Page 45 of Little Doll

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 wassplayed 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?”

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