WEBVTT

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"She was a long-haired girl,
and long-haired girls never

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returned phone calls.

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We hadn't heard from
her since the postcard,

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but we still expected Ruby
on the flight from Butte

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to Minneapolis to LaGuardia.

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Dad liked to pick people up at
the airport instead of asking

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them to take the
bus, and so we all

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went with him to surprise her.

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We didn't see her
among the boxes wrapped

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in Christmas paper or the
fur-festooned holiday revelers,

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and the wrinkle-free folks in
navy had no information at all.

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Something gathered in me
during the next three weeks.

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We were of the official opinion
that she was just pulling

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a Ruby, that we'd get a
call and a giddy apology,

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but a weight started
bearing down on me

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when I tried to sleep or focus
on the balance sheet at work.

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She needed me.

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I could find her.

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The snow, sharp and
dry as mica, could

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have been new or just dislodged
from rooftops and circulating.

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The wind blasted
over the buildings

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on Park Street and Montana,
all different sizes

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and crouched together
in a funny way.

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My nostrils had sucked
shut into slits,

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so I breathed through my mouth
and squinted up the street.

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Half the streetlights
were burnt out.

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I didn't know if
my ears were frozen

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or if it was the wind
that filled them,

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but I heard nothing.

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And that limited
my possibilities.

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It was 8 o'clock, and
there was no sign of life,

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except the murmuring
lure of the shanty bar

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and cafe down the block--

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Paris of the West, the
man on the plane had said.

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Champagne in a tin cup,
according to the Chamber

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of Commerce brochure.

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Ruby said it had frisson.

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To me, Butte looked desolate
and unyielding, not pretty,

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not Western, no swinging,
salon doors, or horse ties,

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or even reassuring
tourist traps up here

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in the old part of town.

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I had driven the rental car
from the airport and through

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the valley of K-Mart and
Hardee's and Progress,

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then crept up the frosty
hill, past cross streets with

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a theme--

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iron, aluminum,
platinum, gold, silver,

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mercury, all the way to quartz,
copper, and finally, Caledonia.

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I drove up and down Montana
twice before I saw it--

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painted on the wall
near the recessed entry,

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a white, gloved hand pointed
toward the hotel door

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like a magician's invitation.

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I parked down the street.

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I locked the door and carried
my suitcase up the hill,

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stepping lightly on the
half shoveled sidewalk.

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I passed an old brick house,
bright orange brick sealing up

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the windows on the first floor,
charred shadows radiating

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from the windows and door.

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The second story wasn't
sealed up like the first,

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and glass shards hung
from the window frames,

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shining like wet white leaves

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A man lurched toward me
from between this building

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and the next.

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He wore a wrinkled pea coat,
buttoned but not in alignment.

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His face was long and pocked,
his orange beard thinning.

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He held a small, ceramic
statue, a man in a headdress

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on a Pinto pony.

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He waved the thing
in front of me.

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Do you want to buy?

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Rare, for sale, Indian chief.

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I veered away, and he spun
off in his own direction,

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a half-hearted huckster.

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I stopped in front of the
white, red and white hotel,

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a rooming house really,
upstairs from a music store.

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The painted lettering on
the glass door was chipped,

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but you could still
make out a frail scrawl.

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Ruby and I braided
each other's hair.

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I gathered hers up from in front
of her thin, capable shoulders,

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brown and round, and exposed
by a green cotton tank top,

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and dropped it in a
pile down her back.

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I began at the bottom in
rabbit, paw strokes and later,

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smoothed the brush down the
full length of the strands.

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'High or low?' I asked, and then
separated it into three coils

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and braided them together.

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My hair had always been longer.

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It twisted on the pillow
beside me at night.

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I held my hand up to it as if
it were a pet or hand mirror.

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It was a year after the fat man
from the Christian Salvation

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League came to graduation
and gave half a dozen of us

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the once over.

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I saw Ruby Claremont
walking down

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Court Street in a
long white dress,

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with a green ribbon
tied under her breasts

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and a little snatch
of purple flowers.

