A gondola glided gently down a darkened canal in the dead of night. All was quiet in the pitch-black darkness. The doors were locked fast, and the shutters fastened. Above one shop, fast asleep, lay a man. He was an elderly man of great renown as a doll maker and ventriloquist- Fabio was his name. In the chamber next to his lay another man, Tonio, Fabio’s apprentice. Tonio murmured in his sleep, rolling over to one side. In his troubled sleep, he tossed and turned, muttering unintelligible phrases. His movements became more violent; the thrashing shook the bed, and then he awoke with a loud cry, flying up from the bed with a start. His body shook, drenched in a cold sweat. Yes, he thought, he must go through. His plan must go through in this next night.
As the pale dawn rose over Venice, many people were already awake and making preparations for the day. Tonio rose from his bed and dressed, then proceeded down the hall and the stairs, making his way into the workshop where Fabio was already busily at work.
The workroom was a strange, if not slightly grotesque place. Counters framed the room along three walls, cluttered with paints and tools. On the wall not occupied by counters, there were large shelves occupied by a various assortment of dolls. But these dolls were far from ordinary. Fabio’s great acclaim was derived from the vividness and vitality that the dolls possessed. Even sitting still on the shelf they looked like they could walk off by themselves. Every detail that could possibly be added, from the perfectly colored skin to the miniature dresses and shoes. Every time Tonio walked into the room, shivers went down his spine as he felt the cold, glassy stares of the dolls on his neck- watching him. At the center of the shelves sat the most prized doll of all- a nearly life sized child figure with dark eyes and raven black hair meticulously curled. Corvo, or Raven, Tonio called her, for her eyes seemed to track him as a raven tracks its prey. Fabio had made the doll for his daughter, who had supposedly drowned in a canal many years ago.
As the apprentice sat at the workbench and began to mix paints- it was red today- ha could almost feel Raven’s stare on his back. Idly, his eyes wandered around the workshop and his thoughts drifted. There were miniature arms and legs hanging from hooks around the room, and a shelf of heads for dolls whose bodies were not yet completed. The overall effect of the room was something resembling a morgue.
As the day wore on, Tonio set upon various jobs such as cleaning and mixing colors, with Fabio occasionally snapping at him when he messed something up. Finally, the day was over and Fabio retired to his chamber. As Tonio cleaned up the workbench, he backed into the shelf of dolls and heard one crash to the floor. He winced and slowly turned around, and gasped. Raven was lying on the ground, sprawled on her side with the right half of her face smashed in. He panicked- Fabio would be furious!... but this thought trailed off. No, said a new voice, a sickeningly sweet voice. He won’t be furious; because tonight… tonight is the night. The plan will go through. “Yes,” he said aloud, in an almost trance like state. “Yes, I shall go through…”
In the dead of night, the dark, quiet stillness of midnight, the door to Tonio’s room opened and he stepped out. He crept quietly, very, very quietly, over to Fabio’s door. He pressed his ear to the door and heard the steady snoring of his master. Silently, he opened the door and gently, very gently stepped in, as not to upset the creaking floorboards. Cautiously, he worked his way to the bed. On the table next to it sat a small statuette. This Tonio grabbed and held firmly in his grip. Fabio murmured and rolled over in his sleep, unaware of the intruder in his room. Tonio raised the statue above his head…. And swung.
CRACK!
Now, with his work done, he set upon finding the old man’s valuables. True, Fabio was rich, very rich- but also a rather paranoid man. Where would he hide his gold? Then he remembered- the creaking floorboard. He knelt on the floor and pried open the board with the base of the statuette. There, sure enough, was a large wooden box. Greedily, he grabbed the box and hauled it up, He opened the lid, and the coins gleamed and glistened in the moonlight flooding in from the window. He closed the lid and put the box under his arm, standing to flee, when a shadow crossed the doorway. A silhouette, no larger than a child’s, blocked the door. They took a step forward, and the moonlight revealed the face of the figure. Tonio cried out and stumbled backwards, but tripped over the exposed floorboard and fell, releasing the box and sending coins across the room.
The figure took another step forward, letting her entire figure be lit by the moonlight, which cast long, grotesque shadows across her mangled face. Raven- the doll whom had fallen, was standing in the doorway, with her one surviving eye fixed upon Tonio. In her tiny hand was a long, thin carving blade used by Fabio to whittle wood.
A scream pierced the night, shrill, and almost maniacal. Then, as abruptly as it began, was silenced.
In the early morning, several police officers were standing in the bedchamber, puzzling over a mysterious, gruesome crime. Two bodies had been found at the residence of Fabio, the world-renowned doll maker. One body was Fabio’s own, and the other was that of his apprentice, Tonio. The situation was most intriguing. Fabio lay undisturbed in his bed, stone dead, as a blow from a hard, blunt object had struck his skull. The murder weapon was a small statuette lying on the ground near the bed. Tonio’s body was sprawled on the ground, lying in a pool of blood. A knife had been driven into his throat. A portion of the floor had been torn up, and a large box and many scattered coins lay around the room. The knife also lay on the ground near Tonio’s body. The policemen debated the situation. “Why,” one asked, “Should the murderer use two different weapons?” “And how,” another interjected “Should the murderer come into the house? All the locks were undisturbed.” “Obviously, the murderer was already in the house.” “But these two,” one police man argued, gesturing to the bodies “Were the only ones here. And as you can see, they are both quite dead.”
One policeman whom had yet to speak walked around Tonio’s body. Next to him lay a dark eyed, dark haired doll with half of her face broken. He picked her up and studied her face. He could have sworn that her one remaining eye could see.
“You seem out of place here.” He said to the doll.
Then she blinked.
Just a short, kind of random something for school. The assignment was "Scary Stories".
