Lifelike

by Sheila A. Nielson

  I set the doll down gently on the bedside table and let Aunt Victoria help me back under the quilts. “I know he’s expensive,” I said in a rush. “But I’ll take good care of him, I swear.”

  Aunt Victoria stopped her fussing for a moment, her eyes searching my own. “Do you really think I care more about a simple object made of clay and wood, than I do about you?” Her voice trembled with sudden passion. “I would sell everything I had in the world if I thought it would bring you one moment’s peace from the misery you endure.”

  Aunt Victoria glanced over at the doll. “If his presence eases your pain, even the tiniest bit, then he’s yours. For as long as you need him.” She reached out and tenderly laid one hand against my cheek. “The world thinks this doll was destroyed over a century ago, and as far as I’m concerned, it can keep on thinking that. I don’t care if I never get him back.”

  Gabrielle chewed uneasily on her bottom lip. I waited for her to object to Aunt Victoria’s decision, but she didn’t say a single word. It must have taken a great deal of self-control on her part. Or perhaps, a great deal of love.

  Aunt Victoria tucked me into bed just like she used to when I was a little girl. Gabrielle picked up the food tray and laid it my lap. The food was pretty cold, but I didn’t mind.

  “You’re going to take me to the hospital, aren’t you?” I said in a voice filled with quiet acceptance.

  “I think it is time, Wren,” Aunt Victoria said, brushing my damp hair away from my face. “A blood transfusion won’t save your life, but it might give me a little more precious time with you.”

  “Can we wait until tomorrow?” I pleaded. “Just let me sleep in my own bed one more night. Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Aunt Victoria nodded slowly, but I could tell she didn’t believe it any more than I did.

  “Can I bring the groom with me?” If I took the doll along, maybe Xavier’s spirit would be able to follow me to the hospital.

  Aunt Victoria bent forward and kissed me gently on the forehead. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  After sleeping the day away and getting some food into me, I felt a bit better by the time night fell. I even made a trek to the bathroom unassisted but felt pretty exhausted afterward.

  I overheard Gabrielle and Aunt Victoria talking softly to each other in the hallway outside my door. Gabrielle promised to watch over things at the museum while Aunt Victoria took me to the hospital the next day. She asked for permission to tell the rest of the staff about my illness.

  “Matt already suspects,” she said in a gentle voice. “He’s been worried. I think it’s only fair that he and the others be prepared.”

  “Kat’s going to be upset.” Aunt Victoria sighed. “Peter has been begging her to come back here and visit Wren.”

  A long silence followed as both women realized the task before them. Even Peter would be affected by my death. And Cassandra. Just yesterday I’d received another email from her telling me about all the great haunted places she and the others were now visiting back east. She’d only been gone a week. How could I possibly write and tell her I was dying in the hospital?

  I thought I’d never get to sleep that night, but the next thing I knew, I was dreaming fitfully of bygone days—and Xavier.

  I’m in the library, my favorite room in the house. Xavier and I have spent a lot time in this room, reading aloud from books and laughing together as we planned our future after the wedding. Only three more weeks. It feels like an eternity.

  There is a knock at the door. I stand up, gracefully straightening the yards of my pink silk skirts, wanting to look my best the moment he sets eyes on me.

  “Come in,” I say, my voice caressing and silky.

  The door swings open and Xavier steps into the room and moves quietly over to the couch. The mere sight of him makes my heart beat hard within my chest. So tall and handsome, with those masses of dark curls I long to touch whenever he is near.

  I come around the writing desk, putting out my hands toward him in greeting. He does not step forward to take them. Instead he stands there, looking at me with those heartbreaking green eyes. I stop, realizing that something is wrong. Unease sweeps through me.

  “You look distressed, my love.” I keep my voice soft and cajoling to cover the panic rising within me. “Whatever can be the matter?”

  “I have begun writing a letter to you at least a dozen times or more,” Xavier says in a voice of unnatural calm. “But no matter how hard I try, I cannot find words to express the suspicion that has entered my head. It is impossible, and yet again and again, it creeps in to poison everything.”

