Chapter V. 2007 #2
Camilla’s father had not moved from the doorway.
He observed them silently, his eyes narrowing as he took in her bare feet.
Camilla had seen that look far too often to know it as anything other than suspicion.
Her mother may have believed Vera, but her father clearly had other ideas.
Camilla understood he’d call her into his office the next day and interrogate her about exactly what she’d been doing at Vera’s house.
And if Brianna had accused her of planning the party, she’d be dealing with that, too.
But she wouldn’t tell him about the Dark Sisters.
If Vera had reasons to keep quiet, Camilla would follow her lead.
“I trust we’ll see you at service tomorrow, Vera,” her father said.
“Of course,” Vera said.
“You be safe,” her mother said, touching Vera’s shoulder one final time before drifting toward the stairs as she tightened her cream dressing gown about her waist.
Camilla took a step toward the house, but Vera reached out and wrapped her in yet another hug. For a long moment, Vera simply held her, their hearts beating an incongruous rhythm, and then she put her mouth against Camilla’s ear.
“If you see them again—the Sisters—tell me.”
FOR THE REST of the night, Camilla slept without dreaming. In the dim morning hours, she heard her father moving through the house, his voice an urgent rumble as doors opened and closed and then silence fell.
Later, she woke to her alarm clock. Did her makeup.
Her hair. Dressed slowly, each movement painful.
She had more cuts than she’d imagined, and a bruise, already darkening, spread down her right hip.
She tugged on a pair of dark pantyhose, not caring it wasn’t appropriate for the season.
Better for everyone to gossip about her lack of fashion sense than for them to start wondering aloud how she’d gotten so banged up.
Her mother was already in the car, the driver standing sentry, when Camilla descended, ready as she could be to face another Sunday pretending everything was fine.
“Your father’s already at the church. Some emergency,” she said as Camilla slid onto the seat beside her.
They rode without speaking, the hum of the tires on the asphalt the only sound.
The Purity Ball and her mother’s insistence that Camilla not attend—all those concerns felt far away.
She’d not dreamed of the Sisters again, but even in the bright cheer of sunlight, Camilla felt as if they were hidden in the trees flashing past the car. Waiting for her to look. To see.
She curved into herself and willed the vision away, focusing instead on the clock on the dash, the steady flip of one minute to the next.
“I thought we were early,” her mother said as they pulled into the church.
She craned forward in the seat to look at the number of cars already in the parking lot.
A few people—mostly church leaders—milled about outside, their faces grave as they talked.
Pulled conspicuously to the curb was a single, empty police cruiser.
At the sight of it, Camilla’s heart accelerated.
“Did something happen?” her mother asked, and the driver glanced up into the rearview.
“Not sure, ma’am. All I know is Pastor Burson requested I drive you two this morning. Said he was needed here and wouldn’t be able to do it himself.”
Her mother drummed her fingers along the seat as they pulled up to the front. Immediately, the leaders turned to watch, their conversations abandoned as Camilla and her mother stepped out.
“Good morning, Mrs. Burson.” Trent Glover, youth pastor extraordinaire, stepped forward. He fidgeted with his tie. Smiled. Dropped his hands and the smile. Smiled again. Camilla had the sudden urge to kick him directly in the shin and tell him if he had something to say, to spit it out.
“Is there something happening, Trent?” her mother asked.
“You’ll have to ask Pastor Burson about that.”
“And where might I find Pastor Burson?”
Trent did the proper thing and blushed, his cheeks mottling as his hands went back to fussing with his tie. “He’s in his office.”
“Thank you.” Her mother swept past Trent and the other men, who’d all developed a sudden fascination with their feet. Camilla rushed to follow.
As the entry doors closed behind them, the men resumed their hushed conversations.
“Idiots,” her mother said as she walked toward the hall that led to her father’s offices.
“Why would there be a police officer here?” Camilla tried to keep her tone light. Her question one of curiosity rather than alarm.
