Chapter XV. 2007
CHAPTER XV
Vera’s voice came through the phone as if through an immeasurable distance. “Camilla? Are you okay?”
Camilla weighed how to answer Vera’s question. No, she wasn’t okay. Nothing was. But there wasn’t time to go into all the reasons why.
“I need you to tell me about the Dark Sisters.”
The line went quiet, long enough to leave Camilla worried the call had disconnected or that Vera had hung up on her, but then came the distinct sound of Vera clearing her throat.
“Your mom wouldn’t—”
“My mom is sick, Vera. She’s sick, and my dad has her locked up.
There’s someone here watching her every hour of every day, and even if I could get in to talk to her, she would tell me they aren’t real, or it was just a dream, so please.
” Her voice went ragged as she fought back tears. “Please. Tell me what you know.”
Again, the line went quiet, and then Vera began.
“You never met your grandmother. Mary. She died when your mom was just a baby. She was so beautiful. So funny and brave. She loved your mom. So, so much. She would have loved you just as much. And she—she trusted me. Told me a secret, and I was stupid and hurt and young and didn’t understand that even hinting at something like that could ruin everything. ”
“What did she tell you?”
“She was in love with someone else. A woman named Sharon Hutchins. She didn’t mean to hurt me.
Even then I knew she hadn’t done it intentionally, but she did all the same.
And I was so angry. I wanted her to know what it felt like.
That betrayal. We always think we’re doing the right thing until it wounds us.
If I could go back and change it, I would.
“It was my fault. What happened. I was the one who told Robert, your grandfather, about Sharon. Not outright, just that I’d seen them together, but it was enough to make him leery.
He wouldn’t let her go anywhere. Couldn’t do anything other than clean his house and take care of your mom.
And then she got sick. She asked me for help, and I wouldn’t because I was too chickenshit, and it all fell apart anyway.
” Vera paused as she struggled to compose herself.
“I was on Retreat when I realized I was sick, too. It wasn’t like it is now.
No antidepressants or beauty treatments or all the luxuries of home to accompany your brainwashing.
And I swore then that I would do everything I could to make it right. ”
“You were sick? But you didn’t—”
“I don’t know why I lived when there are others who don’t.
When Mary didn’t. If there’s anything else in this life that’s as unfair as that, I’ve yet to find it.
But I told myself I would do anything to get out of Retreat so I could watch over your mother and make certain she was okay.
I played the part. Read my Bible and went to prayer sessions and said all the right things. A good woman through and through.”
Camilla nodded. She knew something about playing that role.
“Gerry did me the favor of dying not long after they let me go home. A car accident. I could have left Hawthorne Springs after that. There was plenty of money. No one would have questioned it if I did. But I couldn’t leave Ada.
So I stayed and did all the things expected of me so not even Robert had a reason to think I was anything other than a good, Christian woman.
And I watched. Because I owed a debt. Because what I’d done was unforgivable.
Because I loved your grandmother, and maybe it wouldn’t erase all I’d done, but it could be an atonement in its own way. ”
Camilla chewed on her lip. Vera’s story was taking too long, and she’d still said nothing about the Dark Sisters.
“Your mom was thirteen when she told me she saw the Sisters. A dream, she said. Because that’s what her daddy told her.
It didn’t matter that she’d woken up under the tree—sleepwalking even though she’d never done that in her life.
And what reason did she have not to believe him?
He was the sun in the dark. Her whole world revolved around him.
It didn’t matter I told her I’d seen them, too.
That I’d thought it was a dream, too, but now, I wondered if they were something else. Something more important.
“But your mother was her father’s daughter.
He raised her in his image because he could.
And she swore to me if I ever mentioned them again, she wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of her life.
That the Sisters were a story, and that was all.
And then she married Henry. Became a preacher’s wife.
Even if she’d seen them, she couldn’t talk about it.
It would have been blasphemous to even hint at such a thing, and your mother is nothing if not devoted. A good, righteous woman.”
Camilla could hear the fatigue in Vera’s voice.
Could sense the years and years she’d carried this story.
Her regret and shame and confusion bound up in her sense of duty.
She took each thing Vera told her, but all those truths fell through her hands.
There was so little she could hold. She was just like her mother then.
Her father’s daughter. Na?ve and willing to swallow whatever she was told, and hadn’t she played the part of the spoiled, bratty preacher’s daughter?
Hadn’t she grown into the woman they expected?
