The Girl In The Glass Read Online Free PDF

to heaven. Then there was another voice, younger than the others. A voice only beginning to change to manhood.
    “See. Over there!” the boy shouted. The excitement in his cries brought Aimée back to the moment. “By that craggy bit to the left.”
    “I don’t see anything.” An older voice. Hoarse and guttural. Both man and boy spoke in that peculiar clipped Maine accent that had become familiar to Aimée.
    “It’s a woman,” the young one shouted. “Holy Jesus! She ain’t got no clothes on. Nekked as the day she was born! And there’s blood on her body!”
    “A naked woman?” a third voice chimed in, laughing, as if he thought that was funny. “Sure she don’t have seaweed for hair? And maybe a large scaley tail instead of legs?”
    “Don’t joke me, Harry. She’s real. Look! Right over there!”
    “I see her too,” said the older man. He sounded grim.
    For what seemed a long time, no one spoke. There was only the sound of the sea and the cawing of the crows.
    Finally, the old voice said, “All right, one thing’s clear. She needs help. That is if she’s not already dead.”
    “Fallen from the cliff, d’ya think, Dad?” asked the one called Harry.
    “Look up to the top,” said the father. “There’s a man at the top. He’s leaning over. Looking down.”
    “Why don’t he climb down to help her?” said Harry. “Maybe he meant to kill her.”
    “You mean he pushed her off the cliff?” asked the younger boy.
    “I don’t know,” said the older man. “The Whitbys don’t take kindly to strangers. Never have. But I wouldn’t have thought they’d have murdered one.”
    “We have to go in and help,” said the boy.
    “Damned if I can get any closer,” said the old man. “Not in this sea. Those rocks will knock us to pieces.”
    “I’ll go in the dinghy,” said Harry. “Jack’s right. We can’t let her die.”
    There was a silence.
    “She’ll die if we don’t,” Harry said again.
    “She may be dead already.”
    “No,” said Harry, “she’s alive. I just saw her move.”
    “You’re lying.”
    “I just saw her move,” Harry insisted
    Above, Aimée heard a flapping of wings. A flutter near her face. A pair of sharp talons pushed into her leg. A beak dug in and tore a piece of flesh from the opening. She tried to scream, but no sound would come. Within seconds she felt another peck. And then another. In a moment birds were all over her. Only death would bring relief. She longed for it to take her quickly.
    A rifle shot rang out. Its echoes reverberated against the crevices of the cliff wall. The murder of crows retreated. A second shot followed.
    “Bastards,” said the old man. “I’ll not have those damned birds feeding on a Chris­tian woman. Dead or alive.”
    That seemed funny. Aimée hadn’t been a Chris­tian woman for years. Not since she was a child. Perhaps this fisherman really was St. Peter, even if he had a rifle and sounded like a Mainer.
    “Then let us go in,” said Harry. “We’ll get her.”
    After a minute the old man said, “All right, son. Take the dinghy. Young Jack, you go with him. Tie lines around yourselves so I can haul you back if you run into trouble. When you get there, signal if she’s alive. If she is, try to get her into the dinghy. If she’s dead, I’ll leave you to keep the birds away and head for help. But, for God’s sake, be careful. I’d hate to lose both my sons trying to recover the body of one dead woman. Could be a damned Whitby woman at that.”
    Aimée felt a glimmer of hope as she waited for the two sons, Harry and Jack, to arrive.
    Another shot rang out, followed again by the flutter and cries of retreating crows. She wondered how many bullets the fisherman had. Didn’t really matter. Crows were smart. The sound of shots wouldn’t frighten them for long unless one or more of them was hit. A difficult task with a rifle even if the man had a very good eye. She wished the boys would hurry.
    Aimée’s eyes opened.