Come Little Children (28 page)

Sharon stabbed her cigarette butt into the plate and squished it in the soot. She took her last swig of coffee.

“Once the fire was out, the murders stopped. Like the bad had been bottled up in that one place. But that didn’t change the headcount, no it did not. Twenty-two dead in nine days. Says nothing about all the grief and pain that branched out from that, but that doesn’t seem to concern you too much, does it, Miss Facts? Twenty-two dead in nine days, both Whittakers included. There ya go. The facts.”

Camilla hadn’t touched her coffee yet, but her throat was suddenly parched. She took a sip and wrinkled at the bitter aftertaste.

“So,” Sharon said. “How about Hud? He seem like that big of a threat now?”

Camilla shook her head. “Only to himself,” she murmured, doing up her coat.

“What was that?”

Camilla looked at Sharon, whose facial expressions had curved into their mean formation again. There was something hovering in the air between them, and deep down she saw that Sharon knew what it was.

“Hud isn’t the one they’re looking for,” she said, moving for the front door.

“Well that’s for damn sure, but that’s not what you mumbled a second ago!”

“No. It wasn’t.”

“Then what was it, Cammy?”

“I agreed that your son isn’t a threat to anyone but himself.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you should try quitting. Or at least hide your narcotics a little better.”

There was a loud
creak
in the A-frame cottage. Sharon’s eyes bugged out, flaming at Camilla for saying such an outrageous thing.

“My boy is not on drugs!”

“Well, unless his Flintstones vitamins are causing his runny nose and that catatonic look on his face, I’d say it’s probably something else. At first I thought your husband might be abusive when I saw your and your son’s bruises side by side, but then I figured Lou can’t swat so much as a mosquito anymore, let alone the two of you. Next guess, heroin.”

A hot sting lashed across Camilla’s cheek. Her hand went to her face before she even registered that she had been slapped.

“Get out of here!” Sharon foamed. “Get out!”

“Mom, is something wrong?”

There was a
thump, thump, thump
of footsteps coming down the stairs.

“No, Hud. You go back to sleep. Go back! You hear me!”

Camilla felt Sharon’s hand on the back of her jacket, tossing her out of the cottage into the cold air.

“You stay away from here, you bitch! You understand?” Sharon snarled, low and dangerous. “There is nothin’ wrong with him. He’s a good kid. A good kid!”

Sharon slammed the door and a row of icicles showered down like knives. Camilla massaged the neck of her jacket and tromped along the walking path, back to the street, with the woman’s screams reverberating in her ears.
There is nothin’ wrong with him, he’s a good kid! A good kid! A GOOD KID!

The whole way home, Camilla couldn’t get the image of Hudson out of her head. It was the bruises she was picturing most: the yellow marks clustered around the injection sites on his arms
and legs, and the way he limped up the staircase like a dumb giant. She didn’t care if Sharon fried her own body down to its cracks and creases, but the fact that she was allowing it to happen to her fourteen-year-old son—and denying it—made her sick to her stomach.

As the Vincent manor appeared around the bend, she picked up speed, and when she reached the lawn she broke into an all-out run. As she scampered for the porch, she thought of nothing but bursting into the parlor and giving Abigail the tightest hug she could muster.

But when Camilla erupted through the front door, all of the lights in the house were off.

She peeked into the north parlor, but the room was dark and the fire was long extinguished. After passing through the lobby and the dining room, she was about to head up and check the bedrooms, when something caught her eye from over in the kitchen. It was a blue light glaring in the window above the sink. When she squinted and saw the source of it, she rushed to the back door and pushed outside again.

The glow was coming from a powerful floodlight. Peter was down at the pond, wrapping an extension cord around his arm, and beside him was a pile of hockey sticks and a rusty goalie net.

“Peter? What—what’s all this? Where is everyone?”

Peter looked up and saw Camilla coming toward the pond. He looked down again and kept winding the extension cord. “They went to bed.”

“Bed? Already?”

“Guess they’re wiped.”

The closer Camilla got, the clearer she could see the full setup. On either end of the frozen pond were two goal posts, and off to the right were a series of tombstones set up like
training pylons. There were even a few benches pulled up to the ice with a tray of thermoses filled with the thick sediment of what was once hot chocolate.

