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And Girl takes a breath. In. Out. In. Lungs catch and stutter and she moves from under the portico on steady legs. The light is calm and flat. Yellow blossoms spring from brown earth and delicate motes fall in an elaborate dance of everything. “Where is my brother . . .?” she whispers. Tones tilt-shift and light throws itself sideways. Hues come undone in bafflement, disjointed to the bone. Girl laughs. It was the Funeral House that did it, messed up the rendering leaving things thin. It kicked her in some way, watching the roof tiles slide. Made her smile. Girl clasped an ancient Oreo between her jaws and held on.

The house reared away from her laughter, a disembodied caretaker given notice of theft. The ancients of Funeral House, in their burrowed and dreaming nooks, slumbered on. Girl dropped adamantine thoughts at my feet and I came awake. The Old Ones fell from my hands into the crimson stellar sands.

Pearl thoughts, stitch-dropped and loose, touched my skin as my hands reached for her flesh. The sun was falling upward and I cried out. In the rising shadows her conchshelled ear unfolded from a gellid and luminous cheek. Starry eyes – asleep – awake – asleep - peeked from beneath brazen lashes. Girl took a last, long look. The sun dreamed, but of nothing from this earth.