I buried my face in my hands.

He paused until I uncovered my face and looked up at him.

“Her husband packed up and left a week later.”

My mother returned, carrying a silver serving tray with three glasses of lemonade. She passed one to me and then one to Mr. Butler. “What are we talking about?”

“I was just telling Grace here a little secret.” He winked at me and I moved toward my mother, hugging her leg.

Despite the tragedy that had brought Charlotte to my room, I knew she was good. Her energy was calm and playful. Sometimes I would hear her laughing, her light steps creaking up and down the hallway. She only ever came to visit at night.

There were, however, negative forces at work in the house. Sinister memories clutched the mattresses, oozing from the comforters, seeping from the walls, vile and iniquitous. As an adult, I was unable to return. What haunted our house was much more disturbing than any ghost.

Chapter 11

I often sat for Jack while he painted me. I could never see my resemblance in his portraits, but as an abstractionist, he said he was capturing my essence.

“Don’t move,” he instructed. I sat in a faded grey wingback chair by the window, my hair cascading over the headrest, sun streaming on my face. “I can see you perfectly right now.”

Staying still wasn’t hard for me; neither was being silent. I enjoyed being his object. The way he studied me, analyzing the intricacies of my features. He often spoke of society’s obsession with youth and beauty. I think he liked that I was younger than him, and that I appeared even younger than I was. I was like a fantasy. Something he had conjured. He seemed to see painting as a way of preserving the world the way he saw it. The way he saw me. Something that would outlive us both.

Jack approached me, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. He placed his index finger below my chin, tilting my face upward. He was in desperate need of a haircut. His curls tumbled over his forehead and fell into his eyes. Periodically, he would run his fingers through his hair in an attempt to slick it back. The curls would comply for a moment, then fall loose again.

“No, that’s not right either.” Jack continued to examine me.

I didn’t respond. I knew this wasn’t intended to be a conversation.

He took both hands and tousled my hair violently. He then extended his thumb, lifted it to his mouth, and, in a series of slow motions, wet it with his tongue. Bringing it down, he let it linger near my mouth before pushing into me, smudging my red lipstick far past the lines of my lips. “That’s better, little one.”

Returning to his easel, he peered at me. “You’d make such a pretty corpse.”

I smiled, my lips pressed together, knowing he meant it as a compliment.