The Angel of Death (19 page)

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Authors: Alane Ferguson

BOOK: The Angel of Death
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“You wouldn’t do that,” Lyric resumed. “Just like you wouldn’t burn me in front of everyone in the cafeteria.”
“Come on, you’re overreacting.”
“Please don’t say that. I
hate
it when you say that.”
“Which is, in itself, an overreaction. Sorry,” Cameryn said as Lyric glared at her. “What I was trying to do at the lunch table was pull the conversation back to some sphere of reality. You were going on and on about spontaneous human combustion—”
“—which happens to be a
real
and true phenomenon—”
“—that has
nothing
to do with this case! ”
“How do you know?”
Lyric’s voice rose, and Cameryn was suddenly aware that people were staring at them. An elderly lady with a peacock hat put her finger to her lips and shook her head. As she did, the feathers trembled.
But Lyric didn’t seem to care. “You’re not infallible, Cammie,” she said, glaring. “You just think you are.”
"Ladies! ” interrupted a wobbly voice. “This is a funeral. If you two want to talk, why don’t you go outside for a moment until you get it all settled.” It was Gus, an ancient man who ushered at St. Patrick’s. Stooped almost in half, his white head dipping as he spoke, he pointed to the door leading out into the storm. “Go on, girls.”
“I guess he wants us to take it outside,” said Cameryn.
“Guess so.” Lyric jerked her coat tight, and Cameryn, who still wore hers, opened the wooden door, neatly stepping sideways to avoid a family on their way inside. The two of them hurried down the stairs and rounded the corner where a cluster of trees stood, offering them some shelter and, more importantly, privacy. The wind whirled fat snowflakes as big as dandelion fluff.
For a moment Cameryn didn’t know what to say. One thing was for sure—the cold and snow would go a long way to make them settle things quickly. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been thrown out of a church,” she said. “If Mammaw finds out I’ll have to do some serious penance. Maybe bake something.”
Shrugging, Lyric kept her eyes on her boots. They had silver studs on them, like tiny quills.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Cameryn told her. “I came off like a know-it-all in the cafeteria. That’s not what I meant to do.”
Still clutching her coat beneath her chin, Lyric raised her eyes, saying, “That’s not it.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“It’s you. You’re . . . different.” She paused. “You’re saying stuff and doing things you never used to do.”
Cameryn bit her lip. This again. “I’m different because things
are
different,” she replied. “You know what I’m going through.”
“No, it’s more than that.”
Cameryn sighed. “All right. Maybe I’m just trying to keep my head straight until I see Hannah.”
“But your head’s
not
straight. As your best friend I’m going to tell you I know what’s screwing with your mind. It’s Hannah, Cammie. That’s where it all started.”
“We need to get inside,” Cameryn muttered. “We can talk about this later.” She tucked her hands beneath her armpits. Cold was bleeding into her, but Lyric stood rooted on the spot.
“See, that’s what you do, Cammie. Change the subject, leave, whatever it takes. Just
talk to me
. Right now. I deserve it. I’ve helped you, covered for you, listened to you make your plans. I’m your best friend, Cammie.” She was pleading now. “You can’t see it, but the secrets are poisoning you.”
“That’s not true.”
Lyric’s eyes went wide. Those pale blue eyes, ringed in black, now seemed to overwhelm her face. “This thing’s eating you up, this lying to your family. I don’t get it. Why won’t you just tell them that Hannah’s coming?”
"I can’t! ”
“Why not?”
Cameryn didn’t know how to answer, so she said nothing. A car drove by, kicking up slush as it rounded the corner, then disappeared, and she wanted more than anything to be in that car, driving away.
The stained-glass windows glowed with bright color. Lit from within, their pattern could now be seen from outside the brick church. But she knew that once she reentered the sanctuary, that same light would make the glass so dark it would appear almost black. And then she had a strange thought: Was she like those windows? Maybe the only ones who could really see her stood outside, at least when the world was dark. She wondered at this. Inside her head, her life made sense, but outside . . . Could Lyric be right?
