Blood and Bone: A Smattering of Unease (6 page)

Altogether, she had left him eleven paintings and nine books. She had shared the royalties for six of those books with him. He still received checks.

Soon, a loud pounding ensued upon the panic room door. Troy didn’t care. If the monsters got him, they got him. He sat and gazed at his favorite painting. It was a painting of Lily and himself, together; her head on his chest, staring softly and sleepily at the artist. In the painting, Troy was wide awake. Lily had painted it from imagination, but it looked as though the painting could have been done from a photograph of the two of them.

Tears ran unchecked down the old man’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Lily . . . I didn’t know.” He sobbed until the pounding ceased and all was quiet. A faint breezed brushed his damp forehead in the windowless room.

He fell asleep in his sodden clothing, but it didn’t matter. The room was like a sauna. Miss McGillicutty slept comfortably on his lap.

The panic room door, though marred with huge dents, had held firm.

When he woke, Troy rolled through his living room, squelching across his sodden throw rugs to assess the damage of another, different kind of storm.

Of Thomas Quinn, there was no sign. The ocean had receded to its proper place, and the monsters had gone. The rising sun turned the page of another heavenly South Pacific morning.

“Mommy, Mommy, look what I found!”

Darce O’Neil turned from the sink she was filling with hot, soapy water for the dishes. “Chelsea! Where have you been? Look at you!” Grimy dirt covered Chelsea’s face and clothes. Her blonde hair, festooned with cobwebs, looked gray.

“I was playing in the attic, Mommy. Look what I found!”

“Chelsea! You know you aren’t supposed to be playing up there! It’s dirty and dangerous. Who knows what – what is that?”

“It’s a doll, Mommy! Look at her!”

Gingerly, Darce reached out and took the thing. It was, indeed, a doll. It wore a dingy bonnet and jumper that may have been white, once upon a time. Beneath the jumper were an equally dingy blue shirt and two or three layers of petticoats. A darkish- colored cloak covered the doll’s shoulders and draped its back.

She brushed the dirt from the doll’s face. Its facial features were unremarkable. Wide-set gray eyes, pale complexion, straight nose; thin lips, parted slightly.

Darce turned it upside down, looking for a tag or other marking that would indicate where it was made. She found nothing except grimy underskirts.

The doll seemed completely ordinary. Still, there was something about it that Darce didn’t like.

“Can I keep her?”

“I don’t know, Chelsea. She looks really old. And she’s really, really dirty.”

“But it’ll wash off! I’ll clean her up! We can wash her clothes, or I can make new ones. Can I keep her, please, please, please?”

Darce looked at Chelsea’s upturned, pleading face. “Honey, you have lots of dolls –”

“But this one’s different! She’s special! Pleeeaaasse?”

Darce hesitated a moment longer.
Maybe it’s just the dirt that makes it seem unappealing,
she thought.

She sighed. “Get her clothes off; I’ll see what I can do with them. Wash her up with lots of soap and water.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Mommy! I love you!”

Chelsea grabbed her mother around the waist and stretched to kiss her cheek. Darce bent down to receive Chelsea’s kiss; then the little girl turned and skipped away.

“Whoa, whoa, young lady!” Darce called after her. “Run yourself the bath and just take her in with you! You’re as dirty as she is!”

As she looked after her daughter, the doll’s gray eyes caught hers.

She could have sworn it was looking right at her.

* * *

Chelsea adored Jane, but Darce couldn’t help feeling an aversion to her. Whenever Jane was in the room with her, Darce felt that the doll was staring at her.

She tried to shrug it off.
Of course,
she thought,
it’s just an optical illusion . . . the same way the eyes of people in photographs follow you, or the eyes of statues and figurines.

Or maybe it was just a spin-off of childhood fears. She’d had shelves full of dolls as a child, and had always feared that they were watching her, so she had turned them all to face away from her at bedtime.

Still, at tuck-in time, when Darce leaned down to kiss Chelsea good night . . . she felt that Jane was somehow mocking her. In the car, she couldn’t help but be acutely aware of the doll’s presence beside her in the front seat.