Her mother inclined her head toward the sanctuary. “Go inside and sit.”
“What if something happened?”
“I said go.” Her mother’s voice echoed through the empty vestibule, and she waited, arms crossed, until Camilla was inside the sanctuary before she turned and made her way toward Pastor Burson’s office.
The sanctuary was dim. A reminder that any who entered that space should do so with a stillness born of humility.
A quiet soundtrack of worship music played through the speakers as Camilla drifted down the aisle and took her seat in the family pew.
Often, the most devout of her father’s congregation would come early to pray.
Knelt in their pew, they would remain there, heads bowed and eyes closed, until the lights slowly came up.
They would rise, bleary-eyed and rumpled, and wait for her father to appear.
Sometimes they would cry when they saw him.
It made Camilla want to peel off her skin every time it happened.
But there was no one in the pews other than her. It was the stillness of the sanctuary and the absence of those who came to pray that let Camilla know there was something very wrong.
She pulled her phone from her purse, but she had no missed calls. No texts. She pulled up Noah’s last text message to her and typed quickly.
Police at the church. Did you hear anything?
She kept her phone in her hand, willed it to vibrate, to light up, to do anything other than nothing, but five minutes passed, then seven, and still no response from Noah.
Sighing, she tucked her phone back into her purse and looked up at the pulpit.
Her father’s domain. His seat of power and influence all crafted from a few pieces of polished wood.
If she took a match to it, it would burn like any other thing.
She wondered how hot a fire would have to be to melt the glass windows and leave the entire building a smoldering pile of ash.
By the time the first few people began filtering into the sanctuary, she’d checked her phone twice more. Still no response from Noah. Worry fluttered in her gut. Had he not responded because whatever happened had to do with him? Or Brianna?
She picked at a loose cuticle, sighing when it finally tore away, the thin line of blood an iron tang in her mouth.
The hush she found earlier fell away. Whatever semblance of piety the congregation typically wore on Sundays was abandoned in favor of gossip. There was no pretense of whispering. The police officer’s car out front had seen an end to that.
Camilla shifted in the pew so she was closer to the edge and better able to hear without actively appearing to eavesdrop. The voices surged around her, but she focused in and managed to untangle one of the conversations nearest her.
“Tania Fullerton is who I heard. I didn’t even know she was sick.”
“Plenty of people get sick, but I’ve never seen the police get involved before.”
“Plenty of women get sick, you mean.”
“Some virus, that’s all. Men have stronger immune systems. That’s why we don’t catch it.”
There was a collective but discreet rolling of eyes from the women. “Her husband reported her missing two days ago. Figured she ran off with that contractor she was fooling around with. She told him she was in love with him.”
“But she was sick. It doesn’t make sense that she would have even been able to do something like that.”
Camilla shifted in the pew as she remembered.
Tania Fullerton. The woman with the Cartier bracelets who made such a point of asking Camilla to tell her father how wonderful the service had been.
Tania Fullerton who had an affair and was sent on Retreat and returned to her husband, who likely kept chiding her about her weight under the guise of joking or being concerned for her health.
Tania Fullerton who now was missing and the most likely reason for her father’s emergency call and the police presence at the church.
She scooted closer, hoping to hear more, but the house lights came up as the worship leader took his place on stage, the musicians following behind. Camilla saw her mother working her way down the aisle and pushed herself back into her rightful spot, her eyes trained up front.
“What happened?” Camilla whispered when her mother took her place beside her.
“The police wanted to ask your father some questions.”
“About Tania Fullerton?”
Her mother said nothing but picked up Camilla’s hand and examined the ragged wound she’d left, her brow lifted.
Her body heated in shame. For years she’d managed to keep the small hurts she committed a secret.
But now, it felt like there was a spotlight on her.
A focus she was not going to be able to escape.
The Purity Ball. Brianna and Retreat. The sleepwalking.
The Dark Sisters. All of it felt tied to her and pulled her toward something she couldn’t yet name but could feel. Like a slow strangulation.