“Who’s cute?” Gabrielle turned to me, more than a little startled.
Oh, come on. Who else would I be talking about, Mr. Evans?
“You don’t think Matt is just a little bit attractive?” I threw the question back at her like a grenade, waiting to see if it would blow up in my face.
“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly absorbed in fiddling with a loose string on her sleeve. She smiled to herself just the tiniest bit. “Maybe, if he got a haircut or something.”
A haircut, huh?
“Hmmmmmmm…” Did that cunning and devious sound really just come out of me?
Gabrielle glanced up, narrowing her eyes. “Did you say something?”
I gave her what I hoped was a harmless, wide-eyed look. “I said, goodnight.”
I must totally suck at wide-eyed innocence, because Gabrielle’s answering smile was just a tad bit hesitant. “Uh, sure, I guess. Good night, Wren.”
As I turned to walk away, I realized I was in trouble. I tried to force my rubbery muscles to move at a normal speed—as opposed to meandering like a wounded snail—but the plan didn’t execute too well. I could not let her suspect how truly shattered with exhaustion I was. The weight of Gabrielle’s gaze was heavy upon me as I stumbled slowly away from her. Somehow, I managed to keep going until I was out the door and away from her sight.
I had done too much today, and now I was going to pay for it. Big time.
Chapter Twenty
Climbing the stairs to the second floor was like scaling Mount Everest. I staggered into my bedroom that night feeling fit to crash. Lowering myself onto the bed, I waited to catch my breath. I glanced over at the groom doll on the vanity. At least he hadn’t gotten up and taken off somewhere. I actually took comfort from that thought—which just goes to show what my life had come to the last couple of days.
So freaking glad the doll on my dresser didn’t go nipping about on a lark all by himself in the early hours of the evening. What a relief.
Talk about messed up.
Cassandra said spirits of the dead could link themselves to dolls and other graven images. Hadn’t I just seen a powerful example of that happening downstairs? The heads of all those dolls being pulled by one ghost.
Dragging myself to my feet, I shuffled over and patted Xavier’s doll lightly on the top of his head, as if trying to wake him up and get his attention. I bent down a moment, gazing thoughtfully into his small face. Was it really possible that this particular doll was linked somehow to the spirit of the handsome boy I’d danced with in my dream?
A pleasant shiver ran through my weary body as I remembered the warm, gentle touch of his ghostly fingers lingering against my skin, guiding me to a way out of the locked room.
“What do you want from me?” I asked the little groom in a hushed voice. “Why are you haunting me? Not that I’m not grateful to you for finding Davey and getting Cassandra and me out of that locked room today, but why do you even care?”
Okay, I’d completely lost it. I was talking to a doll expecting it to actually hear me—and do what—answer?
Deep down, I knew it wasn’t really the doll I wanted to communicate with. It was the devastatingly gorgeous Xavier Kensington, a boy who loved to listen to “Moonlight Sonata” on his private music box. A boy who had no problem with naming his horse Cupid. A romantic, lost soul who just might still be trapped within the walls of Aunt Victoria’s museum.
The doll continued to stare down and to the right, as if trying to avoid my gaze. With a slow sigh, I reached out and grabbed the Georgette Heyer book off the vanity and opened to the first page. I paused long enough to give the doll another uneasy glance. He seemed so small and helpless sitting there, gazing down—almost as if he were ashamed.
Or lonely.
“Want me to read aloud?” I asked, flopping limply down on the bed.
Mom used to sit and listen to me read for hours during my many hospital visits. I missed it. A lot. The sound of my own voice might even help break up the silence that seemed to haunt me these days.
I started to read The Reluctant Widow to the stupid doll. I don’t know if the ghost of Xavier Kensington enjoyed it or not, but I sure did. I really got into the spirit of the story, changing my voice to fit each character. I gave them all exaggerated British accents lending the story a comical air.
