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When I was six, Aunt Mertha came to our house after spending two years in Africa. She has done some well-known researches on voodoo and evil paranormal influences in our lives. She even won an award or two for her efforts. She was on a two-month long vacation after finishing her thesis. Even before she come, mother and father used to discuss her strange course of line she had chosen to research and I got rather afraid of things they used to say about her. My father said that she was strange, even as a child, and used to scream through nights and throw her books and playthings around for no apparent reason. Next day, my grandmother used to make her pick up her things and she always insisted that she was not the one to throw things and always blamed it all on her doll.
When she was around 10, she suddenly declared that she wanted to go and study in a boarding school. Just before she was leaving for the school, she said to my grandmother, “Mom, I know you never believed or will ever believe me. But I never did anything wrong. It was my doll. I have thrown it in the river now but I am still afraid that she will seek vengeance on me for the act. So, I am leaving. If something happens to me, please believe me for once.” Then, she went off for school and since then, she has always found excuses to avoid coming back to the place. We still lived in the grandmother’s house and nothing had ever happened to us.
When she came, I was reluctant to talk to Aunt Mertha but I soon found out that she was very sweet and nice. She brought many presents for me and she looked quite sane. Then, one night I brought out the topic of the scary doll and she suddenly grew pale. She told me that she still maintained that it was not she who threw the things but her evil doll. She had tried to lock it in the cabinet, throw it in the dustbin, cut it to pieces and even burn it, but it always managed to somehow come back on her dresser with an evil grin on her face, challenging her to get rid of it. It was the doll who used to throw things and even scream in her voice while she used to hide herself in the blanket and sob silently until someone came in to lash at her. I listened to her with a skeptic’s heart. Aunt Mertha’s room was now being used as the family room and at the place, where her dresser was kept, was now the fireplace.
We were still in our own world when Aunt Mertha was still thinking about her previous days and I was trying to decide whether to believe her or not when suddenly, I heard a loud piercing scream. I naturally looked at Aunt Mertha, who was deadly white, her lips pursed tightly together and two tears were about to roll from the corner of her eyes. She was staring at something. I looked where she was looking, when my eyes fell on an old rag doll with an evil grin on the fireplace, staring directly at Aunt Mertha. She was definitely not there a moment before. The very next day, Aunt Mertha went back, though she had promised to stay 20 more days. I never saw the doll again and I never want to.