His Cemetery Doll

by Brantwijn Serrah

  "Bloody hell," he muttered. "What..."

  He fell silent as he heard something through the fog on his left. He trained the gun in the direction of the sound, waiting for an animal to leap at him. Nothing came.

  Then...the sound again. Soft, barely audible, save for the softest crunch of frost on the grass.

  A footstep?

  "H'lo?" he said into the mist. He spoke no louder than he would at the table. He sensed if there were someone hiding in those cold, roiling veils...they were not very far from him.

  Something stood mere feet in front of him. Studying him through the gray.

  "If you need shelter, I can offer it. I have food and blankets inside. Come now, I won't hurt you, long as you aren't here to make trouble."

  There came another footstep. This one, farther off. Retreating.

  "Wait, now—" he began, but it already moved down the path, sounds fading quickly. Too quickly. He knew if the person had run, the noise would be bigger, weightier. Instead he heard one step as if already down near the edge of the stones; then another, almost too far for him to hear at all.

  This is foolishness, Conall. Wind blowing through the frozen brush. It can't be...

  A person's footsteps?

  Careful as he stepped out into the blinding mist, Conall crept down the path.

  Silence closed in on him, isolating him from the safety of the familiar. He walked this path daily, but he stumbled now, distracted and uneasy. At any other time he'd know exactly where he stood, but tonight he'd been wrapped in a cocoon of blind white smoke. The world fell away, and he wandered, alone, into a silent space of night.

  He moved on anyway, trusting his memory to lead him. He held the gun at the ready, anxious.

  Finally he made out a shape in the fog. At first she appeared only tall and vague, but as he drew closer he found...Maya.

  She looked as she always did. Standing still and serene, reaching out.

  He glanced around the statue, listening.

  "Hello?"

  Nothing. He still sensed something though.

  After several long moments, many tense, shallow breaths, he noticed the fog had started to lift... a little. Slowly, the shapes of the tombstones became visible.

  And so did she.

  He gasped, falling back onto the base of the statue and grasping at the corner of the stone.

  A woman did stand there. Like Maya, she appeared to be made from pure white stone. Her skin perfectly smooth, alabaster. She wore no clothes, but gray wrappings and ribbons shrouded her body. More ribbons trailed around her, floating on the wind. In fact, they seemed to float even in the quiet ebbs between gusts.

  She had long, soft, straight blonde hair, ashen and pale. Her features appeared smooth, gentle, but strangely...stiff. Expressionless, remote. Like the statue.

  It was the eyes he focused on...because she had none.

  Well, not precisely true. She might have eyes... but swaths of those satiny gray ribbons hid them, like a blindfold or bandages across a terrible injury. Under the wrappings, on the right side of her face, spidery black marks reached down her cheeks.

  Like...cracks. Cracks in...

  A mask?

  She waited at the foot of the path, where he'd just come from. He must have slipped right past her—within a hair of touching her.

  Or perhaps he'd moved through her.

  "Who are you?" he asked in a hush.

  The woman didn't answer. She canted her head—those features still didn't move, didn't so much as tic—and stepped lightly forward.

  She moved like a dancer. Her small, delicate foot pointed with a conscientious grace as she slipped closer through the fading mist. Her hidden gaze had to be focused on him, however: as she started to circle, her face remained fixed in his direction.

  "Who are you?" he demanded again. "What are you doing in my graveyard?"

  Still no answer. As she came near, he noticed something else about her. It tugged at the back of his mind, an instinct from his time as a soldier.

  Her movements proved graceful and careful, yes, like a dancer—but also predatory. Fluid.

  Like a wolf.

  More ribbons ran around her throat, like a choker. Thin lines—seams?—marked each shoulder, each elbow, and each knee and ankle.

  Joints.

  His mind raced, putting the pieces together.

  She...was a doll. A living, porcelain doll.