I read all about the spirited Miss Elinor Rochdale and the charming but mysterious Lord Carlyon who received news that his drunken, no-good cousin had gone and gotten himself stabbed with a knife. Lord Carlyon managed to persuade Elinor, against her better judgment, to come along with him as he visited his cousin, who was not expected to live through the night. Things only got worse when they arrived to find the dying cousin convinced that Lord Carlyon, himself, had arranged for him to be stabbed and murdered. That way Lord Carlyon could inherit the family property upon his death.
When I came to this part of the story, I stopped reading and glanced thoughtfully over at Xavier’s doll. What was it that led someone to commit murder? Especially against a member of their own family?
Hatred?
You only had to read Emily Kensington’s copybook to know how much she adored her older cousin, Xavier. How could anyone hate a nine-year-old girl?
Greed?
Xavier may not have owned the house, but he would have inherited more than enough money of his own from Margaret. According to Matt, Xavier and Rosalyn were already in the middle of building their own dream house when the murder took place.
Was it jealousy then?
I had a hard time believing that Margaret Kensington, who so obviously adored her only son, would ever have neglected him in favor of her young niece. So why would Xavier have any need to get rid of Emily out of jealousy?
Was there someone else who had a reason to want Emily Kensington out of the way? Someone other than Xavier? I placed The Reluctant Widow face down on my bed and sat up slowly as a suspicion came quietly to my mind, creeping tentatively in on stealthy little feet.
“You didn’t do it, did you?” I spoke to Xavier’s doll in hushed tones, hardly daring to breath. “You didn’t kill Emily.”
A new line of speculation came on fast and furious then, flooding me with all sorts of wild suppositions. I dragged myself to the edge of the bed, talking feverishly to myself as I did.
“Murderers don’t stop and take the time to stay in the dark with frightened six-year-olds who have managed to get themselves trapped in a secret closet,” I said, pressing a hand to my forehead. “And they don’t take time to make a hopelessly broken music box play its song to help a hysterical teenage girl calm down after she’s lost her whole family.”
My voice became velvet soft. “You’ve been looking out for me. Helping drive away the loneliness and nightmares. Those aren’t the actions of someone who would kill a nine-year-old girl in cold blood. It’s more the kind of thing a guardian angel would do.”
I stopped, suddenly embarrassed. First ghosts, now guardian angels—I really had lost it. And yet, I could almost see it. Xavier, a solitary soul, trying to help all those who entered the walls of his home. Like the woman in the leather jacket, crying over a long, lost doll.
If Xavier Kensington hadn’t done the evil deed, then who had?
Margaret?
Had her guilt over letting her son take the rap, driven her insane? I shook my head in disbelief. After seeing the miniature doll that Margaret had created of Emily, I had a hard time believing she would kill the little girl. Margaret had even gone to the trouble of making a miniature of Emily’s dog, Jinx, just to make her happy. She’d put real fur on the thing, for crying out loud.
But who else could have murdered Emily? Who would have had enough reason to hate the Kensington family?
Felicity.
I felt around this unexpected thought like a pile of broken glass with a million cutting edges.
Matt said Felicity was Xavier’s favorite up until the night he met Rosalyn Worthin. Had Felicity killed Emil
y and framed him in some twisted sort of revenge? If so, why not get rid of Rosalyn, the only real object that stood in her way.
“Why was Emily the one selected to die first?” I asked aloud in bewilderment.
A shadow fell over me from behind. While I’d been busy raving like a lunatic, someone had managed to sneak up on me, listening to every mad word I said. I sprang drunkenly up from the bed, half expecting to find Aunt Victoria standing there.
The room was empty.
I moved slowly around the bed, scanning everything. There was no shadow now, even though I was certain one had passed over me a moment ago. Somehow, I had managed to summon up the ghost of Xavier Kensington just by talking to his doll. There was no chill, no strange tingling sensation or any other sign that a ghost might be lingering about—and yet, I felt it. A warmth like welcoming sunlight. My pulse fluttered like a giddy butterfly startled into flight.
“Xavier?” I whispered to the empty air.
There was no answer. Was he ignoring me? How was I supposed to help a ghost who wouldn’t even speak up?
