🕯️ THE IVORY SMILE
Chapter Two: The Girl in the Fountain
~ by Alban Krane, as remembered
The next Thursday arrived like a fresh wound. The kind that hadn't scabbed over yet.
It was raining outside — the soft, slow kind of rain that made you think God was exhausted. Just tapping His fingers on the roof of the world, waiting for it to fall apart.
Inside Cedar Hollow, Room 108 was silent. The lights flickered once and then steadied, casting jaundiced halos over our faces. Florence sat with her notebook closed this time. Norma Jean clutched her thermos tighter than usual. Gus didn't look at me when I entered.
And Camille was already there.
She sat in the far-right chair, a small recorder in her lap, her thumb resting on the red button. Not pressing it. Not yet. Waiting for permission, perhaps.
I gave her a slow nod.
She clicked it on without a word.
"Tonight," I began, letting the air grow still, "we follow the water. It's only fair. Last week, we ended with blood on the stage. This week, we drown."
The Second Smile
Her name was Elise Mercer. Twenty-one. A political science major with ambitions of running for state senate someday. She was clean, sharp, with a face that could disarm men twice her IQ. She was also the half-sister of David Mercer — another one of the animals who destroyed Olivia. Same blood. Same smirk.
I followed Elise for sixteen days.
Not like a stalker. Like a biographer.
She lived in a high-rise near Riverside Plaza. Routine as a clock. Morning jogs. Afternoon internships. Evenings at a local café reading political theory and writing essays about justice.
Justice.
Funny word.
One night, I approached her outside the coffee shop, dressed in a coat too nice for someone as old as I was pretending to be.
"Excuse me," I'd said, smiling warmly, holding a worn leather Bible. "I'm looking for a place to pray. My daughter used to come here."
She smiled. She pointed to a chapel down the street. She even touched my arm.
"I'm sorry about your daughter," she said. "The world's full of cruelty."
"Yes," I said. "Yes, it is."
That was the night I chose her.
The location needed symbolism.
Riverside Courtyard Fountain.
The one near St. Augustine's Church. Marble statues of angels and martyrs. No cameras. Late-night joggers. A perfect open shrine.
I prepared early that evening.
Surgical bag packed.
Gloves sanitized.
Apron beneath a second coat.
The Bible bookmarked again — Ecclesiastes 3:3 — "A time to kill, and a time to heal."
I followed her from a distance.
She liked to walk the river after sunset. Headphones in. Music loud enough that I could hear the drums from across the path. It made things easier.
The chloroform took seven seconds.
She slumped into my arms like a woman fainting from love.
I carried her to the fountain. Tied her arms to the statue's base. Removed her shoes with care. She had painted toenails. A pale lavender, like Easter eggs.
I waited until she woke.
"Wh—what—"
"Shh," I whispered. "Don't speak yet. Not before the prayer."
I knelt beside her and opened the Bible on the fountain's edge.
"I forgive you," I said. "Even if God won't."
She tried to scream.
The knife went into her stomach first. Diagonal. Not enough to kill. Just to silence. Her eyes bulged, and tears mixed with the rain on her cheeks.
I worked with precision.
Incision from sternum to pelvis. Spread open with retractors. No unnecessary damage. No chaos. This wasn't rage.
This was liturgy.
I removed her heart, washed it in the fountain water, and placed it at her feet. Her arms were stretched like a crucifixion. I carved the smile slowly this time — wide, reverent, perfect. I curled her hands inward, as if in mid-prayer.
And then I recited her poem.
Poem #2 – "Saint of the Shallow Depths"
She wept where angels dared not tread,
A voice too proud, too clean, too sure.
But blood remembers what was said—
And sins don't wash, though waters pour.
Lie still beneath the marble light,
Let fountains sing your penance through.
Your heart has fled. Your smile remains.
Redemption grins in crimson hue.
She was found the next morning during church bell ringing.
The priest vomited at the scene. The coroner called it the most surgical act of madness he'd seen in thirty years.
I called it sacred geometry.
Back in Cedar Hollow
Florence closed her notebook. The first time she hadn't written.
"You left the heart?" Gus asked, his voice strained.
"Yes," I said.
"Why?"
"Because she didn't deserve to keep it."
Norma Jean stood abruptly and left the room. The tea thermos rattled in her hand.
Raymond whispered something like "marble blood" and giggled.
Camille remained seated. Calm. Almost too calm.
"How many more?" she asked.
I smiled at her.
"Enough to fill a choir, my dear. Each one singing their sins in a different pitch."
"Were they all relatives of the men who—?"
"Some. Some weren't. Some were just chosen. Because vengeance is a wide net… and grief has many teeth."
Florence finally spoke.
"You remember every detail," she said. "But do you remember their faces after they died?"
I turned to her. The air felt heavier suddenly.
"I remember their eyes. Not because they were afraid. But because most of them… looked surprised."
Gus leaned forward.
"This ends with you behind bars."
"No," I said. "This ends with the truth told. And the world deciding what to do with it."
"So that's what this is? Confession?"
"No, detective. This is a eulogy. For justice. For Olivia. For all the things men like you failed to stop."
Outside, the rain had become thunder.
The windows trembled slightly.
"Next week," I said, standing slowly, "I'll tell you about the one who smiled before I even touched her."
"She was… different."
"She wanted to die."
[END OF CHAPTER TWO]