A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny [0]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people were whispering in my ear as I wrote A Trick of the Light. Some still in my life, some now gone but always remembered.
I won’t go on at length, except to say I’m deeply grateful I got a chance to write this book. But much more than that, I’m deeply grateful, after many years as a resister, I now completely believe that sometimes drowning men (and women) are saved. And, when coughed back, might even find some measure of peace in a small village. In the sunshine.
Thank you to my husband and partner and soulmate, Michael. For also believing those things. And believing in me. As I believe in him.
Thank you to Hope Dellon, my brilliant editor at Minotaur Books, who is perfectly named. Her remarkable gifts as an editor are only surpassed by her gifts as a person. For Dan Mallory, my dazzling editor at Little, Brown, who has jets on his heels and has taken me along on a giddy and thrilling ride with one of the bright lights of publishing. I have him in my death-grip.
Thank you to Teresa Chris, my amazing agent, who has crossed that border and become a friend. For guiding this book, and my career, with such a sure and gracious hand.
One thing that has surprised me about a writing career is the mountain of detail involved. Permissions, mailings, accounting, ordering supplies, and simply organizing everything so important things, like the tour schedule, don’t get lost. I’m frankly terrible at those sorts of things. Happily the fabulous Lise Desrosiers is as disciplined and organized as I am slothful. In looking after those elements of my life Lise has freed me up to write. We make a great team and I want to thank Lise deeply not only for her hard work but her unfailing optimism and good humor.
I hope you enjoy reading A Trick of the Light. It took several lifetimes to write.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Also by Louise Penny
Copyright
ONE
Oh, no, no, no, thought Clara Morrow as she walked toward the closed doors.
She could see shadows, shapes, like wraiths moving back and forth, back and forth across the frosted glass. Appearing and disappearing. Distorted, but still human.
Still the dead one lay moaning.
The words had been going through her head all day, appearing and disappearing. A poem, half remembered. Words floating to the surface, then going under. The body of the poem beyond her grasp.
What was the rest of it?
It seemed important.
Oh, no no no.
The blurred figures at the far end of the long corridor seemed almost liquid, or smoke. There, but insubstantial. Fleeting. Fleeing.
As she wished she could.
This was it. The end of the journey. Not just that day’s journey as she and her husband, Peter, had driven from their little Québec village into the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Montréal, a place they knew well. Intimately. How often had they come to the MAC to marvel at some new exhibition? To support a friend, a fellow artist? Or to just sit quietly in the middle of the sleek gallery, in the middle of a weekday, when the rest of the city was at work?
Art was their work. But it was more than that. It had to be. Otherwise, why put up with all those years of solitude? Of failure? Of silence from a baffled and even bemused art world?
She and Peter had worked away, every day, in their small studios in their small village, leading their tiny lives. Happy. But still yearning for more.
Clara took a few more steps down the