by Melhoff, D.
He gripped the latch on the patio door and twisted the handle at the same time, swinging it open to reveal the beautiful back courtyard.
As Peter and Camilla stepped off the veranda, the ugly porch light went out and they were immersed in full, velveteen darkness. Camilla’s eyes dilated and took in a much softer glow: the moonlight washed down from above, complemented by beads of fireflies burning in and out on the breeze. Tiny lawn lights stitched their way along a stony path through the length of the enclosure, and had she not known that there were bars on the shed’s windows, she wouldn’t have noticed it now; the beautiful lighting illuminated a lot, but it obscured a lot too.
Fountains played as Peter and Camilla passed them by, the water dappling off the stonework, and then the walking path curled along the edge of the pond and led them deeper into the night. It wasn’t until now that Camilla got a sense of how big the pond actually was. It was easily the size of a public swimming pool—not Olympic dimensions by any means, but still a very large, slightly oblong basin that was dark enough to be a lot deeper than anyone would think.
Here the soil rolled up with the roots of the tree that towered near the outer edge of the Vincents’ plot. It was massive up close. Its branches hung over the pond, ancient arms reaching out to snare something in the darkness, and the leaves were fully flushed like an emerald mink.
They reached the base of the tree, and Peter set their picnic box on the ground. He put a hand against the black trunk and took a step up.
Camilla squinted and noticed a series of planks nailed into the bark: it was a ladder that snaked up to a tree house camouflaged in the cover of the leaves. In the blink of an eye, Peter was up the steps and inside the house.
“Incoming!” A wicker basket with a rope tied to the handle launched out of the window, soaring through the air, and flopped to the ground. “Load the food and come on up!”
Camilla placed their picnic inside the basket and gave the rope a tug, then braced her body against the tree and hoisted herself up the first two planks.
The higher she got, the more of a rush she felt. The stress of the crummy day stayed grounded while she clambered up and up alongside the floating basket, lost in the allure of the adventure.
Peter poked his head out of the tree house and offered his hand. She took it, noticing the tail end of the tattoo on the inside of his wrist again, and was pulled up through the entrance.
The tree house was totally bare, not even a bird’s roost or squirrel’s nest packed into the corner.
“Welcome to the palace,” Peter flourished.
“Very impressive. And what’s on the royal menu?”
“A sublime cucumber salad,” he said, pulling items out of the basket as he listed them, “and the lady’s choice of chicken or tuna on brown.”
“Exquisite.”
Peter took a tablecloth from the bottom of the chest and rolled it out on the floor. As he spread around the food, Camilla reached over and touched the ornately carved box again.
“These really are beautiful, you know. How long does it take you?”
“Depends. An urn? Maybe three or four weeks. I can etch portraits too, but that takes longer.”
“A portrait? Could you etch me?”
“Why, do you plan on dying soon?”
“People rarely plan on dying. It’s good to be prepared.”
Peter laughed. He ripped off a chunk of baguette and passed it over. “Take and eat.”
Camilla stuck the bread in her mouth and bit down, closing her eyes. It was bliss. When she opened her eyelids again, she looked out of the tree house window and leaned back, savoring the view as much as the bread.
The scattered lights of Nolan were twinkling in the trees like the night’s freshest stars, and under the open black sky—which seemed deeper and spookier than it ever had before—the Vincent manor sat like a sleeping giant. Camilla and Peter were on top of the world, literally, and the whole planet was spinning around them.
“Dad built this tree house under mom’s nose,” Peter said. “Claimed it as our hiding spot. We kept it secret for almost a year too, which…well, you know my mom, wasn’t easy.” He watched the backyard with a smile on his face, almost as if he could see the memories playing out below. “In the winter, he’d set up tombstones on the ice and teach us how to skate around them. Crazy how small things like that stick out.”
