Note: This is something I wrote the other day and felt it was worth putting up here. It is not my usual technical fare or writing about writing, games, programming, or film. You have been warned.

Also, see the post Story Background: Betty Doll for an explanation of how this story came about.

Jacob Edgehill stared out the windows of the study. The gnarled oak trees lining the road leading up to his mansion hung heavy with moss. They did nothing but stare back at him alone in the study, mocking him. No morning sun hung in the November sky and instead cloaked itself with a sheet of impenetrable gray clouds and dense fog.

He squinted to pierce the veil of fog, branches, and moss. Dear Lord, he thought. I’m not ready for this again. Not so soon. Not after Caroline. Massachusetts had been a distant memory until two days ago. Then it all came back.

Elizabeth. Poor Elizabeth. His nostrils flared as he cursed himself for allowing her to get out at night. The locals had warned him about going out at night as that time when “dat bad sickness will crawl inside you”, but he dismissed it as superstition.

Jacob turned away from the dismal view of the windows of the study. It looked more like Worcester out there than New Orleans. Perhaps this was a cruel reminder to him of not so long ago.

The smell of Simonson’s acrid pipe smoke had gone stale in the air. He had sent the entourage away more than an hour ago. His mind was not on the financial figures and plans but on a room one flight up in the mansion, even though he had thought that bringing them here would help occupy his mind.

He couldn’t bring himself to go back up there this morning. Each step up that winding staircase made his feet heavier than lead. The breakfast of plain toast tasted like sawdust and swam around in his gut.

She’s in good hands, he thought. There is someone far more experienced than I tending to her needs.

Caromet Shipping had survived The Great War despite heavy losses on the Atlantic by U-boats. And if they kept on course this infernal Depression would be nothing more than a small bump. It could survive another day without him overseeing matters like a doting mother.

He pushed back thoughts of the company as easily as the door to the study when he walked into the grand foyer. The lonely tapping of his well-polished shoes on the marble provided no companionship. The distant and muffled tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the dining room came through the walls. To Jacob’s ears, he perceived the rising and falling of time between the tick and the tock growing larger with each pass of the pendulum.

Upstairs a door clicked shut. Jacob drew his attention to the bannister. For a moment he expected to hear the pittering steps of bare feet running across the cold marble. The moment of hope faded fast.

Dr. Guyette walked out to the stairway, an old man with shocking white hair and matching beard. His slow gait belied a truth that Jacob did not want to hear.

“I’ve given her as much quinine as I can,” he said. The doctor’s gaze sought the floor by his shoes. He reached out and placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

Jacob’s jaw clenched up. Deep inside he felt an old wound opening. His veins turned icy as he pushed the feeling back down inside.

Not yet, he ordered himself. Not in front of this man.

“Is there anything else you can do?” Jacob asked. Guyette took in a deep breath and took his arm away.

“Not anymore. I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “She’s been asking for you.”

Jacob nodded in mechanical reflex and stared at the stairs again. With every ounce of energy left, he put one foot in front of the other in a careful, almost rehearsed motion.

—

A myriad of dolls sat in their custom-built nooks encircling the room. Their glass eyes looked out onto the elaborate poster bed in the center decorated in frilly linens and draped with a whisper’s breath of sheer fabric. Every place he traveled, he had bought one. Some from Germany, others from Spain, England, South Africa.

The door creaked open. Jacob stepped in practically on the balls of his feet. In the middle of the oversized bed, a small body shook and sweat with fever beneath the sheets.

Jacob made his way to the foot of the bed and saw Elizabeth asleep. Her tiny frame shook with chills, her forehead and nightgown covered in perspiration. She had kicked off the blankets, probably in some fever dream. He walked around to the side of the bed and pulled the blankets back over his daughter.

Dr. Guyette’s sparse words in the foyer repeated themselves over and over in his head like a stuck Victrola. Jacob’s jaw unclenched. The wound inside opened up just a little more.

He reached over to the nightstand and picked up an ornate ceramic box sitting next to the lamp. He opened it, gave it a good winding, and paused before letting go of the knob underneath. All at once the room was filled with music that floated across it like a breeze.

Jacob set the box back on the nightstand and went for the door. An unsteady hand grabbed the knob and turned it.

“Daddy?” a weak, almost nonexistent voice called out over the sound of the music box.

Jacob froze at the door. He opened and closed his fist again and again before turning back around. A wan smile overtook his face.

“You’re awake,” he said.

Elizabeth’s eyes were slits in her head. As Jacob walked back into the room they opened and followed him around to the side of the bed.

“Don’t worry Daddy, I’m gonna be okay. The doctor said so,” she said. A smile crept up her face. All at once Jacob forgot the fear and gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach.

He reached out and took hold of one of her hands.

“Elizabeth,” he said, “don’t forget that your Daddy loves you.”

A spasm shook her small body but she kept her stare on him. “Don’t call me that, please.”

A nervous laugh erupted from Jacob. “Okay,” he said. “Betty.”

Elizabeth sighed and adjusted her head into the pillow. “That’s better.”

Her eyelids fluttered for a second. Jacob tightened his grip on her tiny hand.

Suddenly, Elizabeth’s eyes opened wide. She looked up to the ceiling and drew in a long, haggard breath. Jacob could feel her grip loosen.

A long moment passed. It could have been an eternity for him, like the time between the tick and tock from the grandfather clock downstairs. The air felt like it was pressing in at him on all sides.

Then all at once the air cleared as the last of Elizabeth’s breath left her.

With the same reverence he had done for Caroline, Jacob placed Elizabeth’s hand across her heart.

Jacob reached out with his other hand and placed them over his daughter’s eyes with as soft a touch as he could manage. With one fluid motion he pulled the lids closed. The corner of his mouth twitched and he felt the emptiness well up and spill out through his own eyes.

“And not on this Earth but for a moment,” he said. His voice cracked and warbled.

He took out a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit and wiped the tears away, then dabbed it across her forehead. The twitch grew in proportion to his whole mouth, out of control.

He leaned over and placed a delicate kiss on her forehead.

“Thank you,” he said, and stood back up.

Jacob glanced around the room at the dozens of hand-carved nooks and their occupants, an inanimate audience. He put his handkerchief back into his suit jacket and straightened his vest.

As Jacob walked out of the room, his hands found each and every doll and closed their eyes.