* * *

Chelsea turned nine on a Saturday in August. She had a fairy-themed birthday party. Her little guests all showed up wearing fairy dresses, and Darce provided wings and wands.

The day was everything it should have been for a little girl’s birthday. The grassy backyard was lush and brilliant green beneath the cloudless blue sky, in which the sun hung, suspended, like a bright yellow ball. Lunch and birthday cake were consumed, gifts were opened, and the girls played for hours.

As Chelsea’s guests departed with their parents in the late afternoon, the sky began to fill with ominous dark clouds.

“That was really fun,” Chelsea said.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, and I hope your friends did, too,” her mother replied.

“But now I’m tired.”

“Too tired to play with your birthday gifts?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t we go inside, watch a little television, and relax?”

“Okay,” Chelsea agreed. She helped her mother gather her gifts and bring them inside. She skipped into the living room, her fairy wings fluttering gently against her back.

As a light rain began tapping on the roof, Darce turned on some lamps to dispel the deepening gloom. She tuned the television to Nickelodeon, and she and Chelsea snuggled together beneath the afghan on the sofa.

“Thank you for such a special birthday,” Chelsea said drowsily, nestling beside her mother.

“You’re very welcome, sweetheart.”

Tired from the day’s festivities and lulled by the steady sound of rain tapping on the eaves, Darce drifted into sleep, still wearing her baby blue satin fairy dress and fairy wings.

The booming sound of thunder woke her, followed by cartoon voices from the television.

She opened her eyes and saw Jane standing over her, smiling. But Jane wasn’t a doll anymore. She was a real woman.

Darce’s stomach dropped and terror clamped a fist around her heart. She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat, trapped behind closed, stiff, unmoving lips.

She struggled to move, but her arms and legs seemed paralyzed.

“Greetings, Darce O’Neil,” Jane said. Her non-descript face had gained an angular harshness. Her soft eyes were now hard and cold, shining brightly in the dimness. Her thin lips twisted in a smirk. She leaned down and grabbed Darce around the waist, lifting her with abnormally huge hands. She carried Darce down the hall to the bathroom, where she turned on the light and held Darce up so that she faced the mirror.

Darce tried to scream again, but only silence issued forth from the motionless face reflected in the mirror.

“Why, Mrs. O’Neil, aren’t you just the little doll?” Jane said, and laughed.

That’s exactly what Darce was. A little doll, dressed in a baby blue satin dress. The shimmering fairy wings left over from Chelsea’s birthday party poked out from behind her shoulders.

This is just a nightmare,
Darce thought.
Just a nightmare that seems really real. I’ll wake up any minute.

“How appropriate,” Jane said. “A little blue fairy doll. Who would ever suspect that there was anyone inside?” She rapped her knuckles roughly against the side of Darce’s head. There was no pain; only a light sensation of contact.

“Oh, no, it doesn’t hurt a bit! Isn’t that nice? You won’t feel anything but endless despair, wondering if you’ll ever draw another human breath again. I know. I’ve been in that doll mold for about . . . eh, one hundred forty-eight years, give or take. Hmm.”

Watching Jane’s face in the mirror, Darce saw her eyes lose focus as she drifted into thought; then, just as quickly, Jane seemed to snap back to.

“Oh, so sorry! How remiss of me. I’m sure you would love to know who I am, and how I came to be here, and, more importantly, how
you
ended up in
your
current predicament.”

She set Darce down on the bathroom counter and pulled the bonnet from her head, loosing long, thick silver waves that had previously been black.

“I was a powerful woman in my town. People feared me and my special abilities. But they couldn’t kill me. They created a doll Vessel as a prison for me.” She threw her head back and laughed: a low, deep laugh that sounded nothing like a woman. Her teeth were yellow, rotten, some broken. She picked up Darce’s hairbrush from the bathroom counter and started brushing out her hair.

“They used my own power to chain me. Fools! They believed that I could never escape.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “So many years . . . sitting in the dark, in countless closets . . . mildewed basements . . . musty attics . . . but look at me now!” She spun around, smiling. “Ah, they used my own enchantment, one that I knew how to escape . . . difficult, but not impossible. And your daughter has been indispensable in helping me gain my freedom. Unwitting, of course. Oh, the innocent. Now, my worries are over. They have become
yours
.”

