Ripper. Part 29

Epilogue.

A.

day later, I sat looking out my bedroom window at Grandmother's house. Pigeons, doves, sparrows dived in and out of spires and gabled towers in the near distance, flying black specks as the sunset ensued in a coppery flash. In spite of not finding Max yet, I felt hopeful, in that moment, as I had never been.

I leaned further out so that the wind whipped at my hair, and I inhaled a faint whiff of baking pies, the sharp tang of smog. I would begin, immediately, applying to medical school, and in the meantime continue to work alongside William and Simon at Whitechapel Hospital.

I bit my lip; my return to the hospital was not a subject I had yet broached with Grandmother.

Richard knocked at the door. I had asked that whenever possible, he bring me my mail rather than Ellen.

"Miss Arabella. This arrived just now, attached to a very large package downstairs."

He handed me a small envelope. He paused before leaving, eyeing me curiously. "I am glad that you returned to us safely."

His statement was odd; I wondered what Simon had told him the other night. Richard might know or suspect that we had not been at the New Hospital, that something else was going on. Nonetheless, he remained the poised butler, his expression fond and kind.

"Thank you, Richard."

I hoped he knew that I meant it.

The moment he left, I tore open the envelope with my letter opener. But before I could read the note inside, I heard a blood-curdling scream from downstairs.

My first thought was that it was Max, finally returned to take his revenge. I dropped the note and ran, taking the sharp letter opener with me.

I reached the staircase landing and froze. Ellen had already opened my package.

Grandmother, her face stricken as if she had seen the devil, was standing in front of an enormous portrait-Dante Gabriel Rossetti's missing Lamia portrait featuring my mother.

I gasped, my emotion overwhelming. Mother's hair was down, and long, way past her waist. Rossetti had captured the gold flecks amidst the red color of her hair perfectly; it was the hair I had brushed daily throughout my childhood. In the portrait, she sunbathed upon a rock near a beach, her body totally naked, her face and b.r.e.a.s.t.s very human, but her feet dragonlike. Translucent, sea-green scales covered her legs and her arms, and great claws extended from her fingers. She was monstrous and beautiful. Cryptic, and yet authentic.

I heard a thud behind me as Grandmother fainted.

I pulled myself away from the portrait to attend to her. Richard returned with the smelling salts and she revived immediately.

"Destroy it!" she cried. "Take it out to the back and destroy it, Richard."

"No, no, don't you dare!" I shouted at Grandmother. "It's mine. Christina Rossetti promised it to me, and if it goes, I go. I'll put it in my room, in my closet even. No one needs to see it. But it's mine."

Grandmother knew it was mine, and she could say nothing. She stared at me, her eyes flaring. She stormed off to the parlor. But I knew I had won. I knew, in spite of all her raving, that in the end, I was more important than her pride.

After Richard helped me carry the enormous portrait to my room, I picked up the envelope; I had nearly forgotten about it upon seeing the portrait. I a.s.sumed that perhaps Christina had found the painting somewhere. Or maybe it was William who had located it.

I pulled the note from the envelope and read.

Dear Abbie Sharp, This has been great fun. But all is not over. I do think this belongs to you. Enjoy. Au revoir.

-M.

Photography by Roger Hutchison.

About the Author.

Amy Carol Reeves has a PhD in nineteenth-century British literature. She published a few academic articles before deciding that it would be much more fun to write about Jack the Ripper. When she is not writing or teaching college cla.s.ses, she enjoys running around her neighborhood with her giant Labrador retriever and serial-reading Jane Austen novels. She lives in Columbia, South Carolina, with her husband and two children. Ripperis her debut novel.

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