- I hope that the story isn't too long for your liking, and that the topic isn't cliched, but I carefully put this together, giving it a fairly good twist...Do not read the reviews if you plan on reading the story, or you will ruin it for yourself. Enjoy, and tell me how I can improve!
POPPET
Tom was heading down a foreign road. He cursed monotonously under his breath, figuring that he’d made a wrong turn after that last light. It was hard to see, anyway, at such a late hour. He slowed down and prepared to make a u-turn, but something caught his attention: a shop.
“I know that place...” he said, squinting into the darkness. He paused for a second, unsure if it was a good idea to...have a look around. It wasn’t as if he was in any hurry, and he was a strong believer that everything happens for a reason.
It was just that, sometimes, he couldn’t understand why.
He manoeuvred his car off the desolate road and into the small parking lot of a chain of dilapidated stores. His vehicle’s ghostly headlights seeped through the windows, slithering across the stone walls, as the car glided to a stop infront of a peculiar boutique.
A nervous Tom climbed out of his car, cigarette in hand, silently staring up at the faded neon-yellow sign that greeted him.
“Oracle...” He read to himself, despite the flickering, almost invisible “R”. If there was anywhere he could find the answers he needed, if there was any chance that he would...change his mind...he knew that this was it.
After taking one last inhalation, Tom tossed his cigarette onto the ground and made his way to the boutique. Only the grinding of gravel under his feet broke the insufferable silence as he walked up to the front door. He reached for the handle uneasily, casting a suspicious glance around the plaza, as if he was being watched. There wasn’t a person in sight.
Bells chimed eerily as Tom scuttled inside. The boutique was dimly lit by a low-hanging chandelier, the walls were tattered and painted an unwelcoming crimson-red colour, and there was no one waiting behind the front counter. He could, however, distinctly hear the shuffling of feet somewhere behind the black curtain at the back of the store. He decided to wait around.
No more secrets, he assured himself, No more betrayal.
Tom scanned the room, standing right where he was, uncertain if it was safe to walk around. But after only a few seconds of standing and stroking the stubble under his chin, he found himself anxiously ambling around, and eventually came to a shelf of oddities that was sitting infront of the window.
There were an assortment of necklaces, bracelets, and anklets on the top shelf, made up of beads of different shapes and sizes. They were wooden, some made of stone, and painted in various colours. Tom examined a couple of them, playing with the beads in his long, quivering fingers.
The items on the shelf below seemed to have no particular likeness, other than the fact that many of them were bizarrely shaped figures of an ominous nature. They didn’t even seem to serve any obvious purpose, or to have any use to anyone. Tom couldn’t recognize any of the items on that shelf...except for one.
He carefully slinked his hand around the strange items and reached for something almost hidden in the darkness, in the back of the shelf. He wrapped his fingers around it, feeling the soft fabric out of which it was woven, and pulled out the plain, doll-like figure.
The doll was beige, and no bigger than a child’s shoe. The material was velvety, and alluring to the eye, like the ostensible leaves of a Venus fly trap. Its legs seemed to be deformed as one was longer than the other, and its hands were only as thick as Tom’s thumb. And lastly, the two black buttons stitched onto its face formed makeshift eyes that stared menacingly back at its holder, as if warning them to put it down.
“A poppet...” Tom murmured, inspecting the doll, front and back. “Does it...work...?”
He didn’t exactly know what to do with it, but he’d seen things like this before, on television perhaps. He imagined that if the doll were holding or wearing something that belonged to another person, it would “work”.
“Like in the movies...” he thought out loud.
He looked towards the back of the shop again...not a sound. He couldn’t see the movement of shadows from the space between the black curtain and the floor. Maybe the keeper was busy.
“Let’s see...” he put his hand in his coat pockets and fiddled around, looking for anything. His wallet was in his right pocket. He didn’t see how that would help. He found a pen and a pack of cigarettes in his other pocket. That was all he had.
Probably fake, anyway... he thought, putting it down. But before he could, he saw the ring on his finger. An absurd idea flashed in his head, and he hesitantly decided to try it.
He tugged at the ring, but it seemed to be firmly in place. He scowled, and pulled at it a second time, successfully yanking it off his finger. Holding the ring up to the window, he analysed it: the stone hardly glimmered, and the gold itself was dull.
It’s the lighting, Tom thought to himself. Or maybe, it’s something else...
He shoved one of the doll’s hands into the hole of the ring, pushing it as far as it could go. It fit perfectly.
Tom stopped for a second, shaking his head slightly as his flaky lips formed a faint smile. He was taken aback by the thought of his silly little experiment producing any results.
“Impossible.” He scoffed, pulling out the pen from his pocket, holding it in his fist like a knife. He laid the doll onto the shelf, face-up, and chuckled under his breath. He then swung the pen down at the doll, stabbing the pointed end perfectly into the centre of its face, tearing through the material.
