Chapter I. 2007 #3
In her black Tom Ford crepe, Brianna was a fierce vision of elegance.
A warrior goddess disguised in her Sunday best. The twist outs she wore fell to her collarbone and emphasized the grace of her neck and shoulders.
That same grace inhabited every breath. Every movement.
So much so that Camilla often wondered if Brianna had been set on this ugly, wasted earth by mistake.
If every day God cursed Himself for not keeping her among the angels where she belonged.
“Ask Camilla. She’ll tell you,” Brianna said.
“Ask me what?”
Noah loosened his tie as he turned to face her.
It made him, as always, look younger than his eighteen years and more like the boy she’d known all her life.
The freckled, dark-haired kid with darker eyes who’d been the only other one to laugh when, in the first grade, Mrs. Stewart had seriously intoned “Dear Lloyd” instead of “Dear Lord” at the start of morning prayer.
Camilla’s best friend until Brianna moved to Hawthorne Springs in the ninth grade, and their trio was made complete.
“The Sisters,” he began.
Camilla rolled her eyes. “What a crock of shit. A made-up story to scare little girls and keep the rest of us on the straight and narrow. Be good or you’ll end up like the Dark Sisters.”
“Exactly,” Noah said. “We used to dare each other to go out in the woods at night and find the tree they’re supposed to haunt. See how long we could sit there before pissing our pants. No one ever saw anything.”
Brianna stiffened. “What about all those girls who say they saw them? Every year, there’s at least a few.”
“Kids’ stuff. They’re little girls. They think they see something one night, and that story’s already in their head, and so they fill in the blanks with whatever’s easy. Everybody gets excited for a few days and that’s it,” Noah said.
Brianna turned to face Camilla. “And what about the ones who get sick?”
“Correlation doesn’t imply causation. Come on, Brianna. You took Statistics with the both of us.” Noah rolled his eyes at Brianna, but she kept her gaze solely on Camilla.
Because Camilla knew. Knew that for every story someone’s daughter brought home, her fear a terrible, heaving thing that closed her throat and numbed her tongue as she tried to find a way to retell what she’d seen in the woods, there was a woman in Hawthorne Springs who fell ill.
Fundamentally, Noah was right. Logic implied that something nonexistent could not impact the living world. But it happened regardless.
Camilla shook her head. Silly to get caught up in a fear she’d put aside the moment she turned fourteen. “It’s environmental. Like the flu or something.”
“Except some of them fucking die, Camilla,” Brianna snapped.
Noah stepped away. This wasn’t his fight.
Never had been. Because it was never the men who got sick.
Only the girls. The women. The unbaptized coven of the Dark Sisters brought like lambs to the slaughter.
The illness always began in the same way.
A sore throat. A cough that wouldn’t go away.
Until, eventually, their teeth and gums went gray.
Boils in the inner cheeks and mouth that would not heal.
In the end, their teeth and tongue and gums rotted and fell away in small, painful bits.
“We all die, hon. That’s part of it. And the ones who died were already old,” Camilla said.
“That’s not— Forget it.” Brianna lifted a hand to her face, but remembered her makeup and lowered it. “It doesn’t matter.”
Camilla pulled her hair off her neck. The late spring heat had only just begun to bloom.
Soon enough, the air would carry a damp weight, and every breath would feel like drowning.
Even still, a shiver ran through her belly, and she swayed for a moment, willing the sudden nauseating, oily sensation in her mouth away.
People got sick. It was just how it was. Countless doctors came to Hawthorne Springs to draw blood and run tests. No one could explain why the women got sick. What caused it or how to stop it. They threw the weight of their collective wealth behind it, and still, they were no closer to an answer.
Every year, her father preached on the will of God.
How there was no point in worrying over what was in His control.
It felt better to give it all over. To close her eyes and pretend that because it was in God’s hands, she had no need to worry.
Because she was her father’s daughter, that particular cup would pass from her lips.
That poison averted because of her last name. Her blood.
She needed a distraction. They all did. Something that didn’t carry any of the responsibility of the Purity Ball or the vague uneasiness of disease meant for people older than them.
“You know what?” Camilla clapped her hands together. “We need something fun. Something that’s not doom and gloom and modesty and virginity until your wedding night.”
“Thank you. Exactly,” Noah said.
