I stare at the first portrait, my morbid brain dubbing her Helen before I can help myself. In the painting, the woman’s hairis scraped back, and she wears a blindfold, but now I see there’s just a hint of more bindings round her shoulders, before the painting fades into itself. I shake my head. Why didn’t I notice this before? Maybe the printouts weren’t clear enough.
I walk along the line and focus on the second portrait. Even though the style and expression are much the same, it’s obviously a different woman. Her hair is tied back in a soft, wavy style, something that looks intricate and obviously took time and care but is forever coming undone. Small red flowers are dotted throughout her hair, and I recognize them as blooms of red gypsophila, because Kim had those in our wedding bouquets to match our red bridesmaid dresses. They form a halo around her face but are mostly smudged out of the frame along with the top of the woman’s head. I take a step back to look at the image as a whole, and it’s so obvious.
She’s wearing a crown of flowers. Noah said Jake heard his mom talking about a crown and flowers, too. Coincidence…?
“What are you doing?” My heart jumps into my throat as Izzy hisses in my ear, so close I back away.
“Izzy!” I exclaim, pressing a hand to my chest as I turn to face her. “You scared me.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing, be normal. Noah’s right behind me, and I reckon he thinks you have diarrhea or something. Here, your coffee is probably cold by now,” she whispers, thrusting a takeout cup into my hand and holding out my bag before speaking a bit louder. “Did you do that thing your dad wanted?”
“Huh?” I sling the tote over my shoulder and take a sip of the coffee as Noah joins us, even though I know I shouldn’t haveliquid near the art. It’s still warm, and it’s nice and sweet, so I take a second sip. “What do you mean?”
Izzy makes eyes at me. “Did you speak to Alessandra?”
“Oh! Yeah, I did. Everything’s fine.”
“Good.” Izzy eyes the paintings and shudders. “These things give me the creeps, especially now we know what’s in them. Come on, let’s go out into the sunshine. Noah, you want to hang out for a bit?”
I look up to find him staring directly at me, and a flush creeps up my chest and throat so fast I know there’s no way to hide it.
“You want me to?” he asks. I don’t trust myself to talk without squeaking, so I nod instead. “All right, then.”
I trail behind them for a second, taking one last glance at the second portrait.Jen.I wonder if the police have started to put it together yet, because from here, it seems glaringly obvious.
There’s a copycat killer in Blackwood.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Ugh, that thing is stillon display?”
Izzy picks up her pace as we pass the unknown artist’s self-portrait. I flinch unintentionally—I forgot how terrifying it is. I’m grabbed by a sudden urge to take a photo of it, though, so I go in close and snap one on my phone. The subject’s hollow eyes glow from the screen, filling me with revulsion.
“Erm, Fliss, what are you doing?”
I look up from the screen to see Izzy and Noah staring at me in horror.
“It’s for my dad,” I say, thinking fast and holding up the phone in a shrug. “He asked me to send him a picture of it in the gallery. He wants to show someone they met in the Maldives.”
“God, just promise me you won’t post it anywhere. The last thing we need is this curse going viral.”
“You really believe that, don’t you,” Noah says to Izzy. It’s not a question; instead, his voice is flat. Emotionless.
“Don’t you? Look what’s happened since Fliss found that thing.” Izzy gives an exaggerated shiver, but then her expression turns apologetic as she realizes it’s poor taste to insinuate that Jen’s death is part of the curse.
We walk through the rest of the gallery in silence and finally emerge into the sunshine on the quad. I fold myself into a sitting position on the grass and let my mind wander as Izzy shows Noah a silly video on her phone, trying hard to cheer him up.
I leave them to it and open the web browser on my own phone, flicking to a tab from the gallery that shows The Four. Something started to bubble inside me when I saw the connection in the gallery, and it’s not quite excitement, because that would be weird and wrong, but I know I’m onto something, and even the police might not have realized it yet. There are four paintings of women here, who, if we go by my recent research, were probably murdered by BBK in 1911. Now two of those murders have potentially been re-created by someone in Blackwood. But why? Did the self-portrait resurfacing trigger them? Izzy would say it’s because the painting is cursed, but I just can’t bring myself to believe that. What Idobelieve is that if I’m right, Blackwood has a big problem.
“Oh, Fliss!” I start as Noah jumps up, and I realize a second too late that the seat of my jeans is soaked through. I shuffle onto my knees and see my now-empty coffee cup next to me on the grass. “I’m sorry, I was moving my bag and the whole thing upended…The clasp on it doesn’t always catch properly…” He trails off and bites his lower lip. Izzy hands me a wad of tissue and I twist around to study the brown coffee stain spreading across my bum.
“It’s fine,” I say quickly, tugging off my oversized shirt and wrapping it round my waist as Noah scrambles around the grassfor his belongings. The air is cool on my bare arms and I curse myself for throwing on the most revealing vest top I own this morning. I try to discreetly raise the neckline. “There, all good. Do you need a hand?”
“Don’t worry, I’m done.” Noah scoops up an old-school film canister and a reporter’s notebook and shoves them into the satchel. “I really do need a new bag before school starts next month. This one is faulty.” He picks up the satchel and stands. “Actually, I might go and do that today. Better now than never, right?”
“Right,” I agree, ignoring Izzy’s head swiveling between the two of us like she’s at Wimbledon.
Noah hesitates before looking back down at me. I’m still crouching like some kind of fool. “Can I text you later? I did mean to this morning, but then, well…you know.”