His Cemetery Doll (11 page)

W
hen Conall woke, he reached out for her, a smile half-formed on his face...but the doll had gone.

Conall blinked, staring at his hand, splayed out in the empty grass. The riverbank around him stood quiet, dark with the light of early evening. The water trilled its way past him and somewhere—back in the cemetery, he imagined—a night bird called out. He lay alone, though, still on the bank.

Still
naked.

He winced.
Shyla
could have come down here looking for him. He would be humiliated beyond the point of contemplating, had his daughter discovered him sleeping bare to the world in ignorant post-coital bliss. He'd probably had a simpering idiotic grin plastered on his face while he slept too.

With a resolute sigh, he reached for his clothing and slid down to the water to wash himself off. The cold splash on his face woke him more. His mind began to catch up to him. He rubbed at the spot right between his eyes, contemplating what had happened here.

You can't deny it, man. Much as you really, really wish you could.

Something is going on here.

"Aye," he answered himself. "Something definitely is."

If he had been inclined to doubt it even now, once he stood up and donned his clothing and readied to return to the path, he caught sight of his first confirmation. The first true sign, telling him his cemetery doll had, in fact, come to him.

A swath of gray silk ribbon had been tied to an old iron bar, once part of the graveyard gates and long absorbed into the gnarling roots of the oak.

Tied.
Deliberately.

She wanted him to believe in her.

***

S
hyla waited for him on the back porch, clutching a shawl around her shoulders, face white with worry. When she saw him coming up the path she cried out and ran to him, her pale hair streaking out behind her like a banner in the night.

"Where
were
you?" she demanded as she threw herself at him. Her voice sounded hoarse, as though she'd been crying. Deep shame spiked through him as she squeezed her arms tight around his waist, trembling.

"I came home
hours
ago! I've been looking for you all day!"

Yes, she'd definitely been crying, and he imagined if he didn't start explaining she would start crying again. He put his hands on her skinny shoulders to calm her shaking, but she pushed him away.

"Where
were you?"
she demanded.

Her little face wore the faint shadows of tears, her eyes red-rimmed and fever-bright with emotion. The little shawl rippled in the wind and made her appear frail.

"Shyla," he soothed. "Honey, I'm sorry. I fell asleep by the river. I...I didn't mean to, and I certainly didn't mean to sleep away the whole day. But why didn't you come down there after you saw I wasn't in the graveyard?"

She stared up at him, puzzled.

"Dad...I
did
go down to the river. You
weren't
there!"

He scratched his head. On instinct he would have corrected her without pause, because
of course
he'd been there. Hadn't he woken up there but five minutes ago? Shyla couldn't have missed him if she'd come down to the banks and walked a mere ten yards upstream. Why lie to him about it, though?

Was she...afraid? After what happened in the graveyard earlier in the week—after Maya toppled—Shyla might very well want to avoid going down by the stones, or even farther down to the river, without him there to go with her.

His shame deepened. So he'd left her alone, afraid, and with no word of where her father wandered off to, when the home she'd always known had so recently become a place of unfamiliar fright to her.

"Lass," he said gently, brushing back a lock of her hair. "I'm telling you, I...I simply fell asleep down there and...and I didn't realize how long I'd slept."

She frowned at him.

"Were you with her?"

The question startled him. He didn't have to ask which 'her' Shyla meant, though. Even after days of silence on the matter, apparently the doll had been on
both
their minds.

He sighed. Letting his hand fall to her shoulder, he glanced down toward Maya's ring. He noticed Shyla standing on tiptoe, looking with him, but nothing moved in the circle of stones.

"Shyla," he finally said. "You want to talk about her, don't you?"

"I want to know...if...if we're safe," she said very quietly.

"Let's go inside. I'll try to explain where I went, but...if you searched for me by the river and didn't find me, I'm afraid I might not have an answer for you."

She nodded. Her expression hadn't changed from its worried cast. She appeared older, and something about it tugged at his heart.

