Page 119 of Home Before Dark

O

I waited for more, inching forward in my chair. After ten seconds passed without the sound of any other bells, I said, “Why not?”

The same two bells rang again.

NO

“But he killed your daughter.”

I got those same two rings in response.

NO

“He didn’t?”

One ring. Two rings.

NO

“Then who did?”

Three bells rang a total of four times, the second one chiming twice on the second row.

LOOK

“At what?” I said, growing frustrated. “What should I be looking at?”

There was a pause during which I sat staring at the wall, waiting for a response. When it came—six bells ringing throughout thewall, two of them chiming twice—I could barely keep up. It was only after they had quieted that I had time to match the bells to their corresponding letters.

The word it spelled wasPORTRAIT.

“William Garson’s portrait?” I asked.

The second and third bells on the second row rang one last time.

NO

I was about to respond, but then the bells sprang to life again. Three rings followed by the shortest of pauses and then the same run of six bells and eight letters I’d just seen. Again, it took me a moment to figure it out.

When I did, I let out a gasp so loud and sudden that it echoed off the kitchen walls.

HER PORTRAIT

I rushed upstairs and moved through the great room. When I reached the front staircase, I looked up to see the chandelier aglow, even though it had been dark the last time I passed beneath it.

A sign that spirits were active. I felt foolish for not realizing it sooner.

I kept moving. Past the staircase. Into the Indigo Room. I didn’t stop until I was at the fireplace, looking up at the portrait Curtis had been referring to.

Indigo Garson.

I stared at the painting, wondering what I was supposed to be seeing. Nothing seemed amiss about it. It was a portrait of a young woman painted by a man who had been in love with her.

I didn’t find anything strange about that.

But then I looked to the white rabbit Indigo held in her hands. I’d previously noticed the chip of missing paint at the animal’s left eye. Considering it was the portrait’s only flaw, it was hard to miss.But it also drew the eye away from the fact that the rabbit had been rendered in a slightly different manner than everything else. It wasn’t as detailed as the rest of the painting, as if it had been the work of an entirely different artist.

I moved close, studying the rabbit’s fur, which lacked the individual brushstrokes of Indigo’s shining hair. The paint there was thicker as well. Not overtly so. Just raised slightly higher than everything else. When I zeroed in on the rabbit’s missing eye, I saw within its socket another layer of paint behind it.

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