His Cemetery Doll (12 page)

Conall's heart dropped. He stared at her for a long, slow beat, then abruptly stood and crossed over to her, wrapping his arms around her, clutching her tight.

"
No
one," he said, his voice adamant, if a little choked. "
No one,
will ever take me away from you, Shyla. I'm your father. I'll never abandon you."

Except...

He couldn't help but think it.
Except...I did.

Shyla said something then Conall had never expected her to say.

"My...my
mother
abandoned me."

"She didn't," he insisted. He couldn't be sure of it, of course. But what else could he say to his daughter?

"We've never had the truth for why she left you here. I've always believed she ran into some terrible trouble. Bandits on the road, like I met a few years before. She may have been hurt...or even very, very sick. I've spent a lot of time considering all these things, Shyla...but the one thing I
can
say for certain is, no one could be heartless enough to abandon you."

"You
don't
have proof," she argued. He could hear the tears in her voice.

"Come here, lass." He picked her up as he had when she'd been barely out of her toddler years and carried her to the couch. Setting her down on a cushion, he took the seat beside her and put an arm around her shoulder.

"You," he said, "were the most beautiful baby anyone in this town had ever seen. It made all the women jealous. You almost never cried; you slept like an angel. In fact, the night I found you, you slept so soundly under Maya's stone, tucked into warm blankets and so, so quiet...I worried your real mother might have left you behind because she'd lost you in the birthing. When I unfolded the blankets, though, there you were, breathing softly, pink and healthy."

"What do any of those things prove?" she asked in a low, sullen voice.

"
No
mother would have willingly walked away from such a baby, if she'd had any choice in the matter."

He hugged her close again.

"You are a gift," he said, kissing her soft flaxen hair. "A gift no one could believe had come to
me,
of all people. But I could never think your mother would willingly
abandon
you. I can't."

She leaned on him. He'd noticed the tiny, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, and he brought up a finger to wipe one away.

"More importantly...
I
am not going to abandon you. You can always count on it, my lass. You are my family...and my life. There is no way on this green earth I will allow
anyone
to take us away from each other."

She gave a tiny sniffle. "Even the church?"

It surprised him she chose to ask about the church, not the mysterious spectre she already suspected of seducing him. "Am I to take this as a hint you don't want to go to the Little Sisters of Margaret?"

Shyla shook her head.

"I don't, Dad. I don't...I don't like the church here. Father Frederick is...starting to frighten me too. And I can't imagine I would ever like the church so far away from here and you. And my friends. And the horses. But I'm worried things here are...they're so strange now."

She shivered, and Conall adjusted his grasp to better give her the warmth of the fire.

"Nothing's going to happen to us, my lass."

He hugged her again and let her rest against him.

He wished he could believe it himself.

S
hyla remained at home the next day, and the day after. She'd come over with a cold, probably from searching high and low for him during a heavy, oppressing afternoon heat, then through crisp late-night cold. Conall gladly took up the full measure of the house's chores, including preparing her hot tea and broth, trying to coax her to better health.

He waited up at night to see if the doll would return. As he did, he ran the slithery ribbon over and over his palm. The fog rose...but the doll did not come to him.

Yet there came moments, time and again, when he believed he could sense her close. Once, he gazed out the window into the pressing fog, and he had the strange certainty she stood in the mist, looking back at him at exactly the same moment.

He woke with the first creeping tendrils of fog seeping in from under the door or through the tiny, tiny seam between the window and its frame. He waited, holding his breath, frantic with wonder—and a few
other
emotions as well—to see if she'd return.

He had no idea what he would do if she
did
return. She excited him, yes. She tugged at him, haunting and desirous, and he sensed the need in her too; the need for his touch...but also for his conversation. His mere presence. At the same time, she frightened him. Past trying to convince himself she wasn't real, now Conall became preoccupied with
why
she had come to him. Could Shyla—who of course had simply been echoing Father Frederick—be correct?

