The Nameless Doll of Yoann Halopeau

The Nameless Doll of Yoann Halopeau

Draft_2

By: Chase L. Currie

 

“Bonjour monsieur.”

“Bonjour Madame.”

The young women stood in front of Yoann A. Halopeau with a long face smiling up at him. She seemed a bit too young standing in his shop, but there was age in her green eyes. The makeup around her face reminded him of a doll like all the dolls hanging around them. She had bright red circles on her cheeks, and he couldn’t tell if her skin was polish white by nature or makeup. He guesses it didn’t matter, she made it look great.

                She was a living and breath doll like all the dolls he made for the world and yet, the truth being, he didn’t make dolls for the world. He made them for sweet Aurora. He always made them for her.

 He was Paris greatest doll maker, and some said in the world, but Yoann rarely cared about what other thought of him. He was unsure what a girl standing a few heads shorter then him and with black hair the thickness of a Lion mane expects for the bright white headlights falling down her face.

She was almost standing on her tip of toes staring up at him with her hands in front of her. She was wearing pants and shirt with some kind of bomber jacket, but all of them were in the colors of the jester puppet Yoann had hanging over the door.

The marionette sat there with black, white, and purple just as the young lady standing in front of him. Expect the marionette head was a skull while she was a bright lovely woman grinning at him.

“Que puis-je faire pours vous, madame?” Yoann asked still in a bit of a stunning shock over the lady.

She blinked a couple times with her large eyes, almost too large like those of the children’s dolls staring out the shop window. She looked around before turning back to Yoann and took a deep breath before trying to say, “J'ai une, uh - livrerison, uh? Ici, right?”

Yoann laughed a little shaking his head and asked, “You’re not French are you, Madame?”

“No, sir,” she said giggling to herself, “I’m from American.”

“Oh, petite poupée, I could tell,” he said speaking prefect English. “I service with some of you Yanks in the Great War.” He took a step back from the counter looking below to find the box while at the same time letting his dark brown eyes stop on his metal foot. The gold and blue of his faked leg was in need of cleaning, but lately, he could care less about cleaning it.

He left his foot somewhere in those demonic trenches fighting for his life against the Huns. He lost a lot during the war. His friends died out there. His brother was lost there in the war and never came home, but Yoann lost more after the war.

It changed his life forever.

He found the box which had been delivered to his shop three days ago. He picked it up and put it on the counter only to find the young lady across the way studying a doll in the only glass case. She was in awe of it, almost cooping at it.

“Madame,” Yoann said making her look back. 

“It’s model after a Versailles marionette,” she said.

“Yes, it is,” he said a bit shock placing a hand on top of the box. He had a warrior Mehndi forever tattooed on his hand. It was from the unit he was a part of during the war. “Most people don’t know that, and it is odd for an American as well.”

“I’m a big fan of dolls,” she said not turning away from the glass case. “Tell me, who was it made for?” She stood up strolling back over to the counter. “I was under the belief the Bonne âme dolls were only every made for one person in mind.”

“They are,” Yoann said smiling back at her. “It’s said that when the person dies all their sin is trapped in the doll so they can make it to Heaven.”

“So, who was the doll made for?”

“My sweet daughter,” he said weakly smiling at her and pushing the box towards the counter, “Aurora.”

“What a lovely name,” she said. “I like it a lot.”

“What’s is your name, Madame?” He asked.

“Why did you need to know?” She seemed to protest and then he tapped the box.

“Oh, right,” she chuckled, “Priscilla York, sir.”

“That’s the name I got,” he said nodding pushing the box all the way to edge as Priscilla dug in her jacket for a bill and placed it on the counter. He almost gasped at how much was before him. It was enough for a whole month of work, and he started to shake his head.

“Madame,” he started to say.

“You have to take it,” she said, “pa always say you pay for good work and sir, you do great work.”

“Would you like to check it out?” he asked almost beaming. “It took me a while to get it done.”

“I trust you, sir,” she said taking the box. “I know your work. I’ve seen it before.”

“Very well,” Yoann said taking the money and nodding at her. She spun on her heels heading for the door stopping to look at the doll in the glass case once more. She looked back over her shoulder.

“What did your daughter’s name it?” She asked.

Yoann stopped counting the money staring at her. He didn’t look right at the doll but took a deep breath.

“She never named it.”

“That’s a shame,” Priscilla said opening the door with the dull bell above it, “it’s bad luck not to name a doll.”

“I know.” He didn’t count any more of the money, threw it into the cash box under the counter and went right into the back room where his shop was throwing himself into his work. He had a few new dolls he wanted to make and only work calm his mind, but his knee was aching from wearing the false leg. He had to keep rubbing it trying to work out the agony.

He wanted to work.

