His Cemetery Doll (8 page)

Maybe...

His brow furrowed.
Maybe...if she thinks she's somehow
claimed
me...she might believe Shyla stands in her way.

Flat horror filled his gut. If the doll
had
somehow claimed him, what did it mean?

Without knowing what manner of creature she might be...he had no way to tell.

***

H
e woke in the morning with Shyla still curled in his arms. They'd both fallen asleep on the couch, frightened and exhausted. Careful not to wake her, Conall pried himself free and stood up to stretch.

The first pale streaks of dawn touched the sky outside. He stepped out to see no fog lingering along the ground on their back porch, at least. Conall debated, for some moments, if he ought to go down and explore.

A cold trepidation held him back. He'd not yet decided if he hoped the doll had been pulled apart by those terrible black hands in the forest...or if he wished for her escape. Every time he imagined her come to harm or pictured the blood on her hands, he also recalled how soft, how needful, how passionate she'd been in his arms. Every time he remembered her fragile, delicate body atop his in the darkness and the pleasure he'd found in joining with her...he couldn't help but shudder at the memory of her wild rage, her screeching, sobbing desperation to get her hands—her
claws—
on Shyla.

Conall frowned to himself, hands gripping the rail of his back porch while he gazed sightlessly down toward the graveyard. No Maya there, anymore...he'd been able to see her from here. Now, the lay of the land appeared...lonely.

Lonely,
he pondered.
The doll...that's what I sense when she comes close to me. She is...

Lonely.

A lonely phantom, however, might be very, very dangerous.

Conall turned to go back inside. He returned to the living room and nudged his daughter. Her eyes fluttered open, and he lifted her up, as if she were a tiny child, eight years old instead of nearly thirteen.

"Come on," he said. "We're going to see Father Frederick."

"Why?" she asked in a voice slurred with sleep.

"Spiritual guidance," he answered, but he doubted she would understand exactly what he meant.

"But I'm still in my nightgown," she murmured.

"It's all right. I'm sure the good Father won't mind if you find a little extra sleep in the church, while I speak with him."

"Can't I stay here, Dad? Please?"

"No, dear heart," he said. He didn't want to leave her alone anywhere the doll might come to find her.

Conall usually walked to town unless errands needed to be done and shopping toted back to the house. This morning, he decided to drive the old green truck he normally reserved for business. Shyla slept curled in the front seat all the way into Whitetail Knoll, and Conall kept his hand on her small blonde head when not shifting gears.

Wouldn't she be safer at the convent?
he couldn't help wondering.

Something is very wrong in the graveyard. Whatever it may be...you can't keep Shyla where she might be hurt.

It...may be out of your hands now, Con. It may be time to give her up.

At least, for as long as this danger remained.

The drive to the church took barely twenty minutes. The featureless dirt lot beside it, where parishioners would soon be parking their cars as they came to attend Sunday Mass, stood empty now. Conall rolled in, curious all of a sudden if this might be his first time back since accepting the position to manage the cemetery. He'd certainly never come to services.

Gathering Shyla in his arms again, he carried her up the steps to the main entrance. In the cold early morning and with the weight of his girl on his hip, his injured leg ached miserably. He couldn't bring himself to put her down, though. As he came to the church's entrance, he closed his eyes in hesitant preparation, and knocked.

Father Frederick had evidently been up early himself, because he answered the knock, carefully pushing open one of the tall wooden doors and peering out. When he saw Conall, he blinked with surprise.

"Con? Is everything all right?" His eyes shifted to the girl leaning asleep on Conall's shoulder. "Is Shyla well?"

"She's fine, Father," Conall replied. "Sleeping. May we come in?"

"Absolutely, of course. Here, into the sanctuary with you...let's find her a place to rest."

"Please," he agreed. "I...have questions for you, priest."

They lay Shyla down on one of the pews closest to the altar, and Conall scanned the room for a place to speak where he could both keep an eye on his daughter, and avoid her overhearing their conversation.

