Come Little Children

by Melhoff, D.

  But when Camilla erupted through the front door, all of the lights in the house were off.

  She peeked into the north parlor, but the room was dark and the fire was long extinguished. After passing through the lobby and the dining room, she was about to head up and check the bedrooms, when something caught her eye from over in the kitchen. It was a blue light glaring in the window above the sink. When she squinted and saw the source of it, she rushed to the back door and pushed outside again.

  The glow was coming from a powerful floodlight. Peter was down at the pond, wrapping an extension cord around his arm, and beside him was a pile of hockey sticks and a rusty goalie net.

  “Peter? What—what’s all this? Where is everyone?”

  Peter looked up and saw Camilla coming toward the pond. He looked down again and kept winding the extension cord. “They went to bed.”

  “Bed? Already?”

  “Guess they’re wiped.”

  The closer Camilla got, the clearer she could see the full setup. On either end of the frozen pond were two goal posts, and off to the right were a series of tombstones set up like training pylons. There were even a few benches pulled up to the ice with a tray of thermoses filled with the thick sediment of what was once hot chocolate.

  “Oh, Peter. This is fantastic! An ice rink, just like—”

  “Like my dad used to make. Yeah. Surprise.”

  She finally understood the cool demeanor. Her excitement of coming home dropped off a cliff.

  “Sorry I missed it,” she apologized. “I had to—to run into town for a few things.”

  “Let me guess. New lint rollers?”

  “I was only gone an hour.”

  “It’s nine o’clock.”

  “OK. Maybe a little longer.”

  He didn’t reply. He continued wrapping the extension cord and avoided eye contact.

  Camilla wilted. She walked to the bench and gathered the dirty cups and thermoses, attempting to apologize with actions rather than words. After a minute of uncomfortable silence, she asked, “How was she on the ice?”

  “Good,” Peter sniffled. “Complained her toes were cold, but she’ll survive.”

  He finished wrapping the cord and returned it to the tool shed. When he got back, Camilla had collected all the dishes.

  “She asked about you,” he said, sniffling again. “Wanted to know if her mom knew how to skate. I said I wasn’t sure.”

  “What do you think?”

  “That’s what I guessed. Join us for practice sometime, or your daughter will be doing laps around you.”

  “She probably already is.”

  Peter took two of the thermoses out of Camilla’s arms and they started back toward the house. As their boots crossed the freshly shoveled path, she couldn’t help peeking at him every few steps. He’s holding something back, I know it. But it wasn’t until they got to the top of the porch that he finally spoke again.

  “You know,” he started, “there’s a lot Abby doesn’t know about her mom.”

  And a few things her dad doesn’t know about her.

  “She can recite the whole Vincent family tree back three generations, but what about your side? Does she even know your parents’ names? Or where you’re from?”

  Camilla thought about it. Now that Peter mentioned it, no, Abigail had no idea about her mother’s side of the family. For good reasons too.

  “I know things weren’t rainbows and unicorns growing up,” he said, “but she deserves to hear something. Try talking with her, girl to girl. You might even learn something you didn’t know too.”

  “You’re right,” Camilla said, nodding. “I’ll talk to her more. Starting tomorrow.”

  She held open the door and Peter passed in front of her. But as they entered the house, she was hit with the sudden image of knocking on Abigail’s bedroom door and Abby appearing on the other side, frozen, with glazed-over eyes and bruises flecked all over her pale, perfect skin.

  She pushed the image out of her head, but not before Sharon Mullard’s voice came echoing back. The words morphed together as they looped over and over in the A-frame rafters of her skull, not fully dissipating until much, much later that night.

  He’s a good kid, there is nothin’ wrong with him…Nothin’ wrong with a good kid…A good kid is nothin’ wrong…a good, good, good kid…

  21

  Premonition

  Peter and Camilla had long since taken over Camilla’s guest room on the third floor of the house and given Peter’s old bedroom to Abigail. It was nice and quiet up there, affording their little family-within-a-family some privacy from the rest of the funeral home while keeping them all together in one hallway. Maybe one day Abby would want to put more distance between herself and her parents, but until then it wasn’t an issue. It’s a big house, sure, why not let her move around—so long as it’s not into the basement.