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She had the silliest
hairstyle I had ever seen.

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Her brown hair was tightly
drawn to the top of her head,

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then twisted into a pyramid
with a little curlicue on top,

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ringlets on both
sides of her face.

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Her skin was pale and
smooth as a river stone,

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but on the round
swell of her cheeks,

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were these gentle wisps
of disorganized color.

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She wore dark lipstick, and
her eyes were darkened as well.

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She was tall, made taller
by black, lace-up boots

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with heels that curved in and
out again, like her own waist.

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The way she walked
was not natural.

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It was a dance.

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She twirled her ribbon
purse and placed

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one foot in front of the other
in an exotic roundy-round hip

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and ankle turned dalliance.

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She was an entirely
artificial creation.

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My own body was a tree,
a layering from inside,

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never a carving.

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Her body, too.

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Underneath the clothing
and if the hair came down,

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would yield a
small, careful life,

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like a milk pod houses a seed.

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I wanted to go inside those
yards of embroidery and lace,

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under the paint, within
the clasp of shoes.

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I wanted to touch
the places where

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silk met sweat, blood lace,
sweet milk, a spin of cotton.

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You could say it was just
chance that she strolled

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by with her near gimpy artifice
and her hair like a party hat,

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when I was poised anyway to fall
in love with white whiteness.

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But really its
blackness I loved,

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the black blast of mining.

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I wore a shirt made
of thin, white fabric,

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small, smooth buttons down
the front and at both wrists.

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Around me were swarms of people,
white just about covers it,

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buildings boxing us in, and
beyond them, the little houses,

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and then the mines.

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The haze from smelting
was so thick you couldn't

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see where you were
going, but I thought

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I knew what I was doing.

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Some were crippled by
the brain-squeeze smiling

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disaster of Indian
training school,

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but I had thrived
under the lash.

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Lenore Robbins checked in
after Mrs. Olson was already

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in her robe and the
light show on TV

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had ceased making sense to her.

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She went to the room
and closed the door.

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She didn't take off her coat.

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She just sat in
the purple chair.

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Her hair was all clipped
up with combs and bands.

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It puffed up and crests on
either side of her face,

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a disheveled elegance
reminiscent of the era my Ruby

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and I had together.

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Lenore was less brilliant
than her sister.

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Her hair was darker.

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Her lips a little
paler, a little thinner.

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Something about
her irritated me.

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She wasn't quite there.

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You had to look at her for
more than a minute to see her.

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She rubbed her fingers
together, and then she

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took to digging them
in the chair's fat arms

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and the stink of dust there.

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A quilt, tattered and hand-sewn,
spread over the lumpy bed.

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The pillowcases
were smoothed over

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from years of nested bald
heads and hairdos crumpled up

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in dream.

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If she looked under the
bed, she might have found

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a bunched up leg of filmy hose.

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The sink faucet dripped.

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Ancient cigarette stains
tarnished the white porcelain

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basin.

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She stared at the
wallpaper, bouquets

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or the faces of
monkeys, a sad monkey

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holding an urn, repeated
in a diamond pattern

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up from the floor.

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I was in the furniture,
but she couldn't see me,

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couldn't hear me,
didn't know she

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was crowding me and twisting
my guts together, making

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me have to, again, remember.

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I would have destroyed
her sister and now her,

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but when I died, I
didn't gain any power.

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I was the ghost of a mouse,
tumbling spools of thread,

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gnawing a bit on an
invisible corner.

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As if she could
make things better,

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make anything new
and orderly here,

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she got up and straightened
the mirror over the dresser.

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Finally, she took off her coat
and hung it in the closet,

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buttoning the collar.

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She reached up to the pull
chain on the lamp by the bed,

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her white ringless hand
touched the copper,

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and she lingered
there for a moment.

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That's when I squeezed a
current through the metal

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string of beads.

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The wire crackled.

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The light glimmered
feebly, and then kicked in,

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shocking her in the finger.

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She jumped back and stared.

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'I am the ghost of love',
I wanted to tell her."

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And that's the first
chapter of that novella.

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[APPLAUSE]

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