Frederick maybe sensed his concern. "Shall we speak in the confessional, my friend?"

"Yes, please."

Perhaps, in fact, he had some things to confess.

Making confession was another thing Conall hadn't done since returning from the war. When he'd been young, his mam shepherded him and his brother to church regularly, and back then he'd made confession as she bade him. Nothing to confess then, though, but the sins of a young child, things which now he laughed at. Silly pranks and unkind thoughts toward others. Today, he had so much more weighing on his soul. For the first time in years, he dearly wanted to confide them to Frederick, who, after all, proved to be his one friend.

The morning cold permeated the old confessional, bitterer here within the naked wooden closet. It smelled pleasant enough: comfortable oak, its surfaces worn over years and faintly perfumed with the sweet hint of smoke from the candles in the sanctuary. Con took a seat on the old bench, letting out a low exhalation as his head fell back against the wall.

"What would you like to tell me, Con?" came Frederick's voice in the dim space.

Conall gave silent thanks the father hadn't begun this conversation in the orthodox manner. It would have been too impersonal, and Con couldn't have spoken with a nameless, faceless priest in the darkness. He didn't want an anonymous confessor. He needed good counsel from someone who knew him.

The darkness of the confessional eased him. Close and quiet. With a sigh, he brought his fingers up to massage between his eyes, wondering where to begin.

"Fred," he said. "I've been seeing... strange things lately. Impossible things. Happening at the graveyard."

He didn't mention Shyla had seen them too. If the father branded these events as the imaginings of an injured mind, a soldier cracking under the stress, Conall didn't want his daughter branded with the same assumption.

On the other side of the confessional screen, Frederick waited some moments before making his reply.

"What sorts of things?"

Conall shook his head, knowing, of course, the priest wouldn't see the gesture. "It's so hard to explain. The fog in the night. I could swear it has a mind of its own, a...a motivation. The way it moves, the way it creeps about the house, curling and pressing at our windows. It's almost...
alive.
For several days in a row now, too, there've been creeping roots and vines growing up where there weren't any before. Growing up
overnight
and disturbing the ground. It's how I hit my head the other day...I tripped over a root which hadn't been there before. Like it...sprung up purposely to cause a fall."

The father's reply sounded doubtful as he said, "Are you...certain of this?"

"Positive. I've got the goose egg on the back of my head to prove it."

"But Con...plants don't simply appear overnight. They certainly don't have
intelligence.
"

"Maybe...maybe the ground is shifting?" he asked, desperate for his friend to help him find reasonable explanation. "The roots, maybe breaking up from the soil?"

Even if Frederick had agreed, Conall already rejected the idea. Last night, the vines which toppled Maya...they had been too deliberate in their formation. As if the graveyard itself had
wanted
her to fall.

Frederick offered no answer, however. He simply said, "What else, Con?"

Conall paused a long moment before going on.

"I...I see...a woman, Father."

His friend made a curious sound. "You mean you've started courting someone?"

"No," he answered. "I mean I see her in the graveyard. A strange, silent woman...like a dancer in the fog. She comes to me at night. Sometimes I think she is trying to tell me something...but she never speaks. She denies my attempts to try and communicate. She...sometimes she runs from me, and sometimes..."

He didn't want to tell this part to Father Frederick. Not out of shame, nor fear he would be marked insane for it. No...he didn't want to
share
the doll. He didn't want to reveal her to any other, anyone who might try to take her away from him.

But she frightens you, Con. This morning—those hands grasping at her—you ran. You didn't try and help her...you left her to them.

After a long silence, Frederick cleared his throat, reminding Conall the priest still waited for an explanation.

"Sometimes what, Con?"

He ran a nervous hand over his mouth.

"I don't understand why she comes to me, or what it is I'm meant to do for her," he admitted. "I can hardly decide if she's real, but...I've touched her. Her skin is like the most delicate china. Her lips—"

"Her
lips?"
Frederick interjected. "You don't mean you've imagined
carnal
knowledge of this woman? Have you dreamed she's come to seduce you?"