He needed to work but it was all failing him. He shook his head getting up from his table, locking up the shop, and heading down to the bar to kill his mind in another way. He picked up a newspaper to see this man in Germany named Hitler was yelling about a lot of things in his homeland and blaming everyone else for it, most of all the outcast and Jews. He read a little bit more before getting to the bar and tossing the newspapers away. 

Yoann stopped in the window of the little bakery on the corner of his street staring at the tiny table. The table he and his wife would sat at on Sundays after they went to church. They went there enough for it to become their table. He glanced up from it to see the owner of the store wave at him. Yoann waved back before he moved on down the sidewalk.

                He had never been back in the barker since the death of his wife. He walked along the sidewalk letting his head fall even more before stopping at the end of it. He took a deep breath smelling something burning and looked skyward to see a thick smoke which was high into the fading blue. The smoke was reaching back down into the city he deeply loved. It was the whole reason he went off to fight in the war.

                To save Paris and nothing more, even as his beloved wife begged him to escape to American where some of her family was living, but Yoann had to stay in this city. The roots of his soul were here.

                It cost him everything. He thought about leaving after her death, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

                He crossed the street worrying what was causing the fire. He would read about in the morning as he painfully walked down the stairs to the tiny bar under the house. He ran the bell to the door with the eyehole sliding open with a pair of blue eyes and then the door was unlocked.

                “Bonjour monsieur, Halopeau,” the man said welcoming Yoann. “It’s good to see you again.”

                “Yeah, I guess so,” Yoann said sitting down at the bar with a German Jew named Maxi Abend. He made the best beer in the whole of the city but only those of his closest friends knew about the beer. Abend service in the war with Yoann which wasn’t easy done because his bloodline, but he had escaped Germany because of his faith. He was a good soldier. He killed a lot of the enemies and even was the reason Yoann was sitting at the bar now.

                They spend a week in no man’s land trying to get back to the line, but the fighting was hard and the path to the other side was Hell. When they both dropped back into the trench everyone was shocked about them still being alive.

                “Doll,” one of his friends said. It was a nickname Yoann got among his units due to him making the toys. “We thought you were dead. We had told them you were dead.”

                It was a mistake which Yoann could never come back from.

                “It’s been a while,” Maxi said pouring his old friend a tall glass of beer,” Doll.”

                “Too long,” he said.

                “Your wife wouldn’t be happy you’re here,” he said, and Yoann lifted the glass grinning weakly at his old friend.

                “I’ll hear about when I get to Heaven,” he said.

                “You mean I’ll get an ear full.”

                “Jews don’t go to Heaven.”

                Maxi laughed while walking away. “It’s good to see you, old friend.”

                Yoann sat there drinking alone at the end of the bar. He drank beer after beer waiting for his leg to stop hurting but the more, he drank the more the leg hurt. He didn’t stop drinking. All he wanted to do was get drunk before making it home tonight. It had been years since he had got drunk enough to barely make it back to the shop, but tonight that was his goal.

                A knock came to the door hours later and no one turned to look at who was coming in, but the strong smell of smoke came with them. Yoann looked back to see it was a young man and older one both of them bring a part of the fire brigade and both of them wearing a sorrowful gaze on their faces. They sat down next to the Yoann as Maxi poured them both some beer.

                “What happen?” Yoann asked. “I saw the smoke.”

                “Some industrialist was giving a speech,” the older man said, “when a bomb went off. His whole family was there.”

                “His little girl had found a doll,” the younger man said pushing back tears, “she picked it, and the bomb went off.” He dropped her head. “She was only six. My daughter is six.”

                The older man padded his young friend on the back shaking his head.

                “All of them died,” the older man said. “His whole family.”

                “I hope they catch the bomber,” Yoann said.

                “They will,” the older man said, and for a while longer they all drank in the name of those who had died today. Yoann often found he was drinking for those who had died and by the time, he was walking home he was having a difficult time seeing straight.  

                The alcohol had done its job well making Yoann use the wall to help him keep walking. He knew the walk back to his place wasn’t long, but it was taking him far too long to get to his door. He took a deep beath looking upward to the midnight sky smiling at the moon.

                His dead leg hit something making it grunt and Yoann looked down gasping at the sight of the lady sitting there. It was the lady from before, the one who brought the doll earlier, and she was holding her side. She opens her eyes staring right at him not uttering a word.

                There was blood leaking between her fingers as she grunted in pain.

                “Priscilla?” he asked, and she reached out for him. “What happen to you?”

                He dropped back down to check her wound, but he couldn’t tell much in the dark. She put her arm around his neck and without thinking he lifted her up to her feet.

                “No hospitals,” she said as they both head to the back of the store, “no police, monsieur, please.”

                She smelled of smoke and fire.

                He looked her dead in the eyes and then down at her odd-looking clothes. She was dressed like a jester from Hell with her black and red scheme. There were all kinds of skulls and bats all over her but all he could see was the bright red of her blood leaking out.

