Summary

Section 3 of "Elephants' Graveyard" is titled “Skin.” Sometime later, while visiting an acquaintance on the island, Shay learns that a friend of Senna’s has been arrested. The friend, Baptiste, is an artist who uses people’s bodies as canvases, and has been arrested for indecency. As she considers how her acquaintance and other women are probably speculating on how much she knows about what is going on at the Red House, Shay comments that she and Senna are not going to pay Baptiste’s bail. But then, as she contemplates how she knows about everything going on at the house, Shay also realizes that the paying for Baptiste’s release is inevitable. She recalls his history – how he learned to paint bodies, how he became friends with Senna, and how in an unexpectedly intimate conversation early in his relationship with...