“What happened?”
“She finished that painting, then seemed to slip into some sort of trance.”
“The self-portrait?”
“Yes.”
I rush to the library, Beckett behind me.
I find Marguerite sitting in the chair in front of her easel, her lips moving soundlessly, eyes glazed over.
“She’s just asleep,” I say, pulling a chair next to hers. I have a feeling I know what’s happened. What she’s done. The self-portrait is finished now. It’s another portal into the past. Oneshe’swalked through this time. Her sisters stand in the background, their faces fully rendered. I see Claire blink, see Florence’s hem ripple in the wind. The familiar vertigo washes over me. “She’s dreaming and we don’t want to wake her by force. Leave me with her. I’ll watch over her until she wakes. Beck, close the doors when you leave.”
“Sadie ...” Beckett gives me a concerned look. “Are you sure you’re all right? You’ve gone pale as a ghost.”
“I’ll be fine. Please. Just trust me.”
He squeezes my shoulder, and he and Harriet depart. “Show me what you’re seeing, Aunt Marg,” I say, after the library doors close. I take Marguerite’s limp hand in mine, reach toward the painting with the other, and pull in a steadying breath as the past opens to me once more.
Interlude
Three Sisters
Florence is reading, sitting in the swing beneath the maple tree, her dress blowing gently in the breeze as she thumbs through the pages ofWuthering Heights. She sighs dramatically, studying her younger sisters. Claire watches Marguerite sketch, her fingers clenched around a nub of pencil.
“What are you drawing?” Florence asks.
“You,” Marguerite says. She turns over her tablet, shows Florence the sketch.
“You’ve made my nose too big.”
“No, I haven’t,” Marguerite says. “That’s how it looks.”
“I have an idea,” Florence says, standing. The swing knocks against the back of her thighs. “I want you to draw me a picture. One to go with the story I’m writing. I want you to draw the Baron de Havilland.”
“Baron de Havilland. What a name.” Marguerite sighs, rolling her eyes. “What does he look like?”
Florence smiles. “He’s wickedly handsome, of course. Tall, with dark hair, the edges touched with auburn. Storm-colored eyes. An insouciant smile. He’s a rake. Secretly.”
“I’ve read her story,” Claire says. “It’s tawdry and shameless. You’d better hope Papa never sees it, Flor.”
“And you’d better not tell him, either one of you, or I’ll have your hides.”
“I don’t know how to draw someone who isn’t real,” Marguerite says. “Why don’tyoudraw him?”
“Because I can’t. You’re the artist. I’m the writer.” Florence glances at Claire. “And Claire is justClaire.”
Claire pouts and turns her head, the hurt skating across her pretty-plain face, so much like Sadie’s at the same age.
“You’d better let me read this story of yours, then, if I’m to draw him well,” Marguerite says. “He might look any sort of way, otherwise.”
“I can’t show you.”
Marguerite sighs. “Claire’s seen it.”
“She’s not as judgmental as you are.”
Marguerite laughs. “She is, she just doesn’t say things out loud like I do.”