In a soft voice, barely above a whisper, Cameryn said, “I’m lying to my family because they lied to me first.”
Lyric took a step closer to answer, “No, Cammie. They just didn’t tell you about Jayne. That’s not the same.”
“There’s more than you know. My dad’s seeing another woman. A judge in Ouray.”
“That’s still not lying.”
“In the eyes of the Church it is. They’re still married, Lyric. My mom and my dad never got a divorce.”
“They haven’t seen each other in forever! ” Lyric cried.
“What do you expect is going to happen? You’re blowing smoke, Cammie. What did Hannah say to you when she called?”
“Other . . . things,” she finally confessed. “She said my dad didn’t tell me the truth, that what he told me about her was all wrong. She said I shouldn’t believe everything I’ve been told because I don’t know the real story. I want to hear what Hannah has to say, and then I’ll decide. What if she’s right? What if everything I’ve believed about my life is a lie?”
“Oh, Cammie,” Lyric answered softly. “I wish you’d told me before.” Lyric shook her head while the snow danced around her. The tip of her nose was turning red, but her heavy, chunky, black boots had to be keeping her feet warm. Cameryn wore a velvet skirt and dress shoes, but unlike that time in the cemetery with Kyle, she wasn’t numb. She could feel everything.
Through the vibrating window, the organ throbbed out the overture to Mozart’s requiem, signaling the beginning of Mass. Cameryn looked up. “It’s starting. We’d better get inside.”
“You’re all messed up, Cammie. I know you’ll be mad but I’ve got to say it. Why would you believe a stranger over your own father? It’s insanity.”
Cameryn’s heart constricted. “You’re my best friend. Can’t you even try to understand?”
“You can’t turn your back on your life.”
She felt her face go rigid, her fists ball up tight. She’d let someone inside her, and it had backfired. Lyric didn’t . . . couldn’t . . . understand. It was a mistake, telling her. Cameryn should have stuck with her plan and handled it alone.
“You know what, Lyric? We’re done,” she said. There was a space between every word. “I’m going in. My teacher’s dead.”
She didn’t wait for Lyric to respond. Half-running, Cameryn turned and left the shelter of the trees. Moments later she leaped up the stairs and hurried inside the church.
It was warm inside, the air almost stifling as she took a deep breath. With the palms of her hands she rubbed her cheeks, wiping away any trace of tears or melted snow, then ran the back of her hand beneath her nose. No one noticed her because they were all watching the show up front.
“Cammie, are you all right?”
It was Kyle. Kyle, who could tell in an instant that something was wrong. “What is it?”
Fearing she might cry, Cameryn looked away.
“Come on.”
While Father John’s voice intoned a prayer, Kyle took her hands and led her to the back staircase, the steps that rose to the choir loft, the one place in the church that was still empty. Quietly, quickly, he drew her up the narrow stairs until they were halfway in between the loft and the church, a kind of Purgatory of its own. He sat down and pulled her next to him, and when she looked down she saw her own oxblood skirt hiding her feet.
She knew the organist wouldn’t be down until the funeral was over, which meant she was safe here. If Lyric came into the church, she wouldn’t be able to see Cameryn. No one could.
“The funeral’s too much for you, isn’t it?” Kyle asked.
“I’m just tired.”
She could hear Dwayne Reynolds speaking into the microphone at the front of the church, reading a quote for Mr. Oakes.
“. . . for this is a journey of unknowables—of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and most of all, things unfair,”
he read.
“Madame Jeanne Guyon wrote these words when her own world made no sense. . . .”
For a moment Cameryn thought she couldn’t breathe. The candles, blinking beneath the Christ child, seemed to have sucked up the oxygen. Maybe there were too many people exhaling carbon dioxide. Or maybe it was Kyle himself. She felt lightheaded, dizzy.
His large hazel eyes bored into hers. “I can help if you’ll let me,” he whispered.
“That’s just it. No one can help me.”
“I can. I think you’re an angel.”
