Voodoo Love (Short Story)

He wandered around aimlessly, unsure of where his legs were taking him.

A cacophony of loud noises and warm colours swirled through his senses, both tantalizing and confusing.

It threw him into a sensory overload as he tried to make sense of the teeming crowds and the various wares and trinkets fanned out on rickety tables or mats.

What on earth am I doing here? he thought to himself, as he shakily adjusted his spectacles.

The heat was slowly getting to him and he was growing slightly disorientated. He'd always been physically weak, and coming to places such as these was a bit too much for him to take at one go.

But the minute I see her, I start following her like a lovesick puppy dog. I've really got to stop doing that.

Shaking his head slightly, he tried to figure his way out of the maze of make-shift stalls.

"Hey you! Oi you! Boy!" a gritty old voice was bellowing extremely loudly.

The surrounding noise was unbelievable, but this particular voice stood out like a blaring megaphone, and to the boy's surprise, it seemed to be directed at him.

"Me?" he was surprised.

"Come over here," the voice said, somehow managing to sound loud and conspiring at the same time.

The boy looked around, trying to look for the source of the voice, but all he could see were a multitude of faces. It made him feel even dizzier than he already was, and he squinted his eyes shut, swaying as he tried not to faint.

"Behind you, boy," the voice said exasperatedly.

The boy turned around. A short, stout old lady was standing behind her table of wares glaring at him.

"Can I help you?" he asked politely, sensing that there was no point in trying to aggravate her any further.

However, the old lady's glare had softened to a stare and she was looking at him in an extremely disconcerting way.

"You followed someone here, didn't you?" she finally said. It wasn't a question.

The boy's mouth fell open.

"How ... how did you know?" he stammered.

"I saw you following her before she disappeared into the crowds," the old lady admitted. "And you had that love struck look in your eyes."

The boy stiffened. The last part was rather unnecessary of her to mention, he felt. After all, it was his personal feelings she was talking about.

"It was what made me take notice of you," the old lady explained. She wasn't particularly bothered by the annoyance written clearly on his face.

When he didn't say anything, she continued.

"So what's your name?"

"Jason," he muttered before he could stop himself.

Cursing himself silently, he sighed.

Jason didn't believe in giving his real name to complete strangers, but he had this strange habit of answering people truthfully whenever they asked direct questions.

"Jason, that's a very ... interesting name," the old lady said, drawing out each word slowly and clearly. "I'm Gretchen."

"Gretchen," Jason murmured, his eyes focusing on her for the first time.

Appearance-wise, she didn't stand out much, attired in a plain, brown sleeveless dress and sandals. A simple wooden ring encircled her fourth finger, while her deeply wrinkled face was free of any form of make-up.

It was what she was selling that caught his attention.

"I see you've finally decided to take a look at my wares," Gretchen drawled.

"Er, very ... interesting objects you have there, madam," Jason muttered, trying to hide his horrified fascination at the neat rows of hemp string voodoo dolls resting on the table.

They came in different shapes and sizes, with pins of all sorts stuck all over them, but what unnerved Jason was the way their faces stared pleadingly back at him.

Save us, they seemed to whisper in a chorus of terrified voices.

Jason tore his eyes away and settled on Gretchen instead. Anything or anyone was better than having to look at those creepy looking dolls.

I must be going crazy under all this heat, he thought, tugging at the collar of his school uniform uncomfortably.

If Gretchen noticed his discomfort, she didn't show it otherwise.

Instead, she continued smiling.

"It is perfect for someone such as you to use."

"Me?" Jason said blankly, not for the first time.

"Of course!" Gretchen exclaimed animatedly. "I managed to get a look at the lovely girl when she walked past my stall, so I can create a doll loosely based on her features. I understand why you find it so hard to forget her ... her face is indeed ... striking.

The only thing I'm lacking is an object that she owns ... you wouldn't happen to have one, would you?"

Her eyes flickered over to Jason, eerily bright.

"I haven't agreed to anything yet," he said quickly. "What are they supposed to do anyway?"

The old lady's eyes gleamed as she looked down lovingly at her wares.

"You can get the real person to do exactly what you want them to do."

Yet, that gleam was tainted with something which made Jason uneasy. In fact, if he'd been more imaginative, he'd have felt it rather sinister.

"I don't believe you," he said curtly, shaking his head as he turned to leave.

"Now just wait a moment, I was going to mention that you can make someone fall in love with you."

Jason paused in mid-turn.

"Impossible," he retorted softly.

And still, a fragment of hope within began to stir.

Stephanie will never notice someone like me, he reasoned, and I'd do anything for her to just notice.

Gretchen grinned when she saw the look of undisguised longing on the boy's face.

"It is true," she insisted, picking up one of the voodoo dolls and pointing a long fingernail at a tiny heart that had been sewn onto the doll, "All you have to do is prick a pin into her heart and say that you want her to fall in love with you."

Leaning forward, the old lady whispered conspiratorially, "It's a 100% guaranteed will work product, otherwise, you can get your money back."

"But ..." Jason's voice trailed off.

Somehow, he could feel the wrongness of the idea.

Still, anything is worth a try, his inner voice spoke. Even if it means cheating.