This creature had been created, built, given some kind of life. Perhaps she had never been a ghost at all but something like a golem. Most of all, he believed she was a prisoner. Of what sort of prison, he couldn't say. She struggled to communicate. She couldn't even
really
look someone in the eyes. Trust must be a precious commodity for a creature like her.

She might be a predator too. Something impossible—something Hitler's people, those secret societies Frederick had studied—had brought to life. A version of Frankenstein's monster?

Then again, she'd come to him, connected to him. They'd made love, and Conall would be a liar or an idiot to deny he remain tempted by her. Very, very much so, in fact. Shyla's fears over the broken doll stealing his heart had more merit than he would ever admit. He simply wasn't made of stone.

He spent a good deal of time considering the whole situation, and came to the conclusion the subject fell well beyond his humble understanding. He was a
groundskeeper
after all, not a man of philosophy or faith. He could dig graves, tend to weathered headstones, and cut away overgrown weeds...but supernatural beings? Not his expertise.

He would have to ask Frederick for more information.

He had a problem with that, because he still hadn't forgiven Fred. The priest may have meant well, but he crossed a line in speaking with Shyla on subjects Conall himself didn't wish to discuss. The priest had put it into Shyla's head her father may be drawn away by a ravenous succubus, leaving her alone. He'd played on her emotions, apparently, to nudge her in the direction of accepting Saint Margaret's schooling. If he'd revealed to her he'd been aware of the doll's existence, then he'd broken Conall's confidence.

The
last
person Conall wanted to speak to—at least, in matters of ghouls, ghosts, and the undead—was Fred.

After a few days' time, though—without any fresh appearances by his broken doll—Conall found himself considering how to inquire about these things without being arrested for a lunatic. Frederick might be the one person who would give Conall his space to breathe and let him explain the whole story, without labeling him mad.

At the end of the third day, Shyla declared herself well again. Conall gave her a dubious expression, as she still appeared a bit woozy to him. Her sniffles had lessened, but they hadn't gone away completely. He suspected she really missed Ora, and their morning chores, which had begun to expand in nature. Instead of solely helping to feed the horses she now assisted with other tasks around the Trasks' inn, which Conall believed to be a very good sign. She'd started avoiding the graveyard altogether, but he couldn't be sure how to feel about her new reticence. He'd wanted her pursuing other, better activities...but not because she'd become afraid.

When she asked him if she could go back into town to see her friend, though, he agreed.

"I'll drive you," he said, grabbing the keys to his truck. "I have some business in town today, myself."

She peered at him oddly—if anyone had an idea how much Conall disliked going into town, Shyla did—but he hustled her along. While she ran upstairs to fetch her coat, Conall crossed to his little-used desk stationed between the kitchen and the sitting room.

Opening the top drawer, he withdrew the length of gray ribbon the doll left for him. It slithered over his palm, and when he touched it, the memories of her perfect skin, the heated gasp from her lips, and the taste of her most intimate depths returned to him.

Please.

"Please what?" he whispered, as if the ribbon could communicate her thoughts to him.

"What is it you want of me?"

***

A
fter dropping his daughter off with the Trasks—asking Mrs. Trask to keep an extra good eye on Shyla and be sure she rested between work—Conall drove to the church again, though this time he didn't hope to stay.

Father Frederick generally walked from the church to the Trasks' for lunch each day besides the Sabbath, or the days he'd gone to the convent. Conall didn't want to meet with him there, however, because the last thing he'd like would be for Shyla to catch wind of or overhear this conversation. He caught sight of the Father a little ways along the road from his house of worship, pulled the car up alongside him, and leaned over to open the door and invite him in.

"Join me for lunch, Father?"

"Why, certainly, my friend!" Fred replied cheerfully. A bright expression of pleasant surprise colored his face as he climbed in.

"Hope you won't mind stopping somewhere other than the alderman's," he said, turning the truck. "Shyla's there, and I'd prefer she not listen to us today."

