I glanced nervously at the doll. It hadn’t moved from its position; face down on the concrete floor where I’d flung it in my panic. Aunt Victoria hurried down the basement steps craning her neck as she tried to get a glimpse of what it was that had set me off. Seeing the dingy gray mass of cloth lying prone on the floor, she hesitantly made her way over to examine it.
I put out my hand toward Aunt Victoria, my first instinct to grab her and hit the deck—anything to keep her from danger. Before my wits could right themselves enough to follow up the impulse, Aunt Victoria used the toe of her shoe to flip the doll over onto its back. The doll lay there, staring blindly up at Aunt Victoria—lifeless and seemingly harmless once more. I moved closer, thinking I would grab Aunt Victoria by the arm and run like mad if the doll so much as twitched.
It didn’t.
My aunt stared down at the doll. I glanced at it myself, half expecting it to start grinning at me again. Its face was back to the original expression, lips curved into only the hint of a smile.
“Where did you find this?” Aunt Victoria asked in a breathless whisper.
“In that hole in the wall,” I said, gesturing in that direction with one hand. At least my voice had returned to normal.
I placed one hand on Aunt Victoria’s shoulder—just in case—as she bent down to picked up the doll.
“How can you handle touching it like that? It’s freezing cold,” I said.
Aunt Victoria shot me a surprised look. “It doesn’t feel cold to me. About room temperature, I’d say.”
“Really?” I hesitated before giving the doll a not too gentle poke in the stomach with my finger. Not even a hint of the icy coldness I’d felt earlier remained. I realized the overwhelming smell of smoke and ashes had vanished as well.
Aunt Victoria flipped the odd, rectangular swatch of material over so its filmy material now covered the doll’s face. “Do you know what this is?” my aunt asked slowly.
A really creepy doll that liked to smile at people? Of course, I couldn’t say that, so I quietly shook my head instead.
“This is Rosalyn,” Aunt Victoria said, her fingers tightening ever so slightly around the doll’s middle.
“Rosalyn Worthin? Xavier Kensington’s fiancé?” I asked in disbelief.
Rosalyn—not Felicity? How did that figure into the ever more bizarre equation of paranormal activities?
“Are you telling me this is the missing bride doll?” I asked. The contrast between the condition of the doll lying in Aunt Victoria’s hands versus the one sitting upstairs in my room were like night and day.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Aunt Victoria flipped the cloth, which I now recognized as a very tattered veil, away from the doll’s face. “Look at all that crazing,” she said, pointing to the doll’s damaged face.
I assumed “crazing” was official museum speak for a million hideous, flaking cracks.
“This doll has taken some abuse. No wonder it startled you. The wax layer will have to be redone completely,” Aunt Victoria said, going off in antique dealer mode. “At least the clay underneath is still intact. I’ve got the number of a first-rate doll restorer in New York who could fix her up in no time. I’m sure Donald would find a way to slip her into his schedule, especially when he finds out that it is the Rosalyn Worthin doll that has been missing for over a century.”
Aunt Victoria could not keep the pride from her voice as she turned to speak to me. “First you found the secret room and now this. I’m going to make certain the newspapers give you full credit for both finds after we go public, Wren. And there will be TV reporters as well—lots of them.”
Wasn’t that just what I needed? Pushy reporters wanting to know all about my experiences while living at Kensington House.
Aunt Victoria ran her hand reverently along the bride doll’s filthy dress, attempting to smooth out a few of the wrinkles—without succeeding, I might add.
“Do you know what this means, Wren?” Her voice quickened with sudden excitement. “If the bride doll survived, the groom doll must have as well. Margaret wouldn’t have destroyed one and not the other. He might still be hidden somewhere in this house.”
Her words felt like the H.M.S. Titanic floating around inside me—and the doomed ship was going down fast.
“Wren? Are you all right?” Aunt Victoria asked, narrowing her eyes at me in concern. She followed my unwavering gaze to the doll lying limp in her hand.
