Page 60 of The Shape of Night

At approximately seven-fifteen the next morning, the housemaid Miss Jane Steuben arrived and was puzzled that Miss Hollander was not downstairs, as was her habit. Upon climbing to the second floor, Miss Steuben discovered the door to the turret stairs open, and she found the body of Miss Hollander crumpled at the foot of the staircase.

I pause, remembering the nights Captain Brodie led me up those same stairs by flickering candlelight. I think of how steep and narrow that stairway is, and how easily a headlong tumble can snap a neck. On the night Eugenia Hollander died, what was she doing on those stairs?

Had something—someone—lured her to the turret, just as I have been lured?

I focus once again on Officer Billings’s precise handwriting. Of course, he would conclude her death was merely an accident. What else could it be? The deceased woman lived alone, nothing was stolen, and there were no signs of an intruder.

I look at Maeve. “There’s nothing suspicious about this death. That’s what the police believed. Why did you show me this?”

“I was looking for more information about the dead woman when I found a photo of her.”

I turn to the next page in the folder. It’s a black-and-white portrait of a pretty young woman with arching eyebrows and a cascade of dark hair.

“That photo was taken when she was nineteen years old. A beautiful girl, wasn’t she?” says Maeve.

“Yes.”

“Her name appears in a number of society columns published around then, in connection with a variety of eligible young men. At twenty-two years old, she became engaged to a wealthy merchant’s son. As a wedding gift, her father gave her Brodie’s Watch, where the young couple planned to live after their marriage. But that marriage never took place. The day before the wedding, Eugenia broke off the engagement. Instead she chose to remain a spinster, and she lived alone in this house. For the rest of her life.”

Maeve waits for a response, but I don’t know what to say. I can only stare at the photo of nineteen-year-old Eugenia, a beauty who chose never to marry. Who lived out her life alone in this house where I am now living.

“It’s strange, don’t you think?” Maeve says. “All those years, living alone here.”

“Not every woman wants or needs to get married.”

She studies me for a moment, but she is a ghost hunter, not a mind reader. She cannot possibly imagine what happens after dark in this house. In that turret.

She nods at the folder. “Now take a look at the next woman who lived in this house.”

“There was another?”

“After Miss Hollander died on the stairs, Brodie’s Watch passed to her brother. He tried to sell the house but couldn’t find a buyer. There were rumors in town that the place was haunted and it had already fallen into disrepair. He had a niece, Violet Theriault, who’d been widowed at a young age. She was in some financial difficulty so he let her live here, rent-free. This was her home for thirty-seven years, until her death.”

“Don’t tell me she fell down the stairs, too.”

“No. She died in bed, presumably of natural causes, at the age of sixty-nine.”

“Is there a reason you’re telling me about these women?”

“It’s all part of a pattern, Ava. After Violet died, there was Margaret Gordon, a visitor from New York who rented Brodie’s Watch for the summer. She never returned to New York. Instead she remained here until she died of a stroke, twenty-two years later. She was followed by Miss Aurora Sherbrooke, yet another tenant who came just for the summer, decided to buy the house, and lived here until her death thirty years later.”

With every new name she reveals, I flip through the photos in the folder, seeing the faces of those who came before me. Eugenia and Violet, Margaret and Aurora. Now the pattern becomes apparent, a pattern that leaves me stunned. All the women who have lived and died in this house were dark-haired and beautiful. All the women bore a startling resemblance to…

“You,” says Maeve. “They all look likeyou.”

I stare at the final photo. Aurora Sherbrooke had lustrous black hair and a swan neck and arching eyebrows, and while I am not nearly as pretty as she was, the resemblance is unmistakable. It’s as if I am a younger but plainer Sherbrooke sister.

My hands are icy as I turn the page to Aurora’s obituary in the August 20, 1986, edition of theTucker Cove Weekly.

AURORASHERBROOKE,AGE 66

Ms. Aurora Sherbrooke passed away last week at her home in Tucker Cove. She was found by her nephew, Arthur Sherbrooke, who had not heard from her in days and drove from his home in Cape Elizabeth to check on her. The death is not considered suspicious. According to a housekeeper, Ms. Sherbrooke had recently been ill with the flu.

Originally from Newton, Massachusetts, Ms. Sherbrooke first visited Tucker Cove thirty-one years ago. “She immediately fell in love with the town, and especially with the house she was renting,” said her nephew, Arthur Sherbrooke. Ms. Sherbrooke purchased the house, known as Brodie’s Watch, which remained her home until her death.

“Four women have died in this house,” says Maeve.

“None of these deaths were suspicious.”

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