Possess

“We’re on a bit of a schedule. So if you don’t mind?” He draped an arm around each of them and aimed them back toward the school.
    Peter stumbled, resisting the strong arm of Monsignor. He kept trying to wiggle free, like he was going to run back and sweep Bridget away before anyone could stop him. But Matt allowed himself to be led away, glancing back at Bridget as Monsignor shepherded him across the courtyard. There was a piece of Bridget that wanted to run after
him, to tell him everything that had been happening with
her, in case he was somehow able to shield her from the darkness that had overshadowed her life. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t let her guard down, show her weakness. She was tough, and she wasn’t about to let Matt Quinn take care
of her.
    Monsignor ushered the boys into the school building, then strode purposefully back to the car. “Well, Bridget? What will it be?”
    Oh, that . With a sigh, Bridget opened the door and ducked into the car. She knew Monsignor was right; she had to do this.
    “Excellent.” Monsignor dashed to the driver’s side with unexpected spryness.
    Father Santos stuck his chubby face through the car door before Bridget could pull it closed. “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah, why not?” For some reason, his concern annoyed her.
    He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Never mind.”
    Bridget used her boot to push open the back door of the Crown Vic. She always got vaguely carsick riding in the backseat and that afternoon was no exception. It wasn’t the twisting and turning so much as the painful stop-and-go motion, the Monsignor’s braking technique pitching the heavy old lady car forward at every stop sign, traffic light, and crosswalk from St. Michael’s Prep to the Marina.
    Thankfully it was a silent ride, so Bridget could focus all of her attention on not blowing chunks in the backseat of Monsignor Renault’s car. Not that anyone would have noticed. Monsignor and Father Santos were too preoccupied with ignoring each other to pay any attention to their captive.
    Captive. Okay, maybe she was being a little dramatic. After all, it had been her choice. But then why did she feel like she was there against her will?
    “Um, are you sure you’re okay, Bridget?” Father Santos said from the sidewalk.
    “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
    “Because you’ve been sitting in the car for five minutes.”
    “Oh. Right.” She scooted across the seat and slid out onto the street.
    For the first time Bridget noticed where they were: a store on a side street off the busy Marina shopping district. It was one of the newer buildings, constructed after the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed huge parts of the neighborhood. There were three stories of apartments stacked above the main floor, all with the traditional paneled bay windows that marked even the new additions to San Francisco architecture, and there was some sort of shop below, its façade of floor-to-ceiling windows painted with garish bubble-gum pink Victorian lettering.
    Bridget had banished the demons in the twins’ bedroom. She’d liberated old Mrs. Long. But she’d never faced—
    “Mrs. Pickleman’s Tiny Princess Doll Shoppe?” she said. “Please tell me we’re going to an apartment upstairs.”
    Monsignor Renault gripped her shoulder as if he thought she might make a break for it. “No, this is it.”
    “A doll shop?”
    Oh, shit.
    Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.
    There was nothing creepier in the whole wide world than dolls. Even as a kid Bridget couldn’t handle the porcelain-faced little freaks her grandma sent her. She’d stuff them into the bottom of her toy chest, where the moonlight couldn’t reflect off their beady glass eyes while she slept—eyes that seemed to follow her around the room, just waiting for her to turn her back before the dolls leaped off the shelf to throttle her with their wee cold hands.
    Monsignor gave Bridget a nudge, and she stumbled forward. Why couldn’t she have said no and meant it?
    He pushed open the glass door, tripping an old-fashioned bell that hung overhead. Its high-pitched tinkling was like a death knell.
    Bridget froze just inside the doorway. Facing her was a display case populated by old, withered dolls. They were bald, sort of, hair painted on their freaky little wooden skulls. They wore varieties of period clothes—some kind of Old West-y, some more turn of the century—all with a similar look on their faces: painted eyes staring straight