The Dead Have A Thousand Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

room
as dark as Georgiana Copely’s study. All the blinds were drawn, all
the windows shuddered against sunlight. She sat at a desk lit by a
stained-glass lamp that gave off as much light as an aquarium tank.
As my pupils dilated she slowly seemed to materialize
again.
    “So,” she said, “a story
on Wooly Cornell.” Her tone: Artic indifference.
    “A story on
Wooly.”
    “About?”
    “He’s been having some
troubles.”
    “I’m sorry, I assumed you
were investigating him.”
    “Just trying to tell a
story. I know there’s been a touch of hostility between
you.”
    “Not my fault,” said
Georgiana. “He’s a pig . He overstepped the line between collector and pain in the
ass. He turned greedy and obnoxious and I told him off.”
    “Any interest in
revenge?”
    “Not particularly. He’s
got to live with himself, which in and of itself is punishment
enough.”
    “Apparently not.
Somebody’s fired shots at him twice.”
    “And missed?
Pity.”
    “Cold.”
    “So you’re here because I
told him he was going to die.”
    “Not something you hear
every day.”
    “And you think, what?
I hired someone
to make the prediction come to pass?”
    “I’m not thinking it. I’m asking it.”
    “I wouldn’t waste my
money.”
    I shifted in my seat,
angling for a better position. “Why did you tell him he was going
to die?”
    “I told him what I
saw.”
    “Through one of
your…”
    “You can call them
visions. It’s not offensive.”
    “These visions , are they related to your
photography? They have anything to do with the feel of
light?”
    Georgiana paused, looking
at my voice. “I’m not sure. I know they didn’t start when I lost my
sight. They started after.”
    “How?”
    Long silence.
    “After the death of my
son,” she said. “He was being taken to school. There was a
collision, an auto accident…”
    “How old was
he?”
    “Six.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Do you have
children?”
    “I have a
daughter.”
    “Then maybe you can
understand. Maybe you can begin to grasp the grief, the pain. I
thought I was going to lose my mind. And maybe I did. At the
funeral, I’d placed a photo of him next to the coffin. During the
mass, I thought I could see something. I thought I could see an
aura of light coming from where I knew his photograph
was.”
    “You could feel it?”
    “I could see it. It was just on
the periphery of my visual field, just a halo of smoke. And no
matter how I turned my head the image wouldn’t go away. I thought
it was a form of grief-hysteria, some optical pathology. But after
a few days it went away. And that’s when the visions began. That
day, that’s when they started. Sudden eruptions. Sudden explosions
of images or memories. Bleed-throughs, they’re called.”
    “Memories? The past and
the future?”
    “I have no control over
what I see. In my work I do. In the visions, no.”
    “So what you told Wooly,
you didn’t will it.”
    “In his case, I wish I
had. I’ve never met a more disgusting human being in my life. I’ll
buy another photo if you give me another tip? The balls to say that! He’s
a fat, disgusting bastard. Even a blind person can see the bile stains
on his soul.”
    “Maybe there’re things
about him you don’t know.”
    “Why the hell would
I want to? He’s a
fat, smelly, despicable bastard. Trying to buy me off? Like I’m
a whore ? If I
want to know anything about him I’ll read it in his
obitu—.”
    And then it happened. As
those last words were leaving her mouth the whole right side of her
body began to spasm and jerk. Her cheek, shoulder, arm—everything
was rippling with convulsions. The terror in her eyes was
completely out of control. She looked like someone who’d just been
pushed out of a plane 15,000 feet above the ground.
    I jumped up—I had no idea
what the fuck was going on. She reached out and grabbed the desk to
hold herself up. Her mouth was moving like she was trying to form
words but nothing was coming out. I