His daughter was afraid. Afraid of her home for the first time in her life. Afraid of the graveyard where she'd played for years, never having feared it before. Afraid of the dark.

Afraid...of something he couldn't yet name.

Conall noticed then she had the medallion of Saint Margaret around her neck again. He didn't like it...it brought a twitch of anxiety to his gut. He began to reach out for it, instinctively meaning to take it away. He stopped himself, though. If Shyla
did
fear the strange things surrounding them lately, and he hadn't been here to comfort her like he should have...he couldn't begrudge her whatever comfort she found for herself. He might have his own particular disagreements with Father Frederick's church, but Conall couldn't keep Shyla from discovering faith there, if she did indeed find it.

He'd asked her how she liked the idea of leaving Whitetail Knoll to go to a convent in the country, a sisterhood of Saint Margaret which Frederick himself endorsed. At the time, Shyla appeared to dislike the idea. Now...might she be reconsidering?

The worry in her eyes, as she gazed down on the dark circle now empty of Maya's familiar presence, made him cold. She
did
look older: like a child crossing the threshold into young adulthood. New knowledge glinted in her eyes, a tinge of shadow which hadn't been there before. Hadn't even been there yesterday.

Conall bowed his head, cursing himself to think he might be losing his girl.

They walked back up to the house. Once inside, Conall put on a pot of tea. Shyla sat on the sofa before the fire, saying nothing, and it was obvious the kitchen hadn't been touched since breakfast. Not a hide nor hair of dinner, which Shyla almost always had ready before he came in from his work. Conall frowned, not out of anger but, instead, deeply anxious. She hadn't even made dinner for herself.

Without mentioning it, he rooted around the kitchen for cooking implements, resolving to make her something right away. He doubted it would be enough to make her forget her crossness at him, but the child needed to eat. He would curse himself double while he cooked, but he would have a meal on the table for her before the hour ran out. He swore it.

The kettle over the fire whistled after some moments. He paused in his work to go retrieve it, but Shyla had already taken it off the fire and brought it to the kitchen table. She said nothing as she retrieved two tin mugs from the shelf and poured them both a cup.

"Thank you, dear," he told her as she handed one to him. He looped an arm around her when she came close, kissing the top of her head. She remained there, leaning against his warmth, for long enough to tell him she forgave him. Presently, though, she returned to the table and carefully mulled over her tea.

"Dad," she finally said. "What is happening?"

He didn't answer right away. Stirring a bit of the beef he'd put on the skillet to fry, he considered the question for several quiet moments.

In the end, Shyla broke the silence for him.

"What is she, Dad?"

Conall drew a heavy breath.

"I...couldn't say. I've never believed in ghosts or ghouls, Shyla, not even as a lad. But...it's hard to imagine she could be anything else, now, isn't it?"

The girl stared down into her steaming cup.

"What if she's...bad?" she asked.

"Bad? What do you mean, bad?"

An unhappy flutter of irritation stirred in his gut even before she said, "Father Frederick...says sometimes...sometimes
demons
walk among us."

Conall closed his eyes, glad to have his back to her so Shyla couldn't see his jaw clench. "And why exactly is Fred saying these things to
you,
lass? He shouldn't be putting such ideas into a young girl's head. Did you mention the do—the woman, to him?"

"No," she said. He didn't doubt her tone, but he caught something else in it, something strained. Worry? Fear?

He finished frying up the beef, and Shyla stood to serve bread. It proved to be something of a sad, simple meal, but Conall found a tin of cookies for them to share for dessert.

"Father Fred's been chatting you up a lot now, hasn't he lass?" he asked gently. Shyla shrugged.

"He...asked to talk to me the other day," she said. "When I came home late...he held me back a little, is all."

She turned her eyes up to him apologetically. His poor Shyla...the lie about the bike tire hadn't sat well with her, he could see. He let it go and nodded her on.