                “It will be bad for you,” she said, “for us both.” Her voice was slowing and then her body started to go limp, but he was able to get her inside before she fully passed out. He got her on his worktable, studying her clothes for a moment more and seeing she was carrying a bag with her. He sat the bag off to the side before picking up a pair scissors to cut off most of her clothes.

                She had a nasty bullet wound in her muscular body. It had cut right through her side. 

                “Dans quoi t'es-tu embarquée, petite poupée?” He asked her fully passed out as he started to dig out the bullet and sew up the hole.

                She grunted from the pain, but she didn’t wake up. She lay there with sweat pouring down her long body mixing with the blood. The agony of the gunshot and the fight of some kind was keeping her from waking up. Yoann was endlessly thankful for it. It would make his job a thousand times harder if she woke screaming and fighting him.

                He had been a medic when he was in the army. He had seen many wounds in this matter. She was lucky for the placement of the round and the fact it was close to the surfaces.

                He let out his breath after finishing the sewing of her wound. He sat up trying his best not to study her very fine tune body. It had been many years since he had seen a naked woman before even if she was cover in blood and sweat. He walked over to the closet finding something his daughter might have worn and placed it beside her.

                Yoann was planning to go to sleep before his night ended up sewing up someone. Now, his blood was running so hot he no longer felt the effect of the beer. It had all been burnt up in the rush of work. He cleaned off the sweat from his forehead and tossed the rag onto her bag.

                He frowned glancing back at her.

                Priscilla said not to phone the police. She wanted no one to be called. He didn’t like it, but he had to find out why. There was something he needed to know before he rushed to the law.

                Yoann set the bag on the counter taking a deep breath before opening it. He pulled out a long knife, more like a dagger with a devil frowning on the hilt of the blade. There was two Colt .45s matching the colors of the dagger and her outfit, but the devils on the pistols were laughing instead of frowning.

                And then he pulled it out, the mask.

                Yoann shook his head stepping back with the mask in his hands. The mask was a doll with a wicked smile on it, almost matching the devils on the pistols, but the mask was womanlier with its dead eyes and scars all over it. Scars that had been placed there by the wear who was lying in Yoann’s workshop with a bullet hole in her body.

                He started to step away from the counter slowly moving to the door. He had to get to the police, to tell them he didn’t know, and they would understand. He was a medic in the war. All he was trying to do was save her. It was duty. It was his training.

                They would understand as he reached for the keys on his belt while still holding her mask.

                “You shouldn’t have looked,” Priscilla said using the door to hold herself up. Her free hand was holding her wound as she growled at him. “You should’ve known better and not look.”

                “You’re Lady Hex,” Yoann said. “I read about you the paper.”

                Priscilla stared at her mask. “Why did you have to look?”

                She was a terrorist. She had been linked to a few bombings in Russian, Germany, and had killed a few people in Japan. There were a few people who had seen her at the attacks. They all spoke about the mask. He had seen a drawing of the mask. It was something he would never forget and now he was holding it.

                His eyes wide and said, “You set the bomb off.”

                Priscilla took a weak step forward holding out her hand. “Give me my face back and run.”

                Yoann shook his head holding on to the mask.

                “Give me my face back,” she roared with cries of insanity.

                “No,” he said looking at the weapons on the counter and Priscilla followed his eyes. She looked back at him right as they both raced for the weapons. Yoann with his bum leg. Priscilla with her deep wound, but they seem to reach the counter at the same time.

                Yoann wasn’t much of a fighter before the war but when he was in no man’s land. He learned how to kill with his hands. After he got back on his feet, he made sure to go to the boxing gym every month, got in the ring, and won a good bit of money. He never gave up boxing and Priscilla was finding out how hard he could hit.

                They crashed all over the store breaking everything and anything with Priscilla giving as good as she got, but then something happened, something changed in her eyes. Yoann could see in her gaze, the devil laughing at the agony flowering all over her body, and the deep evil pits of Hell opening up. She went mad as if the devil had stepped into her taking over her very bones. She was no longer grunting and groaning from the pain, but giggling and laughing as she attacked him.

                Yoann fell backwards knocking over the glass case watching the nameless doll fall on the floor. He tried to gasp for air, but something was stopping it from getting into his body. He looked down at his chest watching in horror and at the same time, being outside of himself as the dagger was plunged into him.

                Priscilla stabbed him until she dropped back on the floor with blood all over her. She grunted, grabbing her wound while holding onto the dagger. She gasped, staring at his dying eyes. The devil was gone.

                She was back to herself. He gasped for air, turning his eyes to the doll.

                “You shouldn’t have look,” she said on the edge of tears.

                He reached for the doll, but his hand fell to his side. He uttered one word before he died on the floor of his shop, “Aurora.”

                When the police came the following afternoon. They found the signs of the fight, no money in the place, and only one missing doll. The doll which was once held in the glass case but now was being carried by the assassin known as Lady Hex. She named it Aurora.