Chapter XXII. 2007 #4
The camera. They were putting on a show. And her body, the way she blocked Camilla’s with her own … She was keeping the camera from seeing her cut the zip ties.
With renewed enthusiasm, Camilla thrashed against the mattress as they fought, her screams turning to animalistic growls as the woman tried again and again to bring the paper ramekin to her lips.
Finally, she sat back on her heels and pulled a cell phone from her pocket.
“She’s resisting. I’m going to take her down to medical. No, that’s not necessary. I got it.”
She put the phone back in her pocket and pushed herself off the bed. She bent, her lips close to Camilla’s ear again. “Keep your hands and feet exactly like they are. I’m going to wrap you, but they need to be in place.”
She withdrew a thin, white sheet and began the process of tucking it under the mattress on all sides, Camilla restrained beneath. She went behind the bed, disengaged the wheel locks, and began to push.
“Let’s go,” she said, unlocked the door, and then holding it open with one hand, pulled the bed and Camilla through.
The woman walked at a brisk pace, not as someone in a panic, but the no-nonsense gait of someone with a frustrating job to complete.
She had no reason to worry. The hallways were empty, and as they entered the atrium, Camilla could make out the deep intonations of one of the assistant pastors leading the women in prayer.
Evening Bible study. Everyone other than certain staff members would be in that room. Everyone would be distracted.
They passed through the atrium into one of the hallways, and then the woman paused, withdrew her key card, and opened a door Camilla must have passed a hundred times during her last stay but never noticed. It was the only unmarked door.
She could not yet fall into it. This slight chance at hope. At release. But as the woman pulled her through the door, Camilla felt the sensation expand, and she dared to envision a future that wasn’t the Retreat’s walls.
Once the door closed behind them, she quickly stripped the sheet off Camilla.
“You’re lucky there’s no one in here tonight.
Otherwise, I would have had to come up with some reason to wheel you through the kitchen.
That’s where the other staff exit is. This is much easier.
No cameras in here. They won’t give you any privacy in the rooms, but I guess medical is an invasion too far.
” She tucked an arm under Camilla’s shoulders and guided her up.
“Go slow. I don’t need you passing out on me. ”
Camilla rubbed at the indentations left on her wrists. “Why are you helping me?”
“I was the one who got you the note the last time you were here. Robin Chatsworth? I know Brianna. She called and said she was supposed to hear from you and hadn’t and that she thought they might bring you here.
Said she would pay me if I could get you out, but it’s not about the money.
I’ll take any chance I can to stick it to these assholes.
” She grinned and pulled Camilla to her feet.
“She’s a good friend. I hope you know that. ”
Tears burned the corners of Camilla’s eyes. “The best.”
Robin guided her to the back of the room, past a series of other hospital beds and metal tables, and paused when they reached another door, marked EXIT in red.
“You’ll have to walk. I’d let you take my car, but it’ll show up on the front entrance cameras, and I don’t have any reason to leave right now.
It’s about a quarter mile out. Keep right, and you’ll see the road.
There are woods running alongside. Keep to the woods and off the road.
There are cameras and security patrols every hour.
They won’t see you if you stick to the trees.
Once you’re out, Brianna said she and Noah will pick you up and take you where you need to go. ”
Camilla threw her arms around this woman she didn’t know but who’d risked so much for her. “Thank you.”
Robin squeezed her back. “You’re welcome. I’ll pretend I’m taking you back to your room. Pile up some blankets and wheel the bed back. It’ll give you more time. Now go!” She opened the door and practically shoved Camilla out.
Hunched low, Camilla darted to the right. Her body screamed in pain—in knotted muscle and bruised flesh—but she could not stop. Not when she was finally so close. There was no more room for fear. For waiting. There was too much to lose.
The main road rose up before her in the dark, and she did as Robin said. She kept to the trees, the edge of the road in her eye line as she made her way out.
As she made her way to the Dark Sisters.
SHE WAS BLEEDING when she came out of the woods.
Her arms dotted with a series of tiny cuts—the greenbriers her father used as an excuse finally finding her as she stumbled through the dark.
She fell at one point over an exposed root.
