Page 10 of My Darling Girls

“Were any other family members affected by the sickness?”

“God, no,” Finn says and drains his whiskey. “The stench was awful. Poor Millie. She was screaming in agony.”

“Must’ve been her time to leave us,” Gertrude says and wipes her wet cheeks. “Must’ve been her time,” she repeats, and without another word walks to the door, the hem of her skirt brushing over the floor. She puts her hand on the doorknob but doesn’t turn it. Instead, she looks at Jo over her shoulder. “Make sure she looks peaceful. Not just pretty.” She pulls the door open and steps into the hallway.

“Finn,” Jo says, turning to face the young man.

“What’s wrong?” He looks down at her with an edge of sorrow that pierces her heart.

“I prefer to work alone.”

His eyes hold her for just a moment too long before he nods and sets his glass on the mantelpiece. “I’ll be outside. Call for me if you need anything.”

She waits for him to leave the room before she tips her head and downs the whiskey. It pleasantly scorches its way to her stomach, numbing the last of her nerves. She sets her glass next to Finn’s and takes her camera from the bag. Her fingers run across the metal, embracing the bitingly icy feel.

Then she looks at the girl.

One can learn a lot by looking at a subject.

The girl’s hair is freshly washed and pulled away from her face, except for that errant lock across her forehead. Jo softly brushes it away, but it won’t stay in place. Someone, probably her mother, washed Millie before putting her on the bed. The familiar orange blossom scent hangs above the girl. A poor attempt to mask the scent of death. There are no traces of blood or stomach sickness. Just a lingering stench of decay.

Millie’s head rolls to the side.

Josephine.

A whisper, a distant voice. Or maybe an echo from the bottom of the well.

Thanks for coming.

Jo gasps. Her heart stops and then restarts somewhere in her throat. A chill, sharp and bone deep, rises from the bed, curling around Jo’s neck, tiny claws scraping against her skin. Millie’s gray lips stretch in a smile, skin pulling away, exposing teeth and bloodless gums. Jo’s knees buckle, and she stumbles backward. Just inches away, Jo catches sight of something moving under the girl’s ashen skin. The mist from the courtyard. The girl’s features shift, flicker in and out of focus. Like a defective, underdeveloped photographic print. One second she’s smiling, another she’s scowling, and the next Millie’s expression is somber.

A girlish giggle, mischievous and soft, pierces the silence.

Instinctively, Jo’s hands find and clutch the sheets on the side of the bed. Her bones turn into rubber, barely supporting her weight. What’s happening? Is Millie alive? Has this just been some awful mistake? Jo lifts her hand to touch the girl but recoils. Perhaps she wasn’t sick but drugged, and now she’s in a dazed stupor that everyone mistook for death.

The whiskey is churning in her stomach.

“Millie,” Jo whispers and forces herself to press her fingers to the girl’s forehead, fully expecting it to be warm. But the girl’s skin is ice cold. A few light blemishes, rot most likely, mar the otherwise perfect skin.

Something touches the back of Jo’s neck. A light brush like the wings of a moth. She whirls around, but there is no one behind her. Just shadows churning in the air like angry wisps of smoke. Fear, marrow deep, springs inside Jo’s chest, tightening her rib cage. A complete silence descends. The hushed voices outside the room are gone. The floorboards don’t creak under her feet. She can’t even hear her own ragged breathing.

The absence of sound is terrifying. Shadows gather in the corners of the room, making her dizzy. Jo closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. This is all in her mind. She slaps her cheeks. The burning pain does nothing. Her mind is weak and damaged and conjures all sorts of things that are not real. She must not allow it to take her to places she doesn’t want to go.

The camera in her hands is real.

Photography is real.

And that’s what she needs to focus on. Her work.

She opens her eyes.

She gently moves Millie’s head back to the pillow. She brushes at the unruly lock. As the candles flicker, threatening to extinguish, the shadows pull away from the bed and move back to the corners.

Jo presses her palm into Millie’s cheek, cupping it. “Stay still, please.”

Millie stays still, and Jo goes to work.

As soon as the shutters click, nothing else matters. There is only her camera, her own breathing, and the glow of candles on Millie’s face. At some point, she rearranges the candles to give Millie more light, more exposure. More depth. As she walks around the bed, taking pictures, focusing only on the girl, the sounds come back one by one—the moaning of the floorboards, the heavy footsteps on the other side of the door, male voices in the hall.