"Cornelia, I'll never understand it," Gepetto grumbled as he wetted the thread. "You ruin your dresses more as a puppet than you did as a girl." For the moment the doll sat silent in his lap, inanimate because the puppeteer needed both hands to mend the pale blue dress.
Rain pitter-pattered on the large glass windows as he took a patch of darker blue fabric, having been unable to find an exact match, and began to sew. Pierre would have screamed in horror at the large, uneven stitches his old hands made, but it was the best he could do. Overhead the rain was pounding as he tied off the gold thread and cut it. The dress was fitted back over Cornelia's shoulders.
For a minute Gepetto examined her small figure, wondering what was missing. She needed something for her hair. He picked up the patch of fabric that had originally torn from the dress and cut it into a neat square. Just as he tied her hair back there was a knock at the door. He scooped the doll into his arms and opened the door.
"Hello," the man on the step said. Soaked from the downpour and dressed in only a short-sleeved shirt and pants he seemed to be fighting the urge to shiver. "Are you Gepetto?"
"Yes," Gepetto answered after a brief, bewildered pause. "What are you doing, dressed like that? Come in, come in." He took up Cornelia's strings, directing her to close the door behind the young man. "And you are?"
The man lifted his red eyes from the marionette to answer, "Yuri. My name's Yuri. Dunno if Alice told you about me..."
"Why yes, she did. She wrote about a visit...but where is she?"
"She's dead."
Cornelia fell to the floor with a clatter, all her strings slackened. Gepetto stared up at the young man. "She- what?"
Yuri's hands clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched. "I'm sorry." He sighed and picked up the doll, depositing her on the nearby desk. "I just needed to tell you." He opened the door and walked out.
"W-wait!" His niece was dead? Gepetto threw open the door, but Yuri was already running away, into the endless rain.