Lifelike

by Sheila A. Nielson

  “The doctors are doing everything they can for her,” Aunt Victoria said.

  “I just saw Richard downstairs with the police. What happened?” Gabrielle asked in a bare whisper of horror.

  “The police think that whoever broke into the museum to steal the bride doll came back for the rest. They must have awoken Wren. For some reason, she had the groom doll with her when she went downstairs. The police think the intruder saw the doll and tried to take it from her.” Aunt Victoria’s voice broke and she had to pause a moment to regain control before going on.

  “Richard said he heard a commotion, like two people struggling on the floor together. By the time Richard got to the entrance hall, he found the front doors wide open and no one in sight. He went to check the front gates, but they were still locked, so he went out to check behind the house and found the stables in flames. He called 911 from his cell phone.”

  Aunt Victoria paused a moment, then slowly removed her hand from my wrist. “Did they get the fire under control?” she asked.

  “The stable is a complete loss, but nothing else was damaged,” Gabrielle said. There was a moment of heavy silence, filled only by the erratic beeping of the heart monitor and my strangled attempts to breathe.

  “The nurse asked me to give you this,” Gabrielle said softly. There was a crackle of plastic as she handed Aunt Victoria a plastic bag, then the sound of Aunt Victoria opening it.

  What followed was a silence so heavy, it pressed its way into every corner of the room. Even the heart monitor seemed muffled by its oppressing presence.

  “They said she was holding it in her arms, when they found her,” Gabrielle’s voice was a trembling wisp of sound. “Whoever set the fire must have been trying to drive her out of hiding. The window was probably the only way out. Whoever the intruder was, they didn’t get what they were after.”

  The groom doll!

  Aunt Victoria must be holding him in her hand at that very moment. It made me want to weep with joy. Too bad I didn’t have enough left in me for even that small act.

  The sobbing started so softly at first, I almost missed it. Gabrielle’s footsteps hurried across the room and there was a crackle of plastic as she must have engulfed Aunt Victoria in a hug. My aunt began to cry in earnest then, wailing like a small, lost child. It cut past the physical agony of my body, slicing its way deep into my soul. Every time she paused to take another breath, my heart monitor beeped like crazy, waiting for her to begin all over again.

  Aunt Victoria carried those who didn’t have the strength to carry themselves. She stood in the face of tragedy, both feet planted firm in the earth, and held back the horrors that tried to overpower those she loved. My aunt, the mountain of strength, was crumbling to pieces at my bedside. And I was helpless to do anything but listen in stunned silence.

  I had done this. I had shattered the mountain and brought it down. But Aunt Victoria knew the risk of taking others into her heart. Knew it before I was even born. Before my parents and Benji had died. Before her own mother had passed and her father had abandoned both his children to start a new life.

  Jack, her fiancé, was the one who taught Aunt Victoria the price of love. And yet, she had chosen to love again. Kat, Gabrielle, Matt, Richard, Ms. Sarah—Aunt Victoria continued to reach out to all of them, paying the price as many times as needed.

  Gabrielle continued to murmur soft comforting words as she waited for Aunt Victoria’s storm of emotions to pass. In time, my aunt’s grief quieted.

  “Gabrielle?” Aunt Victoria said in an unsteady voice. “I’m a little wet at the moment. Would you mind putting the doll on that table across from Wren’s bed? It always helped her to have him where she could see him.”

  Aunt Victoria was going to allow a priceless museum piece to be left in an unprotected hospital room?

  “Of course,” Gabrielle said without hesitation.

  That’s how I discovered that even Gabrielle had things more precious to her heart than dolls worth thousands of dollars. I happened to be one of them.

  “Take good care of our Wren,” Gabrielle murmured quietly to the doll as she placed him on the table. “Watch over her and help her get better soon.”

  “Excuse me, Ms. Chasswell?” The voice of the woman, probably a doctor, had returned.

  “Yes?” Aunt Victoria said.

  “The police have asked to speak with you for a moment. I can put them off if you’re not feeling up to it just yet.”