"He's been telling me about the convent. I mean, I can tell he wants me to want to go there. So he talks to me about Saint Margaret, and her mission, and why we all gather in her name. Of course, I tried to tell him we
don't
all gather in her name—I mean,
you
don't gather, and I've never gathered except once or twice with Ora's family. And there are all these other churches, too, and of course Saint Margaret isn't really a god or anything, she's a messenger
of
God..."

She trailed off and shrugged again.

"He says I have a lot to learn, and if I go to the convent of Saint Margaret, the Little Sisters will teach me all of it."

Conall sipped his tea. Fred had been telling Shyla a very different tale than he'd told him. "And do you
want
to go?"

"I'm not sure."

She cut a piece of her beef and speared it on her fork, with a bit of the bread, and ate them together.

"I didn't want to before. I wanted to stay here, with you. Why would I need to go away? But..."

She hesitated, as if afraid of offending him.

"I can't decide, anymore," she finished. "I...I'm scared. I mean, because of...her."

Her voice dropped an octave, and the frightened note in her voice made Conall wince.

"And...the graveyard...it's started feeling so strange. There's so much fog now. And no matter when you're down there, you feel like...like you're not alone. Like something's there with you,
watching
you."

"You're scared of the graveyard?" he asked in as gentle a tone as he could muster. "You, the girl who made friends with all the old dead folks and phantoms buried there? What about the twins, Shyla?
They
never frightened you."

She fixed him with an oblique glare. "Dad, I played pretend. I liked to make up stories for them, because they didn't have stories of their own and I wanted to give them a place to be. I never believed their ghosts actually played
with
me. I didn't really think they heard me or that anything I said to them really mattered."

He raised an eyebrow and hid his puzzled expression behind another sip of his tea.

"She's...she's
real.
I don't have a name for her, but she's really, truly there. And she wants something. I'm scared she..."

Her lip trembled as she met his eyes.

"I'm scared she might...she might want
you.
"

He frowned. "Shyla, what makes you say..."

"I'm not sure." She pushed a bit of food around her plate. "Maybe...well...she's a woman, and...and you're lonely..."

"Shyla," he chided.

"You're a bachelor, raising a daughter on the edge of town, and you have no friends," she replied bluntly. "Dad, you're lonely."

It gave him a little shock, hearing those words from her, of all people. Surprisingly astute, his daughter.

Then of course, the words might not
really
be Shyla's. Who could guess what else Fred had let slip?

"And you think the doll is after me, then?" he asked.

"Doll?" she asked in return. "Why call her a doll?"

Conall reached for the tin of cookies and opened it, taking one and setting a second in front of her.

"I couldn't tell you what she really is, Shy. But you've seen the way her skin is like porcelain? Like those china dolls Mrs. Trask has on her armoire in the sitting room?"

"Yes," she said with a hint of wariness.

"Her limbs are jointed," he continued, musing it over. "She's...wrapped in ribbons. Can't speak. Moves...like a dancer..."

"Do you think she's pretty?"

He glanced up sharply at the strange change in her tone. Shyla stared down at her cup, avoiding his eyes, as though his words had told her something far more than he'd imagined they would.

"Father Frederick said..."

Her eyes darted nervously aside, but then she brought them back to him.

"He said he believed you might be set upon. By...a demon. A demon who might try to
seduce
you, and...take you away from us."

Anger replaced the subtle discomfort.

"Why would he say such a horrible thing to you?" he asked, incredulous. "Shyla, dear heart...what exactly has Fred been pouring in your ear about demons?"

She blanched and returned her attention to her dinner. There wouldn't be any convincing him she'd be eating it now, however.

"We don't talk about
demons,
really," she said. "And I didn't tell him about her. He's the one who brought it up. He asked me if I'd seen anything, anyone in the graveyard. If you'd been...talking to yourself. Or meeting someone. And today, when I came home and...and I couldn't find you."

Her voice cracked, and she hitched in a breath.

"I...It scared me because...I thought maybe...you'd disappeared. With
her.
I thought...maybe she stole you away."