Restless with frustration, I wandered over to the window and jerked back the curtains. I tried to look past my own haggard reflection, but found it was impossible to ignore. I looked as sick and tired as I felt.
“I’m dying.” The words came out emotionless, like I was merely stating the time of day or commenting on the weather. “I’ll soon be a ghost myself.”
I looked at the groom doll over my shoulder. Xavier’s spirit still lingered somewhere nearby. I could feel the warmth of his presence right down into the hollow of my brittle bones.
“The doctors gave me six months to live, maybe not even that. But it still doesn’t feel real to me.”
I sighed, a whisper of sound in the listening silence of the room. “It was real to my family, though. My brother Benji used to hug me every time he left the house. Even to go out back and mow the lawn. I think he was afraid I would die suddenly, before he had a chance to say goodbye.”
In the end, it was me who hadn’t said goodbye. I folded my arms over my stomach in an attempt to slow the churning within. Why was I doing this to myself? Spilling my guts to a ghost I couldn’t even see. Was I really that desperately lonely?
Yes, I was.
As I started to turn away from the window, I glanced down at the pictures drawn in the dust. Once again, a new drawing had been added to the others. This one was a simple smiley face—two dots and a curved smile below. I shivered a moment as it made me think of the angry ice face.
But this drawing looked happy, not scary. Like Aunt Victoria and Cassandra, laughing together over the Sprite burping episode. But I was pretty certain it wasn’t Aunt Victoria who’d drawn the pictures on the window seat.
A dead person put that message there. An invisible being who was hanging out in my room at that very moment.
They were trying to send me a message and I had no idea what that message was supposed to be.
Chapter Twenty-One
I woke up the next morning to find my bed looking like a murder crime scene.
Blood was all over one of my pillows, spattered over my blankets, some had even soaked through to the sheets underneath. I could feel blood still flowing out of my right nostril, so I pinched it off quick and glanced around me for any idea as to how to staunch the flow. What was I thinking, not having a box of Kleenex in my room? Even with my fingers squeezing shut both nostrils, I could feel blood dribbling over my upper lip and dripping onto the bed. I needed something big and absorbent. Right now! My eyes fell on the one still clean, silk pillowcase covering my other pillow.
Aunt Victoria would forgive me in time—I hoped.
I slipped the pillowcase off, scrunched it up like a large handkerchief, and then stuck it under my nose. Satisfied that the blood was plugged off pretty good, I used the unsoiled end of the pillowcase to try cleaning up my face in the vanity mirror.
“I look like I’ve been on the business end of a bad boxing match, don’t I?” I spoke to Xavier’s doll without thinking. The doll didn’t answer, of course. He wasn’t even looking at me.
My right hand was covered in blood, but my left and was still clean. I reached out and turned the doll’s head to the side, and then lifted his chin just a little so that his eyes looked directly at me. With his head back and cocked to the side, he looked a little alarmed. Head thrown back, watching me with great intent, waiting for me to speak.
Did people know much about cancer during in the Victorian Era? Somehow, I doubted it.
“Don’t worry,” I said to him in a nasal, plugged-up voice. “This happens all the time when you have leukemia. The cancer makes it so your blood cells don’t form right and that keeps them from clotting the way they should. The bleeding always stops—eventually. Cancer complicates everything. Even things as simple as bloody noses, common viruses, and allergies suddenly become a life and death struggle. Is it any wonder I’m so exhausted all the time?”
Speaking out loud made me feel weirdly better, so I kept going. “One time, I had a bloody nose so bad it wouldn’t stop. Just when it would begin to slow down, suddenly it would start back up again, like a faucet. Mom freaked and got on the phone with the hospital. She was crying and blubbering the whole time, while some poor nurse on the other end acted like a 911 operator, trying to calm her down. There was all this blood coming out of me and I kept thinking my life was draining away right before my eyes. You get used to it after a while, though. Stuff like that doesn’t even phase me anymore.”