The wound on her thigh reopened, and she could feel the blood seeping past the bandage.
But she was out. That was all that mattered. And there was Noah’s truck, pulled almost parallel with the trees and turned off. Anyone driving that stretch of road would have passed by without seeing it.
At the sight of the truck, she laughed and began to run.
The passenger door opened. Brianna dropped to the ground, her feet slipping as she sprinted toward Camilla and tackled her with enough force to almost send both of them to the ground.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” she said.
Camilla let out a sob of relief as she hugged Brianna. Her beautiful, brave, intelligent, compassionate best friend. She would die for this woman. Again and again.
She pulled backward, swiped her thumb over the tears on Brianna’s cheeks, and then stopped as her gaze fell on Brianna’s mouth. Joy rendered her immobile as she took in the unblemished skin.
“You’re better,” she whispered.
Brianna nodded and let out a laugh. “I’m better. I don’t know how or why, but I am.” She clasped Camilla’s hand. “Is your mom…?”
“No. No, she isn’t.” Her heart squeezed painfully.
She looked beyond Brianna at Noah, who stood patiently beside the driver’s side door, allowing them their moment without his intrusion.
They had come for her and offered their help.
They would go with her for this final stretch. She could not be too late.
She looked back at Brianna. “Let’s go find the Dark Sisters.”
NOAH PARKED IN the field, and they walked the last stretch to the tree in silence. There were no words that could give voice to her trepidation. Her need.
When it finally came into view, Camilla reached for Brianna’s hand, the clean warmth of it a reminder of why she’d come.
“Do you want us to go all the way with you? To the tree?” Brianna asked.
“It’s okay. You’re here. That’s enough.” She dropped Brianna’s hand and turned to face the tree.
The black walnut stretched over her, no longer a threat but an invitation.
The Sisters were frightening. She could not deny the wild panic in her heart.
But she’d spent her whole life being afraid.
Told to fear things she couldn’t see even as she was told to revere other things she couldn’t see.
So much blind faith demanded of her at every turn.
Fear and worship so inextricably bound that she could substitute one for the other.
She held that thought as she stood beneath the tree.
As she studied it. The whorls and broken lines that held something ancient at its heart.
She wondered how she’d ever been afraid of those faces in the bark.
They had never been faces at all. Only nature in its glory taking whatever form it willed.
There was beauty even in what she’d seen as obscene.
She knew that now and placed a hand against the bark.
“I’m here. I’m scared, but I’m here. I don’t know what you are or what you want, but my mom is sick, and if it’s because of you … please. How do I fix it?”
A rustling sounded in the branches above her. The sound of a veil parting.
She drew in a breath, and she looked up and into the faces of the Dark Sisters.
They reached for her, but it was not with the intended violence she once imagined. Their hands were gentle. This was an offering. If only she would put aside her fear and allow them to touch her.
Her head tipped backward, and she lifted her hand. Yes. She would allow it. Camilla knew something of being a conduit. A vessel for someone else to fill. God. Her father. She could do it for the Sisters, too.
When they touched her and the vision came, it was gentle.
She’d always thought those Biblical holy men were ripped away when their God granted them second sight.
But this was nothing like that. It was a sudden awareness that the world around her had dropped away.
Like a submersion into warm water. Like opening your eyes and seeing for the first time.
She saw their names written in her father’s Bible. Anne Bolton. Florence Dudley. The first two women of Hawthorne Springs. Not sisters at all, but mother and daughter. Anne with her knowledge and belief in nature’s magic. Florence with her strident devotion to her own god.
She saw Anne leading two other women to the tree, sap flowing over their fingers, their palms scarlet as they pledged themselves to the tree’s magic so their daughters might always know the prosperity they had found.
Florence doing the same, but with a sickness in her heart.
A desire for her mother’s punishment. How her blood had sunk beneath the earth in the same manner as the others.
How nature saw her curse in equal measure and granted it in the ways it understood.
She saw as the women fell sick. The sores on their mouths, and blood, and teeth as they coughed up portions of themselves. She saw the bodies impaled on the branches of the tree, Florence’s curse made complete.