Duma Key

The novel flashes back to Elizabeth’s childhood.

In 1927, a storm hits Duma. Elizabeth focuses and draws the treasure the storm has unearthed so her father can find it. She also draws a porcelain doll, which her father brings for her, as he had promised. Her father makes several dives to unearth the findings and carries his finds home in Nan Melda’s large market basket.

In the future, Elizabeth would wonder if the doll drove Tessie and Lo-Lo into the sea, and created “the big boy” (324). Was Elizabeth drawing these images, or by this point, was it someone else?

Edgar tells Wireman about the vision of the dead twins and asks him to dig up information on the Eastlake family. Jack Cantori begins transporting Edgar’s paintings to the Scoto for his show. Edgar is supposed to deliver a talk on his artwork as a pre-show promotion, something he dreads. However, the act of painting makes him very happy. He paints more of the Girl and Ship series, and he gets the feeling the ship’s name is Perse.

Edgar has not yet invited his friends and family to his show, so Wireman gets in touch with Pam and designs the invites. Pam calls Edgar and tells him that Riley called to thank her for saving his life, since he was very depressed when she saw him. He is now back on his meds. Pam apologizes for not believing Edgar. Edgar calls Ilse and invites her to the show. She accepts happily.

Edgar’s promotional night talk goes off well, and is attended by Mary Ire, the art critic, and Kamen, Edgar’s psychotherapist, who brings Edgar a present—another doll like Reba. Edgar feels a stab of concern when Kamen tells him the doll was Ilse’s idea: The fact that she suggested the doll means she too has been affected by Duma Key. Edgar promises himself that his daughters will not step foot on the island. For his show, he will book Pam and the girls rooms at the Ritz in Sarasota.

Edgar visits Mary Ire’s house for an interview. Mary has been marketing Edgar as a self-taught genius like the painter Jackson Pollack. After the interview, they talk the Eastlake family. John Eastlake was close friends and business associates with a man named Dave Davis. It was also said Davis stored his bootlegged booze with John, this being the Prohibition Era. However, Davis disappeared at sea in 1926. After the twins drowned, John moved himself and Elizabeth to Miami for some time. He returned to Duma, but left the old Eastlake house for good in 1951. The old house is buried in the vegetation that covers most of the island.

On his way back to Duma with Jack, Edgar feels the urge to sketch as they are crossing the drawbridge to the island. He doodles a red picnic basket on the back of a coupon, and remembers that Elizabeth once told him to look for a red basket in the attic. Back home, he considers the eighth painting in the Girl and Ship series, which is even more terrifying than the others and crammed with details. Edgar wants to add the red picnic basket to it, but is interrupted by a call from Wireman. Elizabeth has experienced one of her lucid patches. She told Wireman that she needs to find Perse, and Perse needs to go into the cookie tin. Then she asked Wireman to drown the china doll with the ruined face in the pond. Edgar realizes Elizabeth’s lucid spell coincided with his urge to sketch in the car, suggesting he and Elizabeth are in telepathic communication.

Edgar goes to Elizabeth’s hacienda. Wireman has discovered a folder in the library with newspaper clippings and pictures of Heron’s Roost, the first Eastlake house. The house is almost identical to the new hacienda, except for the latter’s high walls: The first house, with a short path down to the beach, wanted to invite people in, the new house wants to keep them out. From the pictures and their dates, they deduce that contrary to perception, Adie and her husband Emery did return to Duma after the twins went missing. Nothing is known of the couple now. The treasure that John Eastlake discovered was strange—there was no accompanying shipwreck.

Elizabeth asks if Edgar is planning to sell the ship pictures. Since Edgar has not told her about the paintings, he finds this eerie. Elizabeth says he must sell and send them as far away from each other as possible. Edgar calls the gallery and tells them the Girl and Ship series, except No. 8, can be sold. He has a feeling something let him live him only so he could paint No. 8; therefore, he cannot let it go. Edgar asks Wireman to find a red picnic basket in the attic of the hacienda.

The novel flashes back to Elizabeth’s childhood.

Edgar never painted the picture he is going to describe, neither is he sure did Elizabeth. But she believed it, and the belief made the picture come true. In it, Tessie and Lo-Lo are running on the path towards the beach, scared out of their wits. The “big boy” (417), a monstrous frog creature, chases them. Tessie and Lo-Lo have seen similar terrible entities before, but usually Elizabeth can make them disappear by scribbling something on her pad. But Elizabeth is asleep, tired because of the sleepless nights she has been having since the treasure was discovered. The big boy gains on the terrified twins, and they have no recourse but to jump in the sea, on which they can see a ship. Tessie can’t swim, but Lo-Lo insists she dogpaddle. The riptide tears the girls away from each other. Lo-Lo drowns first, but Tessie is borne to the ship. On it, a putrid female figure in a red robe creeps up and calls to her. Tessie sinks, feeling Lo-Lo’s warm hands pulling her down.

Edgar tells the reader that if you live long enough, you can recall the last good thing that happened. One of the last good things that happened to him was his art show, a huge sell-out success, with visitors blown away by the horror Edgar’s artworks convey. Only Wireman’s portrait, which Edgar has planned as a gift for his friend, and No.8 are not for sale. All of Edgar’s friends, including Kamen and Riley, are in attendance, as are Pam, Melinda, and Ilse. Melinda and her boyfriend Ric, who live in France, have brought Edgar a silk beret. When he puts it on, Melinda hugs him and cries. Edgar feels the happiest he has since his accident.

Meanwhile, as Pam looks at Edgar’s paintings, she realizes that the little girl in most of them is Ilse, even wearing the clothes Ilse did as a child. When she points this out to Edgar, he is disturbed. He does not like that he has subconsciously painted his daughter in the haunted-looking artwork. But he consoles himself that at least he is planning to sell them off, as Elizabeth had suggested. Just then, Elizabeth enters the gallery, accompanied by Wireman. As Elizabeth surveys Edgar’s paintings, she tells him again he must sell them, but has to save the ship paintings for last. When Elizabeth sees Nos.7 and 8, the last paintings of the series, she is overcome by horror. She tells Edgar to look in the water he has painted: It is swarming with faces, including those of Tessie, Lo-Lo, and Adie, the oldest Eastlake sister. Elizabeth intones that “she’s awake” (449) and has a seizure. She is rushed to the hospital. Edgar knows Elizabeth was about to tell him about Perse, but Perse stopped her. He asks Wireman to note down anything Elizabeth says in the ambulance.

Mary Ire hands Edgar a newspaper clipping from the 1920s, about two-year-old child prodigy Elizabeth. The clipping features photos of Elizabeth’s artwork, which is staggering in its genius and features many elements that Edgar has also been painting. Wireman brings news that Elizabeth has died in the hospital. In the ambulance, she said three things: that the table is leaking, that she must be drowned back to sleep, and “you will want to, but you mustn’t” (455). Later that night, Edgar visits Pam in her suite and they have sex.