Fred frowned and cocked an eyebrow, but nodded. "To the Crossroads, then?"

The Crossroads lay to the north of town, nearer to the residential lanes, while Alderman Trask had his establishment closer to the heart of the village. It had always been the quieter inn, and Conall preferred it greatly.

"Aye," he agreed.

"Do you mind me asking what's on your mind, Con?"

The gravekeeper shook his head. "We'll talk once we're sitting down with a couple of ales in front of us."

Again the priest frowned, but he said nothing more as they drove.

The Crossroads stood mostly abandoned at this hour, as it wasn't quite late enough for the regular lunch crowd, mostly the town's older residents. The owner's son seated them and quickly asked for their orders before disappearing into the kitchen beyond.

"So," Frederick said as soon as they'd been served. His voice carried the tone of someone expecting attack and hoping to disarm it early. "Is something the matter?"

Conall sat back in his seat, taking a long drink of his ale. He let the question hang in the air between them a moment, trying to decide exactly how angry he would let himself be over Frederick's behavior. Considering the gravekeeper had come to ask the priest's advice, opening with a heated set of accusations might not be the best plan.

On the other hand, Conall had never been the most patient of men.

"You've been telling my daughter things I happen to take umbrage with, Fred," he started with a low, grating tone. "She's been getting rather wound up over ideas I'd rather you hadn't put in her head. What in bloody hell possessed you to speak with her about demons? Or to tell her one might be preying on me, trying to take me away from her?"

The priest sat perfectly still—almost, Conall imagined, like the doll sometimes did. His face fell into a stark, blank-eyed surprise.

"Why, Con...I said nothing of the sort to her!"

Conall peered at him. "Given the nature of our conversation in the confessional booth, Fred, it
does
sound like something out of your mouth, doesn't it?"

"I don't deny believing those things may be true," Frederick replied. "But I haven't told your daughter anything like it. Goodness, she's not even thirteen!"

"Exactly my reaction, when she told me you'd been chatting with her on it."

Conall mused, rubbing his chin.

"You gave her the token of Saint Margaret?"

"Yes, Con, I did," Fred said with a nod. "No harm in it, is there? Our Lady is an icon of peace and grace. I couldn't imagine it would upset you."

Conall rolled his eyes up to the beams above and exhaled softly.

"You are well aware how I feel about church, Fred."

"Yes. How
you
feel. I hadn't gotten the impression you'd be opposed to Shyla finding a place in our congregation."

"When she's thirteen?"

"Her best friend attends our services," Fred pointed out. "Ora is but a year or two older than Shyla and has been coming to Saint Margaret's since she could walk."

Conall sighed again and sipped his beer.

"I don't so much mind the gift of the medallion," he said. "I get the feeling you may be putting some pressure on her she isn't very happy about."

"Children are often frustrated when they are asked to behave like adults," Fred said. Conall blinked in response.

"What do you mean by
that,
Father?" he asked. "Implying Shyla hasn't been raised to behave herself? Are you telling me I haven't taught her how to act like an adult?"

Frederick—who of course had ordered a hot tea instead of an ale, and now solemnly gazed into its amber depths—said, "Well, Con...yes."

Con pounded a fist on the table, making the silverware clink. "Bloody hell, man! Where do you get off saying such a thing?"

"I've told you before," Frederick replied. "You love the girl to death, clearly, but you let her behave as she will! You can't tell me you have any real objection to sending her to the Little Sisters of Margaret, and yet you cling to keeping her, worried over whether
she
would want to go! She's a child, Conall, and she should do what her father tells her, not the other way around."

"What do you know of how I run my house?" Con barked. "She's a good girl. She keeps to her chores without complaint, she behaves herself better than most of the brats in this village, and she's never harmed a fly so far as I've known. If she wants to remain here instead of be shipped off to some convent she's never been to, where she'll be alone with none of her family or friends, what business is it of yours?"