Lifelike

by Sheila A. Nielson

  That was all Emily had written. A short entry penned before Xavier met Rosalyn, a young woman who had obviously had all those traits. So why mark that particular page? What was the significance? Distractedly, I slid the paper scrap bookmark back into place, then paused as I saw what was on the back of it.

  Asante’s hurriedly scribbled name and number winked up at me. I stared down at it for a long time.

  Did Xavier want me to call the boy from the bakery? Was he telling me to move on with my life and quit pining after the spirit of a long-dead boy whose heart had been given to another long ago?

  Making a fist, I crumpled the piece of paper in my hand, squeezing so tight, my fingers burned in protest. I finally opened my palm and let the crushed paper fall silently to the floor.

  I glanced up at the painted face of Xavier Kensington as he smiled down at me from the wall. He was everything I would never have and still my heart longed for him.

  I set down the jar of fireflies and reached out for the painting. Lifting it down from the wall, I lowered it carefully onto the floor. Even then Xavier was still taller than me. Slowly, gently, I laid my cheek against the canvas. The strong scent of old, oil paint, mingled with dust, filled my nose.

  If only I were painted with the strokes of a brush, too. Then I could enter Xavier’s world, becoming swirls of color, light, and shadow. Only then would I be able to lay my head on his shoulder for real, holding the cloth of his shirt tight between my fingers.

  I had fallen in love with a ghost.

  Impossibly. Hopelessly. Completely.

  Yet, according to Cassandra, even if I were to die, I would pass over into the light while Xavier would still be stuck here haunting the museum. Forever.

  The beat of my own heart pounded out its relentless pulse, filling my body with its aching rhythm of life. “I could stay behind and become a ghost, too,” I whispered, reaching up to run my fingers gently down Xavier’s painted cheek. “Then I could see you—hear you—touch you.”

  But I had to face facts. The beautiful and angelic Rosalyn Worthin was the kind of girl Xavier Kensington wanted. Not a worn-out, dying girl like me. I swallowed against the despair threatening to overwhelm me. Fumbling blindly, I somehow managed to place the painting back on the wall. Clutching the jar of fireflies and Emily’s copybook, I stumbled zombie-like toward the west wing. I left Asante’s crumpled phone number lying on the study floor behind me.

  A child’s voice, singing pure and sweet, catches at my heart and draws out my tangle of emotions. I glance into the trees above my head, watching the sun shine through their leaves like stained-glass the color of emeralds. Well-dressed couples in Victorian clothing saunter happily over the well-kept lawns of Kensington House, laughing and whispering their secrets to one another. The child’s singing draws me down toward a couple of large, elegant canopies set up to shade picnickers below.

  Beyond the canopies, a group gathers to listen to the lovely, little singer. I stop a small distance off, watching the child’s face as she sings. Eyes closed, she lets the song take over her body, swaying in time to the music inside her.

  Emily Kensington. Just as she was in the photograph Gabrielle showed me. I glance down at Emily’s feet expecting to find Xavier smiling blithely up at his cousin.

  His spot is empty.

  Fear clutches at me a moment, digging into my heart with prying fingers. I scan the crowd, desperate to find Xavier amid the host of party guests. My eyes finally settle on his tall, familiar form, standing beneath one of the nearby canopies. His dark curls and broad shoulders make an impressive picture. Head down, face in shadow, he seems to be listening intently to the conversation of three picnickers sitting on the ground before him. He is the only one standing—a tall, lonely figure against the lush backdrop of Kensington Estate.

  I wait for him to look up and find me. To finally meet my gaze. Instead, he continues to look down, completely absorbed in the people in front of him. Wondering what’s so fascinating about them, I examine the group in curiosity.

  It is a man, a woman, and a young boy. Unlike all the other guests, these three are dressed in modern clothes. The woman is wearing pink flip-flops.

  Recognition tears through me like a raw-edged knife. Time slows around me, streaming through the air like a tangible substance.

  Mom.

  Dad.

  Benji.