  He pressed himself hard against the statue, his mind in a stuttering panic. He could feel her studying him, even through her blindfold. As she moved, she remained utterly silent, even her footsteps on this softer ground. Where she walked, more frost marked her passage: he could see the shapes of her delicate bare feet in silhouettes of crystal white trailing behind her.

  "Who are you?" he asked again in a voiceless hush.

  She completed her thoughtful circle and stood directly before him. Her frozen features mimicked the faces of the stoic figurines Shyla sometimes pondered in the windows of the toymaker's shop. To Conall, they always seemed faintly sad...and in this life-sized version, the sense of sorrow became palpable.

  Without knowing exactly what he did, Conall reached out to her. His rough hand found the cracks on her cheek, and his thumb very gently ran across them. He felt the cold, broken texture of lifeless ceramic; but at his touch, the doll tilted her head to welcome it, as if the tiny warmth in his shivering fingers gave her something she desperately needed.

  The movement appeared halted and stiff, though. The pressure of her icy skin in his hand proved so terribly...fragile. Like a baby bird in his fingertips.

  "You're...broken," he whispered. His fingers moved to try and slide the ribbons from her eyes, but this made her turn from him, and her own freezing hand came up to pull his aside. Her drifting ribbons pulled a little closer to her—Conall thought she might have...cringed.

  "Why are you here?" he whispered. She bowed her head, and it finally settled into his mind, the thing which should have been obvious. She had no way to answer.

  Despite his misgivings, Conall found himself relaxing. He stepped out from the safety of his statue and brought up his other hand, to cup her face and tilt it up toward his. He stood taller; her diminutive form merely lent to the impression of fragility and grace. Under the drifting ribbons, though, her figure evoked soft, sensuous curves. He noticed the ribbons drifting about her had begun to drift closer toward him, almost curling around him.

  Mesmerized, Conall bent down to press his warm lips against the cold, frozen shape of her porcelain mouth.

  At first, nothing happened. Her lips felt smooth, perfect under his. She didn't move...but he recognized the soft sensation of those ribbons, like gentle hands, brushing along his cheeks, his bare arms, even the back of his neck.

  Then, she jerked away. He reached for her, but she disappeared into the fog.

  Conall blinked. His gaze darted back and forth. The woman—the doll?—had utterly vanished. Maya's circle stood silent and lonely. He trembled from the cold, creeping under his shirt and across his skin. The fog had begun to roll in once more.

  He scratched his head, trying to ignore the uneasy, poisonous sense of heat slipping down his spine.

  What just happened?

  As the cloudy gray mist overtook him, shrouding the whole world in its cocoon, he picked up his gun and did the one thing he could: he started up the path back to the house.

  Something in the darkness seized him by the ankle; pain shot up through his shin. Conall stumbled wildly, the shotgun flying from his hands as his head struck stone, and a hundred cold, grasping hands dragged him down into the black.

  Chapter Seven

  He woke up to Shyla's voice, ringing out from above him, near the house. She called out for him—it sounded like she might have been calling for a while. She must be on the path, heading toward him.

  Conall pushed himself up from the ground with an ugly grunt. His head throbbed, feeling like it might split him right between the eyes. He bro
ught his hand up to a stinging spot on his temple and found a crust of dried blood.

  Bloody hell...

  The morning had already taken on a piercing heat, which didn't make him feel any better. He must have been passed out for hours, but exhaustion still threatened to drag him back down. He sat back on his knees, closing his eyes and turning his face up to the early sun. His head lolled back on his neck and for a moment he expected he might pass out again.

  "Dad?"

  He almost called back to her but caught himself before he did. How would she react to the blood on his face? He quickly dabbed the corner of his shirt in the dewy grass at the border of the ring of stones and scrubbed at his head to clean the dry film away.

  What did he trip on? He searched around, settling on the culprit: a thick, gnarled tree root broken up from the soil.

  But...there wasn't any tree root there yesterday...

  Shyla could have been wrong about the bramble. Neither one of them, though, would have missed such a huge obstruction this close to the graves.

  He groaned. What is going on?

  "Dad!"