"I'll take one then," he said, after a long pause.

"Excellent choice, my dear boy," Gretchen said, bending down to pick up a brand new doll from a large box. "So, do you possess any object that belongs to her?"

Jason hesitated.

As a matter of fact, he did have something of hers with him. A hair clip she'd dropped while walking home quite a few weeks.

But it's not like I was stalking her or anything, Jason thought to himself defensively as he felt a blush slowly working its way up his neck.

He'd been meaning to return it to her, but had never quite gathered the courage to do so.

Not surprisingly, the clip was passed over to Gretchen with great reluctance.

However, she simply took a single strand of hair that had been stuck in the clip and handed it back to Jason.

"Hair, or any part of the human body, will work much better," she explained, before ordering him to leave her to do her work in peace.

"Come back in ten minutes," she added, before Jason left.

Time seemed to drag by on its sluggish feet as he meandered around the bazaar, looking distractedly at the various odds and ends that were on sale.

Even though only ten minutes had passed when he returned to the stall, he felt like he'd wasted a whole hour just walking around the bazaar.

"There you go, all done up," Gretchen said softly. She held the doll with a curious tenderness when she passed it to him. "That will be ten dollars."

Without even taking a look at the product he'd just paid for, Jason slipped it into his pocket and wordlessly passed her the money before turning to leave for home.

"Good luck," Gretchen called out, but Jason didn't appear to hear her as he trudged off.

Neither did he see the strange smile playing on the old lady's lips as she turned to pack up her stall.

*****
The first thing Jason did when he got home was to collapse onto the sofa.

His parents had told him they would be coming home late today, so he didn't bother to change out of his school uniform straightaway.

As he lay there on the sofa with his eyes closed, he began to sense a strange pulsing coming from his pocket.

Puzzled, Jason rooted around in his pocket, pulled out the doll ... and almost dropped it in fright.

The doll looked eerily like Stephanie.

Jason could see that the old lady had painted her face with startling accuracy, but that wasn't all that unnerved him.

The doll seemed to possess a kind of lifelike energy of its own, and Jason found it hard not to imagine that this was really Stephanie, just not in life-size form.

A single strand of her hair had been twisted around it in a tight band and a tiny red cloth heart was sewn at the area where a real heart would have been.

As Jason brushed his fingers against the tiny red heart, he recalled Gretchen's instructions on how to use a voodoo doll.

"All you have to do is prick a pin into her heart and say that you want her to fall in love with you."

But this isn't right, one part of him recoiled at the very thought. Even if she does fall in love with you, it wouldn't be real, it'd be because of the doll.

Jason adjusted his spectacles as he carefully considered his options.

Maybe this voodoo magic stuff won't even work and that old lady was just lying, he reasoned, I just want her to notice me, that's all.

With that thought firmly fixed in mind, he went to look for a needle.

In the past, his mother used to sew random bits and pieces of things, but that was before she decided that she wanted to work too.

It had caused a terrible row between his parents, and Jason could feel the tension and suppressed frustration steadily growing in the house ever since.

For some odd reason, he always had this irrational fear that his mother would leave the house for work one day and never come back.

Shaking his head as if to chase those dark thoughts away, he found his mother's old sewing kit in his parents' bedroom, looking strangely forlorn as it lay abandoned in one corner.

Opening it, he drew out a silver needle with one hand. It was trembling, and he didn't know why.

Maybe it was because of the fact that he'd never meddled with magic in any form before. Or maybe it was the creepy way the doll seemed to be looking straight at him as he held it in his other hand.

Closing his eyes, he forced himself to take deep breaths and count to ten.

He always did that whenever he tried to pluck up the courage to talk to Stephanie, but every time he finished counting to ten, Stephanie would have disappeared somewhere else or another random guy would suddenly appear out of nowhere and talk to her.

Jason resolved to count to five the next time round he saw her.

And you'll fall in love with me on first sight, he said softly as he opened his eyes after ten, and pricked the needle into her tiny, red cloth heart.

*****
Okay, just take deep breaths, he told himself frantically, as he saw her sitting at the benches by herself, reading a book. And count to five.

It was another ordinary school day, bright, sunny and normal.

Except today was the day when Jason decided that he'd go up and talk to Stephanie, regardless of whether the voodoo doll worked or not.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and counted.

One. He took one step forward.

Two. He took another step.

Three. Just two more to go, he told himself. Somehow, that thought didn't feel very reassuring.

Four ...

"Um ... excuse me if I'm being rude but ... what are you trying to do?" an extremely familiar and bemused voice asked him politely.

Jason opened his eyes and found himself staring right into Stephanie's twinkling, soft brown ones.

Shocked, he squealed in an extremely unmanly fashion.

"I ... uh ... I was ..." he stammered as he desperately tried to think of a reason plausible enough for his behaviour. "I was ... I was playing hide-and-seek with my ... with my friend," he finished lamely.

Inwardly, he groaned at the kiddish, pathetic excuse. He'd never been good at fabricating stories on the spur of the moment.

"I see," Samantha said, smiling with amusement. And still, she lingered, staring at him.

