wear the blue one, cuz red is the devil's color.

She loved to draw and paint, and she was good at it. It made her someone else. She could add a "real, grown-up" arm to my stick figure. Her sisters said she would have been a "real artist" had she had the proper training. But she had no time for that, "with the kids and all."

Her art only graced the red walls of a dark, old basement kitchen, and the pages of her spiral notebook. I saw them there in that notebook: the art that makes me squeeze my eyes shut and creeps into my head when I'm alone at night. demons. devils. warlocks. cat eyed and horned and winged mythical creatures. black, inky eyes pressed deep into the pages. red eyes. eyes with no faces. "Who are they?" I ask. "Our neighbors," she says.