Shadow Gallery 3

Part Three: Ending and Rebirth

(Abandoned Church of St. Mary, Rhode Island)

When the fifth drop of blood fell on the canvas, Irene heard the sound of ice breaking.

It was not the blood drop, but the handcuffs on her wrists that smashed the frozen paint cans. Professor Lake Winter turned the antique fountain pen, and the ink stains on the little finger joints were like a dark cloud that never dissipated.

"Do you think I'm an imitator?" He lifted the canvas behind the altar, and five paintings of the same size as "Dancer in the Shadow" appeared. "L.M. finished all five murders in 1820, but those cowardly nobles burned the last four."

Cold sweat oozed from Irene's back. The repair knife was still hidden in the boot, but the effect of the anesthetic made her fingertips numb. She stared at the unfinished painting behind Lake: the masked man was disappearing, replaced by her own figure holding the knife.

"Do you know why Count von Essen chose your great-grandfather as a gardener?" Lake lifted her chin with the tip of the knife, "Because Carl Hughes was the only one who could see the prophecy in the painting - just like you now."

When the sirens penetrated the stained glass, Irene's knife was already against Lake's throat. But the yellowed diary under the altar made her pupils shrink: the handwriting in 1821 recorded that the real L.M. was Carl Hughes.

Three months later, it was freezing rain in New York.

Irene tore open the newly received express delivery, and her silhouette on the sketch paper stood back to back with the masked man. The window glass suddenly exploded, and the cold wind blew snowflakes towards the draft. When she looked up again, the lights of the apartment opposite flickered in the snow, just like the flickering candlelight in the church that day.

(End)