Chapter Eight - Camille
Even though Camille told her family not to worry about Miss Nancy’s investigation, she had found out through the grapevine of neighbors that the old lady’s hands had been severed, and her dog’s ashes were deep in her throat prior to her death.
As much as this information worried her, nothing concerned her more than the cops lurking around asking questions.
This neighborhood carries too many secrets, and like traveling water, it all drained back to the mansion at the end of Lull Lane.
She knew of her husband’s dark past, added to her own; she stressed about it every single day of her life.
The pills she constantly took were no longer working.
Her addiction, which she had accepted, was the only way she could live with herself and the recurring memories of the past.
Only once, a couple of years after Belinda was born, had Antonio drunk himself to sleep. It wasn’t normal for him to do that; in fact, he had not drunk anything since high school. She blamed herself; she had always been the one to push him to drink, feeding his lurking bad conscience.
But after her friends rejected her new mom life, she still yearned for a late-night Mai Tai. Earlier that day, she had gone to the store to buy rum, grenadine, and other ingredients for mixed drinks. Once the baby was down for the night, she made drinks for Antonio and herself.
With a little bit of music on her phone to create a fun mood, she selected Taking Back Sunday. Seductively and yet aggressively, she began to approach Antonio while singing just loud enough for the two of them to hear.
“And we lay, we lay together just not too close, too close.”
She crawled onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, spilling some of the drink she held in her hand. When he felt the ice from her drink on his skin, he jerked upward. Camille fell back, her hip absorbing the impact. Lying on the ground, she cried out for a moment.
She asked for some pain medicine; Antonio ran to the bathroom cabinet to grab it and gave it to her before moving her back to the couch.
They sat on the couch for a little while afterward, with Camille convincing him to drink a little more with her.
Given that he hadn’t drunk in years, he was feeling every drop.
Fighting through the pain and not wanting to completely ruin the moment, she sat close to him but drank less than she had planned. During this time, she was afraid of mixing medications with alcohol.
A few more songs played before Belinda was heard crying.
Due to the baby sleeping in their main bed, Camille had to get up as quickly as she could and limp her way upstairs to check on the baby.
By the time she reached the bedroom, she quietly opened the door and saw that Belinda had soothed herself back to sleep.
Not wanting to make a sound, Camille left the door cracked open and headed back downstairs.
By now, Antonio was lying down on the couch, spread out. Camille felt a slight disappointment, but she grabbed a blanket from the ottoman and slowly lay it on his legs. When she unfolded the rest of the blanket to cover his chest, Antonio began to mumble some nonsense.
“What are you saying, honey?” Camille asked.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her. You all made me do it,” Antonio mumbled.
“Who? Hurt who?”
“I didn’t mean to, Savannah” he continued.
“I. Made. You. Do. It?” she asked.
“I didn’t mean—”
Antonio fell into a drunken coma before he could finish what he was trying to say. It frustrated Camille so much that she confronted him the next morning. He denied everything that was said and blamed it on the alcohol he shouldn’t have drunk, gaslighting Camille for bringing the past up.
After Antonio had left for work, Camille left Belinda with Jenny while she headed to the old mansion. When she reached the old gates, she tried to open them, but a raven with a deformed neck scared her when it flew between her and the fence, causing her heart to race out of fear.
Watching the bird land on the tallest part of the fence, she couldn’t understand how he could live with a visible, broken neck.
Camille retreated to the street after not being able to break the gate open, slowly heading back home.
She felt someone watching her from the darkest parts of the mansion, but every time she looked back, she couldn’t see anyone.
After making it back home, she sat in the living room, opened her laptop, and Google searched Savannah. It wasn’t long before numerous pages of information and reports appeared. All leading to the same links.
After a quick scan, Camille couldn’t believe how much she had forgotten. She quickly ran to the kitchen, where she threw up her breakfast mixed with bile into the sink. Standing over it, she was frozen, her diaphragm spasming uncontrollably, splashing vomit everywhere.
Forgetting to close her laptop, she went to her room and took several sleeping pills.
Camille lay in her bed, trying to piece together the whole night.
She remembered being so drunk at the tracks, not forgetting the extra drugs she had mixed into her system.
She couldn’t believe how much she had forgotten about that night.
The night she partook in Savannah’s nightmare.
As she started to drift off, she watched the fan blades spin slowly, feeling her future slipping away.
When Antonio got home from work, he noticed the laptop on the couch.
Being the workaholic he is, he decided to make some adjustments to his work files.
When he opened the computer, immediate panic shook him.
He closed the pages and the laptop as fast as he could and quickly made his way upstairs, looking for his wife, who he found lying in bed.
He always remembered that day vividly. After shaking her a few times, he realized that she wasn’t waking up.
Antonio reached into his pocket and dialed for an ambulance.
When the paramedics arrived, they took her to the hospital.
Jenny stayed with Belinda while Antonio drove to the hospital.
Throughout the drive, he felt an overwhelming sense of guilt.
He had done this; he would never forget that day.
A few hours went by before the doctor came out from Camille’s room to tell him that her stomach had to be pumped; she had taken way too many sleeping pills along with her pain pills. The doctor asked him about their home environment. Antonio didn’t know what to say at first.
He always felt like their relationship was thriving, as much as any “normal” marriage would.
Antonio couldn’t tell the doctor about his wife’s resurfaced memories, but he mentioned how much her hip had caused so much emotional stress and affected her routines.
After Camille woke up, she looked at the way Antonio stared at her, and she decided to forget about the whole “incident” for good.
Although she decided to move on and never spoke about what she had remembered or experienced, her depression deepened over the years, and her light began to fade.