Camilla imagined her own father stumbling around their trailer yard, attempting to build her a tree house, but it was like watching a toothless beaver trying to build the Hoover Dam—it would never, ever, ever work. Pump up your own bike tires. Hang that hammock. Pitch your own tent. Grab me another beer, genius.
Flashes of the trailer park came back so fast that she couldn’t block them out. Fields of flat, dead grass and the constant slam of screen doors; brown glass shattered on the roadsides; smells of the septic pipes as they burped up a rank sludge when it rained in the spring. Out! Your mom’s busy! Camilla was heaved out of her own trailer, down…down…into the sludge. Then she looked up and saw her mother’s face in the kitchen window, looking back, looking sorry. She was still aware then, or at least aware enough to show regret, but gone enough to just let it all happen. And suddenly the face was pulled away from the window. Then her mother was really gone. Physically. The rest would go too, and almost as fast.
Camilla pushed the images out of her head, her heart beating but her breath still under control. It had been a long time since that big of a flash had gone off. Even longer since the images were that vivid.
“Think fast.” Peter tossed Camilla a sandwich—she caught it at the last second.
As she unwrapped the plastic, Camilla heard Moira’s voice echoing the quote that “blood was thicker than water.” She looked down at the funeral home and recalled the way Jasper had marveled at the family portrait in the north parlor, and the way the relatives’ urns were lined up precisely on the mantelpiece. Even though she hadn’t shed a single tear when her father was finally tried and convicted of domestic abuse (among a panoply of other minor summary offenses), it suddenly struck her how profound the loss of Peter’s dad must have been. To lose such a kind person—moreover, the fulcrum of the family—would have been devastating.
Then another image popped into her head: Moira marching down an aisle in a wedding dress, scowling, on her way to marry whomever this man had been. “Happiest day of my life” was the invisible tagline floating underneath, and Camilla couldn’t help but snicker.
Peter shook his head. “You’re always smirking, and I never know why.”
“Me neither.” She tapped her forehead. “It’s weird up here.”
They sunk their teeth into the sandwiches, enjoying the taste, and ate in silence. After the sandwiches were gone, they moved on to the carrots.
“I’ve been wondering, how did Laura and Lucas meet?”
“They’re the same age,” Peter replied, “but since we were homeschooled, it wasn’t till we hired her to help with admin work.”
“And the wedding’s in a month?”
“Yeah,” he smirked. “Weird. Ever since Luke turned sixteen, the whole family’s been on him to find a girl. Now I suppose all that attention’ll turn to me. They’re relentless, you know. Sometimes I think mom hired Laura just to set him up—I mean, how many people are qualified to do that job, yet she chooses the youngest, prettiest one…”
Camilla quickly brought a carrot to her mouth as Peter’s sentence trailed off, both of them seeming to realize that the situation they were in was possibly premeditated.
“Oh God no,” Peter scoffed. “I didn’t mean—no, don’t give her that much credit, please.”
Blushing, Camilla curled her hair around her ears and looked out of the tree house again.
Wind shook the branches and shivered the leaves. Something glinted in the moonlight outside of the window that made Camilla tilt her head and squint closer.
“I didn’t know this was a fruit tree,” she said.
“Huh?” Peter said, still fumbling over his previous sentence.
Camilla shimmied closer to the window and reached out to pluck something off the closest branch. When she brought her hand back in, it was cradling a dark-red apple.
Peter’s eyes pulled back into focus. He sat up a little straighter. “Let’s see.”
Camilla reached across the space and handed Peter the apple. He took it, and she caught a glimpse of the tattoo on the inside of his wrist again.
Peter felt the waxy skin of the apple for a second and then set it on the floor. “We load this thing with insecticides every year,” he dismissed. “Big bug problems. Don’t eat these.”
“M-hmm.” Camilla wasn’t paying attention to the apple anymore; she was still eying the tattoo. “What’s that?”
“This?” Peter rolled up his sleeve as far as it could go, revealing the full calligraphy inked into his skin.
“Memento vivre,” Camilla read.
