You Can Almost Hear Them Breathe

B. L. Marchant

You Can Almost Hear Them Breathe

By George A. Ricker

Up in Lisa’s room, the big light above the door was flashing on and off rapidly. Dad had installed it so that mom would not have to trudge up the stairs every time supper was ready or when, for some other reason, she needed her daughter to come down from her room.

Lisa knew the light was flashing. However, she was just finishing Rolff and, so, ignored it. Rolff was her best yet. She had painted many animals, but the huge African lion, resting in the shade of the baobab tree, was special. In the distance on the veldt, one could see herds of zebra and wildebeest, but the lion was the central focus of the painting. He made it work.

They had discovered her talent quite by accident, after she had been enrolled in the "special" school.

"It’s a special place for special children," her mother had told her, framing the letters and words oh so carefully so the little girl would understand.

Bent and Julie Corbin had found it difficult to accept their daughter’s affliction. How could a child so beautiful, a child with such a winning smile, be anything less than perfect? But when she was two-and-a-half and seemed oblivious to all the noises of the world around her, when the only sounds she made were those of an animal in the wild and bore no resemblance whatever to human speech patterns, they finally had admitted to themselves what their pediatrician had been trying to tell them all along. Lisa was flawed merchandise. Since the store gave no refunds and no exchanges, they were going to have to learn to cope.

And so they did. Oh, they both loved the little girl with all their hearts. At least, that’s what they told themselves. Somehow, though, things were never quite the same after they learned their beautiful daughter was stone deaf. They dealt with it as best they could. It was never quite enough.

Bent’s real name was Bentley G. Corbin, but he had been dubbed "Bent" by his chums in junior high school and so he had remained. He was the marketing manager of a chain of hardware stores that peppered the southeast and was headquartered just outside of Atlanta. Bent had been an indifferent student but an outstanding athlete in high school and college. An all-state quarterback in high school and a runner-up All American at West Texas University, he had been almost, but not quite, good enough to make it to the pros.

He was a "man’s man" was Bent. Fond of sports, a hard working aggressive businessman, he was always good for a few laughs or a few beers and had a gruff, no-nonsense manner that endeared him to his buddies. As "The" big man on campus, one of his favorites bits of wisdom had been, "women are only good for two things, boys, and you can always eat out."

Of course, that was before he met Julie.

She was generally conceded to be the best looking thing on campus —— which placed her only slightly ahead of Bent himself. Their romance was brief and torrid. And when, in the fall of his senior year, Julie informed Bent she was pregnant with his child, he hesitated only slightly before asking her to marry him.

Bent had never understood how Lisa could have happened. It was an insult to his masculinity, an affront to the old Corbin genes to have a defective child. Sometimes he caught himself wondering if, maybe, Julie had picked up the package elsewhere and just decided to drop it on his doorstep. He never hinted at such thoughts to her, but his suspicions were only made more acute when their second child, Andrew, came down the chute as perfect as a son could be.

For all of that, though, Bent was considered a good man and a good provider by those who knew him. If his feelings toward his daughter were colored by his resentment over the constant reminder that somehow he had been lacking, he more than made up for that by showering affection on his son. Andrew was the apple of his eye. It was universally acknowledged that Bent Corbin was a "good guy." Yessir, just ask anybody.

Anybody, that is, except possibly his wife. Julie was convinced that her daughter’s infirmity was God’s way of punishing her and Bent for the premarital sex they had enjoyed.

Actually, he had done most of the enjoying. Had it not been for his good looks, his persistence and her fear of losing him, Julie would have reached her wedding night a virgin. She had never quite forgiven Bent for being the chief cause of her failure in that regard.

Since he was the only lover she had ever known, Julie had long since concluded that all men were as inept and insensitive as her husband. Sex, for her, was a messy, boring business to which she felt obligated to submit on occasion because "boys will be boys." She was quite convinced it was highly overrated as a recreational activity. For her own part, she would have much preferred to curl up with a good book or play a game of checkers.

Julie had retained much of her beauty, but it was stretched and drawn. She looked like a fading photograph of the young woman Bent had married. This was partly due to worry over Lisa and partly because she no longer could identify with the fresh-faced young woman who looked back at her from the pages of her college yearbook. However, it was mostly because she worked at it. Several of the ladies at church had complimented her fragile beauty, saying she looked almost saintly. It was a comment that never failed to infuriate Bent and, consequently, pleased Julie immensely.

