Chapter XIX. 2007 #2
He gestured to the center of the room where a tiny group of the braver girls had kicked off their shoes and were dancing a formal “leave room for Jesus” waltz with a mixture of their fathers and some of the other leaders.
“Let’s make ’em burst into flames.” He extended his hand with a flourish and bowed. “Dance with me.”
She shook her head—the thought of dancing felt unbearably absurd, disrespectful even—but he took her hand and led her onto the floor.
His hand went about her waist. It was warm and damp and made her think of pink earthworms squirming through dirt.
Once, she’d dreamed about him touching her, but now, she felt the slightest sense of revulsion as the music began.
Around her, the room spun, the girls, the fathers, the dresses all becoming a sort of pale, glittering haze.
The music swelled, the notes straining into a discordant harmony that made her shiver even as she held herself rigid in Grant’s arms. Before the song came to a complete stop, another began, and again, Grant led her into the next step.
By the time the dance ended in a dizzying twirl, her breath came fast and shallow.
She wasn’t certain if the sound coming from her was laughter or some small, animal-like cry, but Grant smiled back at her, so surely he thought it was laughter falling from her lips like roses or precious jewels.
In the distance, someone let out an exuberant whoop, and the music started up again, the tempo picking up speed as the dancers rushed the floor.
“You look like you need some air.” Grant’s mouth was tucked against her ear, and the rush of him was almost too much to bear.
Every muscle loosened, and she felt her knees wanting to buckle.
He looped her arm through his, and she let herself lean against him.
Let him guide her away from the whirling dresses and laughter that had begun to sound more like a small creature being skinned alive.
A tiny, squirming thing dropped into boiling water.
Others were drifting away from the pavilion and toward the surrounding woods. Church leaders walked with the daughters as they offered them a glass of punch. The girls lowered their eyes and giggled, their fathers a distant memory and left behind.
It was a reminder of her own father. That he could be watching his newly pledged daughter walking with a man who wasn’t anywhere near to being called her husband.
“My father.” Camilla twisted her head, but she could not find him.
There were only lights and the sudden intrusion of the woods that covered the girls and their escorts in dim shadow.
“He’s just there. Don’t worry,” Grant said, pointing at some amorphous shape that turned to her, its mouth widening and widening. A mouth meant to devour. A mouth of violence. She closed her eyes and swallowed.
“It’s hot,” she said. He led her farther into the woods.
It had grown fully dark, her white dress the only source of light.
The other girls had fallen away, and she stared up into the trees.
How they stretched on and on, the canopy choking off the sounds of the reception.
She let her head tip backward as she tried to make sense of all that dark.
How it seemed to blossom into an unending series of patterns that confused the eye.
It made her dizzy to look, but she couldn’t move.
“You look like a ballerina, standing like that. Like the ghosts in Swan Lake,” he said, and his voice came to her as if through water. Distended and warped.
“Hot,” she said again, and pulled at the corset binding on her dress, not caring if Grant saw, but it was knotted, and she could not loosen it. Her fingers would not work, and her brain moved thickly, unable to work out exactly what tie to pull to undo the knot.
From some place deeper in the woods rose a ragged shriek that quickly dropped into a muffled sob. “Who’s crying?” Camilla asked. Her skin had gone cold, the dim stirring of fear unable to fully unfold. She was too confused. Too woozy.
“No one. It’s probably a coyote. Here.” He guided her to a fallen tree. “Sit down for a bit and cool off. You’ll feel better. I’ll go and get you more punch.”
“No. I heard—”
But he vanished into the gloom. Camilla ran her fingers over the crumbling bark beneath her. She could still hear the crying. Soft, soft, soft. Like someone trying very hard not to cry. Like a hand held over their mouth as they tried to stay silent.
And then, another sound. A wet squelching that droned on and on. Like a tongue lapping. Like teeth burrowing into meat. And still, threaded beneath it all, the crying that seemed as if it had always been with her.
She clamped her hands over her ears, but she could still hear it.
She could scream until her throat went raw, and it would not erase it.
It would burrow forever into her like a seed planted deep.
There was no end to that sound, no end to the sky and the trees whirling above her.
She sucked in air and tried to understand why the ground beneath her felt suddenly as if it had tipped on its side.
Why it seemed she could hear the rush of blood moving through her heart’s chambers.
She opened her mouth to tell the sounds to stop, to take a breath that wasn’t tainted with heat, but a hand clamped over her mouth from behind and pulled her backward.