He finally stopped posing her. He knew from experience that he could lose hours like this, with the same outcome he’d achieved twice already since last night. He had no time for that now. He had scant time to develop his film, and he couldn’t afford to squander it.

He shot his photos, a dozen in all, making certain some film remained for later. He hoped he would have another opportunity to take more pictures with a different model in the next few days. He’d hold off on developing the film until then. Back East, he’d purchased a Kodak film tank, a portable developer that had proved invaluable.

He replaced the camera under his bed and picked up the doll, crushing her to him as he inhaled the scent that still clung to her dress, a whiff of vanilla ice cream and lemon. For a long time he stood, rocking back and forth, until he heard the clatter of a milk wagon in the street. He kissed her cool forehead, pulled a key from his pocket, and carried her to the closet. He stood her inside and locked the door.

Only then did he allow himself to retrieve his greatest treasures from the suitcase: a sheaf of photographs nestled within a leather folder. Each one showed a doll—always the same doll, but you would never know it. He had dressed and posed her so naturally that, as he fanned out the photos, it seemed to him as though he held an entire garden of beautiful creatures in his hands.

His fingers trembled as he recalled the name of each girl: Maria, Iolanda, Abriana, Deirdre, and all the others. The Italian girl, Abriana, had been so pliant and vacant of expression that she might truly have been a life-size doll. Yet her beauty, like that of the others, would have been lost forever, save for these images. The innocent symmetry of the doll’s features would never change, never age; never be tainted by betrayal. They were his alone, always.

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

PIN WOKE, FOR once, long before her mother. Floating between sleep and wakefulness, she waited for the sun’s rays to creep down the alley. A devil’s face danced in front of her, twisting into a Kewpie doll’s and then her sister’s, which was the same face as the girl’s in the tunnel, only laughing. With a cry she sat up, looked down to see if she’d awakened her mother.

No. Gina slept through anything. As Pin’s heart slowed, she stared at the dingy sheet, the muslin panels Gina had pinned over the windows to provide some privacy, the red utility bag where her mother kept her few cosmetics and fortune-telling cards.

Everything was as it had been when she woke yesterday morning. How could the entire world change, yet her mother still keep her face powder in a stained red bag?