Angelique

Paranormal Fiction Entry #7

Angelique

By: Jennifer White

Angelique was too young to be so broken. Illness had withered her so that her ruffled nightgown hung limp from her frame and her soft black curls looked false, like an overlarge wig that somebody had haphazardly placed on her small head.

She held the doll her mother had commissioned in her likeness; a perfect porcelain portrait of what Angelique had been before she had fallen ill. Next to the doll, the girl looked even thinner—she wouldn’t be much longer.

Even though her strength was long-gone, her tiny twig fingers clasped the doll so tightly that it had to be physically pried from her once Death had made Its final visit. Angelique the girl went into the earth, but Angelique the doll went into the attic. She rested, gathered dust…and waited.

***

I’d always been a sucker for yard sales. Especially estate sales—you never knew what treasures you might find. Especially, especially at Old Lady Marguerite’s place.

It was seven o’clock Saturday morning, so only the most hardcore yard sale shoppers were out and about—but Old Lady Marguerite’s lawn was still packed. We were all curious—of course we were. Nobody had seen the woman at all in the sixty some-odd years since her daughter had died. We saw family members come and go, but never Marguerite herself. The day they carried her out to the ambulance was the first my generation had ever seen of her. Poor woman.

I squeezed my stupid, constantly wheezing hatchback (who was I kidding? I loved that car) into the fray, climbed out, and breezed toward the tables. It looked almost like the house had puked its contents all over the lawn. There was furniture, jewelry, clothing—everything. It was all old, it was all dusty, and it was all gorgeous.

And some of it cost almost what I’d paid for my car. I had a feeling a lot of it was going to wind up in one of the local pawn shops instead of the homes of Average Joe, Tom, and Bob. I browsed anyway, fingers brushing lightly over the ancient treasures, waiting for something to catch my eye. There were stacks of beautiful trinkets and piles of classy furnishings, but there was nothing that reached out and grabbed me.

A woman passed by me, loaded down with sparkling jewelry and mothball-scented coats. She stumbled on a badly-placed root, unable to see it, and started to fall. I caught her before she went down, helped her regain her balance, and smiled when she offered her thanks. Nothing like a good deed.

But my good deed had thrown me off balance, myself. Stumbling just as the woman had done, I caught myself on the edge of an old armoire—and promptly fell to the ground when the sudden movement sent something tumbling down onto my unprotected head.

“Miss!” a man’s voice said. I looked up to see an older man, early fifties, crouching next to me, offering me a hand. “Miss, are you alright? I’m so sorry!”

I assumed he was the one in charge of the sale. I nodded and pulled myself to my feet, dusting my pants. The man had already picked up the thing that had hit me.

Okay, so it hadn’t reached out and grabbed me, but it sure as heck had gotten my attention. I wanted it. The man set the doll on a table and apologized again, asking if I was okay; if I needed a glass of water; if I was intending to sue.

I smirked to myself. People always trying to sue.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked again. I nodded and picked up the doll.

She was paler than pale; almost white. Her sculpted cheeks were dusty pink, as were her lips, and her black hair cascaded down her back in gorgeous, shiny black curls. Her purple silk dress had a matching hat, and the black sash around her waist tied in a neat bow. I ran a hand across her face, revealing sapphire-blue eyes behind God knew how many years of dust.

“How much?” I asked, wiping away more dust.

“For Angelique?”

So that was her name. It fit, somehow—and it stirred some distant memory in the back of my mind. I wrinkled my nose, trying to figure out where I’d heard it before.

“Isn’t that the name of Old—of Mrs. Leveau’s daughter?” I asked eventually. “Angelique?”

The man nodded. “It was. The doll was commissioned by my grandmother in Angelique’s image. She’s been in the attic since Angelique passed, I believe—too painful for Grand-mère Leveau to look at, I suppose.”

“I want her,” I said. I loved dolls. Angelique wasn’t the prettiest doll I’d ever seen, but I figured if she was brave enough to attack my head, I’d give her a chance. The man named his price (surprisingly cheap—only five bucks) and I forked over the cash, and soon enough Angelique and I were making our way back to Kerrington Avenue, to the apartment I shared with my sister Melanie.

Melanie, of course, hated dolls. I’m pretty sure my love of dolls came from her hatred, seeing as how younger siblings are supposed to irritate, scare, humiliate, and completely freak out their older, supposedly wiser (but really just more irritating) sisters. Eh, who knew?

Melanie wasn’t home yet when I made it back (nurse—she worked weird hours), so I had to wait until later to fuel her phobia. I set Angelique on the living room bookshelf, right next to Becca and Lucie, two demented-looking devil dolls that I’d bought for the sole purpose of torturing my sister. She threw them in the trash every few days, and I retrieved them and put them right back where they belonged. It was the game we played.

“Glad to have you, Angelique,” I said, smiling at her. If I’d had Melanie’s fear of dolls coming to life and murdering people, I’d have sworn that Angelique’s eyes flash. “I think I’ll call you Angie. That okay?”

Again, I could have sworn that Angie’s eyes flashed. I suppressed a shudder—it was just the devil dolls, I told myself. even I got freaked out by those upon occasion. I left Angie to make friends with Becca and Lucie and went to take a shower.

I liked showers, and I hadn’t taken one in two days (I’d been busy; give me a break!), so I took a nice long one. When I made it back downstairs, Becca and Lucie lay on the floor by the bookshelf and Angelique lay on her side, looking as if she’d curled up and tried to hide.