  “No, I’ll go,” Aunt Victoria said with a sigh. “Might as well get the unpleasantness over with as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Gabrielle said.

  Their footsteps retreated and I was left alone with nothing but the mechanical hiss of the oxygen machine and the beeping heart monitor for company.

  “Wren?”

  The whisper was soft. Like the speaker knew I might be asleep and didn’t want to wake me if I was.

  Who was that? Hadn’t everyone just left the room?

  “Wren, can you hear me?”

  I could tell it was a young man speaking—too young to be a doctor though. I made an effort to open my eyes. My body tensed and my chest heaved, fighting to find air through the raging pain inside me. I decided then and there that broken ribs totally sucked.

  “It is all right, Wren. Just relax. You are safe now.”

  The voice was resonating and warm—filled with the weight of true concern and the gentle touch of kindness. I took another struggling breath and forced my eyes to open against the blinding florescent lights.

  As my vision adjusted, I saw that there was indeed someone kneeling beside my bed. I stared at him, my gaze slowly taking in every feature of his handsome unsmiling face.

  He was there. Not three feet away, watching me with those beautiful sad eyes. Not a doll. Not a painting. Xavier Kensington, in the flesh.

  Or not.

  I could actually see the groom doll sitting on a table just beyond, right through the middle of Xavier’s chest. I let my eyes move back up to his face. It seemed more solid than the rest of him. He looked pale and tired. Had extracting himself from the doll been difficult?

  Xavier blinked suddenly, as if some unexpected thought had occurred to him. As I watched, furrows deepened as his brow rippled with confusion.

  “Wren,” he said, tilting his head to one side. “Can you see me?”

  Yes! Yes! I could see each and every rich, dark curl of his hair. I could see the gorgeous emerald green eyes that gradually widened as he realized the answer to his own question. Then—slowly, painfully—he squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away. Some powerful emotion tensed through his features and into his shoulders. His lips pulled thin and tight, as if he were fighting a silent, internal battle. It hurt my heart to see it. No mischievous smiles like the painting, no serene expression like the doll—only horrible, wretched pain.

  If I could see him, the spirit of a dead man, it could only mean one thing. My time was growing short. I knew it, and so did he.

  I tried to speak, to comfort him, but my chest contracted painfully against the effort and the air came out a rattling wheeze as I choked over my own breath. My whole body convulsed in agony.

  Xavier was instantly attentive. Without thinking, he reached for my hand. His fingers went right through mine and the tingly warmth of his insubstantial touch moved down my arm and into my bones. He quickly withdrew his hand, as if the experience had not been a comfortable one for him.

  “I’m sorry, Wren. Manipulating the doll drained all my energy. I am too weak to make my touch felt at the moment,” he said apologetically. “Don’t talk. Just relax. The pain will pass away soon enough. I will stay with you.”

  How sweetly, yet sadly, did he speak these words to me, the cost of them burning behind his eyes. I wanted to cry—to weep over all he had suffered through these past hundred years. Now I was about to leave him behind and hurt him all over again.

  “You know, if we had met in my time, we would h
ave had to find a mutual acquaintance to make proper introductions for us.” He forced a small smile as he said this, trying to distract me with teasing words. “We would not have been allowed to even speak to one another otherwise.”

  Xavier talked in a charming, older fashion, like the well-bred young gentlemen of classic literature. He was dressed like them too—or more specifically—like the painting of him hanging in the study.

  I wanted to tell Xavier that I was glad we didn’t live in his time, since we had absolutely zero acquaintances in common, but the burning under my ribcage made communication impossible.

  “Besides Mother, you are the only other person who believed I was innocent of murdering Emily.” The murmur of his voice purred within my ears. “Even my friends who had known me from childhood, never thought to question the gossip. But you did. I want to thank you for that, Wren.”

  As he leaned in closer, the strength of his presence intensified, like sunbeams warming my skin.