  Camilla put a hand on her bedroom door. Her head was still throbbing with the muffled shouts of Sharon Mullard pounding between her ears.

  Suddenly Peter’s voice cut through the haze. Not his actual voice—just an echo of their previous conversation, like Sharon’s only stronger.

  She can recite the whole Vincent family tree back three generations, but what about your side? Does she even know your parents’ names?

  She glanced over her shoulder at the door across the hall. A fuzzy pink glow was blossoming out of the crack to her daughter’s bedroom.

  Try talking with her, girl to girl. You might even learn something you didn’t know too.

  Camilla switched sides of the hallway and put her cheek against Abigail’s doorframe. It was too late to have a conversation tonight, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t peek in and see how her little kiddo was doing.

  Inside, Abigail’s room was blushing with the warm, rosy glow that emanated from a night-light in the far corner. That particular fixture had been incredibly controversial; she had dug up four independent studies that argued whether or not night-lights are harmful for children’s development, but ultimately they proved inconclusive. Where one paper claimed they’re a leading cause of nearsightedness, another swore they prevented retinopathy; where this clinic proclaimed they increased the risk of leukemia, that clinic called bullshit because “everything gives you cancer, so stuff it.”

  The room itself was clean, but cluttered. Crayon portraits plastered the walls and children’s books upon children’s books were stacked on top of a miniature vanity table that Peter had built from a fallen tree in the nearby backwoods. Little outfits were hung neatly in the closet, and all her toys—with their plastic decals and microscopic accessories—were put away in a jumbo-size Disney chest that Peter had also carved, despite twenty-one instances of blatant copyright infringement.

  The rosy outline of Abigail was curled up under her duvet cover. She was turned on her side, facing away from the door.

  Camilla tiptoed inside and picked up a couple of books that had toppled off the vanity. As she tidied up, she watched the comforter on the bed breathe up and down, up and down. A smile curled on her lips.

  “Mommy, is that you?”

  Camilla fumbled one of the books, startled by the coo of Abby’s voice. “Sorry, girlie,” she whispered, picking up the hardcover and placing it on the vanity. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “That’s OK,” Abby answered. “I wasn’t sleeping.” She turned onto her back and pulled the sheets away from her face. Her eyes were alert in the rosy light.

  Camilla tsked, walking over and sitting on the edge of the mattress. “I hear you’re pretty good on the ice,” she whispered. “Didn’t that poop you out?”

  “I guess.”

  “Then why aren’t you sleeping?” She lunged for Abigail’s ribs and sent the little girl squirming with giggles. “Careful,” she teased. “If dad hears you’re still awake, you’ll be in biiiig trouble, Miss.”

  “Don’t worry about dad.” Abigail cooled down. “Imagine grandma hear
s us. We won’t get dessert for a week.”

  Camilla stifled her own laugh. Abby was definitely her mother’s daughter, all right: fair skin and a fear of Moira, the ties that truly bind.

  She gave the little girl a hug and kissed the top of her head. When her lips met something cold and hard—something metal—she reached up and gently removed an object from Abigail’s hair.

  It was the orchid hair clip that Camilla had found on the vanity mirror in the guest bedroom a long, long time ago. She rolled the ornament in her fingers and felt the engraving on the back. B + M. Ben and Moira Vincent.

  “This is cute.” She pretended not to recognize it. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Grandma gave it to me.”

  Should’ve guessed, she snickered. Of course Moira would snatch the accessory out of Camilla’s hair only to pass it down to Abigail eight years later. Abigail was a Vincent by blood, Camilla only by paper.

  “Hmm,” Camilla hummed, fixing the clip in her own hair. “How do I look?”

  “Very pretty.” Abigail beamed.

  “Now”—She adjusted herself on the bed and leaned down again—“about this sleeping business…”

  “I can’t, mom. Well...I can, but I don’t want to. It’s my dreams. I don’t like them.”

