🕯️ THE IVORY SMILE
Chapter One: Thursday Nights Bleed Beautifully
~ by Alban Krane, as remembered
Cedar Hollow smelled like boiled linen and the end of things.
That bitter, floral antiseptic scent — too clean to be honest, too sterile to be comforting. The kind of smell that made you feel like time itself was being scrubbed away. Every Thursday at seven sharp, we gathered in Room 108, a forgotten activity room tucked beside the hallway that always had one blinking light.
That night, the chairs were already arranged. Four cheap folding chairs facing mine. I sat in the good one. The padded one with the cracked faux leather and rusted steel legs. I liked the creak it made when I leaned forward. It made me feel like the floor was listening.
I brought my Bible with me, as always. Leather-bound, black, frayed at the edges. A crucifix on a rusted chain hung from my neck, warm from my skin. My hands trembled slightly as I opened the pages. Not from fear. From age.
From betrayal.
"Evening," I said, smiling wide enough to bare teeth that were still my own. "I hope you're all ready. Tonight's the beginning."
Florence was already scribbling in her little red notebook. She never asked questions. She just wrote. Gus — former NYPD, still sharp — leaned back with his arms crossed. His face unreadable. Norma Jean sipped from her thermos of licorice tea and clutched her rosary. She thought I was joking. I liked that.
And Raymond… dear Raymond sat with his eyes closed, rocking slowly. Sometimes he whispered things under his breath. Things no one should know. But we'd get to that eventually.
Outside, the wind brushed against the windows. Inside, the air held still, expectant.
I cleared my throat.
"Her name was Olivia. My daughter. My everything."
"She was sixteen the night she was taken. Prom night. Laughed too loud. Danced too hard. Came home wearing a dress with someone else's blood on it. Hers, mostly. But not all."
"The police found her in a ditch six hours later. Unconscious. Broken. Dying."
"I held her hand as she bled out in a hospital hallway, because they didn't have a room. She kept asking if she still looked pretty."
My voice didn't shake. It never did when I spoke about her. There was no room left in me for trembling.
"The five men who took her had names. I still remember them. Each name was like a nail in my teeth. And when the law failed me—when they called it a tragedy, an accident, an unfortunate misunderstanding—something inside me came alive."
I reached into the duffel bag at my feet and unwrapped a faded cloth bundle.
Out came the old tools.
A scalpel, worn smooth at the hilt.
A pair of forceps, pitted with time.
A bone saw, still stained.
Raymond's eyes fluttered open. Gus tensed. Norma Jean gasped. Florence just kept writing.
"I didn't start with them. No. That would've been too easy. The first needed to be a message. A signature. Something elegant. Symbolic. The first girl I killed… her name was Bethany Croft."
The First Smile
Bethany was nineteen. Golden-haired, pale as milk, a dancer studying at Halberd Academy. She was the cousin of Jeremy Holt — one of the five who touched Olivia like she was meat. I remembered him smiling in the courtroom. A frat-boy shark. But Bethany… she smiled the same way.
I watched her for a month. Studied her routines. Her habits. Every Wednesday, after practice, she'd visit an old rehearsal studio on Marionette Street — abandoned after the fire five years back. She danced there alone. In silence. Maybe she liked ghosts.
So did I.
The night I chose her, I wore my best.
Black gloves, black boots, apron under my coat. My tools wrapped in the same cloth I used to swaddle Olivia when she was born.
I brought the Bible, bookmarked to Psalm 94:1 — "O Lord, God of vengeance, O God who avenges, shine forth."
I waited in the shadows behind the old velvet curtain.
She entered. Her headphones in. Eyes distant. She moved like smoke across the cracked wooden floor. She didn't even notice the candles I'd lit around the room. Didn't question the cold. The silence.
When I stepped behind her, I didn't rush. I placed a hand on her shoulder.
She turned.
"Who—"
I slit her throat before she finished the question. Not too deep. Just enough to quiet her. She reached up, eyes wide, struggling to scream but only gurgling. I caught her gently. Lowered her onto the center of the stage like a prince carrying his bride.
Then came the art.
First, the incision from sternum to navel.
Clean. Swift. The scalpel traced along the skin as if drawing lines for a sculpture.
I peeled her open like a confession. Her insides shimmered like rubies in the candlelight.
I paused to pray. My knees cracked against the stage floor.
"Forgive her sins, Lord," I whispered. "For she knew not what blood protected her."
"May she rest where Olivia cannot."
Then I carved the smile.
A crescent beneath her lips, reaching cheekbone to cheekbone. Wide. Bloody. Euphoric. It took precision. One wrong stroke and the flesh sags. I wanted her to look happy. Fulfilled. As if death had been waiting all her life.
I posed her arms above her head. Fingers curled. Toes pointed.
The final dance.
I placed the poem beside her on torn parchment.
Poem #1 – "Ballet for the Broken"
You danced upon the wrong man's grave
With laughter shaped like knives.
So I rewrote your final move
In steps that ended lives.
Smile now, for the show is done.
Your curtain call is blood.
And from your ribs, the music swells
To drown the ones you loved.
They found her three days later. The building had no security. No cameras. Just soot and shadows. The papers called it satanic. The cops called it insane.
I called it justified.
Back in Cedar Hollow
Florence had stopped writing. Her eyes locked on mine. Gus looked pale. His fingers clenched the arms of his chair.
"Jesus," Norma whispered. "She was just a girl…"
I smiled gently.
"So was Olivia."
No one spoke for a moment.
"Why tell us this?" Gus asked finally. His voice was low, tired, dangerous.
"Because you listen," I replied. "Because you're still alive. And maybe… because part of you understands."
"I was a cop for 34 years. I don't sympathize with murderers."
"No. But you remember what justice used to taste like, before they watered it down."
He said nothing after that.
Raymond chuckled.
"Ballet," he muttered. "Ballet in the blood…"
I leaned back in my chair, creaking it deliberately.
"I thought you deserved to know how it started. How one act of rot spread through me until I bloomed into something else. Thursday nights deserve honesty."
I turned toward the door.
Camille was standing there.
Young. Pale. Fierce-eyed. Recorder in hand.
We stared at each other for a long moment. I smiled.
"Now that we've opened the first page…"
"Do stay for the next stanza."
[END OF CHAPTER ONE]