Every day was just another day, and she no longer found joy in the things she once loved.
The bond she had with both Antonio and Belinda had faded like mist in the air.
She loved her family, but something inside her had died the day she overdosed years ago.
Now, looking back on all those events that led her to today, Camille did not want to have to talk to a cop; she feared she would get nervous.
She wasn’t sure if she feared for her husband or for herself.
“Things aren’t meant to remain hidden forever.
” These thoughts bothered her for the rest of the day.
Once again, on the same couch she had sat on many years ago, Camille opened her laptop and Googled once again; this time, her search was about Belinda.
Camille tried to remember the song she heard; she remembered quite a bit of it but not all of the words.
She tried to search for the lullaby, but nothing would come up.
She tried to ChatGPT it, but again, nothing appeared.
Then she opened Google translate and began to type the lyrics she remembered.
Word by word, her world came crashing down once again.
“Pin Pon es un muneco, /Pin Pon is a doll
Macabro y pálido, / Macabre and pallid
Se loava su carita, / It loava its face / it washes its face
Con sangre y ácido. / with blood and acid"
Although not all of the words were spelled correctly, she could deduce their closest meanings. With each word she translated, her heart sank deeper and deeper. She couldn’t figure out the rest of the words; she needed to hear them again and write them or record them. So far, this wasn’t good.
Her daughter now faced something she might not be able to escape. She wondered if she was born like this, if her absence did this to her, or if it was just a silly song her classmates were trending. Camille wiped the tears from her face as she contemplated what to do next.
A knock on the door startled Camille; it was too late for visitors. She walked toward the front door and peeked through the stained-glass window when she realized that it was two detectives. “Already? Fuck!” she cried out before opening the door halfway.
“Can I help you? Camille asked.
“Hi, yes. I am Detective Samantha Brown, and this is Detective Alex Miller. We are here to ask a few questions about your neighbor, Nancy Smith. Can we come in for a second?” the female detective asked.
“Right now, is not a good time. Everyone is getting ready for bed. Can you come on a different day? I’ll have tea, and we can talk.”
“My apologies. We will stop by in a few days. We will try to make it earlier next time. Thanks for your time.”
Camille closed the door before walking back to the staircase, “Did I just fuck up?” she wondered.
Upstairs, Antonio was laying on the bed. “Who was that?” he asked.
“Detectives,” Camille replied.
“Everything okay?”
“I sure hope so.”
After getting in bed with him, Antonio paid no mind to Camille. He turned off the nightstand light and turned his back to her. Camille, on the other hand, looked at him as she lay with her eyes peeled open in the darkness. “How can he sleep so peacefully?” she thought.
After thinking about it all night, Camille decided not to tell Antonio about the Spanish lullaby. While she hoped it was just a teenager phase, she planned to talk to Belinda about it once things begin to calm down within the neighborhood.
The next morning, Camille woke up before everyone else and made her way to the kitchen to start breakfast. She thought of packing a meal for Antonio but remembered that he always ate at the office. “A coffee will suffice,” she whispered.
When she opened the curtains of the kitchen window above her sink, she immediately jumped back at the sight of the broken-neck raven. “What the actual fuck?!” she shouted.
After a loud caw, the bird spread its wings wide before taking flight.
“How does that thing keep reappearing?” Camille stressed.
When she turned around, Belinda popped out of nowhere.
“Jesus, fucking Christ, it’s just not my day. ”
“I’m sorry?” Belinda asked.
“My bad honey. I am a little jumpy today.”
“I saw the detectives by the door last night. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, sort of. Miss Nancy was actually a victim of violence, and they are trying to figure things out. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, honey. Just go to school and do good. M-kay?”
“How was she killed? I mean, you must know something, right? No?”
“She was hurt really badly, and if you must know, her hands were severed off.”
“Dang, intense stuff,” Belinda added.
“Don’t act like that, Belinda.”
“Like what?”
“You know, she had her faults, but she didn’t deserve that.”
“Mmhmm.”
Camille rolled her eyes at Belinda before turning her back to her. She put on a red apron and slowly made her way to the cabinet to grab pancake mix. She hated how detached both she and Belinda had become. She wanted to blame it on her age, but she knew it rooted deeper than that.
After finishing breakfast, Belinda picked up her empty plate and placed it in the sink. When she started to walk away, she thanked her mom and said, “You know, in a way, she will be buried with Betsy.” Belinda gave out a grim smile and walked away.
Camile’s blood turned cold, and her hands trembled, causing her to drop a plate in the sink, breaking it. “She did it.” She fought the thought in her head, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t believe that her daughter would do such a thing.
The mere thought took her to the jug cap she had found under Belinda’s bed the day Jenny died. What made her think that her daughter would never hurt anyone again? It seemed to be a family curse.
Antonio ran downstairs; he was late for work. He quickly kissed Camille on the lips, grabbed his coffee mug, and poured it into his thermos.
“Are you okay?” he asked Camille as he watched her stand still for too long.
“Do what now?” Camille answered.
“What’s going on? Your face looks pale.”
“Something is wrong with our daughter.”
“She is about to graduate; her emotions must be at an all-time high right now. Just let her be.”
“And that fucking doll?”
“Whoa, one problem at a time. I do agree that shit is weird, but I am trusting that she won’t take it to college. Or maybe I do; it might keep some boys away.” Antonio tried to laugh it off but quickly stopped once he saw that Camille didn’t react to his silliness.
“I gotta go. Love you.”
“Love you too. Bye” She kissed him again and watched him run out the door.
She left the kitchen dirty, with a broken plate still in the sink. Camille walked outside to breathe in the air and let out a loud gasp. She could see how her entire world was finally beginning to implode along with her.