I glanced at my own reflection in the mirror. “Talk about scary,” I said with a dry laugh. I had blood smeared over my cheek and chin, bags under my hazel eyes, and a brilliant case of bed hair. I tried to smooth my hair down a little, then felt stupid. I’d never much cared what I looked like before. Who does a dying girl have to impress? It wasn’t like there was anyone around to see me.
Not anyone alive anyway.
I shifted the bloody pillowcase to my other hand as I leaned a little closer to the groom doll, looking him right in the eye. “When I talk to you, it feels like you can hear me.”
The room felt pleasantly warm as the morning sunlight beamed through the curtains into the room, illuminating everything like a church. Warmth penetrated my body, spreading its soothing heat down into my tingling shoulders. It flowed into my body, relaxing each and every muscle as it passed through. Gentle and caressing, a rush of air swirled suddenly about me buffeting my clothes and hair.
Perhaps I should have been afraid—but I wasn’t.
There was something welcoming in the wind’s touch. A swirl of emotions washed over me—happiness and delight, tenderness and longing. I closed my eyes, tilted back my head, remembering the rich scents of a summer garden in full bloom. For a moment there was comforting heat lingering about my shoulders, as if two hands lightly rested there. All my aches and pains were drawn out of me like poison from a wound. I was left feeling better than I’d felt in a very long time.
As quickly as it had come, the breeze was gone. I opened my eyes searching the room for any physical sign of my invisible visitor. There was none.
“Thank you,” I whispered into the sudden silence. “For not leaving me alone.”
I lowered the pillowcase to check the blood flow and realized to my surprise, that my nose had stopped bleeding. I glanced at the doll, still looking at me with its head cocked to the side in interest. Could ghosts stop bloody noses?
I looked at the bed and my heart sank quickly into a quagmire of uneasiness. Just what I needed to start my day off right—a big old bloody mess. If Aunt Victoria saw all that blood, she would know how sick I truly was. She might force me to go see the doctor again. Or get a transfusion. I refused to go back to the hospital until I had to. Not until the end.
With a heavy sigh, I turned back to the doll. “I’d clean up the sheets and blankets myself, except I don’t know where they keep the washing machine in this place. Do you?”
If he did, he was
n’t telling.
Without a word, I went over to the bed and started stripping it of all its bloodstained bedding. I rolled everything up tight, making sure that the bloody parts didn’t show on the outside. I stuffed the whole bundle into my laundry basket, burying both ruined pillowcases at the very bottom.
“I’ve got to find that washing machine before Aunt Victoria catches me,” I said for Xavier’s benefit. “If you see her coming, use your ghost powers to knock over a few planters and distract her.”
After cleaning myself up a little in the bathroom, I headed out to start a systematic search for the washing machine. The museum wasn’t open for business yet, so all the rooms were deserted. Beginning downstairs, I drifted slowly from room to room, only pausing at the entrance to one labeled MARGARET KENSINGTON HISTORICAL DOLL ROOM. Capital letters even. Talk about swank.
These were the dolls made by Margaret herself. Despite my anxiety about getting caught literally red-handed with a basket full of bloody sheets, I found myself drawn into the display area out of sheer curiosity.
I noticed right away that there weren’t any babies or toddlers among Margaret’s work. The youngest doll seemed to be a preteen girl decked out in a blue sailor dress with an overlarge bow tied up in her mousy brown hair. Most of Margaret Kensington’s creations were adults—men as well as women. All her neighbors and friends caught in miniature forever.
I stared at one monstrously obese gentleman dressed in an immaculate Victorian suit. He was grotesquely fat and inhuman looking, like a balding goblin from some ancient and evil place. His beady black eyes squinted down at me from a twisted, scowling face. Like I’d been caught committing some unforgivable crime and he wasn’t about to let me forget it.
That had to be the lawyer who’d prosecuted Xavier for murder. Looking at that hideous clay copy made me realize how much Margaret must have hated the man. She probably worked on that abominable doll for months, pouring all her inner rage and bitterness into the revolting thing. It was Margaret’s silent testament to the world about the true character of the man who had mercilessly hounded Xavier. The doll told me something about Margaret Kensington as well. Without a doubt, she believed her son was innocent.
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