“Oh, Peter. This is fantastic! An ice rink, just like—”

“Like my dad used to make. Yeah. Surprise.”

She finally understood the cool demeanor. Her excitement of coming home dropped off a cliff.

“Sorry I missed it,” she apologized. “I had to—to run into town for a few things.”

“Let me guess. New lint rollers?”

“I was only gone an hour.”

“It’s nine o’clock.”

“OK. Maybe a little longer.”

He didn’t reply. He continued wrapping the extension cord and avoided eye contact.

Camilla wilted. She walked to the bench and gathered the dirty cups and thermoses, attempting to apologize with actions rather than words. After a minute of uncomfortable silence, she asked, “How was she on the ice?”

“Good,” Peter sniffled. “Complained her toes were cold, but she’ll survive.”

He finished wrapping the cord and returned it to the tool shed. When he got back, Camilla had collected all the dishes.

“She asked about you,” he said, sniffling again. “Wanted to know if her mom knew how to skate. I said I wasn’t sure.”

“What do you think?”

“That’s what I guessed. Join us for practice sometime, or your daughter will be doing laps around you.”

“She probably already is.”

Peter took two of the thermoses out of Camilla’s arms and they started back toward the house. As their boots crossed the
freshly shoveled path, she couldn’t help peeking at him every few steps.
He’s holding something back, I know it
. But it wasn’t until they got to the top of the porch that he finally spoke again.

“You know,” he started, “there’s a lot Abby doesn’t know about her mom.”

And a few things her dad doesn’t know about her
.

“She can recite the whole Vincent family tree back three generations, but what about your side? Does she even know your parents’ names? Or where you’re from?”

Camilla thought about it. Now that Peter mentioned it, no, Abigail had no idea about her mother’s side of the family.
For good reasons too
.

“I know things weren’t rainbows and unicorns growing up,” he said, “but she deserves to hear something. Try talking with her, girl to girl. You might even learn something you didn’t know too.”

“You’re right,” Camilla said, nodding. “I’ll talk to her more. Starting tomorrow.”

She held open the door and Peter passed in front of her. But as they entered the house, she was hit with the sudden image of knocking on Abigail’s bedroom door and Abby appearing on the other side, frozen, with glazed-over eyes and bruises flecked all over her pale, perfect skin.

She pushed the image out of her head, but not before Sharon Mullard’s voice came echoing back. The words morphed together as they looped over and over in the A-frame rafters of her skull, not fully dissipating until much, much later that night.

He’s a good kid, there is nothin’ wrong with him…Nothin’ wrong with a good kid…A good kid is nothin’ wrong…a good, good, good kid…

21

Premonition

P
eter and Camilla had long since taken over Camilla’s guest room on the third floor of the house and given Peter’s old bedroom to Abigail. It was nice and quiet up there, affording their little family-within-a-family some privacy from the rest of the funeral home while keeping them all together in one hallway. Maybe one day Abby would want to put more distance between herself and her parents, but until then it wasn’t an issue.
It’s a big house, sure, why not let her move around—so long as it’s not into the basement
.

Camilla put a hand on her bedroom door. Her head was still throbbing with the muffled shouts of Sharon Mullard pounding between her ears.

Suddenly Peter’s voice cut through the haze. Not his actual voice—just an echo of their previous conversation, like Sharon’s only stronger.

She can recite the whole Vincent family tree back three generations, but what about your side? Does she even know your parents’ names?

She glanced over her shoulder at the door across the hall. A fuzzy pink glow was blossoming out of the crack to her daughter’s bedroom.

Try talking with her, girl to girl. You might even learn something you didn’t know too
.

Camilla switched sides of the hallway and put her cheek against Abigail’s doorframe. It was too late to have a conversation tonight, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t peek in and see how her little kiddo was doing.

