His Cemetery Doll Read Online Free Page A

Shyla wasn't there.
    Conall glanced around. Wind groaned through the eaves outside, and the shutters shook. His brow knit.
    "Shyla?"
    No answer. The dying fire in the hearth flickered. Without thinking about it, he gathered a fresh log and fed it to the embers, renewing them into a healthy flame. Then he headed up the stairs.
    Shyla slept safe in her room, a tiny pale face and a mop of messy blonde hair visible above the edge of the blankets. He puzzled it for a moment before deciding he must have dreamed her hands on his shoulders and her plaintive voice in his ear. Turning from her room, he descended the stairs.
    He stood, staring at the house's main room for a long time. The wind groaned again, sliding and sluicing around the corners and under the eaves of the roof, shaking the ancient boards. A shiver slipped down his spine.
    She's back.
    He snorted. Rubbish.
    By Maya. In the graveyard.
    "Bah," he grunted. He wouldn't be getting any more sleep until he ruled out mischief in his graveyard though, so he reached for his hunting shotgun and exited out the house's back door.
    For a second, the scene left him dumbstruck. The graveyard lay blanketed in chill, freezing fog. The night had been pleasant when he'd fallen asleep. Pleasant and clear. Now it appeared to have plunged in gloomy, creeping winter. He actually shivered, and when he stepped down from the back porch, he found the ground brittle with ice.
    "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