But if the sexual revolution had passed her by, motherhood had not. Julie was a determined mother, grimly so where Lisa was concerned. While she managed to expiate some of the guilt she felt over Lisa’s affliction, she was convinced no amount of penance would suffice. Nothing could ever make that right.

The object of Bent’s anger and Julie’s guilt was oblivious to them most of the time. There were occasions when Lisa would look at her father and his son —— somehow, she could never think of Andrew as her brother —— with a wistfulness that would have brought tears to the eyes of anyone who was paying attention. There were times when she screamed into her pillow at night. There were moments when she hated her father’s son with a passion that frightened her. Usually, however, she was content to lose herself in her painting. That was real. The rest she made up as she went along.

Lisa’s talent had come as quite a surprise to her parents. It had been discovered when she took an art class at the "special" school. The teacher had realized immediately that she had a prodigy on her hands —— a fact which caused her more than a little concern because she never had dealt with one before. But Lisa was a model student in her art classes and required very little direction from her teachers. She seemed to know instinctively about form and color. She painted well and often and, had she been given her way, probably would have done nothing else.

Her mother encouraged the painting. Her father resented it. It seemed to him that their son, Andrew, was somehow made smaller by his sister’s talent. She was essentially damaged goods anyway. No quirk of nature was going to make him feel any differently about her. So why pay attention to a fluke when there was Andrew who was, by any standard, the perfect child.

Nonetheless, Lisa went on with her painting and soon won a few awards at various art shows around the county. The more absorbed she became in her art, the more withdrawn she was from those around her. Her teachers noticed this but were so intrigued by her remarkable talent that they ignored it. Her parents thought the distance she kept between herself and her classmates was normal for a child with her "problem."

So Lisa’s adolescence was being spent in art classes and the attic bedroom that her mother had converted into a studio for her. Her paintings were really becoming quite good. She was best with natural subjects painted in a realistic style. With animals she was phenomenal.

As her current —— and favorite —— teacher, Mr. Johanssen liked to say, "Lisa paints animals so well, you can almost hear them breathe."

Rolff would be her masterpiece. Lisa was convinced of it. She dabbed just a bit of black paint on the mane of the lion and worked it in carefully.

"Oh Rolff, you’re beautiful," she thought. "You are so beautiful."

The light above the door was flashing furiously by now.

"Goddammit Julie, can’t you hurry her up. The damned awards ceremony starts in forty minutes, and I’ve got to get there ahead of time with the trophies"

Bent Corbin’s anger was a visible force that darkened his face and deepened his voice. His wife and daughter went to some lengths to avoid that anger. Andrew thought it was neat. Of course, Andrew never had been the object of his father’s wrath.

Julie stabbed one more time at the light switch, then shrugged and started up the stairs to fetch her daughter. As she reached the second-floor landing, she heard the door to Lisa’s room close and saw her coming down the steps, rubbing absently at a black smear of paint on the hem of her dress. Julie motioned for Lisa to hurry up and went back down the stairs to begin dishing out the goulash she had made for supper.

She did not see the strange expression on her daughter’s face. It was probably just as well.

The big trophy sat on a small table at the foot of the stairs. Ben knew Andrew would receive it that night. He had been teasing his son since bringing the trophy home that afternoon. The men on the board of the local Optimist Athletic League all had been receptive to the idea of giving Andrew the award as "Most Outstanding Young Athlete of 1969." What the hell, the kid was good. Of course, it didn’t hurt the boy’’s cause at all when Bent announced that, this year, his company would pick up the tab for all the trophies.

So the father teased the son over who would win it. The son suspected and squirmed with anticipation at the prospect of receiving the prize in front of all those people. Wouldn’t Billy Randolph and Jack Heddon be pissed? They both thought they could beat him out, but Andrew just knew he would carry it home. Maybe, he would let them touch it. Maybe.

Her mother was serving the goulash when Lisa came down the stairs. The girl was still picking at the black smear on her dress and still had the dreamy expression on her face. She really wasn’t looking where she was going. Julie had warned Bent, repeatedly, that the carpet at the bottom of the stairs was loose and that, someday, someone was going to trip on it. It was only bad luck that Lisa was the someone who did. That was when everything really began.