  My family looks exactly like the photograph on my bedside table, laughing and joking, together. The memory of that day is so perfect, I can almost smell the potato salad and taste Mom’s homemade southern fried chicken. The only thing missing from this perfect picture—is me.

  Xavier raises his head, his gaze lifting slowly to meet my own. There are tears in his compassionate, anguished, green eyes.

  I woke up from the dream with a gasp, like a diver coming to the surface desperate for air. I waited for my pulse to slow as I laid on my back, staring up into the pools of darkness scattered over the surface of the ceiling overhead.

  I knew why Xavier sent me the dream. If I chose to stay behind and become a ghost in order to be with him, I would never see my family again. Just like Xavier could no longer see his family. He only had memories of them, like the ones he shared with me in my sleep. But those memories were not the real thing.

  We could never be together—and Xavier wanted to be sure I knew it.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Later that same night, I dreamed again.

  I thrash with all my might against the crushing grip of the person dragging me into a dark room. The many layers of ruffles and petticoats in my starched dress hamper my efforts to break away from my captor. I am nothing but a child—too small to fight free of her. I resist even harder, my satin slippers sliding uselessly against the polished wood floor beneath me.

  My tormentor’s long nails dig into my wrist, slicing cruelly into the tender exposed flesh. The tall woman turns toward me, her pale face an unfeeling mask of hideous shadows in the badly lit room. Still gripping me with one hand, she reaches out with the other and struggles to open the lid of a large trunk sitting against the far wall.

  I can hear my little sister still shrieking somewhere downstairs. She’s afraid I’ll be hurt. Doesn’t she understand that Mother will come for her as soon as she is through dealing with me?

  “Lisbet! Hide!” I scream over my shoulder. Mother shoves me, the brutal force of all her weight slamming into me. Stunned by the blow, I crash helplessly into the cramped space inside the trunk—kept empty for just this purpose.

  I turn, blindly attempting to get to my feet. Mother draws back her hand and strikes me in the face. Not just once, but again and again, her hand, like a block of stone, hard and unyielding. The beating goes on and on, battering me all about my head. My face is a mass of scalding fury and overwhelming pain.

  Then it is over. Limp and almost passing out, I am tossed like a ragdoll onto the bottom of the trunk where I lay barely breathing.

  Mother’s icy cold voice drifts down from above my prone figure. “Never speak to me in that tone of voice again.”

  The trunk lid slams shut, and I hear her turning the key, locking me in like her finest linens. Lisbet has gone ominously silent. In the smothering stillness of the cramped darkness, I pray she’s found a safe place to secret herself. I stare unseeingly up at the dim light spilling through the cracks between the old trunk’s wooden slats. Mother will not be back for me until tomorrow morning. Of that I am certain. Something warm and thick drips from one of my nostrils, running down my chin into the cloth of my dress.

  I want to die.

  To just let go and die.

  A soft noise at the edge of my consciousness caused me to jerk upright in bed, panic forcing my body into action before my brain could realize what was happening. Another dream?

  “Is someone there?” I demanded. There was no answer from the icy darkness that shrouded the room. The freezing cold bite of the bride doll’s presence.

  My breath turned ragged a
s I leaned over the edge of my mattress groping blindly for the bedside lamp. Every dark corner seemed filled with sinister creeping shadows. I thought of all the dolls downstairs. What if the bride had brought some of her friends to play?

  Where was that switch? I had to find it! There!

  I gripped the knob so hard, the edges of it cut deep into my fingertips. The lamp clicked on, filling the room with dingy light. I hastily blinked it off and scanned the room. There were no dolls. The closet which concealed the groom was still safely shut. Nothing was out of place.

  I breathed out a shaky sigh, rubbing absently at an odd tingling spot on my right cheek. It felt like I’d been sleeping with a glass marble pressed into my skin, cutting off the blood flow. I laid down, curling up on my side in a fetal position. I’d never had a dream where I wasn’t myself like that. Where someone else’s personality completely blotted out my own.