  Shyla jogged up beside him. "What are you doing out here? I've been calling you!"

  "Sorry, honey," he muttered. "I...got caught up with this tree root."

  He reached out to run his hand along the thing. It might have been big enough to catch against his leg and send him sprawling, but the wood looked...blackened, covered with thorns. Like the weed by the twins' graves, but much, much bigger. He frowned.

  Shyla stared at him, confused.

  "You know how I can get," he muttered. "Forget all about the rest of the work when something this strange gets my attention."

  "All right," she replied "But don't you want some breakfast? I'll make it now, if you like."

  "Sounds perfect, dear heart."

  "You shouldn't let yourself be distracted like that," she scolded. "I've been calling you. Didn't you hear me at all?"

  Yes...he had, but not as quickly as he should have. She knelt down and tugged at his arm to pull him to his feet. She didn't have the strength or size to really move him, of course, but Conall stood and together they turned toward the house.

  There came another question. As Conall glanced around himself he realized he'd become lost in the fog. He believed he'd been on his way back to the trail leading to his back porch. Instead, he'd somehow started off toward the oldest—and most dilapidated—section of the grounds, where nothing but the iron fences separated the tombs from the spreading woods beyond.

  He could have become lost in those trees in the night and wandered aimlessly for hours without finding the path back home.

  Or...until he fell, unsuspecting, into the icy river.

  Had that been the doll's intention?

  Conall scrubbed at his face, struggling to clear his mind of the haze.

  "No," he murmured. "Of course not, Conall. Now you're being an idiot."

  Shyla turned toward him. "What, Dad?"

  "Nothing, lass. I...stumbled a little earlier and struck my head. I'm a bit dizzy."

  The woman—the doll—had to be some fevered imagining, a hallucination from cracking his skull on the tombstone. He must have been more lost in the fog than he expected and tripped over the root as he remembered. The rest of it, the strange figure, her ribbons, and her cold, porcelain lips...all of it must have been a dream.

  Shyla's talk of hauntings had stirred up shadows in his mind. His mental state yesterday certainly hadn't been very serene, so in his stress, he had conjured up a mysterious secret beauty. One who circled him in idle, attentive fascination, and caressed him with soft touches of delicate satin. One whose flesh under his fingers proved utterly smooth and perfect, save for the broken cracks along her cheeks, and under the blindfold covering up her eyes.

  Why cover her eyes? She moves as if she can see very well...in fact, it's almost like she's studying me.

  Stop, he commanded himself, rubbing at his own eyes.

  Shyla led him into the house, and he sat down to the table. His head still pounded, so she closed the shutters to dim the room. Plopping a bowl down in front of him and a few fresh vegetables from their little garden, she instructed him, "Cut those up." Then, businesslike, she hustled for some eggs and cracked them on the bowl's rim, beginning to stir up the yolks.

  Conall did as she asked without conversation. Usually, she'd direct while they arranged their meals together, unless his work had him too occupied to help. On such days, she proudly did the cooking on her own, but she always said she missed talking to him over the preparations. Today, he couldn't muster up much to say. Heavy sleep still tugged at him, and more than once his daughter had to halt him from whatever he did and point out a step he'd missed.

  "Are you all right?" she finally asked him.

  "'M'fine, Shyla. Just rattled from the hit on the head. Maybe I..."

  His words drifted off. He paused, then continued chopping the greens she'd set him to.

  "You should rest then," she said in a hushed voice. "You could've really hurt yourself. Can't you leave the graveyard without tending for one day?"

  Her tone carried a hint of caution because she knew his feelings on shirking work. This time, though, she'd made an excellent suggestion.

  "And where will you be while I stay home?" he asked, handing her the greens.

  "I'll play here," she said pleasantly. "I can take a book out into the graveyard, maybe, and—"

  "No!" he interrupted her. She met his eyes with a start—he'd practically shouted.

  Conall put his head in his palm and rubbed vigorously at his brow. "Sorry, lass...but...not in the graveyard. Can't you go play with Ora in town?"