"Oh yeah, and you dropped this ... quite a while back," Jason said hurriedly as he took out her hair clip and passed it to her. "I was going to return it to you but ..."

His voice trailed off when he realized that Stephanie wasn't really paying attention to him.

It seems like she isn't really that keen on hearing explanations anyway, he thought.

"It's my favourite hair clip!" Stephanie said happily. "Thank you so much ... er ... what's your name?"

"Oh, I ... um ... I'm Jason," he said nervously as he quickly pushed up his spectacles, which had somehow managed to slide down his nose again.

"And I'm Stephanie," she said warmly. Then she added in a faraway voice, "You looked so cute when you had that look of shock on your face and your glasses slid down your nose."

Jason could only stare at her as a blush slowly spread across his face.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I ... I didn't mean to let that slip out," Stephanie said, obviously horrified at herself for saying it out loud.

She doesn't seem like the sort who would be so blunt towards strangers.

Jason was puzzled. A thin tendril of fear slowly tightened around his heart.

Could it be the work of the voodoo doll?

Embarrassed, they stared at each other, not knowing what else to say.

Just then, the school bell rang shrilly, breaking the awkward moment and startling them out of their silence.

"Well, now you've made me all twitchy too!" Stephanie suddenly exclaimed huffily.

But before Jason could apologize, her eyes twinkled and she burst out laughing.

It was one of the nicest sounds Jason felt he'd ever heard.

"Can I ... that is to say ... can I meet you after school?" he asked shyly, looking down at the ground before he lost his nerve and said something stupid too.

Stephanie smiled sweetly.

"I would love to," she said softly, before turning to walk off.

"Meet me at the school gates!" Jason called out after her, marveling at his own sudden bravery.

Whatever happened next felt like a beautiful dream he didn't want to wake up from.

He would meet up with Stephanie on the weekends and they would go on all sorts of adventures. It didn't really matter what they did. As long as they were together, the day always turned out to be fun.

As time flew by, he found himself growing more and more enamored with her.

Yet, there was always this niggling worry inside of him, wondering if all this was the work of the voodoo doll.

Gradually, that niggling worry mounted to an intense guilt that Jason found impossible to ignore.

He finally decided to tell her the truth one day, when they were sitting in the library, supposedly studying for a major test.

"Steph ..." he began hesitantly "... I need to tell you something ..."

"Hmm?" Stephanie looked at him blankly, half-lost in her own thoughts as she leafed through a thick Geography textbook.

"The truth ... the truth is ... I messed around with a bit of voodoo magic to get you to fall in love with me ... or at least notice me," Jason winced.

He was making the whole issue sound really bad.

"Voodoo magic?" the look on Stephanie's face could only be best described as skeptical.

She smiled to herself.

"There is no such thing as voodoo magic, Jay."

Jay.

It was her new nickname for him, and one that he never got tired of hearing her say.

Somehow, she made him sound more cool and self-assured, almost as if he was another person entirely, and not nerdy, shy, unconfident Jason.

Still, he was determined to tell her the truth, whether or not it'd change her mind about the way she saw him.

"It's real, Steph," he insisted.

Then he pulled out the doll and showed it to her. "An old lady sold this to me. She told me to prick a needle into your heart and order you to fall in love with me."

For a split moment, the skeptical look on Stephanie's face flickered to one of pure horror and disgust, as she stared down at the doll whose face was an exact mirror image of her own.

This happened in a split second before her face switched back to stubborn disbelief.

"Jason, I think you should know by now that I'm in love with you," she said softly. "And no amount of voodoo magic can control my heart to feel that way."

Gently, she rested her hand on his.

Swayed by the sudden confession and the warm feeling of her hand, Jason looked at her and said, "I love you too," in a voice choked with emotion.

He didn't notice the blank look in her eyes as she smiled. And when she told him he'd better leave the voodoo doll behind, he didn't argue at all.

All he could feel was the softness of her fingers intertwined with his as they walked off, abandoning the doll on the park bench ...

******
"What a pretty doll!" a young girl exclaimed as she picked up the voodoo doll from the bench. "Mommy, can I bring her home?"

"Of course, honey," her mother said distractedly, her attention taken up by the cell phone she was talking to.

"I shall name you Carrie, and you shall be my favourite-est doll," the girl whispered happily to her brand new doll.

Then she frowned. "Your eyes are much too small," she decided, with all the authority of a little seven year old girl who has watched way too many beauty pageants.

The girl tried to wipe the paint off the doll's eyes, but no matter how hard she rubbed, the paint refused to come off.

Stooping down, she hunted for something that could make her doll's eyes look bigger.

"Aha!" she cried triumphantly, locating a small sharp piece of rock. "Now I can make your eyes look bigger, Carrie! Wouldn't that be great?"

So saying, she held the rock in one hand and began to dig into the doll's skin, right underneath her painted eyes ...







Somewhere else far away in her own home, Stephanie was sleeping when at that very moment, she suddenly felt a terrible pain in her eyes.

Her hands automatically reached up to touch them. Something was slowly dripping down her fingers. Shaking with pain, she lowered her hands and they came away bloodied.

Then she started screaming ... but there was no one there to hear her.