“Let’s throw a party.”
“It’s like you’re asking to be sent on Retreat,” Brianna said.
“Not this little baby angel birthed from the loins of our divine leader. Not the preacher’s own daughter. He wouldn’t dare!” Noah reached to ruffle Camilla’s hair.
“Mess up the hair and die, Whitten.”
He chuckled and dropped his hand.
“We’ll call it a vigil then. For whoever’s sick.” She clasped her hands together and fluttered her eyelashes.
“Shameless,” Noah muttered.
“Not shameless. Bored.” Camilla took a step toward Brianna.
Who cared if her father threatened her with Retreat.
It wouldn’t be the first time, and it surely wouldn’t be the last either.
“Come on, Brianna. Whoever’s sick will be fine.
And we’ll pray for them. That’s what Communion is anyway, right?
A little prayer. A little wine. I’ll ask my dad if we can use the pavilion.
” She bumped her hip against Brianna’s and waited for the smirk she knew was coming.
“You two are going to hell,” Brianna said, but her mouth quirked upward.
“Only if you’re there to keep me company.” Pursing her lips, Camilla blew a kiss toward Brianna. “I should get back before they start looking for me. I’ll call you later. We’ll plan.” She let out a diabolical laugh.
Brianna swatted at her ass, and Camilla danced away, waving over her shoulder as she went.
She skirted the edge of the parking lot, ducking behind cars until she was close enough for it to look as if she’d been there all along.
By the time she straightened, her heart felt as if it was lodged in her throat, and she forced herself to breathe slowly, glad to be able to blame the heat for the flush in her cheeks.
Her mouth stretched into a smile as she nodded at a group of women clustered near the door.
“A lovely sermon today,” one of them said as she passed.
“Thank you,” Camilla said, and angled herself to maneuver past them, but the woman shot out a hand, Cartier bracelets glinting in the sun, and gripped Camilla’s forearm with ballet-slipper-pink fingernails.
“Your father,” she began as the other women averted their eyes, their chatter gone quiet. “Would you tell him I said so? About the sermon?”
“Of course,” she replied as she tried to place the woman’s face. To remember her name.
“You’ll tell him?” she repeated, those pastel fingernails pressing indentations into Camilla’s flesh as she drew closer, her tone a confidential hum.
Camilla pulled her arm out of the woman’s grip, keeping her smile fixed in place as she realized how she knew her.
Tania Fullerton. Back in Hawthorne Springs after two months at Retreat for sleeping with the contractor who installed her new kitchen cabinets.
Her husband had caught them. Closed his practice early that day to get a head start on packing for the fishing trip he’d planned for the weekend only to find his wife spread-eagled on the marble countertops she’d had shipped from Italy.
Camilla studied her. How she stood just outside the circle of women.
Desperate to be seen. Included. Allowed entrance back into the life she had before her indiscretion.
The one before the two months of immersive workshops and prayer sessions and counseling all mandated as part of Retreat.
No phones. No outside contact. A Biblical boot camp for those who dared give in to their base desires.
And now, all those judgmental eyes were locked on Camilla. Waiting to see how she would respond. If, after her father’s sermon, she would make provision and give even the slightest allowance. The smallest bit of grace.
She let her smile drop. “I should find my father. If you’ll excuse me.”
She heard the approval in the women’s voices as she walked away, but it was a small comfort.
Answering according to expectations didn’t negate that Tania Fullerton’s husband was a supercilious prick.
One who made a habit of publicly teasing his wife about her weight problem, pinching and squeezing her sides as he chuckle-yucked his way through yet another tired joke.
Camilla’s heels echoed through the emptied vestibule as she wound her way through the central hallway that led to the offices.
Her father’s was the last, the large double oak doors standing open to reveal him seated behind his desk, his suit jacket thrown over the back of the leather chair, and his Bible open before him.
Trent Glover, the youth pastor, stood off to the side, his hands in his pockets as he let his gaze travel the length of Camilla’s body only to pause at the hemline of her skirt before cocking a disapproving eyebrow.
“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.”
She forced into her voice a brightness she didn’t feel. “Hi, Pastor Trent.” She leaned against the edge of the desk, slid off her heels, and let her feet sink into the plush rug her father had imported from Iran. A shiver of pleasure ran up her back.