Come Little Children (47 page)

The lid crashed beside the casket as a pair of hands shot through the opening. Peter reached in at the same time that Camilla reached out, and their arms wrapped around each other as tightly as they could. They kissed feverishly, Peter running his fingers through Camilla’s crusty red hair as she swept her hands all over his head and the back of his neck.

Torn between not wanting to waste any more time and not wanting to let each other go, it was Camilla who finally pulled away from the kiss. Peter took her hand to help her out of the coffin, and then without looking back, they left the casket behind them, broken open, and went running out of the tomb.

The hearse waited patiently. As Camilla approached, the rear doors clicked and hovered open automatically. She crawled in as fast as she could—being spotted would ruin the getaway—while Peter locked the crypt and returned to the driver’s side.

The hearse started up again and pulled away from the graveyard. As it drove through the iron gates and onto the streets of Nolan, Camilla peeked out of the little window curtains in the back and watched the buildings roll by, just as she had on the night that she arrived more than eight years ago.

It worked. I can’t believe it. It really, really worked
.

Tears of happiness tumbled down her cheeks.

Her mind flashed back to the seconds following her collapse from the flaming tree. While Abigail had landed in the shallow part of the pond, Camilla had fallen farther out, and the branch had managed to break through the weakened ice and absorb the crushing blow. When Peter had come splashing through the mist, she had been hanging off the buoying wood, weak but alive. Still, there was no escaping the backyard. Not alive, at least. In a flash of panic and madness—and inspired
by how she had once tricked the Cory sisters when they tried to drown her—Camilla suggested she pretend to be dead. They would inter her body in the family crypt, and then Peter would come back with the hearse and they would smuggle her out in the rear compartment, away from Nolan forever.

And it worked. Holy shit, it worked
.

The old buildings on Main Street passed by, followed by the cottages on the outskirts of town. For once, no one was watching through the windows. The citizens were all sleeping, their vigilant gazes turned away as the hearse crawled by, completely unnoticed.

Camilla leaned back and breathed easier. She saw the town’s sign float away beyond her window, right before the forest swallowed them up in its wooden teeth and they began climbing a steep, bumpy hill.

At the top of the canyon, the space between trees opened up and the hearse came rattling out of the brush, joining the Top of the World Highway as it curled left and ran toward Dawson City. Camilla took one last look out of the window and saw the valley of trees stretched below, as well as a billow of smoke rising up from somewhere in the northwest. Once the smoke died out, Nolan would be lost in the rolling canyons, and she knew that if she ever came back, she would not be able to find it.

The hearse picked up speed and glided smoothly along the highway, the only speck of life for miles and miles ahead. The sun was just coming up over the hills, and as its beams stretched brightly into the back of the hearse, Camilla reached up and closed the velvet curtains. She slid down and rested her head against the wall, thinking not of nooses or fires, but of the open road that now lay ahead.

Of building a new home—a new life—somewhere else.

Of hugging her mother again, and introducing Peter.

Of starting fresh and suturing the wounds from the last seven days until they were nothing but faded scars that drew less and less attention in the coming years. And as sleep washed over her, so too did the peace that came with knowing the nightmare was finally over.