“The sister of this one.” Peter rolled up his other sleeve, unveiling another tattoo in the same style and font that read “Memento mori.”
“Remember you must live,” she mumbled. “Remember you must die.”
“You know Latin?”
“Phrases. I like them.”
“Thanks. They remind me that on one hand”—he shook his right arm—“I should have a life worth living, and on the other hand”—he shook his left—“I’m only human. So basically, don’t be stupid.”
“Who did them?”
“Me. My own ink and needles.”
Camilla admired the tattoos in a whole new way, imagining Peter’s steady hands guiding the delicate needle tip along his own skin. She felt a tingle up her spine.
“These are nothing,” Peter said, more excited. “Look at this.”
He pulled the collar of his shirt down and turned so Camilla could see a green-and-gray Celtic symbol colored into the bottom of his nape. She moved closer and touched the intricate marking.
“It’s the triquetra. Father and son linked together. Had to do it with a small hand mirror; I was stiff for a month.”
“What’s this?” Camilla touched a point where another tattoo dipped below his shirt collar.
“Oh yeah.” Peter rolled his eyes. “One sec.”
He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, then slid his undershirt over his head to reveal a large bird covering the right side of his chest and shoulder.
“The raven on the bust of Pallas.”
“I swear,” Peter said, “every teen with an emo phase hits a Poe stage. Got bored and took it to the next level, I guess.”
“At least this one’s important.” Camilla pointed to Peter’s last tattoo: the Vincent family’s V inked over his left breast, right above his heart.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Guess you’re getting to know us pretty well.”
Camilla studied Peter’s body: his torso resting on top of his knees with the moonlight bathing his bare skin in a milky glow. The air in the tree house had changed. It was tender and quiet.
Peter reached down and took her hand, guiding it to his chest. Wind rustled through the yard and another shiver zipped up Camilla’s spine, though this time it wasn’t from the breeze.
And then, as the whole world spun around them, Peter and Camilla leaned in and kissed.
9
The Hospice
A quiet swish of water woke Camilla up in the middle of the night. The sound blended naturally with the peaceful Yukon soundscape—the chirps of the chorus frogs, the hoots from the great gray owls in their bulky nests—but to Camilla’s subconscious, something was very, very wrong.
The picnic blanket slid off her bare shoulder as she sat up and massaged her eyes in the dark. Running a hand through her hair, she looked back and saw Peter still asleep, curled up like a baby in the fetal position on the floor of the tree house. He looked content—possibly dreaming—and Camilla felt a little bit like she was floating in a dream herself. But it wasn’t a dream; it was real, and everything that had happened between them was real too.
The water swished again.
Camilla crawled to the window and peeked over the ledge. The pond was churning long, lethargic waves. It could have been the frogs, she thought. Or maybe the wind tossed something inside.
She watched the water settle down to its glassy surface and slumped into the tree house again, massaging her forehead. There’s nothing there. Nothing at all.
Another swish.
Frowning, Camilla lifted herself up again and stuck her head over the ledge.
She could see the water stirring, but it was too dark to tell where the ripples were coming from. She squinted harder, leaning halfway out of the window, and threw her gaze around the courtyard.
Then she spotted them, right near the bank of the pond: a pair of eyes bobbing in the water. They were looking straight at her, the whites of them cutting through the darkness amid a net of black hair that floated like dead seaweed on the surface.
Camilla was paralyzed. She gripped the wall of the tree house with shaking white knuckles as the head began to rise. Every step the body took, the water level sunk to expose more of the person’s face. A tiny nose broke the surface, then round cheeks with pudgy dimples. When the rest of the jaw slid out, Camilla sucked in a cold draft of breath and clenched it in her paralyzed lungs.
The person was a little girl—the same eight-year-old girl whose third grade picture had been stapled to Leonard Gall’s autopsy papers.