“Your daddy was never shy about letting me and your mom know he didn’t like me hanging around. But I was good. Played along until you told me about the Sisters, that you saw them too, and well, you saw what the consequences were for that.”
Around Camilla, the room seemed to swell.
Both her mother and Vera had seen the Sisters.
She wondered how many women, how many girls, had seen them.
Had woken, disoriented with sleep, to look up into those twisting branches, their fear damp and heavy in their mouths.
But knowing Vera and her mom had seen them didn’t answer any of her questions.
Didn’t tell her who they were or how they were related to her mother and Brianna’s illness.
If they even had anything to do with it at all.
To figure it out, she would have to go back to the tree. Sit in that great silence and make an invocation or an offering, whatever it was when one wanted to call forth a ghost or a demon.
A knock sounded at her door, and she jumped, fumbling the phone in her hands as she ended the call.
“Camilla? You decent?”
Her father. Already home from his planning session.
Hurriedly, she powered the phone off and shoved it and the box back under her sink and piled various bottles in front of it.
“Yes,” she called, her heart racing as she looked at her improvised hiding spot and told herself he had no reason to look under the sink.
“There you are.” He paused in the doorway and took in the scatter of cast-off beauty supplies around her with an indulgent smirk. “Doing a little reorganizing?”
She forced a smile. “I could have sworn I had this one moisturizer down here, and once I started looking, well…” She indicated the pile on the floor, and he chuckled.
“Let Angela take care of that. Come in here for a minute. I have something I want to show you.”
Relief cooled the heat in her cheeks, and she closed the cabinet behind her and followed him.
“Talking about the Purity Ball got me thinking. Things have been tough around here lately. I think we both could use a little pick-me-up, and with the Ball being so soon, I don’t think it’s going to hurt anything.
” He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket.
“Now, you can’t wear it yet. Not until the ceremony is over, but I never could keep a secret for very long.
” He beamed at her as she crossed the room.
Nestled in the box was a platinum band, a spray of pear-cut diamonds that looked like a delicate cascade of water droplets. Her purity ring.
“Cartier.” She let her fingers hover over the box like it was some sacred relic.
Her father would want her to be impressed.
Overwhelmed by this show of opulence. He would never imagine she saw how thin his gesture was.
A distraction dressed in finery. Just like the Retreat, the money, the luxury, was meant to keep her happy and numb.
Happy and numb didn’t ask questions. Happy and numb didn’t cause problems.
“The girl knows her diamonds,” he said, snapped the box closed, and pulled her in for a hug.
“I know you’ve been upset, hon. Given everything happening with Mom, it’s hard not to be.
I’ve had my own struggles with it. But there’s comfort in giving that fear to God.
In putting it all in His hands and knowing He’s going to provide. ”
She nodded into his chest and made certain to keep her body soft. Open and receptive to his touch. “I know, Daddy.”
“Good girl.” He squeezed her shoulders as he released her. “I’ll have Angela pack your bag and passport. You should be all set. Just make sure you get your beauty sleep tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“We fly out tomorrow morning. Paris, remember?” He knocked his knuckles lightly against her forehead.
“Seems like someone needs that rest more than she thought. Figured we could take a few days before your appointment. Take in the sights. Just you and me. A week in the most beautiful city in the world and then home just in time for the Ball.”
She wanted to ask about her mother, if she’d remain behind, locked in her room while she and her father gallivanted around France, but she kept her jaw clamped shut so the words couldn’t escape.
She smiled instead and wondered if it was possible to drop dead from smiling so much.
“I’m off then. I have a few things to button up myself before we leave.” He waved the ring box at her as he opened her bedroom door. “See you bright and early.”
A week. She would not be able to go to the tree until she returned, and even then, it would be difficult. Her father would still be watching her every move, intent on keeping her in the house or the church. She could have screamed in irritation, but it wouldn’t have helped.
She went back into the bathroom, locked the door behind her, pulled the phone from its hiding place, and powered it on.
Leaving for a week. Back next Friday. Need to get to the tree that night. Before the Purity Ball.
She waited as the text went through to Brianna and Noah, turned the phone off, and began the methodical process of putting everything back under her sink.
Only when the bathroom was put back in order, everything pristine and shining, did she close her eyes and offer up a prayer. To God or the Dark Sisters, she couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t matter anymore. Gods and devils weren’t so very different. Each wore a beautiful skin.
“Please. Please don’t let them die.”