“Angel of Death,” she croaked. “That’s what they call me. Whatever I touch dies.”
His lips curled softly. “I’m here. And I’m alive.”
She looked at him, comforted, because that was true. “Can you take me out of this place?”
He traced the pad of his finger beneath her eye, lightly wiping away a new tear.
“Let’s just drive somewhere. Please?”
“In this storm?” He pulled her head to his shoulder, and for a second she forgot the pounding of her temples. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,” he invited.
Because it was almost dark in the staircase, and because she couldn’t see his face and in many ways he was still a stranger, a door inside her sprang open. Lyric had judged her. Her father and her mammaw would never understand. But Kyle was a clean slate, without preconceived ideas of who she had become. How could he accuse her of changing if he hadn’t known who she’d been before? He was perfect, like a white sheet of paper, or untrod snow.
She took a deep, wavering breath, then closed her eyes and began, “I want to tell you about my mother. . . .”
Chapter Fourteen
THE BAR AT the Grand was made of heavy mahogany, and behind it stood a mirror that spanned the length of the wall. Above the mirror were three carved arches, the middle one larger, the side arches smaller, like a triptych, Cameryn thought. She wiped down the surface of the bar, and as she did so she caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. What she saw surprised her: The girl with the hollowed cheeks and large, dark eyes was smiling. Actually smiling.
It still amazed her. Three days had passed since the funeral, and there was a grin on her face. She had a paper due on Monday and still she beamed. Because when she was with Kyle, she was full up, as though she were a helium balloon that couldn’t hold another blast from the canister or she would pop. After being empty for so long, it felt marvelous.
That night, in the stairwell of the church, she had told Kyle everything, and he had understood her, promised to help her, said that he was there for her. Never before had she been able to share so much of her life so freely. He asked about her mammaw and her father and what she knew about Hannah, then surprised her by telling her she’d done the exact right thing. “Some problems have to be sorted out in your own mind before you let anyone else tell you what to think. You were smart to keep things quiet,” he’d told her. “Wait and see what she’s like before you go and blow your world apart.”
Kyle even wanted to know everything about forensics, which thrilled her, too. He wasn’t appalled or squeamish at the fact that her hands had been inside Mr. Oakes, or over the truth that she had held her teacher’s heart and weighed his liver on a stainless steel scale. When she’d told him that, he’d traced his finger across her palm, saying, “It’s sort of mystical. It’s like, when you held his brain, you held Brad’s thoughts in your hands.”
Then came the biggest surprise of all. He’d said, “I’m rethinking my plans for college. Maybe I should go into forensics with you.” Once again she noticed the flecks in his eyes, shimmering like bits of light. “Can you imagine what two forensic pathologists would be like together? You and me, Cammie. A forensic team. We’d rock.”
It was the word “together” that had her humming. Now, as she cleaned the Grand, she let it roll on her tongue while she repeated it softly. “Together,” she whispered aloud. And as she did, she looked at the picture of the voluptuous, turn-of-the-century woman hanging over the antique player piano. Pausing, she studied the face, with its sly grin.
You’re thinking of someone, too, aren’t you?
Cameryn mused. The woman, with her enormous thighs, round belly, and hint of a double chin beneath a heart-shaped face, was beautiful. Reclining on a bed of grass, one arm lifted to the sky, the woman seemed to be reaching for something just beyond her fingertips. Cameryn thought she understood this because she, too, had been reaching. But unlike the woman in the painting, she had grasped her prize.
Cameryn turned to the microwave behind the bar and began to scrub this, too. Her boss had warmed a cheese sauce, which had exploded, leaving a confetti pattern of cheddar inside. As she wiped it away, her thoughts turned to Lyric. Guiltily, she had chosen not to deal with the strain that began the night of the funeral. Or rather, Lyric had chosen. Lyric hadn’t called, and Cameryn, taking the cue that her friend was still upset, decided to let things cool off before pressing. Besides, all her energy had been redirected to Kyle. Everything else was a distraction.

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