For all of five seconds, I actually thought about spilling everything to Aunt Victoria. The spooky moving shadows and weird dreams. And let’s not forget the ice-cold bride doll that liked to crawl around inside walls and smiled all by itself. But I knew I could not put that burden on my aunt’s shoulders. I would not choose to make her to live through what I had in the last forty-eight hours.
“I’m fine. The doll looked so awful. It just startled me for a moment,” I said glancing down at it. It continued to play the part of a harmless, inanimate object. I wasn’t buying the act. Not even a little bit.
Aunt Victoria glanced at the hole in the wall, her eyes suddenly intent. I knew I had to nip this one in the bud as fast as possible.
“The groom doll isn’t there,” I said. “The bride was by itself. I checked.” Aunt Victoria took a quick look for herself anyway. The sneaky creature that lay coiled in the pit of my stomach writhed about in tightening circles as I watched her.
Aunt Victoria’s Wedding Party would be complete if I gave her the groom doll that was hidden in my room. Customers from all over the world would flock to the museum just to see the completed set. It would make Aunt Victoria insanely happy. So why didn’t I speak up and tell her where the missing doll was at that very moment?
I was selfish, that’s why.
The idea of handing over Xavier’s doll, to be placed behind cold glass forever, made an unpleasant sensation sluggishly crawl through my heart. Was it really such a bad thing, keeping him to myself for just a little bit longer? At most, I had less than six months left to live. The world could go on without the discovery of the missing groom doll that long, couldn’t it? I needed Xavier. His spirit’s presence was like medicine for my broken and bruised soul. The doll was my only link to him. There was no way I could possibly make Aunt Victoria or any of the others understand how I felt.
The moment passed. I didn’t speak up—and I felt horrible about it.
“We’ve got to show Gabrielle this doll right away,” Aunt Victoria said. “She planned to send out a press release about the stuff we found in the secret room, but I think we might want to postpone that just a bit now that the bride doll has been found. The bride is in serious need of restoration before we go public with her.” Aunt Victoria smiled over at me. “Do you think you can stand to keep such a big secret until then?”
Me? Keeping secrets?
She had no idea.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Shall we see what kind of trouble Elinor and Lord Carlyon are getting up to?” I called out to the groom doll as I dragged myself into my bedroom for the evening. I figured the gothic and overwrought plot of Georgette Heyer’s murder mystery had to be an improvement over all the strange events I’d actually lived through the past couple of days. Probably a lot safer, too.
I glanced down at The Reluctant Widow sitting on the bedside table. Had I left the book lying open that way? I could have sworn I’d closed it before I went to bed the night before. I walked over and saw that it was now open to page 103. I’d stopped reading at page 48. Slowly, I turned my heavy-lidded gaze on Xavier’s doll.
“You read ahead, didn’t you? You couldn’t wait to see what happened next and decided not to wait for me.”
I picked up the book and shook it angrily in the doll’s face. “You are in big trouble, Mister Kensington. You… cheater!”
I stopped, suddenly realizing how incredibly stupid I looked. Like I was scolding a badly housebroken dog with the business end of a rolled-up newspaper.
What was the matter with me? Why
was I feeling so empty and lost all of a sudden? My lie to Aunt Victoria didn’t sit well in my stomach, but it was more than that. Like a huge chunk of me had been carved right out of the middle of my chest. It made me feel cranky and out of sorts.
I dropped the book onto the bedside table and slumped down onto my bed. I sat in silence, my hands folded limply in my lap, staring at the handsome doll before me. I wanted him to lift his eyes and look up at me. Just once. But his gaze was fixed, as always, down and to the right. Rosalyn’s doll had her eyes in a funny position too. Only hers had been looking up instead of down. Up and to the left.
My emotions felt strangely dry and papery as my thoughts put one and one together. The more sense my mind made of the riddle, the more brittle I became inside.
Up and to the left.
Down and to the right.
Meeting in the middle.
They were looking at each other. Sharing a private glance. The groom looked down at his bride with pride. The bride looked up at her groom with devotion. They were meant to be displayed together. A matching pair. And there was nothing I could do about it.