  “What’s wrong with your dreams?”

  “I…I don’t know. They’re weird.” Abigail looked away, hesitant.

  “Shh,” Camilla hushed. She curled a ringlet of hair around her daughter’s tiny ear. “Your mom’s heard some weird stuff before. I’ll believe you.” Her fingernails ran lightly over Abigail’s pajamas. Up and down, side to side, scratching Abby’s arms and neck in long, soothing strokes. The little girl’s skin was perfect: no junky pinpricks or pockmarked drug bruises staining her complexion.

  “It starts outside,” Abby began, “with a tree. A big one. Then thunder comes and apples start falling off of the branches. And they fall harder and harder and harder, like it’s raining apples.”

  “The tree in our backyard?” Camilla’s face sagged.

  “Yes! Do you have that dream too?”

  She shook her head. “Wild guess.”

  “Oh.” Abigail slumped. “But anyways, all the apples fall into the water. You know, the—the pond. And then people…people start…”

  People start coming out of the water, Camilla thought, but she didn’t say it. That would have been too much. Too much of a coincidence, even for a seven-year-old to accept, and too much to handle herself. Instead she swallowed the last droplets of moisture in her mouth and asked, “People start what, honey?”

  Abigail looked down. Finally she whispered: “Coming out of the water.” She didn’t look up again. Instead, she massaged the bedsheets in her lap and asked, “Mom, am I crazy?”

  For a second, the world stopped spinning.

  The question hung there, midair, like a raindrop trapped with a high-shutter-speed lens, and then everything spun backwards. The hours turned back, then the days and the years—past Camilla’s time in Nolan, past her college days, even past her semesters in high school—shrinking her down to three and a half feet tall again and returning her to when she was seven-years-old.

  “Small straight, honey. That’s a small straight.” The memory of Camilla’s mother tapping the dice between them with the tip of her pencil flashed to life. “Two, three, four, five.” She leaned over and wrote thirty points on a hand drawn scorecard.

  “Can’t count ‘em yourself, genius?” Her father was reclined on the other end of the booth beside her mother, a rum in hand and a haze of alcohol clouding his face. “Gotta get your mom to write down your points for you?”

  The dice clacked over the table again. “Full house,” Diana mumbled and slid the cubes back to Camilla, marking off twenty-five points for herself.

  “Hey, kid,” her father called relentlessly. “She’s a cheat. You gotta watch her, huh? She’s a…she’s a crazy little cheat.” He laughed obnoxiously and slurred louder since no one must have heard him the first time, “She’s a batshit bullshitter!” His howl filled the trailer, but when it was clear—even for a drunk—that they were ignoring him, he belched and pulled a totally different topic out of his ass. “Where’s the chicken?” The gross man sat up with a look in his eyes that was suddenly mean, grabbing his wife’s arm, and shouted, “Hey! I’m asking you somethin’!” Even at that age, Camilla noticed her mother wince at the pressure his hand put on her collage of bruises.

  “It’s still in the oven.”

  “Well, don’t burn it. You burned it last time.” He let her go and cuffed the back of her head. “There’s a warning. It’ll be worse if that damn chicken comes out black.”

  Everything fell silent again. Camilla waited a minute before picking up the dice and rolling them again. Two twos, two fours, and a six. She looked at her mom for help, but Diana was just staring down at the table, completely blank-faced. “Mom?”

  She tapped her mother’s hand, but no response. She lowered herself into her mom’s line of vision and made eye contact, but for one horrifying second she saw that no one was home. Whoever this was, it wasn’t her mother. It was a shell. Or a totally different person who didn’t even recognize her own daughter’s face.

  “Mommy?”

  “Nor to drink wine,” Diana whispered. “Nor to drink wine, wine where brothers stumble…offended, or is to be made weak…”

  “Mom, you’re not making any sense.”

