The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (ebook reader with internet browser TXT) 📗

“They are nothing like Clue!” Lara eyed the Ouija board. Lara’s magic had “come in” during a sleepover at Caren’s when Lara was six. As a prank, Caren’s older sister and her friends tried to scare the younger girls with a séance. Instead Lara had moved the board with her mind, scaring six teenage girls, sending them squealing through the house. It had been the first time Lara had made a “correction.”

As if reading her thoughts, Caren said, “My dad said it was static electricity that moved the board. It happens all the time.”

“It does not happen all the time, Caren.” After Caren watched her unzip her own wedding dress with magic, Lara knew that her friend was growing suspicious; she was probably connecting all the weird things she’d witnessed over the years.

“What was the name that appeared on the board? The one that had you so freaked.” Caren looked up. “Alta…”

“Althacazur.” Lara snatched the cup from the counter. It was a name that she had never forgotten. Lara had asked the board who was there and “Althacazur” had been the response.

“Betsy was going to name her cat Althacazur, but you were so freaked out that you cried. Those were fun times.” Caren looked at the painting leaning next to the sofa. “How did you get that thing?”

“My mother,” said Lara. “She’s cleaning and thinks it would look perfect in my dining room.”

“Or here,” said Caren. “Would look great next to the leather Chesterfield over there.” Caren pointed toward the book clubbers, who had thick copies of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell on their laps.

“It’s an heirloom,” Lara said with a sigh. “I’ll put it up for a little while then gift it to you. Gaston Boucher is going to make the frame a little less… well, just a little less…”

“Yeah, a little less would be nice.” Caren nodded gravely.

Lara headed past the Ouija board a little too quickly on her way to the door. She could hear Caren giggle behind her.

“You’re so mean,” said Lara as the door shut behind her.

She crossed the street and opened the door to Gaston Boucher’s frame shop. Another bell rang overhead. Why did everyone in Kerrigan Falls need to announce their door was opening? It wasn’t like crime ever happened here. Despite the old-fashioned touch of a bronze bell, the inside of the gallery was sleek. White framed prints in all sizes were arranged in neat stacks that leaned against the wall, with sleek laminate counters and up-lighting. Two chrome Wassily Chairs with brown leather were gathered around a small glass table with hulking art books in the center.

Dressed casually in jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves pushed up above his elbows, Gaston Boucher was leaning over his work desk studying a piece of paper rather intently. A slight man, he had blond wavy hair that fell below his chin while he worked and round tortoiseshell glasses perched on his nose. His face was stern, like he was a philosophy professor grading a poor paper.

“I heard you were bringing me something.” Gaston didn’t look up, his French accent slight. He held up a small painting to the light and studied it intently.

“Well, that depends. Are you going to try to talk me out of reframing it?” Lara struggled to hold up the heavy painting, which was only about two feet wide by two feet long. She could hear a promotional jingle for 99.7 K-ROCK playing and was touched that he was piping the radio station into the gallery. She’d taken Gaston for a techno or Velvet Underground fan.

“I’ve always thought that frame overpowers what is an unusually intriguing painting.” Gaston peered over his glasses, abandoning the photo he’d been working on. “So, non.” He motioned for her to hand it to him.

Lara had suspected something was going on between Audrey and this man. That Gaston had opinions about this painting meant he’d seen this painting at her mother’s house.

“The thing has to be made of solid gold.” He reached over and easily lifted the painting from her hands, then turned the frame over and studied each corner.

While he worked, Lara walked the perimeter of the gallery.

From Audrey, Lara learned that he’d graduated from the Sorbonne, then knocked around New York City for years trying to make his mark as a punk rock guitarist. When his music career hadn’t taken off, he began working as a painter, then a photographer living in Chelsea back in the late 1970s. The photos of Gaston with famous people—Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Gary Numan, Debbie Harry, and Chris Stein—seemed to support this claim. In them Gaston’s hair was spiky and he wore a suit with a thin black tie like a member of Devo.

He had a section of equine paintings. Also from Audrey, Lara knew that this was how he’d met her mother. Years ago, when he was still living in New York, he’d purchased a horse from Audrey. While driving the horse out of Kerrigan Falls, he noticed that there was an old art gallery for sale. He bought the place, tossing out most of the hotel-lobby-inspired fruit bowl paintings and bad landscapes and replacing them with more modern works that he brought in regularly from New York. He also had a robust wedding and graduation framing business that Lara imagined paid the bills nicely.

After making a full circle around the shop, she leaned over the desk, a tall, long worktable. “What do you think?”

“It’s older than I thought.” He turned on a light and slid the frame under it. “Audrey said this was her grandmother’s painting.”

“Yes. It’s her grandmother, my great-grandmother, Cecile Cabot. That’s her riding the horse in Paris.”

Taking a loupe, Gaston studied the corner. “I hadn’t noticed this before. Odd.”

“What?” Again, the before implying he’d studied this painting at length.

“The painting is signed EG.” He pulled away and handed her the loupe. “See.”

“And?” Lara looked at the signature. It was, indeed, signed EG.

“Well.” Gaston took