The Girl In The Glass

Dedication

In loving memory of my brother Matthew,

who more than once urged me to take this path in life.

Contents

Chapter 1

Whitby Island, Maine

June 1904

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Not unless this was what death felt like. An odd floating in and out of consciousness without light, without pain, without any sense of time or place. All she could remember was the sensation of falling. And then a kind of explosion. She’d always been terrified of heights and often dreamt of falling, but never as vividly as this.

Slowly, by infinitesimal degrees, Aimée Marie Garnier Whitby became aware of a breeze blowing against the left side of her body. The sound of waves pounding against rock. The scraping of pebbles as retreating waves drew them back into the sea. She shivered as a cold spray struck her skin. Bare skin lying on cold, rough stone. Odd. She didn’t know why she wouldn’t be dressed. But at least she wasn’t dead. Not unless her immortal soul had descended into a hell that smelled, sounded and felt like a cold northern sea.

She heard a squawking of birds close by. Forcing reluctant eyelids open, she was blinded by the sudden glare of a sun almost directly overhead. She quickly closed them, waited a few seconds and then tried again, opening her lids more slowly this time. When her eyes had, at last, adjusted to the light, what she saw filled her with dread. A dozen crows, maybe more, circling above. All large, loud and very black. All focused on this wounded thing that lay beneath them. A murder of crows. That’s what the English called them. A parliament of owls. An exaltation of larks. A murder of crows. Birds as black as night. Harvesters of death.

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this cold, flat rock, Aimée wondered if perhaps she really had died and her soul had descended to hell. A hell filled not with the fires of damnation that the village priest back home in Provence frightened her with as a child, but a hell nevertheless, to which a vengeful God had condemned her. But for what was she being punished? The sin of adultery? The sin of loving another man more than she loved her husband? All the times she and her lover had been together, it had never felt like sin. Moreover, if adultery was a sin worthy of damnation, why wasn’t Edward lying here beside her? She had had only one lover, who was indeed someone she loved. Edward, in their ten years of marriage, had had dozens, many hired for a single night in the high-­class bordellos of Boston or New York.

Aimée watched the winged black shapes circle above her. Steeling herself to fight back, she shouted at the birds to get away. Managed to swing a fisted arm, striking one who dared fly too close. The bird and its murderous comrades retreated to higher altitudes. Some circling. Others watching from small outcroppings on the wall of rock rising above her.

She lay her head back down against the rock, her eyes moving past the birds, examining the wall itself. Suddenly, she knew exactly where she was. She’d never seen it from this angle but knew without a doubt that she was lying at the bottom of the sixty-­foot metamorphic cliff that formed a nearly sheer wall on the seaward side of Whitby Island.

She had no memory of coming to the island. Had she come alone, or had someone been with her? Aimée often sailed out in the summer to paint. Sometimes alone. Sometimes not. If Mark or perhaps Edward had come this time, surely there was a chance, even a likelihood, of rescue. Sooner or later he would miss her and come looking. The island wasn’t big. Only thirty-­three acres of rock and piney woods rising from the ocean three miles out from the city of Portland.

Aimée shivered. Soon the sun would be going behind the cliff and she would get even colder. Clutching her arms around herself for warmth, she wondered if crawling closer to the cliff would be a good idea. The large rocks at the base might provide some shelter from the wind and sea spray. On the other hand, being tucked in like that would make it impossible for anyone at the top to see her and come to her rescue.

How strange it would be, she thought, for her life to end here. In this cold, foreign place with its rigid Puritan ways. So far from the Bohemian artist’s life she’d lived in Paris. So far from the warmth of Provence. So odd she had come here to live. It was all Edward’s fault. No, perhaps her own fault. After all, it was she who had fallen so hopelessly in love with this intense American with his dark, dangerous eyes.

Aimée’s mind went back to the wet September day in 1894 when Edward Whitby first walked into the drawing studio at the Académie Julien, the art school just south of Montmartre, where her father was an instructor. The moment Edward spotted her, he stopped in his tracks and stared.