Xavier’s spirit was not the only one haunting this house. All this time, it was Rosalyn’s doll crawling around inside the walls. Was she searching for her groom, desperate to be reunited with her lost true love?
I couldn’t get the chilling memory of the bride doll smiling up at me out of my mind. The doll had smiled as if she were pleased to be out of the horrible, dark, cramped space inside the wall. To finally be free. I was suddenly seized by an irrational and mad desire to jump up and hide the groom doll. Someplace safe, where no one would ever find him in a million years. No one but me, that is.
But I didn’t have that right. Xavier Kensington’s heart did not belong to me.
“You loved Rosalyn a great deal, didn’t you, Xavier?” My voice came out as fragile as threads of spun crystal. “I’ll bet you miss her.”
Was it my imagination, or did the room become unnaturally still as I spoke those words? Even the dust motes, floating lazily in the last golden rays of sunset, seemed to slow in the air. Was it the deepening emptiness inside me that caused the change, or had some unseen spirit stopped for a moment to linger and listen to my words?
“I’ve never been in love.” I tossed the words like pebbles into the stillness. “Teenage boys don’t get involved with girls who are dying. It kind of puts a damper on any future for the relationship. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed, that’s me.”
I gave a tired laugh. “Listen to me. I’m dying by inches, and here I am worried about never having a first kiss. A real tragedy, I’m sure.” I stopped as my throat became too tight to go on. I swallowed back the feeling, forcing myself to push past it.
“I’m damaged goods,” I continued slowly. “That last box of cereal sitting on the shelf because it’s got one crunched corner. What’s inside might taste just as good as the rest, but no one ever reaches for it.”
I was an idiot. Why would someone like Xavier Kensington care about any of this? He’d been alone and abandoned much longer than I could even imagine.
But it didn’t have to stay that way.
Did Xavier know Rosalyn’s spirit was haunting the bride doll? Did he know she was still looking for him, even after all these years? If their souls could just find one another, perhaps they could both find peace. It wasn’t right keeping the truth from Xavier, no matter how twisted up my personal feelings were. Rosalyn and Xavier loved each other. They were meant to be together. Even in death.
“I found Rosalyn’s doll inside the wall of the basement,” I whispered, each word costing my heart a painful price. “I think Rosalyn’s spirit is still inside it. I swear the doll smiled at me, when I picked her up.”
I looked over at the groom doll sitting on the vanity. My throat was unnaturally tight, but I forced myself to speak through it. “If I show the groom doll to Aunt Victoria, she’ll put the two of you back together. You won’t have to be alone anymore. Would you like that?”
I waited for a response. Only deathly silence blanketed the room.
“Xavier? Did you hear me? Rosalyn’s spirit is in the house. She’s looking for you,” I said.
There was a momentary pause—then everything went terribly wrong.
The sunlit dust motes froze suddenly in place. Unearthly stillness hung heavy within my ears, like I’d been suddenly struck deaf. It was as if time had stopped for everything but me. Even the air felt like it had been sucked into a vacuum. I couldn’t breathe—my lungs flattened into a useless state. I clawed at my throat with panicked fingers, struggling for oxygen. The tendons flexed convulsively along my neck. Then it was over. I gasped as the air came back in a rush, blasting all around the room like a small tornado.
The dust motes danced about like frantic gnats. I stared at The Reluctant Widow, as the whirling wind snapped open the book’s cover. The pages rippled, then fluttered, fanning from right to left as if some an unseen hand was rifling hurriedly through the book.
I curled myself up tight as the wind buffeted my clothes, pulling at my hair. It went whipping about the room, banging into the corners and swirling up the walls—whistling like a tea kettle in distress as it went. The light fixture in the ceiling began to sway, its tiny crystals clinking together in alarm.
“Xavier, stop it,” I cried.
The curtains billowed outward like sails in a storm, and one of the pictures on my wall fell to the ground with a crash.
“I said, STOP it!” I shouted.