Inside, Abigail’s room was blushing with the warm, rosy glow that emanated from a night-light in the far corner. That particular fixture had been incredibly controversial; she had dug up four independent studies that argued whether or not night-lights are harmful for children’s development, but ultimately they proved inconclusive. Where one paper claimed they’re a leading cause of nearsightedness, another swore they prevented retinopathy; where
this
clinic proclaimed they increased the risk of leukemia,
that
clinic called bullshit because “everything gives you cancer, so stuff it.”

The room itself was clean, but cluttered. Crayon portraits plastered the walls and children’s books upon children’s books were stacked on top of a miniature vanity table that Peter had built from a fallen tree in the nearby backwoods. Little outfits were hung neatly in the closet, and all her toys—with their plastic decals and microscopic accessories—were put away in a jumbo-size Disney chest that Peter had also carved, despite twenty-one instances of blatant copyright infringement.

The rosy outline of Abigail was curled up under her duvet cover. She was turned on her side, facing away from the door.

Camilla tiptoed inside and picked up a couple of books that had toppled off the vanity. As she tidied up, she watched the comforter on the bed breathe up and down, up and down. A smile curled on her lips.

“Mommy, is that you?”

Camilla fumbled one of the books, startled by the coo of Abby’s voice. “Sorry, girlie,” she whispered, picking up the hardcover and placing it on the vanity. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“That’s OK,” Abby answered. “I wasn’t sleeping.” She turned onto her back and pulled the sheets away from her face. Her eyes were alert in the rosy light.

Camilla tsked, walking over and sitting on the edge of the mattress. “I hear you’re pretty good on the ice,” she whispered. “Didn’t that poop you out?”

“I guess.”

“Then
why
aren’t you sleeping?” She lunged for Abigail’s ribs and sent the little girl squirming with giggles. “Careful,” she teased. “If dad hears you’re still awake, you’ll be in biiiig trouble, Miss.”

“Don’t worry about dad.” Abigail cooled down. “Imagine grandma hears us. We won’t get dessert for a week.”

Camilla stifled her own laugh. Abby was definitely her mother’s daughter, all right: fair skin and a fear of Moira, the ties that truly bind.

She gave the little girl a hug and kissed the top of her head. When her lips met something cold and hard—something metal—she reached up and gently removed an object from Abigail’s hair.

It was the orchid hair clip that Camilla had found on the vanity mirror in the guest bedroom a long, long time ago. She rolled the ornament in her fingers and felt the engraving on the back. B + M.
Ben and Moira Vincent
.

“This is cute.” She pretended not to recognize it. “Where’d you get it?”

“Grandma gave it to me.”

Should’ve guessed
, she snickered. Of course Moira would snatch the accessory out of Camilla’s hair only to pass it down to Abigail eight years later. Abigail was a Vincent by blood, Camilla only by paper.

“Hmm,” Camilla hummed, fixing the clip in her own hair. “How do I look?”

“Very pretty.” Abigail beamed.

“Now”—She adjusted herself on the bed and leaned down again—“about this sleeping business…”

“I can’t, mom. Well...I
can
, but I don’t
want
to. It’s my dreams. I don’t like them.”

“What’s wrong with your dreams?”

“I…I don’t know. They’re weird.” Abigail looked away, hesitant.

“Shh,” Camilla hushed. She curled a ringlet of hair around her daughter’s tiny ear. “Your mom’s heard some weird stuff before. I’ll believe you.” Her fingernails ran lightly over Abigail’s pajamas. Up and down, side to side, scratching Abby’s arms and neck in long, soothing strokes. The little girl’s skin was perfect: no junky pinpricks or pockmarked drug bruises staining her complexion.

“It starts outside,” Abby began, “with a tree. A big one. Then thunder comes and apples start falling off of the branches. And they fall harder and harder and harder, like it’s raining apples.”

“The tree in our backyard?” Camilla’s face sagged.

“Yes! Do you have that dream too?”

She shook her head. “Wild guess.”

“Oh.” Abigail slumped. “But anyways, all the apples fall into the water. You know, the—the pond. And then people…people start…”

People start coming out of the water
, Camilla thought, but she didn’t say it. That would have been too much. Too much of a
coincidence, even for a seven-year-old to accept, and too much to handle herself. Instead she swallowed the last droplets of moisture in her mouth and asked, “People start what, honey?”