  “In all the years I have haunted this plane of existence, I have never met anyone who could sense me the way you do. You seemed to know exactly where I stood in the room. I think I even scared you a few times. I assure you, I didn’t mean to.” Oh, the beauty of his smile as he looked down on me, his eyes crinkling.

  “You couldn’t see me though, could you?” The smile was gone as quickly as it had come. “You would turn toward me, but your eyes looked right through me. Not like now.” He stopped a moment, his gaze searching my own. I stared straight back, blinking against silent tears.

  “I cannot tell you how many times I prayed for a moment like this,” he whispered reverently. “All those nights when you told me the secrets of your heart. I heard every word and wanted desperately to speak comfort to you in return. To tell you that you were not alone in your suffering.”

  Pain convulsed momentarily through my body. Xavier waited patiently until it had passed. “Wren, I want to tell you how sorry I am. If I had not been such a fool, had not fallen for Rosalyn’s silken lies, none of this would have happened. Emily would not have been murdered, Mother would not have gone mad, and you would not lie here hurting tonight. The responsibility for everything lies solely upon my shoulders.”

  I wanted to deny it, to stop his flood of self-condemnation, but my lungs were too busy fighting for just a little more time. He watched me struggle, looking as if he wanted to draw each breath for me. I could see his chest rising and falling—breathing—or possibly only the memory of it.

  “I think that might be the real reason I stayed behind instead of moving on. I was responsible for Rosalyn’s spirit wandering about inside that doll. I could not leave her to wreak havoc on every unsuspecting victim who visited Kensington House. I had to stay and protect them. To fix what I had done in some small way.”

  Slowly he shook his head as if trying to clear the guilt now crowding his mind. “How could I possibly have imagined myself in love with someone like that? How could I have mistaken a cold, calculating, murderer for someone like—” He stopped abruptly, his whole expression softening as he gazed down at me.

  Someone like me, I mentally finished for him.

  I already knew his feelings. He’d written them in the dust of my window seat. The secret equation to winning his heart. But it was also the equation of my heart. If Xavier was left behind in this world, a part of me would be lost as well. I would spend the rest of eternity trying to mend that broken piece inside me. Incomplete and alone.

  I could not let that happen!

  I braced myself mentally and physically. My chest felt like it had sunk to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Trying to speak was like crying out while being crushed beneath the sea’s great weight. Each painful word was wrung from me, battered between heaving breaths.

  “Come—with—me,” I said between labored gasps.

  “I don’t know if I can.” I could hear Xavier’s quiet desperation. “I cannot see the light anymore. I cannot feel the way out. I waited too long. Besides, my family would never forgive me now. The weight of my sins is too great.”

  I tried to shake my head at him, to deny the horrible lie he’d tricked himself into believing. My neck would not obey my command. My body was so weary of fighting. It wanted to let go and leave all the suffering behind. But I couldn’t—not yet!

  In a moment of blinding clarity, I finally understood the fate that had caused me to survive the accident that took the rest of my family. I was the only one who could lead Xavier’s lost soul away from this place. Like the fragile butterfly caught in the spider’s web, my purpose was to set him free.

  Xavier.

  With no strength left, I could only mouth his name, but his face told me that he understood. Leaning closer, he waited, body tense. Was it my imagination, or was he more solid than he had been only a few minutes ago? I could barely see through him anymore. Time was running out.

  “Tell me what you wish me to do. Anything,” Xavier said. I gathered myself for one last try. My mouth formed the words only with the greatest of effort.

  Let go.

  “I don’t understand.” His voice was a mere whisper, filled with the tenderness of one watching someone they love slip away. “Let go of what?”

  The pain in my chest flickered like the flame of a candle guttering in the wind. My heavy eyelids closed, engulfing me in sudden darkness. Far away, as if in a dream, I could hear the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor slow and then stop, carrying with it all conscious thought.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  I was pretty certain I was dead—because there was no pain.

  None.

  All the misery and weariness that weighed me down had evaporated away like cool spring water. I’d carried the burden of suffering for so long. Now that it had been lifted away, I felt as light as a soap bubble carried on the slightest breeze.

