Death Mask

“The necklace did it, not me.”

“I’m sure you did it together, the necklace and you. Just like my mother’s ring won’t go dark on its own, the necklace doesn’t work unless you’re wearing it. You’re an artist. You’re a brilliant artist, and the necklace knows that you are.”

Molly reached out and picked up the steak knife. She ran her fingertip down the blade, and said, “Ouch. Just like the real thing.”

“Well, let’s see how it cuts these roses.”

Molly knelt down on one knee and cut the roses as close to the soil as she could. She smelled them, and then offered them to Sissy, so that she could smell them, too.

“Nothing,” said Sissy. “No fragrance at all. If anything, they smell like paper.”

Molly took the roses into her studio and laid them on her desk.

Sissy said, “Let’s see what happens now. If they stay cut, then we’ll we know that we can have an actual physical effect on things that are painted, even if they’re not really real.”

“Like Red Mask, you mean?”

“Let’s hope so.”

That afternoon, while Molly was making a vegetable potpie for supper, Sissy went over the DeVane cards again and again, trying to decode the symbolism of the roses.

Now and again she glanced across at the flowers that were still lying on Molly’s desk, but so far they were showing no sign of changing back into paintings. They reminded her of the day she had married Frank. He had heaped their honeymoon bed with dozens and dozens of roses, crimson and white.

Molly had borrowed four library books on roses, which she was using for reference for her Fairy Fifi story. “Roses are a symbol of beauty and love,” declared The Illustrated Rose. “But at the same time they are a sad reminder that beauty and love always fade away and die.

“Roses are also a symbol of great secrecy. There is a myth that Cupid offered a rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to bribe him not to disclose the sexual indiscretions of the goddess Venus.

“In ancient Rome and Greece, a host who suspended an upside-down rose over a table would expect the guests who were gathered underneath it to keep their discussions confidential — hence the term sub rosa.”

Sissy frowned. An upside-down rose, suspended over a table?

She shuffled through the DeVane cards until she found les Amis de la table, the first card she had turned up after Molly had painted the roses and they had come to life. Here they sat, four people eating a lavish dinner together, two young people and an older woman, and a mysterious man whose face was hidden under a gray hood. And there it was, hanging above their heads: an upside-down rose, tied to the candelabrum with a ribbon.

Unlike some of the other cards, there was no writing on les Amis de la table apart from its title, so the presence of the rose could mean only one thing. The picture itself must hold a secret. But what?

She tucked the card back into the deck and shuffled it. But when she tried to pick out another card, it was the same one, les Amis de la table. She tried again, shuffling even more thoroughly this time. But again, when she drew out a card, there it was, les Amis de la table. She did it again and again, and every time, les Amis de la table reappeared.

She took the card into the kitchen, where Molly was cutting up carrots. “You see this card? The first time I picked it, I thought it meant that I was welcome to stay here another week.”

“Well, you are,” said Molly.

“Yes, but now the same damn card has come up four times in a row. I shuffle the deck, I pick a card, and it’s always the same one. The cards only repeat themselves when they’re trying to tell you that you’ve missed the point. It’s like they’re saying, Hello, stupid!”

“So what is the point?”

“I’m not sure. But this upside-down rose means that the card has a secret hidden in it someplace.”

Molly looked at the card and shrugged. “I don’t see any secret. Except. well, you can’t see this hooded guy’s face, can you? So you can’t tell why this old woman is looking so worried about him.”

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s somebody famous. Or somebody who was famous, back in the eighteenth century. An artist, you know? Or a politician. Or maybe he’s a saint. Maybe, if we knew who he was, we could begin to understand how to turn murderers back into drawings of murderers.”

Molly examined the card more intently. “Look. you can see his face reflected in that dish cover, can’t you?”

“Yes. But it’s so distorted. He’s all nose.”

“That’s easily fixed. Here.” Molly took down a ladle from the rack above the hob and held it up close to the card. Inside the concave bowl of the ladle, the image of the hooded man’s face was turned upside-down, but his features appeared almost normal.

She turned the card around, and now they could clearly see who the hooded man was.

“My God,” said Sissy. She felt as if the floor had dropped away beneath her feet. She stared at the hooded man’s face in disbelief and then she stared at Molly. “It can’t be.”

Molly shook her head. “It is him, isn’t it? But how could it be?”

The hooded man’s forehead was slightly too prominent, and his chin was too small, but Sissy had recognized him at once. The face reflected in the dish cover in les Amis de la table, a card that had been devised and drawn nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, was her late husband, Frank.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Drawn from Memory

They tried it again, this time using a shiny silver bowl that Trevor had won last August at the Blue Ash Golf Tournament, so that the image of the hooded man’s face was much larger.

“It’s Frank, isn’t it?” said Sissy. Her heart was beating so fast that it actually hurt. “It doesn’t just look like him. It is him. He even has that diamond-shaped scar on his cheek. He got that when some punk threw a screwdriver at him.”

“I totally can’t understand how it could be him,” said Molly.

“How do people’s faces appear on windows, or slices of bread? How did the image of Christ appear on a ten-dollar bill, instead of Alexander Hamilton?”

Molly put her arm around her and gave her a comforting squeeze. “You’re not upset, are you?”

“Yes. I am a little. I am a lot. I feel like crying, but I don’t think I can.”

“How about another drink?”

“No, I’m fine. I think I need to sit down, is all.”

“At least the cards are starting to give you some answers.”

“Yes, I think they are. But I’m not so sure I like what they’re telling me.”

“What do you think they are telling you?”

Sissy sat on the end of the couch and took out her Marlboros, although she didn’t light one. “The real police can find the real Red Mask, can’t they? He has to have an address that they can trace, and DNA that they can check up on. But when you think about it — what kind of cop is going to be able to hunt down a couple of painted Red Masks?”

“You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting? You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, no? What else do you think this card is showing us? There are four people sitting at this table. The young man represents Trevor. The girl represents you. The older woman, that’s me. But look at the older woman’s face. I thought she was worried at first, or frightened, but she’s not. She’s asking him the hooded man for help. Please, she’s saying. Look at the way her left hand is pressed flat against her chest.