  “What thought is this? Tell me, dearest.” I take a step toward him, but Xavier draws back from me, as if I have some disgusting disease he might catch. Horror spreads through my icy-cold limbs.

  He knows.

  And yet, I can see that he is uncertain about his suspicions. He does not want to believe. He still loves me. It is not yet too late to fix my mistake.

  “Tell me what it is that troubles you so.” How reasonable and calm I sound as I speak those words to him. Not a hint of my roiling anxiety betrays itself within my voice. I have a lifetime of practice when it comes to presenting a mask to the world and hiding the hideous truth deep inside where no one will see. But Xavier is having none of it.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” he says, barely above a whisper. “You killed Emily.”

  I allow my eyes to widen in surprised innocence.

  “Xavier, darling! What on earth would possess you to say such a terrible and hurtful thing?” I demand of him, pretending to choke up with tears.

  He takes a deep erratic breath, his chest rising and falling as the struggle within him causes great pain. He runs a distracted hand through his hair, mussing the handsome curls with his clutching fingers. Xavier begins to pace agitatedly about the room, his words coming harder and faster by the second.

  “Emily told mother quite implicitly that I meant to take her on a ride that day. There is only one person Emily would have believed had the right to speak for me. That person is you, Rosalyn.”

  “You would accuse me of murder?” A cold edge creeps into my voice. “Me, your future wife?”

  He stops beside the open fireplace and looks over at me. I stare back at him in cold silence.

  He does not understand what it was like for me, watching him fawn over that child. He never had eyes for anyone but her when she was about. And Emily knew it, the insufferable little beast. She reveled in her power over Xavier, demanding his attention every second when I was around. She had only to flash that pert little smile and the whole world fell at her feet. The inheritance would have been wasted on such a self-absorbed, spoiled, little creature. Xavier is the one who deserves it. The one who can make a difference with such money in his possession.

  Emily had to die. There was no other way.

  “I can see the truth of it hidden within the coldness of your eyes,” Xavier whispers. The fire casts up shifting orange lights that flicker over the pain etched into his face.

  I want to lie, to spin pretty cobwebs of untruth that will keep him from seeing, but I cannot lie. Not to my Xavier. The one person who means more to me than my own life. All my carefully-practiced control crumbles beneath the weight of his fathomless green gaze.

  “We can put all this behind us and look to the future,” I say, tears springing to my eyes for real this time. “The rumors will die down in time. There is no proof against you. Together we will weather this. Once we are married, our love will be strong enough to overcome anything.”

  “Can you really believe that?” Xavier asks in horrified awe. “You murdered my sweet, little Emily with your bare hands—” The rest of what he means to say is choked back by a sob of grief so raw that it spasms through his whole body wracking his frame. Then it is over. When Xavier looks up this time, there is cold, hard steel in his gaze.

  “I will ne
ver marry you.” His voice is grave and unyielding. “I never want to lay eyes on you again after today.”

  His words are like a massive cyclone raging through my soul, ripping apart everything I have ever dreamed and cared about with brutal abandon.

  NO! I will not lose Xavier! He is my heart and blood, my only reason for continuing to live!

  “I did it for you,” I say in a voice strangled with emotion. “Can’t you see? I would do anything, sacrifice my eternal soul to protect you. I love you and you love me.”

  “Yes, I did love you, God forgive me. It is my fault this happened. I, who brought you into my family, like a ravenous wolf among lambs to be slaughtered. I will pay for it the rest of my life, and even when I am dead, if necessary. Heaven is my witness, whatever it takes, I will make up for what I have done.”

  He starts for the door. But I am closer. With a sure swift motion, I turn the key and snatch it from the lock. Xavier freezes in the middle of the room, watching me circle around him, the key firmly clasped in my hand.