Even as he was setting up his bench and arranging his supplies, his eyes kept darting, not to the nude female model standing on the platform in front of him but over to Aimée, who sat, trying hard to concentrate on her own sketches and not quite succeeding. After class, he walked over carrying his sketch pad.

“Pardon, mademoiselle,” he said. “Do you speak English?”

“Yes,” she smiled, “quite well. My mother is English.”

“That is good,” he said.

“Et pourquoi?”

“Because my French is appalling.”

“Ahhh. May I see?” she asked, pointing at the sheets he carried.

He hesitated, as if debating whether or not to show her the work.

“It’s only fair. It was easy to tell you were drawing me and not the model.”

He blushed. The first and possibly only time she’d ever seen Edward blush. He handed her the sheets one at a time. She leafed slowly through them. “They’re very good. You’ve captured me quite well even though I was moving. You should show these to my father.”

“Your father?”

“Yes. Auguste Garnier. I am Aimée Garnier.”

“Auguste Garnier is one of the most respected portraitists in France.”

“So I’ve heard. But he is also my father. And your instructor. It is only because my name is Garnier that I am allowed to attend the men’s classes.”

“And why do you want to attend the men’s class?”

“Because the instructors are better.” She paused. “And the male students so much more interesting.”

Edward smiled at what he took to be a compliment. He obviously thought she was talking about him. And perhaps she was. How very forward of her.

“May I invite you for a cup of coffee? Or perhaps a glass of wine?” he asked.

“Why don’t you join us instead?”

“Us?”

“Yes. A group of students meets regularly after class at the Café Lézard just up the street. Mostly Americans. The Académie has more American students than mice in the basement. But that’s all right. I like Americans. You all take everything so very seriously.”

“Oh, do we now?”

“Oh, yes, you do. Art. Politics. L’amour . . .” She paused. “What is your name?”

“Edward. Are there other women in this group?”

“No. They’re all men. Except for me.” She said the last with a wicked smile.

He smiled back, and she knew he was hooked. What she didn’t know was that from that moment on, for Edward Whitby to share Aimée’s attention with even one other man was, for him, intolerable. And always would be.

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behind the cliff. The air grew colder. Aimée fought a fierce desire to sleep. To sleep was to die. How long had she been lying here waiting for rescue? It seemed like hours, but for all she knew, it could have been days.

“Mark, Edward, someone, anyone. Please, won’t someone come and take me out of this place?”

Aimée knew that if she lay here much longer, the crows, sensing her growing weakness, would become ever more eager for their meal. No. She couldn’t just wait and do nothing. She had to think of a way to save herself.

She looked out toward the sea. Studying the waves crashing angrily against the rocks, she knew instantly that any thought of swimming around the island to the other side was madness. The water was freezing, the waves fierce, the tide coming in. If she didn’t die from the cold, she would almost certainly be dashed against the rocks and drown.

Could she possibly climb back up the cliff? If she didn’t look down, perhaps she could summon the courage and strength to struggle back up. She was certain she knew the contours of the cliff better than anyone else. She couldn’t count the number of calm, sunny days she’d sailed to this side of the island to study and sketch its craggy face, the sketches serving as starting points for many of her paintings. She knew there were hundreds of possible handholds and footholds to use. Properly clothed and uninjured, she felt certain she could make it. Naked and injured was a different story.

The first thing Aimée needed to know was how badly she was hurt. Whether climbing the cliff was even a remote possibility or just a pathetic fantasy. There was no way she could assess her injuries lying on her back. But raising her head high enough to examine herself seemed an enormous undertaking. Placing both arms flat on the rock, she tried to lever her head and shoulders upwards, toward a sitting position. A shock of pain tore through her middle. She clenched her teeth and told herself to deal with it or die.

As she looked, she saw a deep vertical wound in her abdomen two inches above and to the right of her navel. There were some other seemingly random cuts above her breasts, but it was the lower wound that truly hurt. The intensity of pain told her the cut must have been deep. And, in spite of the drying blood surrounding the incision, she could see it was more than an inch long and perfectly straight. A cut like that had to have been made by a knife. Suddenly it all became clear. There
was
someone else on the island. Someone who
wanted
her dead.