Seduce? Is she seducing me?

"I...sorry, Fred. I guess my mind got away with me there. She is...at least, I...the vision I have of her is very beautiful. I hate to believe her presence in my dreams might indicate...anything dangerous."

Frederick remained silent long enough, this time Conall had to prompt the conversation on.

"So what do you think? Have I lost my mind? It's...all of it is utterly impossible. I have to be imagining it, right?"

Instead of answering, Frederick asked, "Why did you bring Shyla here this morning?"

Conall considered it. Shyla remained the one factor preventing him from accepting he'd gone mad. She's seen all these things as well. She agreed the roots and the bramble, even the nameless thorny vines, appeared without cause
or
warning. He trusted she understood the graveyard as well as he did: she'd played there all her life and she cared about the graves.

She'd seen Maya toppled, as well.

She'd seen his broken doll.

"I worried for her safety," he finally replied. "Last night...we both heard sounds from the cemetery. I went to investigate, and what I found...I couldn't allow her to stay there, alone, while I came to you."

"What did you see?"

"More vines. They'd crept up around my statue—Maya—and toppled her. The sculpture's been broken, Father. It makes no sense."

"Mm-hm."

Frederick took another long moment, Conall assumed, to mull over the strangeness of his friend's claims.

"What does Shyla think of these stories?" he asked.

Something about the tone in his voice put Conall on the defensive. He quickly replied, "I haven't told her of these things."

"You say she also heard the sounds last night?"

"Probably the wind. She came to wake me, but she didn't mention anything like...like what I've told you."

"Conall, I must ask you to be completely truthful with me. Why do you believe your mind has conjured images of this...beautiful dancer? Have you been tempted? Have you...experienced lust for her?"

"Does it matter?" Conall snapped. He may have done it too quickly, though: he imagined the priest made a sound of confirmation.

"Hear me out, Con. When I served overseas, as a chaplain, I witnessed many strange things. I must trust you not to spread word of this...but have you heard of the Ahnenerbe?"

Conall frowned at Fred through the screen separating them. It obscured the man's face, naturally, and he couldn't make out any expression.

"I haven't."

"During my work in Germany, my commanding officers and government requested my aid in investigations into occultism and experimentation related to the Ahnenerbe, the Thule Society, and the Vril...all pseudo-scientific organizations with some measure of importance to the Führer. Most believe them to be no more than eccentrics or misguided historical institutions, interested in Germanic ancestry and the orchestration of the master race. However, others yet believe they became involved in deep mysticism."

Fred had never before talked about his service in the war. Now, even in a church confessional booth, he spoke under his breath, whispering to Con as though there might be listeners everywhere, waiting to snatch up this secret. The priest's voice quavered with a quiet intensity.

"What does this have to do with my visions?" Conall asked.

"Conall, I have seen the work of men who wished to unlock the secrets of immortality and eternal power. I
believe
in creatures of evil, Con. I've seen them studied and...and I may have even seen them with my very own eyes. Sometimes...I cannot be sure."

Con recalled the way the priest sometimes drifted, his thoughts wandering away from the present moment. He'd often believed Fred suffered from shell-shock, but he'd never asked.
This
made him even more sure. Conall had been willing to accept his own madness, but the things coming out of Fred's mouth right now sounded like the ramblings of serious conspiracy theory.

"Though I do believe Hitler's compatriots were not...mistaken, as it pertains to the existence of such creatures," Fred added. "Things we would call demons, or monsters. Creatures of unchecked experiment, given life in Ahnenerbe laboratories or by Thule spiritualism. Perhaps...for whatever reason...you have become the target of one of these abominations."

He considered it. It sounded like hogwash.

Then again, he'd watched the doll appear and disappear, and had seen her set upon what he could only call hands of the graves.

Either he really had gone insane...or Fred's dark forces could, in theory, exist.