What the Dead Want Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the floor. It looked as though nothing had been thrown out in hundreds of years.
    â€œWell, here it is,” Esther said. “Your new home.”

    N OVEMBER 10, 1855
    F ROM: AXTON AND SONSCOTTONEXPORTERS , I NC.
    44 N ORTH W OODS L ANE
    M AYVILLE, N EW Y ORK USA
    T O: MANCHESTERTEXTILES
    714 R EDHILL S TREET
    M ANCHESTER, E NGLAND
    Sirs,
    It is with great pleasure that we acquire your account. We do assure you the unfortunate political climate of animosity between our respective states will in no way affect our business relationship.
    In answer to your inquiry, we are indeed capable of shipping 160 bales of cotton per month, and far more should you require it. AXTON oversees all ground shipments to the port in Manhattan as well as loading and unloading at Manchester and Lancashire. We guarantee delivery of the finest raw materials. And can obtain them at the best possible prices for you.
    Yours,
    G. C. Axton

SIX
    T HE PLACE SMELLED LIKE A USED BOOKSTORE OR VINTAGE clothes shop—not the good, fancy kind but the weird kind where there was so much stuff not even the shop owners knew what was there. Once they got past the detritus of the front room, the rest of the house seemed filled with dried flowers, musty rugs, dusty curtains, and moldering knickknacky treasures.
    â€œThat’s the parlor,” Esther said, pointing at a dark room as she creaked down the hall. “That’s where we’ll have a drink later. Right in there. You play piano?”
    â€œA little, actually,” Gretchen said.
    â€œThought so.”
    â€œYou drink?”
    â€œUh . . . not really?”
    â€œPity,” said Esther. It was clear that the woman was looking forward to this drink.
    How long, Gretchen wondered, had her aunt lived in this place without company? She returned her aunt’s smile, and then looked over her shoulder toward the half-closed door of the parlor, where she managed to glimpse a couple of stiff-backed chairs pushed up against a dark-purple wall. There was what looked like a worn Persian rug on the floor, and an antique piano in the corner. Heavy curtains on the window parted, letting in a narrow slip of sunlight.
    She followed Esther to the longest, darkest stairwell she had ever seen.
    â€œSo how do you like the Leica X2?” her aunt asked as they walked. “It’s pretty fancy, huh?”
    â€œI love it,” Gretchen said, surprised her aunt knew anything about digital cameras. It was fancy. Her father had gotten it for her for a birthday present, before they moved out of the East Village. Some of the first pictures she had taken with it were of the East Village, Tompkins Square Park, an old white-haired guy who played “Over the Rainbow” on the saxophone, a lady with tattoos of the solar system on her face and arms, and little kids playing soccerbeneath the massive trees that grew in the center of the park.
    Gretchen loved her camera, but she was not the kind of photographer who thought that equipment made the difference between a good photo or a bad one. A camera was an eye, her mother had taught her. And an image was made out of nothing but darkness and light. What made the difference was the photographer’s vision.
    â€œI never used a camera like that,” Esther said. Gretchen pictured the woman doing portraits of children in a department store, or taking landscape shots around Mayville. She tried to imagine what kind of weird old camera Esther had, given the lost-in-time nature of the house.
    â€œSo you’re moving?” Gretchen asked politely. “Where are you moving to?”
    â€œMoving on!” Esther said cheerily. “Moving on! Time for the next generation to make decisions about this place. I’ve been here forty years. But we gotta get it cleaned up first.”
    Gretchen made a small involuntary noise in her throat.
    â€œI know, I know,” Esther said. “It’s gonna be a bitch. The place is a little ramshackle.