of a blanket, the softness of a pillow under my head, and then, blinking open my eyes, I saw that I was in a room awash in sun. I could not move. My head was propped against a pillow and cocked to the side. I looked out from an alcove bed, the curtains drawn away. There was a bureau across the room, and on the bureau I saw the bust of the progenitor, and next to that a mahogany footstool, and seated there, her back straight, her neck long, I saw Sophia, working two needles between a spool of yarn, her arms winding back and forth. I tried to move, but my joints were locked. I panicked, for at that moment I feared I had suffered some injury and thus become a prisoner in my own body. I watched desperately, hoping for Sophia to look over at me; instead she stood, still humming the old melody, still knitting, and walked out the door.
How long did I lie there in that great terror, wondering if I was now entombed in my own body? I can’t say, but darkness came again, and this time when I awoke the paralysis had lifted some. I could move my toes. I could open my mouth and roll my tongue. I was able to turn my head and now my arms returned to me, so that pushing, with great effort, I was able to sit straight up in the bed. I looked around and, again seeing the sun, the bust, the light, I knew that I was in Maynard’s room. I looked past the footstool and saw his wardrobe, his bureau, the mirror where, only that last morning, I had him stand while dressing him. And then I remembered the water.
I sat there trying to speak, trying to call for someone, but the words were lodged inside me. Sophia walked back into the room, head down, still knitting, and hearing my heaving attempt to speak, looked up, dropped her yarn, ran over and caught me in her long spider arms. Then she pulled back and looked at me.
“Welcome back to us, Hi,” she said.
I remember trying to smile but my face must have twisted into some pitiful mask, because all the joy dropped from her. Sophia brought her hand to her face and covered her mouth. She put one hand on my shoulder and the other on my back and guided me back down into the bed.
“Don’t dare talk,” she said. “You may think yourself out of the Goose, but the Goose ain’t yet out of you.”
I lay back and the world faded in the same order it came to me—the light of the room disappearing, then the washing-soda smell, and finally Sophia, whose hand I could feel on my brow, whose gentle humming I could still hear. And then I fell asleep and into a dream of my plunge in the Goose. The whole scene now played out at a distance. I saw my head bursting out through the water, scanning the terrain, and deciding that I had found my doom. And Maynard was there, struggling against the water, struggling to save himself. And I saw the blue light part the sky and reach down for me, and this time I reached for Maynard, my only brother, tried to save him, but he yanked his arm away, cursed me, and then faded into the darkness of the depths.
When I next awoke, my arms still ached, but I felt my hands, limber and loose. The smell of vinegar lingered in the room, but fainter now. I sat up with little effort and saw the white curtains of the alcove drawn closed around me, and through them I could see the rough silhouette of someone seated on the footstool, in lonely vigil. I remembered that Sophia had last been there and felt my blood quicken at the possibility. I heard the song of morning birds and was suddenly filled with a great joy at the fact of having been alive. But then I pulled back the curtains and saw that the silhouette was my father, seated on the footstool with his elbows on his legs and hands cuffing his face, and when he looked up at me I saw that his small eyes were bloodshot and heavy.
“We have lost him,” he said, shaking his head. “My Little May is gone and the whole of this great house, the whole of Elm County, is grieving.” Then