CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The tex-ture of the world was wrong.
An am-bu-lance crew ar-rived in the atrium of Drum-mond as I was de-scend-ing the stair-case, my hand gripped to the swoop-ing ban-nis-ter like a claw. The red and blue lights out-side flashed and swirled through the arched glass win-dows, re-fracted count-less times in the grand mir-ror of the en-trance hall. It il-lu-mi-nated the myr-iad por-traits, and in do-ing so made the back-grounds of the paint-ings seem off, some-how. They shifted and stirred in un-nat-u-ral ways, as though a torch were be-ing shone into the den of a myth-i-cal beast and awak-ing it from a long slum-ber.
I re-mem-bered the strange sil-hou-ette that had ap-peared in the mir-ror on the way to Or-lagh’s of-fice. I’d dis-missed it as delu-sion, and yet I knew there was some-thing fun-da-men-tally wrong about the por-traits of Do-rian—my own paint-ing was proof enough.
Why too couldn’t the mir-rors be haunted? What would it mean if they were?
My mind felt like it was spin-ning off the edge of the world.
Look-ing around the vast hall at each por-trait in turn, they didn’t seem to be en-tirely static. The fig-ures in them didn’t move, as such, but nor were they still. I re-mem-bered my mother’s paint-ing in the Gallery of the Ex-quis-ite, the way she al-most seemed to be strain-ing against the can-vas. A sub-tle bulge of the eye, as though des-per-ately try-ing to com-mu-ni-cate some-thing.
I won-dered how Or-lagh’s looked now she was dead.
Then the ter-ri-ble un-der-stand-ing struck me.
What if Or-lagh had not been stabbed in per-son?
What if some-body had de-stroyed her paint-ing? And in do-ing so, they had de-stroyed her too?
It would ex-plain the lack of blood, the un-bro-ken skin around oth-er-wise fa-tal wounds.
Smooth pur-ple cuts, like the echoes of a wound rather than the wounds them-selves.
Was it even pos-si-ble? Would tak-ing a knife to a paint-ing have the power to kill its sub-ject?
My knees were on the brink of buck-ling, but sheer adren-a-line held me steady as I took the last few stairs and headed for the exit.
Dark-ness had de-scended on the quad, but quiet had not. A knot of stu-dents were per-form-ing an im-promptu ren-di-tion of The Two Gen-tle-men of Verona, with a tall third year cross-dressed as a man and a flam-boy-ant-haired class-mate on all fours, wag-ging an imag-i-nary tail in his role of Crab. A small crowd had gath-ered to watch, un-aware of the am-bu-lance parked on the other side of Drum-mond. I couldn’t imag-ine the paramedics had em-ployed their sirens—Or-lagh was al-ready dead, af-ter all. The pops of ac-tors were bliss-fully ig-no-rant to the rav-aged body of an icon slumped just a few hun-dred yards away.
Tuck-ing my chin to my chest, I wrapped my fur coat tighter around me and headed straight for the Basil Hall-ward The-ater.
A low, ur-gent voice in the back of my head told me to heed cau-tion. If my sus-pi-cions were cor-rect and Or-lagh had been mur-dered through her paint-ing, there was ev-ery chance the killer was still on cam-pus. Still in the very gallery I was head-ing to-ward. Of course, if it had been Davina and Dr-ever, I knew they were in Drum-mond right now, talk-ing to the paramedics. But if I was wrong …
And yet risk be damned, I had to know.
I had to know what Or-lagh’s paint-ing looked like right at this sec-ond.
More press-ing still, I needed to find out whether Davina hung there too.
If she didn’t, I could rule her out as the killer.
If she did …
Well, I didn’t know what I would do next. I had to gather the pearls of in-for-ma-tion be-fore I could string them into a neck-lace.
When I got to the stage door and tried the han-dle, how-ever, it was locked. I re-mem-bered Or-lagh open-ing it with a large golden key and in-wardly de-spaired. I hadn’t been here long enough to un-der-stand how these things worked—was the the-ater only used as a re-hearsal space un-der su-per-vi-sion? Stu-dents could come and go as they pleased in the other build-ings, but was the Basil Hall-ward The-ater off lim-its to pre-serve its im-mac-u-late fa-cade?
I wrapped around to the front of the build-ing, to the box of-fice that looked over the Great Lawn and down to the lake and the Cross-woods. This time, luck was on my side. The grand en-trance doors, cor-niced with pala-tial gold, swung open into a cool, de-serted lobby. The space was lit only by two small green bankers’ lamps on a ta-ble scat-tered with old pro-grams. The cold air smelled of hair-spray, dusty cos-tumes and freshly pol-ished floors.
When I pushed through the “stalls A–J” doors to the au-di-to-rium, how-ever, the hope died in my chest. There were a dozen sec-ond years mid-flow on stage, re-hears-ing Much Ado About Noth-ing with ex-ag-ger-ated gusto.
At the sight of the road-block, it took ev-ery-thing I had not to slump to the floor. How was I go-ing to get down to the gallery any time soon?
And if the killer wasn’t Davina or Dr-ever, how were they go-ing to get out?
Was a ne-far-i-ous fig-ure crouched be-neath the stage as we spoke? Or had Or-lagh’s mur-der been com-mit-ted hours be-fore these stu-dents took to the stage? No. She had still car-ried traces of warmth. She couldn’t have been dead long.
So many ques-tions, pop-ping up in my mind like the whack-a-mole ma-chine in the ar-cade Samara and I used to spend our week-ends in. Ei-ther way, all I could do was wait. I took a seat in the very back row, the adren-a-line leav-ing me in de-feated waves. I tucked my feet up on to the edge of the ma-roon vel-vet chair and wrapped my arms around my knees, fold-ing my whole body around the grind-ing pit of hunger in my stom-ach.