The girl pitched forward, saw something golden and silver in front of her and grabbed for it. But she was too far off balance and only succeeded in sending the trophy crashing down onto the antique brick dining room floor. The trophy was big and heavy. It was now a big, heavy ruin.

Lisa was slightly dazed. She had cracked her head on the edge of the small table that had held the trophy. Suddenly, something yanked her left arm and she was in the air and on her feet.

Bent was in a rage. The shattered trophy and the shattered look on his son’s face as the boy choked back his tears and muttered childish curses about his sister, "the dummy," drove the man into a frenzy.

Intellectually, he knew the trophy could be repaired. Intellectually, he knew it did absolutely no good to scream at his daughter. But he was a man who always had been ruled by his emotions. That night was no exception.

The girl did not recognize her father at first. The red, bloated face, the spittle that flew from the contorting mouth, all suggested images she could not connect with anyone she knew. She tried to read the lips of the man before her, but he was yanking so hard and screaming so violently that it was impossible.

A badly frightened Julie Corbin finally managed to interpose herself between her husband and their child. Gently, she pushed the girl behind her.

"Really Bent," she said it softly, "this is no good. You know that."

"I’ll talk to you and her, later," he snarled, pointing a quavering finger at Lisa. "Right now, we’ve got to go. Send her to bed. I don’t want to see her down here when I get back. We’ll just see about Miss Prima Donna, there. We’’ll just see about her and her goddam paint smears."

Bent and Julie glared at each other, as he retrieved the ruined trophy. Neither of them noticed Andrew sticking his tongue out at his sister and mouthing the words "you dummy." But Lisa noticed. Oh yes, and she would remember.

After father and son left for the awards ceremony, Julie made her daughter sit down and eat some goulash. Lisa picked at the food for a while, then signaled her mother that she was finished and wanted to return to her room. Julie nodded.

Sitting before the painting of Rolff once again, Lisa tried to remember what had happened before she had gone down to supper. She had been putting the finishing touches on the lion’s black mane when suddenly the room had grown hushed and warm. She remembered thinking "something’s wrong here." Then she had felt a presence pushing against her, felt a soft, rumbling vibration. But the sensations were so vague and dreamlike that she could not be sure just what had happened.

"Just a dream," she thought.

It must have been a dream, but how she wished it weren’t. How she wished her strong, beautiful lion were real and could come and help her. He would not try to make her vocalize what she imagined must be awful noises. She could see the distaste in people’s faces when she tried to talk to them. Well, what did they expect? And hadn’t they insisted she try? He wouldn’t let anyone make fun of her and call her "dummy" the way Andrew was always doing. No, if Rolff were there to protect her, no one would ever make fun of her again.

She stared at the painting until her tears made it impossible to see, then slumped over on to her bed. They were all so hateful. Even her father, her very own father, acted as though just seeing her made him angry. He acted like everything was always her fault. And Andrew never did anything wrong. No, Andrew was perfect. The little shit. He really made her sick.

Lisa went to sleep thinking of her brother and how she hated him. She went to sleep with the vision of his snickering face mouthing the words again. He always did that. But some day he would be sorry. Some day.

The slumbering girl was only marginally aware of something standing beside the bed —— something huge and warm that rumbled beside her and then seemed to melt through the walls of the house.

Bent returned home at nine. The anger had subsided to the point he had begun feeling ashamed of himself, which was unfortunate because it only made him more defensive.

Julie was waiting.

"Andy stopped off at the Heddons. I told him to be home no later than 10. No school tomorrow. Right?"

He could tell she wasn’t all that interested. She wanted to talk. He dreaded it.

"Your daughter couldn’t eat supper, Bent. She was too upset." There was a strong emphasis on the "your" in that statement. "She’s asleep now. I just went upstairs a while ago. She went to bed with her clothes on, Bent. I covered her with a blanket and left her alone. She was crying a little in her sleep, Bent." Julie’’s voice caught, then she went on, "Of course, I guess that’s normal behavior for a child who has just seen her father act like a wild animal." She paused, unable to continue.

Bent tried to summon his anger, but it was all used up. He felt defeated. It was not a feeling he enjoyed.

"Look, babe, I know I shouldn’t have flown off the handle like that, and I’m sorry. But it really frosts me the way she sails along without a care in the world except smearing paint on canvas. And there’s little Andy, busting his hump trying to amount to something, and she breaks his trophy. That really upset him, Julie. He says he thinks she did it on purpose. He says he thinks she hates him."

