Duma Key by Stephen King

"No more than a dark pencil line on a blank page. A horizon line maybe. But also a slot for blackness to pour through..."

A ship sails in from the horizon. Its picturesque beauty serves to enchant and haunt all who behold it. The myriad colours swimming in the Florida sunset seem to shine right through the very hull, giving it the illusion of lightness and transparency. By the beach, watching breathlessly, is an aging man who has never so much as held a blank canvas in his entire life. The sails bellow, but the vessel moves nowhere. The only movement is within the man. Beside him is a small tin box filled with no more than twelve coloured pencils, non of which would do this dream justice. Despite this, he lays pencil to paper and attempts to recreate the scene before him. He succeeds. The ever present rage fades to nothing, and a nagging itch in his right arm finally ceases to torment. And it is indeed a great relief, for that right arm is long since gone. Edgar Freemantle was a developement tycoon until a horrific accident leaves his mind, body, and soul lost and scrambling for a grip on reality. His dwindling mental presence injures his career and family as well, and as things began to spiral downward, he considers suicide. Realizing an "accident" would fool no one at this point, he decides to wait one more year and relax someplace where the past can't touch him.He searches through the many "dream houses" in his realtors file and is charmed by a beachside manor in the Keys named Salmon Point. Call it love at first sight, he dubs it "Big Pink". Edgar flys down as soon as possible, but not before promising his psychiatrist that he will take up a hobby of some sort.

"Edgar, does anything make you happy?"

"I used to sketch."

As it comes out, there is no better place to be an artist than Duma Key, or perhaps no worse place. Edgars drawing abilities accelerate quickly, impressing and frightening those around him. The local art scene finds him to be a novelty. He is, after all, a one-armed painter. To support him is a pair of two fellow handicapped. Wireman, an ex-lawyer turned caretaker for an elderly woman, and Miss Eastlake, former art patron (and in a terrible and distant past, an art prodigy) Edgars haunted and Alzhiemers stricken landlady. All three have suffered terrible injury, yet have gained from it. Miss Eastlake fell from a carriage onto her head at a tender age, and then made a miraculous recovery, becoming not only a living miracle but a wonder to the people surrounding her. Wireman was a successful lawyer and family man, but his happiness ended in tragedy. All that is left of his past is a scar in his temple, marking him as a survivor of the most tragic battle one could fight, the war against oneself. He now understands people in a way they could not have, and in a way he should not. Somehow they were all drawn to Duma Key. Someone watching them decided that they should be blessed and cursed with these gifts. No one truly said these were meant as gifts though. There may very well be a price. As Edgars artisitic talent starts to reveal its darker colours, they begin to realize that they are feeding into something ancient, eternal, and deadly. Is Duma Key really only haunted by the muses of artists past, or was something else inspiring their colorful inward chaos? The talents,powers, or whatever these abilities may be are intended towards some malicious purpose. The maelstrom may wash away what remains of Edgar Freemantles tattered history before it will let its winds die down and all the colours will fade away. Within Edgar is something bigger than he intended to be, and he needs to learn to control it or risk letting it destroy everything he has tried to create.