Tom froze. Soundless moments passed as his eyes drifted from the doll, to the empty roads, to the dark night sky, where the moon had been obscured by a blanket of grey clouds. He kept waiting like that, frozen in movement, expecting...but nothing happened.
“I knew it.” He finally uttered, and picked up the doll, looking it straight in its eyes, “You’re a fake.”
“You’re a fake!” echoed a voice from an unlit corner of the store. A startled Tom spun around, aiming the doll towards the source, as if it would protect him.
“Hello...?” Tom responded, advancing cautiously.
“You’re a fake!” the voice cackled again. Tom inched closer, and soon realized that the voice was coming from inside a bird cage located in the corner of the room.
“A parrot. I’m talking to a goddamn parrot.” He said to himself, unwittingly stuffing the poppet into his coat pocket. “I must be mad...”
“I knew it!” the parrot cawed, repeating Tom’s words.
Tom was amused by the creature. He circled the cage, marvelling at the bird’s yellow and blue feathers. He even imitated some of the bird’s movement by cocking his head.
“Where’s the keeper?” Tom teased, his head still cocked to one side. “I hear she’s good at giving answers...”
“Let me out!” the parrot continued.
Tom stared, curiously. He had no idea what to make of the bird.
“Don’t sweat it, Tom.” It squawked, fluttering its wings.
Tom straightened himself as a portentous chill crept up his spine. How could the bird have known his name?
“Go to hell, Tom...” the bird cursed.
Tom was lost for words. It all seemed like some sort of sick joke. Whatever it was, he’d had enough. He was getting out of here. Maybe he didn’t need any more answers. He figured that perhaps he knew enough on his own to make his next move. So, he turned around to head for the door.
There was a woman standing immediately behind him.
Tom was blindsided, instantly lightheaded, and felt his lungs deflate like a couple of unknotted balloons as he looked down at the woman.
“I am Sheila,” she spoke sullenly, her eyes shrouded in thick blue eye shadow. She straightened her blouse with her bony fingers, and continued, “I sense that you have come for a reading. Follow me.”
~~~
Tom didn’t move; it was as if he had been so startled that he couldn’t think straight. He only managed to stare at her. Sheila took his hand and led him into the area behind the black curtain.
The back room seemed a bit cramped. There were pink candles - about a dozen of them - placed unevenly on a small table, which provided little light, and casted shadows on the bookshelves, and on the chests teeming with strange artifacts along the perimeter. And then there was a round, wooden table in the centre of the room, on which sat a small, circular mirror embedded in an antique frame.
“Your parrot...” Tom’s finally managed to say, after being seating at one end of the table, “It knew my name...”
“Rupert – he is no regular bird,” Sheila explained, tying back her short, magenta hair as she took her seat opposite Tom, “Sometimes, he says...interesting things to people.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things that...have some connection...to their futures...” Sheila clarified, and watched as Tom fidgeted around, agitated. “Why? What did he say to you?”
“Forget it...” Tom said, shaking the thought of the parrot out of his mind. He’s here now, and he was here to find out exactly what he wanted to know – the truth. The issue of the parrot can wait. After all, his life wasn’t the only one at stake.
“You have come here with a strong sense of determination.” Sheila said, smiling. “What is it, then, that you seek?”
“This is...very important...”
“Ask wisely, Tom,” Sheila interjected, looking around as if something in the air had spoken to her. She seemed to be visibly disturbed. “I sense...that another soul...hangs in the balance...”
Tom winced. It was as if she was reading his very thoughts.
“It’s...about Kathy,” he continued, “My wife.”
“What bothers you?”
“You tell me.” Tom replied, warily. He was skeptical about Sheila’s proclaimed psychic abilities. He didn’t intend to make this easy for her. He thought that he should test her first.
“As you wish,” Sheila nodded, timidly reaching out to take hold of Tom’s hands. “Put your mind at ease. Look into my eyes.”
Tom found her simple request surprisingly difficult. He wasn’t a particularly social person; his wife was the only person he had ever shared this experience with. It felt so adulterous to gaze into another woman’s eyes this way. And the thought of being unfaithful made his stomach churn.
He had to force his eyes to scale around Sheila’s slender figure, scramble up the silver pendant draped around her neck, and finally look deep into her obsidian-black eyes. Sheila gazed back, her eyes subtly flittering between each of Tom’s, penetrating, searching his mind.
“The eyes...” she spoke softly after a time, “They are...a window into your soul...”
Can she actually see into my mind? Tom wondered. He wasn’t too comfortable with the thought of someone else being able to see all his memories, and his...dark secrets. He almost hoped that she was lying, that she was a phony. She wouldn’t be able to handle the horrors hidden in the tenebrous crevices of his mind.