Julie tried to break in, but he kept going.

"I mean, it’’s not as if I hit her or anything. Okay, so I yanked on her arm and yelled at her a little. What the hell was I supposed to do? Pat her on the head and thank her. I really hate to see the little guy disappointed like that. And you know what? I think he may be right. I think maybe she did do it on purpose."

This last was said with a little touch of defiance. Julie was outraged.

"Bentley G. Corbin. Will you listen to yourself? Do you hear what you are saying? Our daughter. OUR daughter is a deaf-mute, and you talk about her sailing through life without a care in the world. I can’t believe you mean that. Can you imagine what it must be like for her?

"And as for Andrew. Much as I love him —— and you know I do, Bent, you know it —— I’m afraid our son is becoming a spoiled brat, and it’s largely your fault. You give him anything he wants. You spend all your spare time with him. As far as I’m concerned, he could do with a few disappointments. He might learn something from them. What’s he going to do, Bent, when he gets a little older, and Daddy’s not there to make his decisions for him? What’’s he going to do then, Bent? Tell me. What?"

They went at each other like that for more than an hour. By the time they realized that Andrew was long overdue, it was already too late.

The Heddons lived only a few blocks away from the Corbins. Between the two houses was a park the local kids called "the tangle" because it was overgrown with weeds and tall grass. There were actually a few real trees in one section of the park, but most of it looked as disreputable and run-down as the vagrants who sometimes congregated there until the local police rousted them. Most of the neighborhood, including the Corbins and the Heddons, had been pressuring city hall to clean it up, and the project was due to get under way within a few weeks.

In the meantime, Andy and the other neighborhood kids were under strict instructions to stay out of the park after dark. There had been several undesirable characters caught sleeping there. Who knew what sort of degenerates might be lurking in the shadows? Of course, Andrew always ignored the injunction. It was much shorter to cut through the park than to go all the way around it. And one thing the boy had learned in his young life was the value of shortcuts.

It was 9:50 when he started home. The night was dark. There was a slight breeze and a smell in the air that promised rain later on. Andy whistled as he walked along. He wasn’t scared or anything like that. No sir, he just liked to whistle.

When he was about one-third of the way in, he heard something moving in the bushes off to his right. It startled him at first, but then he decided it was one of the neighborhood dogs. Hell, there couldn’t be anything wild out here. Well, maybe a rabbit or something like that, but nothing that could hurt him. With those reassurances rushing through his mind, he moved away from the bushes nonetheless.

That was when he saw it. Something big. Something black that came out of the shadows fast, moving toward him like a ghost. Something that had hot breath and growled as it launched itself though the air at him. The boy was too frightened to do anything but soil himself and try to scream. He managed one.

At 10:30 Bent Corbin called Jack Heddon and learned that Andrew had left for home 40 minutes earlier. The two men agreed to start from their respective houses and go straight across the park. Heddon suggested they both should carry flashlights so they wouldn’t miss each other in the dark. Bent agreed and said he would be leaving just as soon as he called the police. He was very worried.

Jack Heddon found what was left of Andrew at 10:40. The body was badly mangled, but there was enough left that Heddon could identify him by the scraps of clothing still intact. He only held the flashlight on the boy long enough to be sure, then turned and used his body to shield the sight from his son, Jack Jr., who had insisted on coming with his father to help search for his buddy.

Heddon told the child to run home and tell mother to call the police and give them a fix on the location. He waited there to intercept Corbin before the man could see what was left of his son. He knew the two had been very close.

When Bent arrived shortly after, the police had just pulled up. They had no answers that could make things any easier for the Corbin family or explain what had happened.

"We just don’t know, Mr. Corbin. Hell, I ain’’t ever seen anything like this before. It must have been some kind of big animal, but right now, I don’’t have a clue."

Detective Anthony Kelley tried to be gentle with Corbin. He had a son of his own about Andy’’s age, and the two knew each other from the Optimist Club. But he knew this was going to be a tough one.

Andy’s body had been ripped and mauled by something. Something big that had left no tracks. It looked like the work of some kind of cat, but it had been one hell of a long time since a cat big enough to do that kind of damage had been seen in Georgia. The detective made a mental note to check with the zoos. Maybe one of theirs had gone missing. Meanwhile, he had to call the station house and get the word out. Whatever the hell it was. It was still out there.

