Clementine carefully closes the Nancy Drew book. “How did she die?”
I remember back to what my mother told me when I asked a similar question about Charlotte Leclerc. We were tucking into a late dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese, after leaving the museum. It was the day I got stitches from my run-in with the field hockey stick ingym class—the same evening when Mom said,All art is made by the dead, Mathilde.
“She died in a fire,” my mom said, stirring freshly ground pepper into her soup. “In her attic studio, where she painted.”
“How did the fire start?” I asked then. It felt important to understand this, especially because Mom had a home studio as well.
“No one is certain,” she said. “Some say she accidentally knocked over a candle—she liked to paint by candlelight, apparently. Others say she deliberately set the fire because she was heartbroken about losing her only child and no longer wanted to live,” my mother explained, as I sat wide-eyed, holding my breath.
I share this with Clementine now, though I hold back the suicide theory. I resist the urge to look at the painting, as the back of my neck prickles with the memory of what my mom said next. “There was one very odd thing, though, about the incident.”
“What?” My sixteen-year-old voice lowered. I was still on edge after the wholeall art is made by the deadthing.
“The flames stayed in about a four-foot radius, in the middle of the room.” I stretch out my hands and arms now, as though measuring the space for Clementine. I probably shouldn’t share this lore with my seven-year-old, who is prone to nightmares.Stop, Tilly, I think. But I’m overwhelmed by a bizarre compulsion to tell her the story. Like I have a delicious piece of gossip to share. “It burned everything in that area. Including, most tragically, the artist herself.”
“Oh,” Clementine says, before sucking in a breath. “That’s sad.”
“It is. And also strange, because that’s not how fire behaves. Usually it keeps going until it runs out of oxygen.”
Clementine chews the inside of her cheek. I note how similar she looks to my mom right now, wistfulness swelling inside me. She picks at her cuticles, chews a fingernail, which tells me she’s anxious.That’s enough.
So I don’t mention the supposed suicide note, nor the on-the-fringes web chats of spontaneous human combustion I recently cameacross. Some speculate, according to my latest research, that Charlotte Leclerc ignited from the inside out. That was why once her body (and everything within a few feet of it) burned, the fire extinguished. The rest of the wood-paneled attic—including the highly flammable paint supplies held in plastic milk crates—was untouched.
“What made the flames run out of oxygen, do you think?” Clementine asks.
“No one knows.” I try not to lie to Clementine or hold back hard truths. But what happened to Charlotte Leclerc is full of myth and light on facts. About as verifiable as a campfire ghost story. “Sometimes we can’t get to the whole truth of something.”
She nods knowingly. “Nana believes that too.”
I laugh, because I’ve mimicked Shelby—after living together all these years, it’s bound to happen. “I guess she’s the one who taught me that.”
My watch buzzes a notification that Wyatt, Shelby, and Stanley have arrived back home.
“Why don’t you go help Nana pack lunch for tomorrow? Then make yourself useful for dinner prep, okay?”
“Okay.” Clementine springs up, the way only a child can—not using her hands to support her. She sets the book under her arm, waits for me to unlock the door from my watch.
With a click the lock disengages. “Mommy, when you’re finished with the painting, will you show me?” she asks.
I nod. “You bet, sweet pea.”
Clementine grins, then heads out of the room, shutting the door behind her. I reengage the lock before walking over to the workbench. Something is niggling at my brain—an idea I haven’t before considered. I put on my ventilation mask and remove the cover.
It was found gathering dust in an old police evidence room. Sitting there for years, unnoticed…
I run my eyes over the painting, split in two by the cleaning line that separates the treated area and the still soot-laden one.
…the fire that killed Charlotte Leclerc burned fast and furious. But it only burned Leclerc, some supplies, and the easel itself. Which, apparently, held her fourth and final work of art…
Yet, there was no mention in the police report about a painting found on the charred easel, despite its existence in the evidence room. I mentally review items found near the burned area, from the police log: the metal piece that connects the bristles and handle of a paintbrush; a typewritten note, tacked to the far wall, and the four brass thumbtacks used to hold it there; a melted plastic yogurt container, containing black oil paint; one leather sandal, women’s, size eight.
This painting must have been on that easel. That’s why it’s so badly burned. Yet…how can a fire incinerate a human body down to bone fragments but leave a canvas—badly burned, but still intact—a foot or so away?
Something pulses inside the paint above the navel, above the treatment line. It’s so subtle that if I weren’t standing directly over the painting, I wouldn’t have seen it.
With resolute calmness, I snap on a glove and hold still—ready. As soon as the pulsing begins again, the paint bulging, I carefully touch the bump with my gloved finger. It’s soft, like a water blister you get from ill-fitting shoes. I apply more pressure to the paint blister, and when I remove my finger the indentation fills back in again.
Using a scalpel, I gently push the tip of the blade into the pulsating bump. A clear liquid trickles out, and I catch some in a sample vial I pull from my pocket. Holding the vial up to the light, I try to get a better look at the liquid. It’s then I hear the suctioning sound, from behind me.
