Duma Key

If one wants to create, they have to be prepared to dig deep, seek out the ugliest aspects of existence. Edgar keeps drawing so he can know what happened on Duma in 1927.

The novel flashes back to Elizabeth’s childhood.

Emery Paulson, Adie’s husband, is out on the beach, looking for the twins. He spots them in the water, wearing identical sweaters appliquéd with their initials. They call to him to save them, though they don’t look like they are drowning. Emery rushes into the sea, but when he gets close to the girls, they pull him under with strong hands. He notices their fishy smell and silvery eyes, senses someone waiting for him on a ship in the distance, and drowns.

Edgar faints when Noveen shows him the events of 1927. She also gives him a hint on how to stop Perse: Noveen acted as a psychic camera, storing Elizabeth’s memories, even the ones Elizabeth lost when she got Alzheimer’s disease. When the twins went missing, Nan Melda called John to give him the bad news. The way Nan Melda held the phone shows Edgar she was hesitant to use it—the rules of the southern white household must have restricted its use by Black people. Then Nan Melda called Adie, who came with Emery to Duma to look for the twins. When Emery was taken by Perse, Nan Melda took Elizabeth to the pool—the safe place where Perse could not overhear them—and told Elizabeth to drown the porcelain doll in fresh water in a whiskey keg marked Table. The doll would scream, but Elizabeth should not stop.

Jack wonders why drowning would stop Perse, since she comes from water. Wireman realizes that Perse becomes subdued in fresh water, since her element is salt water. They too need to drown Perse in fresh water. It is five pm, and the men have only a few hours to act. Perse’s zombie minions only come out after sunset. Edgar has also seen through Noveen’s memories that the heron is Perse’s spy, so Wireman must shoot it. Edgar takes the others to the ridge on which the mansion is located. From here, the path slopes down to the beach. Ahead of them they can see the ship, which now has its full name visible on the starboard side: Persephone. Edgar, Wireman, and Jack walk to the beach with their supplies.

The novel flashes back to Elizabeth’s childhood.

Nan Melda senses the ghost of Emery will call for Adie once night falls. Nan Melda wears her mother’s silver bracelets today for comfort. She goes to Elizabeth’s room and asks her if the little girl remembers what to do. Elizabeth says yes. They talk obliquely because the porcelain doll, which Nan Melda senses has a third eye hidden under its curls, is nearby. By the time Nan Melda comes to the kitchen, Adie has left for the beach. Nan Melda bursts into John’s study and asks him to bring his harpoon pistol to the beach immediately. They rush to the beach and see Adie on the edge of the water. Emery is pulling her deeper into the Gulf. Nan Melda screams at the shocked John to do something, but he’s frozen, so she gets in the water herself and fights off Emery. Emery’s skin burns where the silver bracelets touch it. As Adie tries to pry Nan Melda off Emery, John Eastlake shoots the spear pistol and accidentally shoots Adie in the throat.

Tessie and Lo-Lo emerge from the water, and Nan Melda tries to repel them too, but they call for John Eastlake to help. Behind the twins, Melda can see a red-cloaked figure on a ship, telling Melda she should not have interfered. Just then, the woman’s head snaps around in panic: Back at the mansion, Elizabeth has drowned the doll. The figure disappears. Melda turns to John and tells him things will be all right now. John Eastlake screams a vile racist epithet at Nan Melda, tells her to keep her hands off his daughters, and shoots her with the spear gun.

Edgar tells the reader that his second-last work of art shows the harpooned Nan Melda clutching her heart. After John killed her, he must have heard Elizabeth’s screams from the house. He realized he still had three living daughters to care for. To avoid prison, he hid Adie and Nan Melda’s bodies. Edgar senses them in the barn, along with Perse. They need to find a container to drown her, but when they get to the barn, someone has smashed all the whiskey kegs. There is a cistern, covered by planks and by another heavy lawn jockey. The men pry open the circular cap to the cistern. It is obvious that the water from the cistern has leaked because of a fissure in the ground. Jack holds up a flashlight. At the bottom, they see the skeletons of Adie and Melda overrun by beetles and toads. Jack nearly faints in disgust from the emanating stench. As Edgar climbs down into the cistern, Wireman throws down the flashlight and asks Edgar to remove its batteries so they can use the flashlight casing to drown Perse. In the cistern, Edgar finds a ceramic Table whiskey keg. There is a rock on the keg, which must have cracked it, causing the fresh water to leak out and awaken Perse. He wonders if the rock falling on the keg was an accident, or if Perse summoned it using her powers.

Edgar tries smashing the keg and Perse screams in his head. His nose bleeds and he is overtaken by a fit of rage as he pounds the keg till it bursts. Inside, in an inch of water, is a wrapped-up porcelain doll with red hair. Meanwhile, Wireman and Jack scream at Edgar to hurry because the sun has set. Perse’s minions are swarming the house. Wireman shoots harpoons at them. Edgar stuffs the doll in his chest pocket, but as he opens the cap of a plastic water bottle, the doll starts chewing on his chest. A bleeding Edgar takes out the doll and puts her in the flashlight. He pours water over her, and calls Jack to the cistern so Jack can find the cap of the flashlight. Jack screws on the cap and Perse is imprisoned—for now. The men climb out of the cistern and see that Wireman has finally killed poor Emery Paulson.

Back at Big Pink, Edgar decides to go for a long walk on the beach, carrying the flashlight, despite Wireman and Jack’s protests. On the beach, he finally weeps for Ilse, remembering her childhood. He wishes she would come back. A sand figure of Ilse rises from under Big Pink and moves towards Edgar. It is the drawing he made of Ilse in the sand, come alive. She asks Edgar for the flashlight. After that, they can both go to the ship and be together. Edgar remembers that Mary drowned Ilse in salt water, which means that this is not Ilse, however tempting it may be to believe his daughter has returned. Edgar asks sand Ilse for a kiss in exchange for the flashlight. As she draws close, Edgar grabs her hand. On his wrist are Nan Melda’s silver bracelets. The figure shrieks and explodes. Knowing Perse has finally been stopped, Edgar sinks to his knees and thinks of Ilse.

A couple of months later, Edgar and Wireman take a boat out to Lake Phalen, near Edgar’s lake house, and drop the flashlight in the water. Fishing is restricted in the lake, so Edgar believes Perse will not be reeled out for a long time. Wireman has moved to Mexico, given the north end of Duma Key to Elizabeth’s squabbling relatives, and kept the cash and securities for himself. Jack plans to move to Port Charlotte, Florida, with his mother after finishing his term at FSU’s Tallahassee campus. Edgar plans to draw one last picture, and then his artistic career will be over. He knows that if he gives his phantom limb free rein again, “all bets were off” (685). Wireman realizes that Edgar’s last picture will be a deathly storm hitting Duma Key and wiping it out. Wireman and Edgar say goodbye. Wireman dies two months later.

The day they drown Perse in Lake Phalen, Edgar gets to the lake house and paints Big Pink, with Reba and the doll Kamen got Edgar on Ilse’s suggestion, propped against the pilings. Over the gulf gather black ominous clouds. The sand has begun to blow onto the beach, obliterating everything.

One should know when an artwork is finished, Edgar thinks, and then put down one’s brush. Now one can return to life.