Days later, Rachel turned the pregnancy test over and looked at the result.
She smiled down at her stomach. Well. She hadn’t seen that coming.
It was Saturday, the evening of the launch. Jack was downstairs; she watched him from the window carrying the last tray of drinks across to the gallery. She would tell him tonight, when the last of their guests had left. For now, it was her secret. Happiness filled her.
‘Hello,’ she whispered to the tiny person inside.
Our child. Our baby. For now, though, it was time to get ready.
Before she left the room, Rachel glanced once more at the painting of Mary Sinnett’s cottage. She had completely forgotten about it, having packed the painting up weeks ago in anticipation of returning to New York. Only last week had she found it, and, while her instinct had been to get rid of it, just as she had the mirror, it seemed sacrilege to destroy such a perfect work of art – and a harmless one at that. The curse was over. The mirror was gone. There was nothing to be afraid of any more. To prove it, she had found happiness at last with Jack, and now with the promise of her precious new family. Life was beginning again. Winterbourne rejoiced with her.
She’d thought about hanging the painting in the orangery along with the other works to be admired, but it hadn’t felt right there. It felt right here, where it had always been, by the green drapes and alongside the view of the sea.
M. C. Sinnett. The little signature in the corner shone out at her. Mary’s painting. Rachel touched the age-old oils cautiously, for a detail had troubled her these past days. It was that the cottage window, which had at first been flung open, was, she could swear, closing a fraction each hour. She examined it now to test if it had moved again, and it had, she thought, a little – but it had to be a trick of her mind.
Rachel put a protective hand over her stomach. She caught her reflection in the panes, one side of her face washed in light and the other coated in shadow.
There was a hard red mark on her neck, like a scratch, and sore, slightly, to touch. A black shape flitted across her mind but the sunlight chased it away.