  The face of the horrible dream woman hovered at the edge of my consciousness, hauntingly familiar. My mind buzzed with too much adrenaline and not enough sleep. Where had I seen her before? Coherent thought wandered and I found myself drifting into uneasy slumber for the third time that night…

  All the flowers are in bloom. The air is heavy with their intoxicating scents. A large, red rose sways on a summer breeze. I bend toward it and breathe in. If love has a smell it is this. I look up to see a young man coming across the lawn toward me. He is like something in a fairytale—handsome and awash with sunshine.

  Xavier!

  The very sight of him makes my pulse sing. He lifts a hand in greeting, his face lighting up with pleasure as he catches sight of me.

  Me.

  A girl who was once beaten and locked in a trunk like an unwanted toy.

  Xavier comes to me, taking my hands in his. His touch is so soft, his smiling green eyes so gentle. Safe. Like nothing I’ve ever known before. He looks down at me with love that feeds my parched and thirsting soul. Nothing in the world matters more than his love. Nothing.

  I will die before letting anything come between me and Xavier. He is mine.

  MINE!

  The painful spot on my right cheek throbbed in protest, causing sleep to lose some of its hold on me. There was a heaviness on my chest, like a small dog was perched there breathing its ragged icy breath into my face. With an unsettling soft rustle of satin, the thing on my chest moved, shifting its weight.

  With a strangled gasp, I struck out instinctively, smashing my forearm against a soft but solid form in the darkness. Pain shot through my arm as the object went hurtling into the air. I felt the bed quiver as the thing struck the edge of the mattress before sliding off onto the floor with a heavy thud.

  The bride doll!

  I forced myself to stop fighting the cocoon of tangled bedding and be still long enough to listen for something beyond the pulse pounding in my ears. There was no sound of anything moving down at the foot of the bed.

  The bedside light was off. Hadn’t I turned it on when I woke up earlier? Whoever was inside that doll, didn’t want me to be able to see them. I groped blindly for the lamp, my fingers found the switch a second time. I turned it, but nothing happened. Had she unplugged it from the wall?

  Gasping for air like a floundering fish, I fumbled under the bedside table with both hands, desperate to find the cord.

  Xavier’s doll! What if she’d already found it and ripped it to pieces? Could the bride doll see in the dark? Was she sneaking around the bed toward me at that very moment ready to pounce? My fingers found the plug, loose on the floor. Hands shaking, I felt for the electrical outlet and finally managed to shove the prongs into the socket. I searched the dimly lit room with wild, darting eyes.

  There was no sign of the bride doll.

  Untangling my legs from the quilts, I crawled to the end of the bed to get a better look. I glanced at the closet door, which I found, to my relief, was still tightly shut and undisturbed. If the bride doll hadn’t gone into the closet after the groom doll, then there was only one other place she could be.

  If there was a possessed doll hiding under my bed, I wanted to know it. Like, right now!

  Dragging myself up onto all fours, I cautiously tipped myself, headfirst, over the side. Tense and ready to pop back up at the first sign of danger, I slowly lifted the bed skirt and peeked underneath.

  There was only a vast empty space and a couple of small dust bunnies Gabrielle missed when cleaning my room. I sat up, glancing about me in confusion. Where could the bride doll have disappeared to?

  My eyes came to rest on the bedroom door which stood open about a foot. Just big enough for a doll to squeeze through in a hurry.

  Giddiness set in as the effects of panic wore off. I crawled out of bed and dragged myself wearily over to the shut the door for a second time. Unfortunately, without a lock there was nothing I could do to keep Rosalyn’s doll from coming back for another visit.

  There was no sleep for me after that. I lay in my bed, taut as barbwire, listening for the sound of the bride doll’s tiny fingers to come scratching at my unlocked door.

  She never came.

  I thought about my two latest dreams. They were very different than the one earlier in the night that Xavier had shared with me about my family. In these later dreams, my own consciousness and sense of self had been temporarily blotted out—completely forced to take on someone else’s point of view. I shuddered beneath my bedcovers as I imagined again the ice-cold touch of the doll’s hand against my cheek, feeding my slumbering mind her past memories.

