Page 85 of If Anything Happens To Me

“That was good thinking,” Minerva said. “Fitch is dangerous, and there’s no telling what he would have done in response. Maybe a little of our family clairvoyance rubbed off on you,” she added with a twinkle in her eye.

Maybe Iwasa little clairvoyant. I didn’t really believe it was true—I was a detective, not a sibyl. Still, coming from Minerva, the idea meant a lot to me.

“So what about those gold charms?” I asked. “Attached to the paintings? What was the symbolism? Did Fitch put them there?”

“Far from it,” Minerva said. “Those panels date back to the 1930s and 1940s, when the Sibylline sisters would give their shows in theaters. They needed stage sets, so the three girls painted panels. Each one did a portrait of one of the others.”

“I love that,” I said.

“Daphne was always avant-garde, and she wanted their work to be more than just paintings. She had seen ‘assemblages’ at a museum in Boston, so she inspired the other sisters to create small charms engraved with images from their dreams, their visions.”

“But how did they create them in gold?” I asked.

“That was Daphne, too,” Minerva said. “Many admirers went to see their shows, and there was one man—Serge Gault, a wealthy jewelry maker from Providence—who imported gold for his work.”

“And he fell in love with Daphne?” I asked.

“Actually, her sister Athena,” Minerva said, with sadness in her eyes. “But Athena died of parasomnia before they could get married. So Serge wanted to make a series of gold charms in her honor. It was Daphne who urged him to enamel them with the images that the sisters, especially Athena, loved.” She paused, smiling. “And he not only did what she suggested, he taught her how to work with gold.”

“So Daphne started the shop in New London?” I asked.

“She did. And she is the one who taught me her trade.”

“But what about the panels? And the charms?” I asked.

“Like I said, Daphne was always thinking of new ways to create,” Minerva said. “She was the one who installed the charms on the panels that she and her sisters painted, as a way of honoring them. They were sea witches, mermaids, seers, sibyls. And each charm represents the most magical parts of their sisterhood.”

I smiled at that. Sisters were indeed magic.

***

As the week went on, I knew I had to see Abigail. I steeled myself to ask her questions and listen to whatever she had to say. Or maybe she would decide not to talk to me. Maybe there were answers she didn’t want me to know.

I knew from Detective Tyrone that Abigail was considered a suspect—because she had known about Fitch’s activities and not done anything.

That bothered me. Was there a point where she could have stopped him? If she had turned him in, would that have prevented him from kidnapping Eloise, Iris, and Hayley?

Abigail wasn’t in custody, but she was still at the hospital for evaluation and treatment. Her mother cut short the European leg of her lecture tour to return home and face the reality of what her children had done. Reporters and TV crews surrounded Shoreline General Hospital, wanting news about the case.

I had watched footage online, seen reporters stick microphones in Dr. Constance Martin’s face every time she walked in and out of the hospital lobby, but Dr. Martin refused to be interviewed.

When I went to visit Abigail, the press did the same to me.

“Olivia!” they called as I shouldered through the crowd standing across the sidewalk from hospital property. “Tell us how you feel about Fitch Martin being arrested! Was he your friend? Was he Eloise’s? Tell us about the attic, what happened in the attic?”

Every question they yelled was too private for me to answer, so I just put my head down and entered the hospital. They weren’t allowed inside, and it was nice and quiet in there.

When I got to Abigail’s room, Dr. Martin walked past without even saying hello to me. I stepped through the door, saw Abigail in bed. She was wearing a blue-and-white hospital gown. She was attached to a heart monitor and blood oxygen sensor. Two bags of clear fluid hung from an IV pole.

“Sorry my mother ignored you,” Abigail said. “Don’t take it personally. This just isn’t her kind of thing.”

“?‘This’?” I asked, as if I cared about her mother ignoring me.

“Yeah. Having everything come out. All our family secrets. Fitch being arrested for kidnapping and murder, me in the hospital, and our family disease splashed all over the news.”

“Right,” I said a little sarcastically. “That must be really hard.”

“Oh, Oli,” she said. “I don’t mean it that way. It’s nothing compared to what your family has gone through. And the Bigelows.”

---