The Miniaturist Read Online Free Page A

Jennifer said.
    Maureen squinted. "Well . . ."
    "Stop it! She looks exactly like Helen!"
    "Okay, maybe a little bit. Don't get mad just because I don't agree with you."
    Jennifer caught her reflection in the mirror above the dresser: again, nothing but a black silhouette. She was becoming a stranger to herself, a blank of negative space.
    "I think you're drunk," Maureen said. "And I think you're overreacting."
    "I'm not overreacting," Jennifer said. She turned back a page in the album, to a jaundiced newspaper clipping. The headline read BRIDESMAID VANISHES ON DAVIS CREEK ROAD. There was a photo of a large-lipped, narrow-eyed woman. She appeared feline, self-satisfied, confident. Tragically so, given what happened to her.
    "Maureen!" Jennifer pointed to the article.
    "So?"
    "Meg said she'd never heard of Davis Creek Road." Maureen studied the headline.
    "I'm sure there's an explanation."
    "Such as?"
    "Maybe it hasn't been called that for decades," she said. "Even the operator had never heard of it."
    Maureen continued flipping backward through the album. Thirty years earlier-1906-another wedding announcement. Another Helen look-alike, her hair curled and dark, but the face was unmistakably Helen's face. This woman-named Vera Herrick Dow--was also, according to the accompanying article, "given away by her aunt and ward, Margaret Dischinger."
    Jennifer bit her lip, wondering how much she wanted to reveal her own paranoia to her sister.
    "Helen was raised by her aunt Margaret," she said quietly. Maureen rolled her eyes.
    " Please . Helen has nothing to do with this."
    "I can't believe you're not more freaked out," Jennifer said. "The coincidences are too great. You're making me feel like I'm crazy."
    Maureen smiled. "That's what sisters are for."
    Maureen got up from the bed and walked toward the closet. She started to take off her clothes-her sweater, her jeans.
    "What are you doing?" Jennifer asked.
    Maureen didn't answer. She opened the closet door. Jennifer heard the high-pitched whine of a zipper.
    " Maureen! "
    Maureen held the bridesmaid's dress against her chest. Then she lowered it and stepped into the skirt, pulling it up over her waist, threading her arms through the sleeves.
    She turned around. "Button me up, will you?"
    Jennifer stood numbly. The dress didn't have buttons; it had many tiny metal hooks running the length of Maureen's spine, from her waist to just under her hairline.
    The hooks were painstaking.
    "Get the oil lamp," Maureen said, once Jennifer had finished. I want to test my loyalty."
    Maureen walked over toward the mirror. Jennifer approached her from behind.
    "Give it to me," Maureen said. She grabbed the lamp from Jennifcr. The oil sloshed inside the hollow stand, the flame stretched high, blackening the inside of the glass chimney.
    "See?" she said, placing the lamp on the dresser so that it illuminated her front and she was visible, finally. "No blood."
    Jennifer looked at her sister's reflection in the mirror. Her plainish features appeared unusually bewitching, in an anemic sort of way.
    "Great. That proves a lot. What does that prove?"
    Maureen didn't answer her. She appeared stricken, suddenly. Or surprised. She gestured frantically at her neck.
    "Maureen?"
    Maureen reached behind her head and flailed at the buttons. Jennifer realized her sister wasn't breathing.
    "Maureen!"
    Maureen fell onto the floor and started laughing.
    "You suck, " Jennifer said. But she laughed too. It was a relief, actually, the low-level adrenaline having peaked and now, finally, subsiding entirely, her heart shrinking back into its cage. She realized she was tired. She was drunk and she was, in fact, behaving like a nut.
    Jennifer feigned a kick at Maureen's middle.
    "That's supposed to make me feel better?" she asked.
    "No," Maureen said. "After you try the dress on, then you'll feel better."
    "Forget it."
    "Humor me," Maureen said
    "Nope,"
    "Come on. Then you'll know you're just imagining shit." Jennifer agreed.