  I remembered the brutal, all-consuming emotion that coursed through the dream girl’s veins as she looked at Xavier. Rosalyn wasn’t just in love with him, she was utterly and completely obsessed.

  I shivered, remembering how I’d dared to speak to the doll in the darkness of the west wing hall. Was that the reason I’d been chosen to receive whatever message Rosalyn so desperately wanted to communicate? Because I’d reached out to her instead of running away?

  I was also the one who suggested that the mother-of-the-bride-doll be moved after it kept falling down. Almost as if Rosalyn did not even want to be touched by her. I saw again in my mind, the claw-like hand of Mrs. Worthin’s doll as it lay upon her daughter’s shoulder.

  My eyes flew wide, staring blindly at my ceiling. Before my unfocused gaze, I saw again the face of the mother-of-the-bride doll. Beautiful, cold, haughty.

  It was her!

  That’s why she’d seemed so familiar to me. The vicious creature who’d beaten a child senseless and locked her in a wardrobe was none other than Mrs. Worthin.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Getting very little sleep will do terrible things to a system ravaged by leukemia. The next morning, I was a complete and utter wreck, unable to even lift my head from the pillow. I couldn’t think clearly as the weight of muddy, never-ending fatigue crushed the life from me.

  One hour passed. Then two. I waited for the slow return of my energy which had always come before. Not today.

  Eventually, Aunt Victoria checked in on me. She took one look at me lying helpless among the quilts and came to sit on the side of my bed. Silently, she placed a hand to my forehead to check for fever.

  A fever meant infection. It meant a hospital visit, a blood transfusion, and possibly days of doctors fussing over every little thing. I waited for the verdict with a heavy block of stone where my beating heart should have been.

  “You don’t have a fever,” Aunt Victoria informed me.

  “Don’t make me go to the hospital.” My voice actually broke over the words. I swallowed back the tight sensation within my throat, determined to remain strong even to the last.

  “Wren.” How incredibly gentle Aunt Victoria’s voice was. “You’ve been struggling for days now. The doctors might be able to do something to help you feel better.”

  I forced my shaky hand to lift itself from the mattress and reached out toward Aunt Victoria. She took it tightly within her own. “Please let me stay here a
little longer,” I pleaded in a voice barely above a whisper.

  I didn’t think Xavier’s spirit could leave the museum without the groom doll, which needed to stay hidden. Facing what was to come would be much easier with Xavier near.

  Aunt Victoria rubbed her free hand across her forehead in a distraction. Then she looked deep into my eyes, her gaze unfaltering. “Are you hurting at all?”

  “No,” I said. “Just really exhausted. You know how it is. There are good days and bad days.”

  Aunt Victoria took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Rest for now. We’ll keep an eye on you and see how you feel later this afternoon.” She patted my hand, clasping it firmly in her own for a moment.

  Like a beam of warm sunshine filtering through an open window, I felt Xavier’s presence slip into the room. I glanced toward the doorway without thinking.

  “What is it?” Aunt Victoria asked, following my gaze. “Did you hear something?”

  “It’s nothing. Just a ghost, I guess.” Did I really say that out loud?

  “Should I contact Darcy Flynn and her team, do you think?” Aunt Victoria said, playing along with an amused smile.

  “Are you kidding?” My laugh came out sounding drained. “They’d drive back here and be all over this room with their Geiger counters for the rest of the week. Armed, no doubt, with tubes of glow-in-the-dark lipstick.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” Aunt Victoria said. “I’d never get any work done.” Aunt Victoria glanced at the doorway and waved a dismissive hand at the empty space in between. “Be gone spirit of the nether world. I can’t afford to get more behind than I already am.”

  The sense of a pleasantly occupied presence stayed. If the ghost of Xavier Kensington was there, he didn’t plan on leaving Aunt Victoria in peace as she asked.

  “Aunt Victoria,” I said, the wheels in my head gradually turning. “Do you remember the name of the bridesmaid, Rosalyn’s younger sister?”