Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin

Author:Adele Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2010-05-02T16:00:00+00:00

The full moon won’t lie. In a rush, I bring the print to the window.

My eyes aren’t playing tricks. The photograph has changed. Black ink is scratched at my breastbone. A crooked little heart. No prank, no forgery. The print has been in my bag since leaving the studio.

The fever of Will’s anger has passed through me and is gone, leaving me wilted. Despite the cold, my hairline beads with sweat. I crawl into a corner of the sill and offer my ignited cheeks, one and then the other, like hot kisses against the frosted pane, before I compose myself enough to return my gaze to the photograph.

I lick my fingers and rub. The ink is indelible. Furthermore, I know exactly what it means. “I believe in you,” I whisper to the darkness beyond. “I know you’ve come back to me.” And I do know it. Rarely have I been so sure of anything.

My breath has turned the glass opaque, and I wipe away the fog to stare outside, far across the lawn. The tree isn’t visible from my vantage point, and fresh snow is dropping, thick and fast as rain. I want to leave this instant, but I must be sure the house is asleep. The last thing I need is Mrs. Sullivan catching me again.

My bones seem to vibrate under my skin as I draw up my legs and twine my arms around my knees. I am so quiet that a mouse darts across the carpet and stakes its claim to a bit of tea cake crumb that had dropped from my napkin.

A spy must know when and how to turn to stone.

A thousand years pass before I hear snoring proof that Mrs. Sullivan is lost to the sleep of the overworked.

Creeping along the corridor, I freeze at the sound of Mavis muttering in her bed. But no, she’s only dreaming. It turns my heart imagining what rebuke had been meted at Mrs. Sullivan’s ready hand once she’d discovered I wasn’t home and that Mavis had been lying to her.

Dear Mavis, she’s lost half her hearing to Mrs. Sullivan’s punishing blows, and yet when I press her she’ll swear one more knock doesn’t matter. I’ll have to think of a way to make it up to her.

Outside, the snow sticks four inches deep and continues to fall. In seconds my head and shoulders and back are wet. Hesitant to use the lantern, I let the watery moonlight guide me down the lawn. Almost immediately I’m soaked from my slipping, skidding shoes. My feet are two numb chunks of ice wrapped in soggy wool, and there’s hardly any point in lifting my dragging hem, though it seems to catch on every twig. My dress is all but ruined, but nothing could turn me back now. My photograph has given me hope, and I will doggedly cast my last coin in its wishing well.

A spy advances on every opportunity.

The butternut tree marks an otherwise desolate part of the property. Its branches haven’t been climbed in many years.

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