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Beware the doll. It looks so simple, so innocent, and it’s very, very old. Passed down they say throughout the generations, mother to daughter, a heart line and bloodline of mystery.

It belongs to an older age, a time when magic and spells were rife in the world. Some say it came from Salem, but I say it is older, and its lineage more from England, or perhaps even Europe. In its strange smock dressing symbols are embroidered, of a rose and a cross, and I think I know what that means.

It is sister to voodoo queens, the most ancient of traditions. It presages sorrow, it foretells death. Some might even believe, if it comes to your possession, it has been given as the darkest and most deliberate of gifts. You will not know your benefactor, and you will not wish to know. It will be far too late for recriminations or reversals. It simply shall be what it is.

It travels by dark, knowing hands. My mother knew of it and told me, but never owned it, which is probably just as well. Though some may receive it without threat, those who are initiated to its mysteries, and my mother would have been one, as she will make me so in time.

But if it comes to you, beware. You will see it in a dream, as though through a glass darkly, before it comes, and once it comes it does not leave. Not until you leave, and leave entirely.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016