Camilla tumbled back, a hundred images reeling through her head: flashes of the dripping-wet boy, the gory autopsy scars, the cupboard of towels in the kitchen, the police officer telling her to “Watch yourself around these freaks”, and, most of all, the constant feeling of being scrutinized from Nolan’s dark neighborhood windows. Then one thought came galloping through the rest—a command that was loud and clear as it charged from her instincts and galvanized every muscle in her body. Catch her! Catch that girl!
Camilla seized her shirt off the floor and pulled it over her breasts in one tug, then rammed on her flats and went scrambling for the ladder. Peter barely stirred behind her.
Her awkward legs spindled out of the tree house and fumbled for the invisible steps; when she looked below she could see the outline of the eight-year-old’s body at the edge of the pond. The girl was naked except for underwear and a training bra.
Camilla stepped down the tree with her heart whomping like a bass drum. Her nails dug into the trunk and she heard the fabric of her pants rip, exposing her kneecaps to the bite of the freezing wind, but she kept on, kept sliding her shins down the jagged bark like cheese on a cheese grater while the cuts and gashes were anesthetized by sheer adrenaline.
The little girl continued toward the manor.
“Stop!” Camilla hissed.
The girl didn’t listen. She kept going with her back to the tree.
Camilla looked down and weighed the danger of a ten-foot jump. A split second later, she sprung off the ladder and landed with a buckling thud; a rod of pain shot through her right leg, but she was up in a heartbeat and limping across the yard.
“Wait!” she hissed again. “Come back!”
The little girl stopped and looked over her shoulder. Camilla hobbled forward; the sting in her leg was so bad that she was half keeled over.
Suddenly, the little girl giggled.
Camilla took another step forward and the girl skipped two away.
“No, please. Stay there.”
She stumbled closer, but the girl giggled again and hopped an equal distance ahead. Great, she thinks it’s a game.
“All right, you win, you win.” Camilla grimaced. Maybe I can talk to her from here. “M-My name’s Camilla. What’s yours?”
No response.
“It’s a little cold for swimming. If you wait here a sec, I can bring you a towel.”
The girl was losing interest fast. She began turning away...
“Wait, how about a different game? I—
I’ve got a suitcase of clothes upstairs and a whole room of crazy hats. How does that sound? We can play dress-up as late as you want, pinky swear.”
The girl eyed Camilla’s outstretched pinky and took the bait. Slowly she turned around, and as she pivoted, her scar became visible for the first time, stretching from the top of her sternum to the bottom of her rib cage.
Camilla gaped at the scar, her outstretched pinky curling back into a loose fist. The two of them stood there, staring at each other for a frozen moment, until the girl pivoted again and continued toward the veranda.
“No! Come back!” Camilla took another step, but a stabbing pain ripped into her lower body.
The girl continued bobbing through the yard, fading farther and farther away.
Camilla locked her eyes on the child’s back. Now or never. She took a deep breath in…and sprinted across the yard.
The little girl checked behind her and squealed with laughter, taking off faster for the house.
As they ran across the lawn, Camilla’s long legs began gaining ground. The dew on the grass was cold and slippery, but she dug in and tore through it, determined like a wounded lion pursuing a vital prey.
Then it happened—an enormous spike of pain plunged into her stomach.
Camilla crippled onto the lawn, her vision blurring as a massive charge surged through every circuit in her brain. Suddenly the world’s supply of oxygen wasn’t enough. She couldn’t cry out because something in her gut had clenched together and sealed off her body’s air supply, and as a cold darkness pressed in, she was left alone to writhe across the grass like an animal caught in an electrical fence. As she passed out, all she could do was watch the spinning, unfocused image of the giggling girl skip farther and farther away until everything went cloudy, then black.
This time it wasn’t the sound of water that woke Camilla up—it was the melody of a Baroque minuet.
A bar of sunlight cut through a gap in the curtains and turned the insides of her eyelids hot red. She stirred under the padding of stale hospital sheets and let out a low groan, attempting to release the pressure that was built up behind her skull. It didn’t help.