Come Little Children Read Online Free PDF Page A

the foyer.
    Camilla stepped inside and stopped to let her eyes adjust to the dimness.
    She was in a short hallway with a tall entrance arch waiting six feet ahead. The man was already at the end of the hall, half gone around the corner, and as Camilla followed along she passed through the same archway into an open rotunda.
    The man had vanished, but Camilla barely noticed. She had come to a full stop—spellbound with pupils as big as dinner plates—beneath the estate’s entryway.
    The rotunda was beautiful. It was an octagonal room with a reception desk situated against the farthest wall. Along the edges, a series of eight columns supported the roof with incredibly ornate capitals on top, and below, the buffed marble floor looked just about clean enough to eat off of. Each of the walls had a decorative niche that displayed carefully arranged vases, and above, the sunset shone through a stained-glass cupola that fractured the red light into hundreds of kaleidoscopic shards.
    Spectacular
.
    There were three doorways that split off toward different directions of the house, and as Camilla peeked into the room beside her, the man’s voice boomed from the opposite arch. “Keep up!”
    Camilla darted through door number two and into an upholstered sitting area. The rugs and furniture smelled freshly shampooed—not an atom of dust in sight. She noticed another door labeled “Chapel”.
This must be the narthex for the wake services
.
    “Ahem.”
    Camilla spun to see the large man tapping his pocket-watch down the hall.
    “It’s dinnertime, giddyap.”
    “Sorry.” She doubled her pace and hid a smile behind her hand.
So there is a meal
.
    She stayed in tandem as they wound their way through the halls toward the intensifying smell of something delicious. Still, it was hard for her not to pause every three feet. Massive portraits hung on the walls, candelabras decorated the credenzas, and stone busts watched them go past from every dark cavity. This wasn’t just any McFuneral Home—it was a cache of heirlooms steeped in history, and Camilla was barely able to contain her excitement. Her anxious nerves were completely replaced with eager ones.
    The hallway opened up on a large dining room. Four people, all formally dressed, were sitting at the long dinner table with only a few scraps of food left on their plates and a splash of red in each of their wineglasses.
    “Brutus.” A woman, late fifties, stood at the head of the table. Her tight charcoal hair and pursed lips made a stern impression.
    The coachman nodded and crossed the room.
    “I knew you’d make it back,” said another man in his sixties. His frame was almost as thin as his wiry silver hair. “The engine belt held up then, I assume?”
    “Barely,” Brutus barked. “Almost broke down in Arlington again. Goddamn landau.”
    “Belongs in a museum, really. It’s a piece of history.”
    “I’ll tell you what it’s a piece of, it’s a piece of sh—”
    “Not at dinner,” the first woman cut in.
    Camilla snickered from the edge of the room. No one had acknowledged her yet—she was still hovering in the shadows—so she inched forward while folding her hands nervously into her armpits.
    Suddenly the old woman called out, “Laura! Brutus is home!”
    “Coming!” a voice responded from another room.
    “Lucas, take your uncle’s jacket.”
    “Yes, mother,” a young man replied.
    There was a sudden fluster of activity at the table. A strong-looking man in his early thirties stood and took Brutus’s jacket while the others rushed to tuck a napkin into the fat man’s collar and pour him a glass of Shiraz. Out from the kitchen came a young woman, barely thirty, balancing a silver tray, a basket of buns, and a gravy boat in her arms. She set it all in front of Brutus and ladled a creamy sauce onto his potatoes, then disappeared back into the kitchen.
    Camilla’s stomach growled.
    The family’s conversation was quite loud now. As Brutus shoveled