want to get so close that I see them, and they see me, clear as day. I want them to put their hands around my eyes and make me scream again, like they did when I saw that the candles had been blown away. They will teach me what it feels like to drown.

Tonight I’ll try to sleep in my own bed. You see, Virginia’s eyes have been following me from that torn-off book cover, and in the dark the candlestick looks like a finger beckoning me to wherever she ended up. Ginny and I, we’re the same. We’re both made of the morose. Even so it took me more than a little bit of courage this morning to pick her up from where she had landed on the floor, so delicately, like she had fallen, like she had been pushed.