As I sat and gath-ered my breath, a sense of des-o-la-tion set-tled over me like dense fog. No mat-ter how or why or who or what or when, the sim-ple, in-es-ca-pa-ble fact was that my men-tor was dead. A vault of knowl-edge—on the world, on so-ci-ety, on my body and on the Masked Painter—for-ever locked to me.
Cav-ernous de-spair opened up in my chest, along with a feel-ing of help-less en-trap-ment. I had built my-self a cage of hunger, and Or-lagh’s death had locked the door.
Un-less, of course, my mother knew some-thing. Her por-trait hung in the gallery too, af-ter all. But the thought of con-fess-ing all I had done to her was ex-cru-ci-at-ing. A last re-sort I hoped never to need.
The stu-dent ac-tor play-ing Don Pe-dro boomed:
“Why, what’s the mat-ter, / that you have such a Feb-ru-ary face, / so full of frost, of storm and cloudi-ness?”
Act V. They were near the end. I wouldn’t have to wait much longer.
Once my heart rate had sim-mered down some-what, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. There was a text from Catalina in the room-mate group chat:
fancy meet-ing at the cos-tumery later? i think there’s a trivia quiz or some-thing, could be fun! :)
Fraser had left her hang-ing, but Maisie had replied:
i’m with Davina, sorry
I frowned. The mes-sage was sent fif-teen min-utes ago—around the ex-act time I was with Davina and Dr-ever in Or-lagh’s of-fice. Was Maisie ly-ing to get out of spend-ing time with us? Or was there some-thing more sin-is-ter there—had Davina asked Maisie to cover for her? An al-ibi?
All of this was point-ing one way.
I de-cided not to re-ply just yet. Catalina would soon hear about Or-lagh’s death, and she could hardly be an-gry at me for not tex-ting back right af-ter find-ing a body.
In-stead, I opened up the chat with my mother. The last thing I’d said was:
so I’ve been as-signed an es-say on the sub-ject “what is an au-di-ence” and my overly lit-eral brain is strug-gling not to just write “a group gath-ered to watch a play” haha. any tips on how to im-press ked-die with-out driv-ing my-self mad??
She had not replied.
I started typ-ing with a shak-ing hand:
or-lagh cam-ran is dead
My thumb hov-ered over the pe-riod key for far too long be-fore delet-ing the mes-sage un-sent.
Just then I heard the pompous Shake-spearean tenors re-lax into ca-sual stu-dent chat-ter. The sec-ond years had fin-ished their re-hearsals, and were scoop-ing up back-packs and messy scripts cov-ered in high-lighter strips. A short dark-haired girl with French plaits and no bra gig-gled falsely, grab-bing the el-bow of a dark-skinned guy in skinny cig-a-rette trousers. His dis-com-fort was ob-vi-ous, even to me, but she con-tin-ued to shame-lessly flirt with him as they clam-bered down from the stage and strolled up the aisles.
As they drew level with the back row, I held my breath in case any of them ques-tioned why I was spy-ing on their re-hearsals, but none of them bat-ted an eye-lid. They banged out of the stalls door into the lobby in a wave of sweet per-fume and fresh sweat. A few mo-ments later, the the-ater fell into si-lence as they left the build-ing.
In-stead of head-ing straight to-ward the stage, how-ever, I crouched down in my row—an-kle and knee joints click-ing and moan-ing as I did—and peered around the edge of the out-er-most seat.
If the killer had been wait-ing for their chance to es-cape, now they had it.
Heart thump-ing, I pic-tured them holed up be-neath the stage, bid-ing their time un-til the the-ater emp-tied. Would they give it an-other few min-utes, wait-ing for ev-ery-one to fil-ter out for cer-tain? Afraid of be-ing caught by any strag-glers?
But when the mo-ments rolled into min-utes and no-body ap-peared, yet again the sit-u-a-tion pointed to Davina and Dr-ever.
Then the doubts started to ap-pear. Had I jumped to con-clu-sions? Was it pos-si-ble Or-lagh hadn’t been mur-dered at all but rather died of nat-u-ral causes?
No. Un-less marred by some bru-tal ex-ter-nal force, their bod-ies will never change. They may cheat even death.
There had to be a bru-tal ex-ter-nal force. But right now, I was one of the few liv-ing peo-ple who un-der-stood this. The paramedics would not as-sume mur-der when they found the body with its old-look-ing scars, and while I was sure the po-lice would want to talk to me at some point about how and when I’d found her, they prob-a-bly wouldn’t be in a rush. I was not a sus-pect, be-cause this was not, in their eyes, a crim-i-nal mat-ter. If I wanted to in-ves-ti-gate, I was on my own.
First, I would fig-ure out the how, and then the who and the why.
Who could have wanted to kill Or-lagh? To what end?
And what did it mean for me?
When noth-ing hap-pened for at least a quar-ter of an hour, I de-cided the coast must be clear. I climbed in-el-e-gantly to my feet, rid-ing out the in-tense head rush, and strode pur-pose-fully to-ward the stage be-fore I could talk my-self out of it.
De-scend-ing through the trap-door, the air be-neath the stage felt cold and stag-nant. I stepped care-fully over the elec-tri-cal cords and dis-carded props and crossed to the door lead-ing to the tun-nel.
I tried the han-dle.
Locked.
I in-wardly kicked my-self. I should have searched Or-lagh’s body for the key while I had the chance, in-stead of wast-ing my time on the Rolodex. Now it was too late. The am-bu-lance had de-scended. To the morgue she went.
No mat-ter how badly I burned for an-swers, I would not be find-ing them tonight.