Bent was hysterical by the time they brought him home. Julie would have been, but after seeing the shape her husband was in, she knew one of them had to stay in control. She called the doctor, and he phoned in a prescription for a strong sedative to an all-night drugstore that delivered. Within the hour, Bent was in a drugged slumber. Then, Julie let herself cry.

Lisa was unaware of any of it. Her sleep had been troubled at first, but at some point during the night, she had fallen into a deep, restful slumber. She had been totally unaware of the huge shape that had stood by the bed licking her face lightly and patting at her with its right paw.

When she awoke the next morning, Lisa sensed a strange stillness in the house. Then she noticed the bloodstains on the bedcovers. Still in a fog, she tried to think of possible explanations and ruled out each one as it came to mind. Suddenly, she looked at her newest painting and felt a chill shoot through her body.

Rolff seemed to have shifted position ever so slightly. In her mind, the young girl tried to recreate the act of painting it, brushstroke by brushstroke. As she did this, the differences became apparent. The lion’’s head definitely had been more in profile, and she couldn’t remember painting those dark stains on his muzzle.

"No," she thought, "it can’t be."

Lisa tried again. Maybe she was not remembering correctly. Then she recalled what had happened yesterday afternoon, as she was finishing the painting. What she had thought was a dream.

"Oh Rolff," she thought, "can it be possible? Are you real?"

It was then her father came into the room.

Bent Corbin had awakened with a throbbing head, an aching heart and a mind set on only one thing. Somebody, by god, was going to pay for what had happened to Andrew. Somebody was going to be hurt the way he had been hurt. Bent felt totally helpless to aid the police in the search for the beast that had mutilated his son. But his rage was building and, like a river at the flood, was seeking a channel. Then he thought of Lisa. If she hadn’t been mooning over her damned paint smears, if she had been watching what she was doing, if she hadn’t broken the trophy, then Andy would have come home with him. There was no way the kid could have carried it home by himself, and no way he would have wanted to part with it so soon after receiving it. And if Lisa wasn’t a damned defective, none of it would have happened. He started up the stairs.

Julie heard her husband pounding up the stairway and got a look at his face when he passed her on the landing. She started after him, afraid of what he might do.

"Bent! NO!" she screamed. "Lisa doesn’t even know about Andy yet. Please Bent. Wait." He was at the ragged edge of sanity by the time he reached his daughter’s room. The sight of her standing there, staring at her painting, the sight of what he took to be red paint smears on the bedding: those things pushed him over that edge.

Lisa felt someone grabbing and shaking her. Once again the red, distended face was before her. Once again she tried to read his lips but failed. Something about Andy and her painting came through, but the message was badly garbled. Her own fear and her father’s rage made his words unintelligible.

He slapped the girl twice. Then he hit her harder, knocking her to the bed. The enraged man began a methodical destruction of her room. He started at one corner and began throwing paints, canvas, frames and paintings through the bedroom window, which had shattered at the impact of the first object he had hurled at it. He was leaving the painting on the easel for last.

Julie Corbin stood in the doorway. She knew there was nothing she could do. Her husband was completely out of control. She would have to let the anger run its course and try to protect Lisa as best she could. The situation filled her with fear.

"NAAOW!" Lisa screamed at her father and tried to stop him from destroying the things that were most precious to her. She grabbed at the man, but he threw her back across the room like a rag doll. She was crouched on the bed, preparing for another charge, when she glanced at the painting. She stayed were she was. Very still.

Her father was intent on what he was doing. In a perverse way, he was enjoying himself. He had resented her talent. Now he would destroy what it had produced. He was mumbling curses at her and about her as he worked at the destruction of her studio. Then, the world changed.

The lion seemed to flow from the painting. Bent did not see it until it was almost on him. Two swipes of the massive paws, one bite from the giant head, and Bentley G. Corbin was a bloody ruin, crumpled in a corner of his daughter’s bedroom. The lion moved toward Lisa.

Julie Corbin was still standing in the doorway when it happened. She began backing out of the room chanting "oh my god, oh my god" over and over again in a voice that was very small. It was only when she backed into the railing and felt herself losing her balance and tumbling head over heels to the brick floor below that she managed to scream.

For her part, Lisa had no idea what had happened to her mother, hadn’t even known she was in the room. The girl wrapped her arms around the lion’s neck, tangling her fingers in the thick black mane and hugging for all she was worth.

"Take me away, Rolff," she sobbed.

