Little Doll (Blackmoth House #1)

Chapter 21

Nova

One terrible night, I woke to lightning crashing and the mournful cries of my father.

I don’t even know how his voice reached me in my stony tomb of a bed. Another quirk of Blackmoth House. The foreign sound of him weeping snapped me from sleep in such a confused panic that I flew from my bed and out my bedroom door and let the magic take me to his side, without even stopping to determine if it was dark and safe.

He was on his knees next to a bed, with his face down in the soft covers, crying.

In the bed was Grandmother Cleo. Tiny and frail, with her eyes glassy and staring at the ceiling, and her mouth gaping open like a black chasm to unknown darkness. Her thin hair was splayed out on the pillow around her withered face, making her look like a terrifying ghost.

Costel gripped her hand as he cried. Mother stood behind him, stroking his back but staring blankly off into space as though her mind was elsewhere.

I saw that night sprawled outside Cleo’s tall windows and crept across the floor to my parents.

“What happened?” I whispered.

Arcane gasped and her spine went rigid. She gave me a scathing look, although I had not meant to frighten her. Father hauled himself to his feet and pulled me into his arms. He pressed my face to his chest and stroked my hair. “She’s gone, Nova. She’s dead,” he moaned.

Behind his back, I saw Mother roll her eyes and give a little groan, which surprised me. My grandmother had always shown Mother love and kindness. It would be reasonable to assume that she would be greatly disturbed and certainly not... Annoyed.

“Costel, darling,” Mother said, pulling my arm to move me away from him. “try to be calm, my love. That’s hardly a way to break the news to a girl that her grandmother has passed away.”

This time, it was her turn to tuck me into her arms. But the embrace she offered carried no warmth, no emotion.

It felt like a show.

“I’m so sorry, darling,” Mother said against my ear. “She was an old woman who lived a long, wonderful life, and it was simply her time.”

“Her heart gave out!” Father moaned, once again sinking to his knees and gripping Cleo’s tiny hand.

Tears welled in my eyes. Mother was right. Cleo had led a lovely life. She had filled our worlds with memories and stories we would tell for decades.

Actually, for centuries, in mine and Astrid’s case.

I’d known she was winding down of late. Before all our eyes, she’d become slower, quieter, more forgetful. She became confused, and she slept a lot. She groaned more, as though even the slightest movement hurt her. Although I didn’t want her to suffer, her absence caused me undeniable suffering.

Circling Cleo’s bed, I climbed into it with her. I curled up next to my grandmother, just as I had when I was a little girl, being read a bedtime story as I fell to sleep at night. I curled myself into a tiny ball and wept.

My parents quietly shuffled out and left me to mourn my tremendous loss, and soon I cried myself back to dreams.

“Nova?”

I was vaguely aware of a hand shaking me, but my mind was not yet quite roused enough to drag my eyes open.

“Nova? Little Doll?”

Finally, I did open my eyes and found myself in bed with Cleo’s corpse and my brother Fane standing by my side.

It all came rushing back and tears sprang back to my eyes.

“Oh, Little Doll, please don’t cry!” he demanded. His dark eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot too and noticing that made me want to cry even more.

I climbed out of the bed and allowed Fane to crush me against him in a tight hug. “Listen, I woke you to tell you I’ve been able to make arrangements for her burial so that you can be there. It will be this afternoon, in the family mausoleum.”

“We have a mausoleum?”

“Yes, it’s here on the grounds in the family graveyard.”

“We have a family graveyard?”

Fane groaned. “Little Doll, listen. It’s still dark now. You can dress for the funeral, and I will take you to the mausoleum and you can just stay there until it is time for the funeral. When others arrive, it will seem like you got there first. Then, after the service is through, you stay behind in the mausoleum until it’s dark and I come to fetch you so you can come home.”

I nodded, numb of feeling and void of care. He sighed and scooped me up in his arms, and I melted against him. In seconds, we were in my candlelit room with its blackened windows. He placed me on my bed and crossed to my armoire, where he selected a black funeral dress for me. I practically became a little doll for real as my brother undressed me of my nightgown and then struggled to shimmy me into my petticoats, corset and my elegantly bleak gown.

Then he led me out of Blackmoth House. Hand in hand, I followed Fane through the gardens and across the foggy grounds until we came to a small graveyard. A black iron fence surrounded it and we passed into it beneath a tall ornate gate. It housed a number of small, plain head stones and overgrown grass and wildflowers. In the middle of the dreary place was a large stone mausoleum that looked dark and ancient.

