Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) Read Online Free

curtain drop. My breath remained trapped in my chest. That was what the girls had been afflicted with? The curse was real?
    My thoughts scattered away, incoherent.
    Voulo threw back an oily, paint-splattered burlap from an easel. He ran his fingers over a set of paints, then picked up one of the canvases from against the wall and fitted it to the easel. “Pray thee to stand beneath the lamp.”
    “I don’t want to be painted.”
    “I hath painted each of the master’s brides. As I wilt paint thee. Thou wilt stand where thou be directed to stand. And thou must remain still—control thy breath.”
    Air strained in my lungs as I obeyed him.
    He selected a paintbrush, his eyes of black stone regarding me coolly. There was no light in his eyes, no trace of human compassion. I realized he was a ghost, like Balthazar.
    I posed like a statue, like I was already one of Balthazar’s past wives, captured forever in a framed painting. I remembered Lacey’s words—how she worried that she would not be remembered because there would not even be a photograph or painting left behind of her. I would rather be buried in an unmarked grave than preserved for eternity like this.
    Hour upon hour passed. He was a spirit and he never tired. His nimble hand worked the paintbrush in small strokes on the canvas. My back and legs ached, and I could barely contain their trembling.
    Finally, he was done. He turned his easel around so that I could see his work. I was unrecognizable. The cheekbones, the hair and the face shape were mine—but the stiff set of the lips, the frozen expression of the eyes, the old lace of the wedding gown were as though they belonged to someone else. I looked no different to the paintings of the other girls. This picture of me could have been painted in another era, in another century.
    “I must complete the background and the rest of thy bridal gown before it is ready to hang upon the wall.”
    My limbs relaxed a little. “I can leave now. The monseigneur said that I could take walks out in the ocean passage between midnight and dawn each night.”
    He lifted heavy-lidded eyes to me. “But it is now after dawn and thee art forbidden to be outside at such an hour.”
    “But I need to go out of here....”
    He sighed. “Need is a human creation. Thou need for nothing in the realm of Balthazar. Thou art his and that is all.” He inclined his head. “But thee may go retire now to thy waiting place.”
    “Waiting place?”
    “Yes, where thee are to wait and sleep each day.”
    “I will sleep on the chair,” I said quickly.
    “There be another place for thee.” He gestured to me. “Come.”
    He stepped out to the chambers and over to the cabinets. Bending his squat neck back, he surveyed the girls standing forever frozen in their compartments. He reached a hand toward a compartment to the left of the middle row, beside Etiennette. “Yes. This is the one for thee.” He turned to me with his eager gaze and squirming, pursing lips.
    Every muscle in my body went rigid as he made his way to the nearby sets of keys. Surely, I had misunderstood him. His accent was thick and his voice low. He could not have meant he had selected a compartment for me.
    He selected a large brass key and then pushed a small step ladder over to the cabinet.
    “Thou wilt take thy place now.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Thou must take thy place with the others. We must have order while the monseigneur rests.”
    Fear crawled through my intestines. “You... you cannot put me in there. I’ll suffocate.”
    “Thou wilt survive, if thou dost measure out her breaths. Every night, at the midnight hour, I wilt come and unlock your door, and thee canst stretch your limbs. But thou must returneth before the dawn.” He turned his head toward Balthazar. “If thou wish, thou may wake him so thee may protest thy confinement. But know thee that the monseigneur desired this, and should you wake him, thee wilt knowst the nature of an angered