He did.

When Detective Kelley showed up on the Corbin’s doorstep at about 10 that morning, it was more a courtesy call than anything else. He really didn’t have anything helpful to report to them but felt it was important to let them know that what could be done was being done. Besides, he wanted to see how they were coping. Sometimes events like last night’s tragedy caused a family to draw closer together, but they also could be the trigger for more destructive behavior.

Kelley thought the family was home because there were two cars in the driveway. No signs of activity around the house though. He rapped sharply on the front door a few times and yelled, "Mr. Corbin ... Mrs. Corbin" but got no response. He walked over to the front window and peeked in. Through the lacy curtains he could see someone crumpled on the floor. He rapped on the window. No response.

The police were baffled by what they found inside the house. Bent Corbin was dead in an attic bedroom that apparently had been some sort of studio. The studio itself had been trashed. Julie Corbin was lying, neck broken and arms and legs akimbo, on the floor at the bottom of the stairwell. The railing outside the studio apartment had fibers from her dressing gown caught on it. Either the woman had fallen or had been pushed over. In any case it was suspicious.

Her husband had apparently been killed by the same beast that had taken his son’s life the night before. Kelley was beginning to think someone was playing games, committing the murders in a manner that made it appear the attacks were by some sort of wild animal. No animal acted that way, he thought. His suspicions were confirmed when the police realized that the Corbins’ daughter, Lisa, was nowhere to be found.

The nature of the murders, the missing teenage girl, the absence of any hard information: all contributed to a rash of speculation that occupied the local media for weeks and even made a brief splash nationally. But as days, then weeks and months went by and no new evidence was found, the public’s attention turned, as it is wont to do, to other news that was more current, more lively.

Only Kelley stayed with it for longer than a few weeks. He kept going back to the crime scene and going over the evidence, replaying everything in his mind, trying to find an angle. At the end of the day, even he was forced to concede defeat and classify the Corbin case with other unsolved crimes and let it go.

Predictably, rumors circulated for years about the Corbin house being haunted. To newcomers the old house was a curiosity, and they would listen intently to the tale —— complete with numerous embellishments —— of the awful fate of the Corbin family and cluck sympathetically as they chalked the whole thing up to local urban legend. Old-timers who had actually known the Corbins found themselves stepping more quickly and looking away as they walked by the derelict property.

All of that changed when Emily Lansing bought the property in 1980, eleven years after the tragedy. She was a school teacher who had come to teach English at the local senior high. She had fallen in love with the Corbin place when the agent showed it to her. It was a bit more house than she needed, but the price was right. Once she had finished with some minor repair and reconstruction and had the place scrubbed bright as a new penny, she was satisfied her decision had been the right one.

Miss Lansing had never been married and had no children. She did have a sister who was married and lived in Vermont with her husband and four children. The sisters corresponded regularly.

"You should see this place, now that I’ve fixed it up," the teacher wrote her sister. "I just knew it had potential. Perhaps, next summer you and Tom and the children can come for a visit. This house is going to make me a lovely home. I would like to share it with all of you."

Emily didn’t tell her younger sister about the strange noises that seemed to come from somewhere in the upstairs part of the house. The soft rumbling sounds she usually heard at night. The occasional hint of a young girl’s laughter. Miss Lansing had learned about the tragedy that had befallen the Corbin family and had been told that Lisa’s body never had been found. She was confident that her "ghosts" —— as she laughingly referred to them —— were simply the product of her own subconscious making something out of the new data it had been provided.

One tidbit she did share with her sister, however.

"In an attic bedroom that was apparently someone’s studio I found the most marvelous painting. Evidently it had been knocked off an easel and kicked under the bed. But once I had cleaned it up, I realized its worth. I’ve hung it in that little bedroom. For some reason, it just seems to fit there. Besides I like to look at it when I’m up there, and I’m up there a lot because I’ve made it my sewing room.

"Anyway, it is a painting of the African veldt. In the background, there are herds of zebra and wildebeest. In the foreground, and really the center of the painting, is a baobab tree with the most beautiful male lion sitting in the shade beneath it. Off to the side, there sits a young girl with an easel before her, and she is apparently painting the lion. I have no idea who did this. The work is not signed.

"But it is a marvel nonetheless," Miss Emily Lansing wrote her sister.

"The figures are so alive, you can almost hear them breathe."

#30#

BL Corcoran