  "I suppose," she said, slowly going back to work. "But what's wrong with playing here?"

  "You can't spend all your days traipsing about a cemetery, Shyla," he replied. "It isn't...proper."

  "You never minded before."

  "Yes, well. I mind now."

  He stood from the table with a groan. "I'm sorry...I've changed my mind about breakfast. I think I ought to go straight to bed. Please promise me you'll go play with Ora somewhere else today?"

  "Yes, Dad."

  Her face fell, her eyes roaming over the unfinished breakfast. Conall closed his eyes and swore to himself: he'd really done a bang-up job at fathering lately.

  He crossed to her and knelt to take her into a hug.

  "I'm sorry, Shyla. I've been much too crabby these last few days. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be feeling much better."

  "Will you let me help you cut away the bramble?" she asked. "And the tree root?"

  And whatever else springs up in the night?

  He grimaced, but he said "If you really want to, then yes. Tomorrow. Keep out of there today, though. I especially don't want you running around in there without me if we're both stumbling on new weeds and overgrowths in every corner. A fall like the one I took this morning could bust open your head."

  "Yes, Dad."

  "Good girl." He ruffled her hair. "Now, you finish up breakfast for yourself and make sure to clean up before you go into town. And you help Mrs. Trask around the house if she asks you, hear?"

  Shyla nodded and turned back to her preparation.

  "Good girl," Conall said, giving her one more reassuring pat before heading upstairs to sleep.

  ***

  He hadn't slept long before he heard sounds from down in the kitchen below.

  "Shyla!" he called gruffly. "Weren't you heading into town?"

  No answer came from below, but the sounds of pots clanging told him she toyed about down there. Perhaps she'd decided not to leave him after all and taken it into her head to now re-organize the house, since he'd so clearly wanted her to stay out of the cemetery. With a low groan, Conall rolled out of bed and stepped out into the hall.

  "Shyla!" he called again, coming to the head of the stairs. If she had stayed home, she could at least do it without making a lot of noise.

  "Shyla, I—"
>
  He staggered then, as the hallway dimmed. Afternoon light flickered strangely, lightning cracking a dismal sky outside, and in the space of time afterward everything else darkened. Conall darted a glance around him as the house fell into shadow.

  From the top of the stairwell, he saw the first whispering tendrils of white fog.

  The heat of adrenaline shot through his limbs. Conall stumbled back into his bedroom, even as the fog pursued. His gaze shot to the window as the last gray light of day faded away and eerie darkness replaced it, like an eclipse sliding over the sun.

  More cold mists veiled the glass, dancing and floating. Trembling overtook him as he spun to find another escape.

  He froze, finding himself face-to-face with the broken mask of the cemetery doll.

  "You—" he gasped. His breath came out white as the fog enveloped them both, leaving a space of mere inches between them, so he could still see her expressionless face. Gray ribbons wound and curled through the air around him.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  The doll stared up at him. He sensed her searching, looking into his eyes even though hers remained covered. She held him there with her unseen gaze, until her cool, cold hand came up to touch his bare chest.

  Conall let out a low breath. He closed his eyes, and a shudder of strange ease rippled through his body. The cool pads of her fingers ran down his sternum, to his navel. The silky ribbons brushed along his side.

  Then he noticed her other hand. She lifted it up, to her own chest, and she held something tightly in her fingers: Shyla's stuffed dog.

  "I made that...for my daughter," he whispered. The woman with the broken mask tilted her head down toward the small toy, studying it. For a fraction of a second, her fingers appeared to tighten around it. She returned her gaze to him, then, and the toy fell from her grip into the fog, forgotten.

  "Wait—" he said, but she brought her other hand up to his chest to join the first, and he recognized eagerness in the way she pressed her icy skin against his. Her face tilted to him, and then came her lips again, ivory and flawless.

  "I—" Conall breathed. "I...don't understand..."

  Her fingers slid up, around his neck, but he pulled away.