  A wall of impenetrable darkness encircled me on every side. It had no beginning and no end. I hovered within an unseen abyss, waiting to fall into it any moment. And yet, I could feel something that felt like ground planted firm beneath my feet.

  Xavier flickered into existence before me. He was completely solid now and had a dim glow of energy radiating from him, like a halo.

  I wanted to rush over and hug him just to see if I could feel his body, warm within my arms. But I was too shy to follow through now that he looked so—alive.

  “Where are we?” I asked him instead.

  Xavier glanced around us. “This is the place in between the world of the living and the dead—the place your spirit hunting friends called limbo.”

  Off to our right, a small pinprick of light sliced its way through the darkness like a knife cutting through a curtain of black canvas. As a blinding beam burst through the widening hole, it set loose a distant sigh of delighted laughter. The pulse of time faltered for a moment as my heart recognized the achingly familiar sound.

  Benji!

  “Wren, what is it?” Xavier asked in concern.

  “It’s my brother,” I whispered. “I can hear him laughing.”

  Xavier sat very still watching me. Then a gentle smile touched his lips. “He’s probably waiting for that last hug he meant to give you.”

  Benji was somewhere at the other end of that tunnel of light. And if my brother was there, then so were my parents.

  The tunnel brightened, moving closer to us. Xavier was bathed in light, his dark curls glowing within its blinding radiance. Everything within me wanted to move toward it, to slip into its warm embrace and let all my earthly sorrows melt away within its searing beauty. Xavier followed my gaze to the tunnel, then looked back at me, his face a picture of puzzled confusion.

  “It’s the light, Xavier. Can’t you see it?” I asked, putting up a hand to block out some of the glare.

  With his eyes full of unspoken sadness, Xavier bit his lip, watching me in silence.

  He couldn’t see the light.

  He couldn’t feel its warmth falling over his shoulders and playing in his dark
curls. It was only me that felt its powerful call.

  “I can see it,” I cried, holding out my hand to him. “I’ll show you the way.”

  Slowly, Xavier shook his head. “I could not possibly face my family now. They are certain to hate me after everything I’ve put them through,”

  “That’s not true!” I cried in frustration. “Margaret loved you so much she went mad making all those dolls to protect you. Your mother didn’t eat. She didn’t sleep. All she cared about was keeping you safe! Does that sound like someone who isn’t going to forgive you?”

  “Emily went with Rosalyn to the stables that day, because she trusted my judgment.” Xavier pressed a hand to his forehead. “It is my fault she died. It’s my fault you died. It’s too late for me.”

  “It’s never too late for hope.”

  Xavier froze as he recognized the words.

  “It was you that wrote that over the door, wasn’t it?” I demanded. “Don’t you believe it’s true, anymore?”

  Xavier gazed at me, his expression tightening with sudden resolve. “Yes, I believe it.”

  In three steps I crossed the distance between us and seized both Xavier’s hands in mine. He looked down at them startled. It had obviously been a long time since he’d felt the warmth of human contact. Xavier’s strong grip slipped deeper into my own, squeezing my fingers tight between his. I blinked up at Xavier in wonder and surprise as I realized for the first time, I could actually feel his touch. The weight of his fingertips pressed into my skin.

  He opened his mouth to speak—then stopped. Somewhere from beyond the light, music began to play. Soft and beguiling—beautiful and bewitching. A single, childlike voice softly lisped and lilted out a gentle song, full of innocence and joyful love. There was something oddly familiar about the angelic, young voice.

  Xavier stiffened. Like a man struck blind, he cocked his head to one side, listening with unfocused eyes.

  “Do you hear that?” he whispered.

  “You mean the singing?” I said slowly.

  Was it really possible that he could hear it? Was there even the smallest chance that it was not too late for him to move on? He did not answer my question but continued to listen to the sweet song. He swallowed a moment, his throat convulsing against an emotion fighting to get out, then finally turned his gaze on me.