Fear was steadily rising in the well of Darce’s stomach.
Chelsea!

Jane tossed the brush on to the bathroom counter and picked Darce up. “Don’t you worry about your little girl, Darce O’Neil,” she said. “She will be well cared for. Especially since she may yet be of use to me. Oh, you didn’t think she was going to stay with
you
?” She said, carrying Darce down the hall. “Obviously,
you
can’t care for her in your current condition. And
someone
needs to take care of her.”

Darce again attempted to scream, to kick, to struggle, but her efforts yielded no result.

As they passed through the living room, Darce could hear Chelsea’s groggy voice.

“Jane, is that you? Oh, you did it!” She sounded excited as she jumped up and followed them into the kitchen. Over Jane’s shoulder, Darce could see Chelsea’s expression become worried as Jane opened the kitchen door.

“Jane? What are you doing? Is that my mommy?”

“Don’t fret, Chelsea. Your mommy is going to be just fine. You’ll really like being with me, and you’ll love where you’re going. You’ll forget, soon enough.”

Jane pulled her arm back, preparing to toss Darce through the door, but Chelsea ran up and grabbed the doll her mother had become.

“No, Jane! You told me you would change her back! It was just s’posed to be a little while!”

Jane rounded on Chelsea and shook her off, sending her tumbling to the floor.

“I’m sorry, but I lied,” Jane said. “Oh, who am I kidding? I’m not sorry, at all! I’m finally
free!
But your mommy
is
going to be okay. Nothing can really hurt her.”

Then she swung her arm and Darce’s world turned upside down, spinning as Darce flipped end over end through the rain. She landed on her back on a soft surface that gave slightly beneath her weight. She stared at the clouded night sky as rain filled her eyes.

The sounds of Chelsea’s screams and pleas were faint, coming from inside the house. Darce could only hear them because she was listening so intently. She was sure that no one else would hear them, as the neighbors were either not home or all holed up in their houses, and the rain would muffle the sounds, completely.

After some time, she heard the back door slam, and then the sounds of car doors opening and closing. An engine roared to life.

That’s my car!

The car’s engine roared and roared as the gas pedal was depressed; then came the sound of it being shifted roughly into reverse. A loud
clunk
as the motor stalled out. A couple of more stalls; then the car haltingly backed out of the driveway, brakes chirping slightly, into the street. The tires squealed on the pavement, and the sound of the car receded into the distance, leaving behind only the smell of burnt rubber.

Darce was alone. Her daughter was gone, and she was helpless to save her.

The moments ticked by and became hours.

At first, Darce railed, raved, and cried inside her prison; but soon enough, she realized that no one would hear her.

Rivulets of rain streamed down her cheeks, and she thought it was appropriate, because they substituted for her tears.

Days passed; then weeks. She watched planes fly overhead, and birds, and butterflies. Occasionally, Darce heard the sound of the phone ringing inside the house. Once in a while, a car would pull into the driveway and someone would knock at the door. Then they would leave. She often heard the neighbors in their yards, having barbeques or sitting on their porches enjoying the nice weather as their children played outside.

When fall came, the sound of the morning and afternoon school bus provided Darce a kind of time reference. The day came that Darce felt a chill on her synthetic skin. She experienced no real discomfort as the temperature continued to drop; just a faint coolness.

Leaves fell upon her face, blocking her vision. Soon, she felt the sensation of being covered beneath a lightweight blanket that became heavier as time went on. Sounds became more and more muffled and further away; then they disappeared entirely.

Winter had come.

* * *

Darce felt the faint tingle of pins and needles in her pseudo-skin. She was thawing.

She knew that she couldn’t let her hopes get too high. A second winter had passed since she had been tossed into the leaf pile. It seemed like an eternity . . . and it could be two more winters before anyone found her. Or four. Or ten.

She couldn’t lie there and think of that. It was better to slip into a state of hibernation than to stay awake and alert, with a faint spark of hope in her heart that might never be realized. She sank back down below consciousness. It made the feather-falls of the sands of time drift down a little faster.