“I never knew this was here,” I whispered, hesitant to walk very far past the gate.

He tugged on my hand and coaxed me on. “Perhaps the magic hid it from you? ”

“Why?”

“Maybe to preserve your joy, Little Doll,” he considered.

“Fat lot of good that did,” I muttered.

He led me into the stone building. Inside, candles burned and emanated the smell of roses. But it wasn’t enough to cover the smell of moldering mildew and hoary dead blood. The walls were lined with rectangular iron doors behind which I could smell the remains of my dead ancestors. Fane led me through the room, past a life size stone statue of a weeping angel, and to a door in the back. We passed into a second room full of tombs in the wall, statues and an iron bench. “Close the door and wait in here for me. Once everyone has gathered for Cleo, I will come and get you out so that no hint of the sun reaches you by the mausoleum’s door opening. OK, Little Doll?”

I nodded glumly. “OK, Fane. Thank you.”

He used one knuckle beneath my chin to lift my face and place a sweet kiss on my forehead. “Please don’t cry, Little Doll. I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

“I understand. I want to be here for Cleo. It’s OK. Thank you for doing this for me. Fane? Have you spoken to Ren?”

Fane looked startled. “Ren? No. Why would I? Isn’t she your dear friend? ”

I gave him a small, sad smile. “Do you think that I don’t know, Fane? Do you really think that you could fuck her six feet away from me and I wouldn’t know?”

For the first time ever, I witnessed my brother blush. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

I giggled, a strange sound in this macabre place. “Fane, it’s alright. I love Ren myself, so naturally I don’t mind that you love her, too.”

Fane smiled and beamed down at me as though I were his pride and joy. “Why, Nova. That is very kind of you. And very big of you. Thank you for accepting us. But no, Little Doll. I haven’t told her about Cleo. I don’t have a way to reach her. I must rely upon her coming for her visits to see her.”

“Yes, it’s the same for me. Well, anyway, you’re welcome. I’m happy for you. There is no need to keep secrets from me. Hopefully, you realize that now! But, what other secrets could there possibly be after all I’ve learned lately,” I remarked with a shrug.

He gave me another hug and promised once again to come back for me. When he turned to look at me once more before taking his leave, something dark and sad in his bottomless eyes told me that, in fact, there were more secrets yet to be told.

Fane made good on his promise and came to lead me out of the lonely back room into the main part of the Westminster Mausoleum. A casket had been brought in with Cleo inside. She wore a beautiful black gown, and her hair was returned to its normal impeccably coiffed state. Her eyes and mouth were now closed, and she looked to be sleeping peacefully. Candles and huge bouquets of black roses formed a half-moon behind her coffin.

Chairs had been assembled and a few family members and servants were gathered, comforting one another. Some were crying. Each seat was labeled with a name. Fane and I were assigned seats together, on the back most row of seats.

Mother and Father sat in the front with Draven between them.

Father’s back was rigid, and he stared unblinking at the side of Cleo’s coffin. Draven’s head dropped, and he openly wept while Mother wrapped her arms around him and tried to soothe him with loving words and soft shhhhs.

A priest stood behind the coffin and the opulent display of flowers and gave a baleful eulogy for Cleo. Toward the end of the dismal service, Fane took my hand, and we ventured into the back room that would protect me from any sunlight, though I sensed it must be dusk by then.

He took a seat with me on a stone bench. Soon, we could hear the funeral goers shuffling out of the mausoleum. Draven stumbled into the room where we were, tumbling dramatically to his knees before me and lowering his face to my lap. I stroked his silky hair. “There there, darling sweet brother. Don’t cry,” I whispered. I gave a side-long glance to Fane, who rolled his eyes dramatically.

I had to stifle a giggle.

I ached for my poor gentle souled brother, suffering so. But I’d just watched him soak up every bit of our mother’s love and attention while Fane and I were coldly ignored. At one time, I would’ve been there with them, also being graced with her affection. I had begun to understand why Fane had grown so jaded and bitter after a lifetime of this treatment.

But I tried to remind myself that it wasn’t Draven’s fault, and that he deserved the love and attention.

We gently shooed Draven away and remained together in the somber quiet until all that was left behind was the gravedigger. His job was simpler that night, as he had not to dig a grave, but only to use a squeaky sort of contraction to lift and maneuver Cleo’s casket into one opening inside the stone walls where she would slumber for the rest of eternity.

We sat there still longer after he had gone, and the tomb had sat oppressively quiet and warm for ages. Fane ventured out to make sure night had fallen.

And then he led me home.