As I watched Camille wake up, I realized that the time to tell her the truth is nearing. Her small hands stretch over her head, and when her young, green eyes open, I feel my heart break for the pain I know she will feel. She sits up in my bed and stares at me. Her little arms reach, and when I pick her up into an innocent embrace, I decide that I will not poison the unpolluted beauty of her sleepy face, not yet.
. . . . .
Halfway down the spiral staircase, somber dragons and gargoyles swirling down the railing, Camille grins and whispers in my war her breakfast suggestions.
"I want wine, and cigarettes, too," she giggles, arms fastening all the tighter around my neck. "We can smoke, and read your old books together."
"No," I reply, stepping down and dancing into the kitchen, "you shan't smoke. Don't ruin your pretty lungs." She slides out of my arms and jumps to the floor.
"You smoke." She turns her back to me, her night shift fluttering around her like budding angel wings.
"That's different – my lungs won't blacken with smoke worthy of hell." This is strangely amusing to Camille; she titters as she prances into the kitchen. She opens a cabinet and peers inside on tip toes, throwing a sly glance over her shoulder. I nod my head and lift her small body up, and her waist fits perfectly in my hands.
"Hm," she mumbles and tiny fingers extract the tin of biscuits, a gift from Estevan last weekend. "Cookies and tea?" I smile at her, and our identical eyes twinkle in unison.
When we sit down to eat – the cookies remain untouched on my plate – I consider how to tell Camille, how to clear my conscious. Her eyes watch me as she drinks from a mug, little pinky finger humorously stuck out.
"Camille?" I begin hesitantly, staring into the sugar bowl. She raises an eyebrow in perfect imitation of one much older than her. "D'you... that is, would you care to accompany me to the lake, this evening, of course?" I blush and stare into my tea, ashamed, already, that I should be the one to ruin such a beautiful request with such heartbreaking intentions. She fails to see past my troubled visage – after all, children can only perceive of innocence; malice and depravity on this earth have no places in their hearts.
"You know I can do naught but acquiesce," she smiles, not even aware that no girl of nine years should be aware of the existence of such verbiage. She grins widely, my guilt burning holes in my soul. "Just, try to stay the knife in your heart from ever kissing your throat," she giggles, crumbs falling gracefully from her lips. I reach out a thumb and brush them off, and I think to myself, If only you knew how hard your words burn on my mind every evening, child. Instead of speaking, though, I grin widely in return, my teeth threatening to betray the secret I've tried for so long to conceal.
Once we finish eating, Camille runs upstairs to dress, and I trek back in my room, preparing for the same job I've had for nearly two centuries. Estevan rings the bell at the door, waiting patiently to drive me to work in his shaded, tinted carriage. The graveyard shift, a joke amongst my coworkers, is relaxing, and it prepares me for my talk with Camille. Yet, as I dig a hole for the newest member of the Cruxhall Cemetery, questions flood my mind, swirling into the corporeal world. Will she refuse to tell me what she's thinking? Will her heart cast me forevermore from its chambers? Or worse, will she reject not only me, but her life, and plunger herself into the depths of the lake?
"Stop this!" I snarl to myself, throwing a heaping shovelful of dirt onto Mary Elizabeth Hand's gray face. "The lake is comfortable, familiar. She'll not abandon you," I reassure myself. It is indeed one of life's shames that the blood of the dead runs cold, lamenting that I cannot cure my anxious state with anything to eat, I resign myself to a hungry eve.
