August 20—The Third-Quarter Moon

GRACE’S VOICE, in the dark, it tells Misty, “The work you’re doing will buy your family freedom.” It says, “No summer people will come back here for decades.”
Unless Peter wakes up someday, Grace and Misty are the only Wilmots left.
Unless you wake up, there won’t be any more Wilmots.
You can hear the slow, measured sound of Grace cutting something with scissors.

Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. There’s no point rebuilding the family fortune. Let the house go to the Catholics. Let the summer people swarm over the island. With Tabbi dead, the Wilmots have no stake in the future. No investment.
Grace says, “Your work is a gift to the future, and anyone who tries to stop you will be cursed by history.”
While Misty paints, Grace’s hands circle her waist with something, then her arms, her neck. It’s something that rubs her skin, light and soft.
“Misty dear, you have a seventeen-inch waist,” Grace says.
It’s a tape measure.
Something smooth slips between her lips, and Grace’s voice says, “It’s time you took another pill.” A drinking straw pokes into her mouth, and Misty sips enough water to swallow the capsule.
In 1819, Theodore Gericault painted his masterpiece, The Raft of the Medusa . It showed the ten castaways that survived out of one hundred and forty-seven people left adrift on a raft for two weeks after their ship sank. At the time, Gericault had just abandoned his pregnant mistress. To punish himself, he shaved his head. He saw no friends for almost two years, never going out in public. He was twenty-seven and lived in isolation, painting. Surrounded by the dying people and cadavers he studied for his masterpiece. After several suicide attempts, he died at thirty-two.
Grace says, “We all die.” She says, “The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
She runs the tape measure down the length of Misty’s legs.
Something cold and smooth slides against Misty’s cheek, and Grace’s voice tells her, “Feel.” Grace says, “It’s satin. I’m sewing your gown for the opening.”
Instead of “gown,” Misty hears shroud .
Just from the feel, Misty knows it’s white satin. Grace is cutting down Misty’s wedding dress. Remaking it. Making it last forever. Born again. Reborn. Misty’s Wind Song perfume still on it, Misty recognizes herself.
Grace says, “We’ve invited everyone. All the summer people. Your opening will be the biggest social event in a hundred years.”
The same as her wedding. Our wedding.
Instead of “opening,” Misty hears offering .
Grace says, “You’re almost done. Only eighteen more paintings to complete.”
To make an even one hundred.
Instead of “done,” Misty hears dead .