  “Rosalyn, don’t make this more difficult than it already is,” he says in a gentle and persuasive voice. The only voice that has ever had the power to calm the raging storms within my heart. Even now, knowing what I did, he does not lose his temper or try to touch me in anger. He is an angel of light in the darkness of my existence—I cannot lose him.

  “Give me the key, Rosalyn.” He puts out a beseeching hand toward me, begging me with his eyes to give him his freedom. I back myself over to the fireplace and shake my head silently at him.

  Mother has carelessly left her favorite fan lying on top of the fireplace. With great deliberation, I pick it up and shove the end of it into the leaping flames, smiling with pleasure as it twists and blackens within my trembling hand. Without hesitation, I drop the burning fan onto the beautiful hearth rug in front of the fireplace. The one Mother had shipped from the Orient at great expense.

  “Rosalyn, are you mad?” Xavier says, his eyes widening in surprise as the rug smokes and then bursts into flames.

  Xavier rushes forward, hurriedly removing his jacket. The flames double in size before he has a chance to begin beating at them. Eyes riveted to the back of Xavier’s bent head, I reach out one hand and pick up an iron poker sitting beside the fireplace. It weighs heavy within my tightly clenched fingers. I swing the poker with all my might and feel pain jolt through my shoulders as it connects solidly with the back of Xavier’s skull. He crumples at my feet like a lifeless doll.

  The flames move across the rug, reaching greedily toward Xavier’s unconscious form. In panic, I bend down and take hold of his arms, dragging him away from the fire which is now licking its way up the blue sprig wallpaper. I hunker down beside Xavier’s body, my skirts a mass of twisted cloth beneath me. I watch impassively as the black smoke roils across the ceiling, filling the upper length of the room with dark and boiling poison.

  What does it matter? I can never go back to the life I led before Xavier came. This way, he will never belong to anyone but me.

  “Why did you do this?” I whisper to Xavier’s pale, unmoving form. Hot tears fall silently down my flushed cheeks as I speak. The unyielding heat of the advancing flames beats feverishly against my skin. I gather Xavier in my arms, cradling his head in my hands. I can feel his warm blood dripping between my fingers.

  My voice rises as hysteria sets in, stealing away all reason. “You made me do this! You made me hurt you!” I shriek down at him. “I only wanted to make you happy. I would have done anything you asked. Sacrificed anything you wanted. Why did you do this to us?”

  A fit of coughing seizes me as my lungs fill with acrid smoke.

  Even amid the raging fire, my cheek burns with a spot of icy cold. The freezing touch of some small object pressing deep into my skin.

  I came awake with a jerk, my eyes opened wide in the inky blackness that surrounds me. There were no flames. No smoke. Only the deathly stillness of Kensington House settled deep into the early hours of the night.

  I put out a hand to explore the spot throbbing on my cheek. The skin was chilly to the touch, like an ice-cube was lying against my skin only a moment before.

  Rosalyn!

  I struggled to sit up, my body resisting the effort. The bride doll! It had to be. But I couldn’t see anything amid the thick shadows crowding the room.

  Light. I needed light!

  Groping about in the darkness with one hand, I found the bedside lamp and flipped on the switch. I blinked, momentarily blinded, and then stopped breathing all together.

  There at the end of my bed—come back to pass on one last horrible memory—sat the bride doll of Rosalyn Worthin.

  She was on all fours, her veil and skirts trailing behind her in a frothy sea of satin and lace. The doll’s glass eyes were fixed on me as we stared at one another in heavy silence. Then, something behind me caught the doll’s attention. Slowly and ponderously, her blue eyes turned as the doll’s head swung mechanically to my right. I followed her gaze and saw what it was that had her so mesmerized. There was the groom doll sitting on the bedside table, exactly as I’d last left him.

  A soft, strangled sound, like the tightening of violin strings, came from Rosalyn’s tiny throat. The doll’s eyes widened slowly, enlarging themselves into frightening proportions. Then her mouth fell open, a gaping black hole etched into the surface of the clay face. The mouth worked silently, opening and closing as if she were attempting to speak. Or to cry out. The bride lifted one trembling hand to reach out toward her groom.