With a whoosh, the hissing vortex of wind snaked across the floor and flew out of the room, slamming my bedroom door behind it. In the sudden stillness that followed the disturbance’s retreat, I heard the lock fall into place with a deliberate click.
I got slowly to my feet, looking around me at the damage left behind. The picture that fell seemed to still be in one piece. The groom doll had tipped forward, and now lay slumped over his outstretched legs like a sniper victim hit unexpectedly from behind.
I went to unlock the door so I could get out. The knob turned, but there was no answering click to tell me that the bolt had drawn back. I tried it again, but the knob just turned uselessly between my fingers.
I was trapped.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It took forty minutes worth of shouting and banging on my bedroom door before Aunt Victoria finally heard me. By then I had mottled blue bruises on the bottoms of both my fists and my sprained wrist was throbbing like crazy. Aunt Victoria had to remove the doorknob with a screwdriver to get me out.
“The lock must have broken when you turned it the last time,” Aunt Victoria said.
Sure, why not. I’d go with that. Much simpler than a ghost who was upset for some bizarre reason I could not fathom.
My aunt glanced silently around my room, which look like ground zero in a tornado touchdown zone. The place looked like a pig sty after raging boars had come home to root. I was glad I’d at least taken the time to hide the groom doll out of sight under the bed before banging my bedroom door down in an attempt to get someone’s attention.
“Was Gabrielle happy when you showed her the bride doll?” I asked in an attempt to sidetrack Aunt Victoria from eyeing the mess.
“Happy is not a strong enough word for what she was,” Aunt Victoria said, still slightly distracted.
“Thrilled speechless, was she?”
Aunt Victoria’s flitting blue gaze finally came to rest on me. “She was on the phone to New York in less than five minutes—strong-arming Donald into agreeing to restore the doll for us.”
“Did he agree to do it?”
“Of course, he did,” Aunt Victoria said, rolling her eyes heavenward. “Donald’s been infatuated with Gabrielle for ages. He’d bend over backward and kiss her feet on the way back up if she asked him to. Gabrielle will overnight the doll to him first thing in the morning.”
Poor Donald. Tomorrow the haunted bride doll would become his problem. A breath of relief esca
ped me. One ghost down—at least for now.
“By the way,” Aunt Victoria said as she turned to leave. “Darcy Flynn and her ghost hunting team have asked for permission to hold another ghost hunting vigil tonight. So, if you hear anything going bump in the night…”
“Don’t come creeping down the hall and scare the snot out of them,” I finished for her.
“Not the exact words I would have chosen, but the gist of the message is correct,” Aunt Victoria said. “They’re setting up cameras in Xavier’s study tonight. They’ve promised to pack up and be out of there before we open in the morning.” Slowly she shook her head. “How they can stay up all night the way they do is beyond me.”
Aunt Victoria headed for the door. “I’ll talk to Matt and have him fix your door as soon as he can,” she said, gesturing to the gaping space where my doorknob once resided. “He’s very handy with that kind of thing. I don’t know what I would do around here without him.”
Despite having a large hole in my door where the lock should have been, I went to bed that night knowing full well there was a possessed bride doll hanging out someplace in the house. Not exactly comforting.
Sleep was not waiting for me on my pillow. There was no pleasant feeling to cradle me and make me feel safe. My room felt large, dark, and empty—devoid of any comforting presence. It was like lying inside a great hollow cavern, completely alone.
I flipped on the bedside light and reached under the bed, gently pulling the groom doll from his hiding place. The doll lay limply on the floor, its empty gaze staring sightlessly down and to the right
I had not realized how much Xavier’s spirit lingered about until that feeling vanished without a trace. Where had all the warmth of the last few nights disappeared to? Even my bones felt shivery and hollow. The doll was here, but Xavier was gone. Where was he?
What possible reason could he have for locking me in my room the way he did? Up until now, Xavier’s ghost had only ever been gentle and comforting. This was different. Frantic almost. Something I said had upset Xavier. A lot.
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