“What the heck?” I muttered, bending and picking up the devil dolls. “Angie, what’s up, girl? Becca and Lucie being mean to you?” I straightened the three and walked toward the kitchen, intending to grab a snack. I heard a thump and turned to find Becca and Lucie both on the floor again, Angelique again slumped over.

“What the double heck?” I said. I picked up Lucie and Becca and set them on a different shelf. “Okay, Angie, fine, you don’t have to sit with them. Were they scaring you, or something?”

I set Angie upright again and did a double-take—was I going insane(er), or had her expression changed just slightly? It almost seemed like her eyes had narrowed and her tiny lips had parted. Instead of calm and serene, she looked frightened. Good thing Melanie wasn’t home yet. I sighed and turned away again, walking back toward the kitchen, but wound up having to backtrack to answer the knock at the door.

Melanie stood outside, arms loaded down with plastic grocery bags. She’d knocked with her elbow. I rolled my eyes and helped her carry everything inside.

As I’d predicted, when she saw Angelique, she shrieked and rounded on me. I evaded her fury and reminded her that I very well could have brought another devil doll home. She sighed and asked where I’d bought “it.”

“Old Lady Marguerite’s,” I said. “Estate sale.”

Melanie’s eyes went wide. “Oh, Jamie,” she said. “You didn’t. Old Lady Marguerite’s…that’s the doll, isn’t it? That’s Angelique.”

What about her?” I said, wrinkling my nose. “It’s just a doll.”

“Yeah, a haunted one! Jesus, Jamie, haven’t you ever heard about the old lady’s daughter?”

“Sure I have. What about her?”

“This doll was made to look like her! She died holding the thing! There’ve been stories for years—Marguerite put her in the attic because her daughter stayed attached to it.”

“How the heck did you even hear about the doll, Mel?” I asked, huffy. Stupid Melanie was always superstitious. Angelique was just a doll. A creepy one, sure, but just a doll.

“Friends with the old lady’s nurse,” Melanie said, looking smug and terrified at the same time. “I want it out of the house. Now.”

“You can’t tell me what to do!”

“I can and I will!” she retorted. “I’m three years older, and I say get rid of it!”

I scowled. “She’s mine, and I say she stays.”

“Fine!” Melanie said. “But she stays in your room!”

“Fine!”

Like the child that I was (being twenty-three didn’t strip me of that nature, evidently), I snatched up Angelique and stomped upstairs, throwing myself at the bed. Angie landed next to me and I sighed, turning to look at her.

“You’re not haunted,” I said. “Are you?”

Angelique said nothing. I smiled. “See, told her. You’re not. I’m going to go get my snack now. You stay here, okay?”

Angelique, again, said nothing. I headed back downstairs, passing Melanie on the way down (on her way to bed—she usually slept all day when she had to work weird hours at night). We ignored each other. Suited me just fine.

As I munched my way through a ham sandwich, I had to wonder—was there something to Melanie’s claims? If I’d seen what I thought I’d seen, then it made sense. I usually wasn’t creeped out by dolls, but there definitely was something strange about Angelique. I wandered back upstairs as soon as I’d finished eating, still pondering.

Angelique was sitting up, leaned against my pillow, staring at me. I jumped nearly a mile when I saw her cold blue eyes boring into mine.

“Okay, now that’s just creepy,” I said. “Did Melanie do this?”

You know, I often talked to my dolls. It was just one of my many eccentricities. They never answered back, because they were, y’know, dolls. They were inanimate.

So you can understand why I screamed when Angelique’s head slowly turned from side to side.

Melanie was in my room in an instant, demanding to know what was wrong. I pointed at Angelique and stuttered, “A-Angie! S-she’s..s-she’s…!”

Melanie’s eyes narrowed. “She’s what?”

“She’s alive! She shook her head!”

“Don’t be stupid, Jamie. She might be haunted, but she’s not alive.”

“But she moved!”

“There’s no way she—”

I was alive, once, a small voice said. Melanie and I grabbed each other and turned toward Angelique. Her lips didn’t move, but her voice—a child’s voice—was loud and clear.

I died, but I was alive once. Can you help me?

“Help you what?” I whispered.

I want to go home.

I was vaguely aware that Melanie was tugging on my arm, making frightened squeaks, but I ignored her. “What do you mean, home?”

Home.

“What, your house?”

No. Home.

I couldn’t help myself; I walked forward. “Where’s home, Angie?”

Up.

I looked up. What did she mean, “home up”?

“What am I supposed to do?” I said, still unsure of what she was asking and still not entirely sure I wasn’t having a nightmare.

Let me go. She won’t let go of me. You need to let me go.

“Who won’t let you go?”

My dolly. My dolly won’t let me go. Let me go. Please?

The voice sounded so pitiful that I felt a twinge of sympathy. Angie was just a little girl, wasn’t she? If she was stuck in that doll, she was bound to be confused. I picked up the doll and held her at arm’s length, in both hands, trying to figure out what to do.

Let me go.

“You’ll break.”

Let me go.

“What if nothing happens?”

Let me go!

I dropped her, jumping back and shrieking when her blue eyes flashed red. Her head cracked when it hit my floor (after all, the doll was at least sixty years old). I gasped and bent to pick her up, but recoiled again when I saw a faint grey smoke coiling up from the crack.

Thank you, Angelique’s voice said. You can keep my dolly if you want, miss. Take care of her.

I watched the smoke dissipate and, once it was gone, my hearing returned. Melanie was downstairs, screaming into the phone that a doll was attacking her sister.

Oh, heck. How were we supposed to explain this one?