  “C’mon, batshit!” Her father cuffed Diana again, laughing grotesquely. “Snap outta it. Clap on, clap off, clap on, clap off.” His backhand caught her again and again, harder with every blow, as his jowls trembled and the arteries bulged out of his fat, quivering neck. Still Diana kept rocking on the bench, mumbling her incoherent spittle to herself and staring into a void.

  “Dad, stop! You’re hurting her!”

  “Ya, and I’ll smart you too, you little shit, if you don’t shut up.”

  His last backhand buffeted through the air and popped Diana right below the eye. Blood squirted from her nose and she collapsed face-first onto the table. Instantly the mumbling stopped. Her hands twitched to help herself up again, and when she lolled back there was more blood trickling down the sweaty space between her nose and her upper lip. Awareness had reappeared on her face, along with four or five blotches of red marks that would all flower into bruises, but she never cried out or called for help. In fact, when she sat up, the only thing Camilla remembered her mother saying was, “I think the chicken’s ready.”

  Flabbergasted, too stunned even for tears, Camilla watched as Diana got up from the kitchen table and went to check the oven.

  “Pour me another drink while yer there,” her father slurred. But little did he know, that was the last demand he would ever make of his battered wife. Because when Diana Carleton reached for the forty ounce of rum, she spaced out one more time. Camilla couldn’t see her dissociated stare from this new angle, but she did see her tip the bottle upside down and start draining it all over the stove. The bitter smell of spiced rum filled the trailer as it ran down the oven and dribbled over the cracked linoleum. She swept the bottle right and coated the countertops, then left and soaked the radio and the coffee maker and the rabbit ears on their old Finlux television set.

  Camilla’s father had been slow to catch on, but when he saw Diana dousing the kitchen, he cried out, “Hey fuck-knuckle! Waddaya doin’!”

  It was too late. Diana mumbled something incoherent and reached for one of the burner dials. There was a sudden hiss of propane and the click, click of the oven starter before a jet of fire caught the stovetop and sent the whole thing whooshing up in flames.

  The memories warped forward to when the firemen and the paramedics showed up with the police department. Camilla watched as her father was cuffed and thrown in the back of the cruiser while she and her mother were taken to an ambulance. Diana hadn’t come out of her trance yet—she wouldn’t for another seven months—but Camilla was too young to un
derstand what was going on. All she could see was a swarm of emergency workers and the tail of the police car driving away with her father trapped in the backseat. His screams echoed behind the glass while the vehicle pulled away, a begging drunkard whose words still haunted her over twenty years later. “She’s crazy! You’ve got the wrong person! Take her! Take her! Put her down! She’s a goddamn psychopath!”

  The police car, the ambulance, and the black, smoldering trailer vanished through space and time, but the hollering didn’t. She’s crazy! Put her down! She’s a goddamn psychopath!

  The words morphed as the world kept spinning forward. Her mom is nuts, whispered classmates at Alice Park Elementary. She’s nuts too. Then in high school: Everyone thinks that Carleton chick’s pretty, but something about her brain is messed up. It’s ugly in there. All the looks of hate and fear came hurtling with it, along with flashbacks from visits to psych centers and therapy rooms and endless doctors’ offices, all of them saying again and again, we don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know, as they poured more cortical cocktails through Diana’s bloodstream and tracked them in their growing spreadsheets. But what if her father had known all along? She’s crazy! he cackled with his quivering jowls and throbbing veins. Put her down! She’s a goddamn psychopath!

  The flashbacks ran out of mental pavement, and Camilla slammed back to reality. She was in her daughter’s room on the third floor of the Vincents’ house again. Abigail was staring at her, waiting for an answer to a question that must have been asked a century ago.

  “N-No,” she finally said. “You’re not crazy, honey. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that.”

  “All right.” Abigail frowned, still looking dismayed. “But all these dreams just feel so…real.”

  Camilla wiped her own forehead—good, at least I’m not sweating—and leaned over and kissed Abby’s cheek. “You know what?” she said. Her voice sounded shaky and she tried to steady it. “Dreams can’t last longer than twenty minutes. That’s a fact. And most times they’re only a few seconds.”