  It was terrible watching that tiny face twist itself into such a haunting expression of pain and hopelessness, tempered only by sheer, raw desire. Her lips moved, mouthing one silent word even I could understand.

  Xavier.

  I threw back the covers and stumbled out of bed. Snatching up Xavier’s doll, I wrapped both arms possessively around him, backing a couple of steps away from Rosalyn. The doll watched me with unblinking concentration. She let her hand drop limply onto the quilts, then drew her mouth shut into a thin, grim line.

  I realized my mistake right away. Not only had I shown that I was afraid of her, but I’d also revealed my true feelings for Xavier in the way I held his doll tight to my chest—like he belonged to me—not to her.

  She didn’t like that.

  Not. One. Bit.

  The bride doll pushed herself upward, getting drunkenly to her feet. Her face had lost all emotion. I shivered as I realized how much that face now resembled the horrible woman who had beaten and left her child locked in a trunk. Mrs. Worthin had passed on more than her beauty to her daughter. She had passed on all her violent rage as well.

  As I slowly backed away from her, the doll’s head came down, her glittering glass eyes tracking my every movement with great intensity. Her hands shook as they curled up at her sides, squeezing themselves into two tiny fists. It would have seemed laughable that a doll no taller than a foot and a half could be so frightening. But this particular doll was possessed by the soul of a murdering young woman whose ex-fiancé was currently being held in the arms of a rival.

  And that rival was me.

  The doll crouched down ready to spring, catlike, in my direction. I didn’t wait around to witness her athletic prowess. Still clutching Xavier’s doll to my chest with both arms, I forced my legs into action, lumbering out the open bedroom door. The world twisted dizzily for a moment as my tired body fought against sudden quick movements. I heard a loud thud as the wooden doll hit the floor somewhere behind me. I didn’t bother to look back but rushed toward the west wing door as fast as I could. Shoving Xavier into the crook of my left arm, I began fumbling about for the lock. My hands were shaking so bad, I couldn’t get the bolt turned properly.

  I would not let Rosalyn have the groom doll. It was Xavier’s anchor to the living world. With it, Rosalyn would have him trapped and at her mercy forever. And I had seen no mercy in that pitiless face. She would murder me if she could, just as she had Emily.

>   The bolt drew back with a loud crack. As I pulled open the door, something smashed into my knees from behind, causing them to collapse beneath me. It wasn’t like being struck by a doll-sized person—it was more like a normal-sized person using a doll as their weapon. I went sprawling onto the carpet and the groom doll flew out of my hands, skittering on his back across the hard wood floor out onto the landing. My panicked breath rasped from my chest, echoing through the empty corridor.

  I couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but I could feel the Rosalyn doll’s painful hands digging into my skin as she clawed her way up my left leg to get at me. I flipped over on my side, slamming the doll into the floor beneath my thigh. I felt something inside the doll crack under impact. She came loose long enough for me to scramble to my feet. Too late, I realized that she hadn’t given up—she’d just decided to go after Xavier’s doll lying helplessly in the middle of the upper landing instead. She dashed across the floor, moving much faster than I would have believed possible for a mere wooden doll.

  Without thinking, I drew back my foot and kicked out at her retreating back. It was a solid strike. Pain shot through my whole leg. The doll went careening into the air before hitting the floor and sliding straight through a gap between two of the banisters. There was a moment of silence and then a sickening thud as Rosalyn’s wooden body impacted somewhere below.

  I snatched Xavier up in my left hand and bolted down the stairs, my bare feet pounding the creaking wood much too loudly. As hurried down the stairs, something large and heavy plunged into my path, tangling itself in my legs. Drunkenly, I grabbed the banister, barely managing to keep myself from tumbling to my death at the bottom. I backed up in a hurry.

  What was that?

  It was much too big to be the bride! As I stared down into the shadows at my feet, I could barely make out the shape of a bulky doll body, lying face down in my path.

  It was Fiona!