Page 27
“I’m all right,” Jo says. “I just bumped into the stand, and I screamed because I thought the camera would fall. Everything’s fine now.” She smiles at them, but her lips are trembling.
The men appraise her suspiciously. The Beard looks at his dead father on the settee. “How much longer?”
“A few more minutes, please.”
They leave the studio and go back to her kitchen.
She walks over to the desk by the window. The shutters are fully closed so that no one from outside can peer into Jo’s studio. A necessary precaution, considering she has a dead man tied to the settee.
I didn’t mean to scare you.
She slowly turns to face him. His gaze is fixed on the portraits on the walls. She avoids looking at the photos he’s examining. Those are portraits done by August, displaying people she doesn’t remember from a time she tries to forget. All of them look spectral in the flickering candlelight: cheeks gaunt, eyes empty, scowls instead of smiles. Nothing good ever comes from her memories. Only pain.
It doesn’t have to be painful.
She swallows. “Why are you talking to me?” she whispers, afraid his sons will hear her talking to their father.
The flames in the lamps flicker.
There is not enough light in the room, and she must do something about the too many shadows. The air is cold and foreboding. Filled with malice. It must be his presence in the room.
Because you can hear me. The old man leans forward. Don’t deny it, Josephine.
His pupils are unnaturally pale. Shadowy bags appear under his eyes. The heady stench of his death lingers in the room.
She must capture him as he is right now—dead but alive, otherworldly yet human. But the lighting. It’s all wrong. It’s not enough, especially if she wants to highlight the cutting angles of his face. The strength of his jaw. To do that, she needs more candles to give enough dimension to his face.
“What should we talk about?” Jo asks. “Your sons?”
He jerks his head. They’ll do well without me. His voice is deep, his words precise.
She nods.
You’re the one who needs help.
She turns away, goes to her camera, and positions herself behind it. With a sigh, she steadies her grip and leans down to take a look through the lens to assess if she truly needs more candlelight. Maybe an additional oil lamp will do.
There’s a shadow in the right corner, not far from the old man. It has a shape. A familiar shape. Jo’s throat tightens. It can’t be. It isn’t possible. But the shadow churns and snakes around the settee, around the man’s feet. It rises high in the air, and a young woman steps into the room. She lowers herself on the seat by the man. Her clothes are soaking wet. A thick layer of mud crusts her simple yellow dress.
Jo’s stomach plummets to the ground. This is all too much. It cannot be happening.
The woman bends her head to the side, and her mouth—lips gray and skin peeling—twists into a scowl, revealing nothing but void inside. She looks as real as she had been all those years ago.
Why, a lady should never be caught staring. A hollow whisper. Or I’ll assume you want something from me, Josephine. A gurgling laughter, as if she’s choking on water.
Startled, Jo snaps her head above the camera so violently she almost overturns it. She nearly loses her own balance. The specter is gone. What’s happening? Jo slowly leans forward and looks through the lens, and the woman is still there. Still smiling. The skin under her eyes is peeling away, revealing her bones.
Do I not look pretty enough for you? She narrows her eyes at Jo. A challenge. You look terrified, darling.
With a gasp, Jo jumps away from the camera. There’s no woman in the studio, only the old man, and he’s watching her with unabashed interest.
She followed me here.
“What does she want?”
Her camera is unusually freezing to the touch. Something is deeply wrong with it. Or maybe something is irrevocably broken in Jo. Her skin crawls with dread as she leans to the lens.
The ghost is perched on the edge of the settee. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. Fat drops of dirty water pool around the Sunday shoes Jo remembers well.
