The Miniaturist Read Online Free Page B

her body, postpanic, felt rubbery and liquid, both weightless and susceptible to the slightest gravitational pull. She helped Maureen unbutton the dress, she removed her own nightshirt, she stepped into the dress's barbed, crinoline-lined skirt. The sleeves were tight around her arms; the seams, with their disintegrating strips of flashing, prickled. Most offensive was the smell-old lavender and, to her nose, closet dust with a gamey undertone of urine.
    Jennifer turned and looked out the window as Maureen hooked her in--each hook winching tighter the circumference of her ribs, compacting her organs. Beyond her own half-visible reflection, the snow continued to fall. And fall. And fall and fall and fall. It was mesmerizing, like watching the night sky come undone, every fixed point of light shifting in tandem and collecting at the bottom, one large crash site of stars. She felt herself drifting to sleep to the rhythm of all those plummeting ex-planets, her lids lowering just enough to make a scored, lashy muddle of the world.
    The woman came out of nowhere. She slammed against the window, her two palms pressed against the pane, blue. Her face was blue, almost black, lips pulled back to reveal a gaping, toothless mouth. She wore the same dress that Jennifer wore.
    Jennifer screamed and pushed herself away from the window.
    "Jesus!" Maureen looked at her like she was crazy. "What the hell? "
    "Didn't you see the woman?"
    "What woman?"
    "She was wearing ... oh God, she was wearing this dress!" Jennifer began to sob dryly. She reached behind her neck and scrabbled, frantically, to release the hooks. Her breath felt thinned down to the finest threads.
    "Calm down. Jennifer." Maureen yanked Jennifer's arms downward.
    "Maureen, take this thing off of me."
    "Of course," Maureen said. "But first look in the mirror."
    "I don't want to look in the mirror!" Jennifer hissed." Unhook me."
    "First you need to look in the mirror," Maureen said. "You'll still be scared if you don't."
    Jennifer was shaking, almost hyperventilating. Normally she was the one in control-no, always she was the one in controlbut now Maureen had the upper hand. It was the slightest shift of power, but it unnerved Jennifer; it signaled to her that something betwee them had irreversibly changed.
    Maureen nodded toward the mirror. Jennifer turned, slowly, one eye on the window, feeling that woman was watching them. The window remained empty, save for the snow that the wind whisked into a looming, transparent shape and flung against the window. Jennifer laughed.
    "Why are you laughing?" Maureen asked.
    "Nothing. I'm just ... I thought the snow was a ghost."
    "You're really wound up," Maureen said. "I've never seen you so wound up."
    "You have no idea." Jennifer told Maureen her, admittedly, insane suspicions about Helen-that she was involved with their father's death, that she was an impostor, that she'd sent them on this wild goose chase and possibly wanted them dead. As she spoke, she noticed Maureen growing more and more remote, her face drifting into shadow; she threw repeated glances at the closet, at the window, as though perhaps they were being eavesdropped upon.
    "Crazy, right?" Jennifer concluded. "I told you, you had no idea."
    Maureen smiled nervously. "Let's get you out of this dress and into bed," she suggested.
    "But I haven't looked in the mirror," Jennifer said.
    "Forget about that," Maureen said sharply. "You just need to get some sleep."
    Maureen started to unbutton the hooks of the dress. Jennifer could feel her hands shaking against her shoulder blades.
    "No," Jennifer said, pulling away. "No, let me look."
    Jennifer walked over to the mirror. The flame on the lamp chattered weakly along the tip of the blackened wick. Still, it threw a pallid light, enough to see her reflection, if she leaned over the dresser, close to the mirror. A mixed message: her eyes were stricken, oblong, her skin a muted gauzy gold. She appeared both more ethereally attractive