“You...really love her...” Sheila said, shyly, and couldn’t help but smile. ”And tomorrow...tomorrow is...a special day for you two...”
Tom was impressed; she was right. Tomorrow was their eighth anniversary. Seven years in a row, they had, without fail, spent their anniversary together in a quaint little cottage by the lake. Tom was particularly keen on taking Kathy down there this year.
“But...a demon...” Sheila interrupted his train of thought, squinting, as if to permeate his mind deeper, “You have struggled...with this demon...for a long time.”
“Not after tonight.”
“Your wife...” Sheila tilted her head back slowly, directing her face toward the sky. She locked her eyes shut, and Tom could feel the intensity of her concentration in her grip. “She is...having an affair.”
“She is...” Tom admitted.
She’s having an affair. The words lingered in the back of Tom’s mouth like the pungent aftertaste of stomach acid climbing up his esophagus. He was all too aware of Kathy’s infidelity. He didn’t know exactly when it had begun, but he knew that it had been going on for a while, now. It made him bitter.
“I’m sorry...” Sheila apologized, meekly.
Tom felt that she had proven herself. He felt that he could trust whatever she told him, now. He was desperate, and needed to know what to make of the situation. There was much more to his predicament that he had revealed, but he didn’t think Sheila needed to know the details. She wouldn’t want to know the details.
“It’s...not your fault.” Tom assured her, and looked away from her eyes before she could read anything more. Now I can ask her the more important questions.
“Tom, you have to leave.” Sheila warned him, with a sudden change of heart. She slowly pulled her hands away, but Tom was not planning on leaving just yet.
He grabbed her before she could back off, begging, “Please...I must know more.”
“I shouldn’t...” she stammered, confusedly, “Something...isn’t right...”
“No.” Tom retorted, his grip tightening around Sheila’s wrists like a snake coiling around its prey.
“You’re hurting me...” she squealed.
“Please.”
“What, then?”
“I need to know if we can...fix it...our marriage. Tell me.”
“Let go.” Sheila cried, shooting him an unsympathetic glance. “I’ll help you.”
Tom reluctantly loosened his grip, and allowed her to pull away. Sheila took a moment to rub the pain out of her wrists while she mulled over helping Tom. She decided she would, eventually – more out of fear than compassion – and rose from her seat to reach for the circular mirror.
“This is a regular mirror,” Sheila explained, to Tom’s bewilderment. “It is the frame...that harbours mystical properties.”
“What does it do?”
“Look into it, at your reflection. Look into your own eyes. Then, ask your question.” Sheila said, placing the mirror infront of Tom. “Once you have asked your question, breathe onto the mirror. Use a single breath. And then, I will interpret for you the answer of the spirits.”
Tom nodded, and gently lifted the mirror with both his hands. He noticed that his head was beginning to pulsate delicately, a slight dizziness coming over him. Is it the mirror? He wondered, Or something else?
“Are you okay?” Sheila asked when she noticed that the mirror was trembling in his hands.
“I don’t feel very well...”
“Do you still want to do this?”
“Yes.”
Tom drew the mirror closer to himself, until he could clearly see the subtleties of his face: every hair on his chin, every wrinkle under his eyes...Every detail expressed the agony he had endured for the past several months. But when will it end? The frustration was beginning to take its toll. Could his marriage be healed?
“On the day of our wedding...I vowed that Kathy and I would be together...for the rest of our lives.” Tom announced rather awkwardly, as he was speaking to the mirror, “Will we? Will we be together...for the rest of our lives? Or will I... die alone?”
~~~
Tom inhaled deeply and breathed a long, warm breath onto the mirror, fogging up its reflective surface. He and Sheila then observed carefully as the vapour dissipated.
“It will form something. A shape.” Sheila said, taking the mirror into her own hands to get a closer look. “The shape is dictated by the spirits. It will be their answer.”
“What is it?”
Tom’s heart began to pound excitedly as Sheila’s somber face broke into an auspicious smile.
“Look...” she turned the mirror to Tom. Upon it, he could see two elliptical formations of thick vapour, and within both, a single speck of the mirror’s reflective coating was visible. “A yin-yang.”
“A yin-yang...”
“A symbol of unity.” Sheila said, placing her hand on Tom’s shoulder, tenderly. “The spirits believe that you and your wife will be together for the rest of your lives.”
Tom smiled, uneasily. The spirits may not be right, this time, he feared.
“This is good news, is it not?”
“It is, but...” Tom buried his aching head in his hands and rubbed the exasperation out of his eyes. “I need to know one more thing.”
“Tom...” Sheila began, apprehensively. “I have been sensing...an aura...about you. It has been telling me that...it isn’t safe...for you to be here.”
Tom leapt up from his seat, seizing Sheila by the forearm, causing her to drop the mirror back into the table. “Goddamn it, Sheila! Help me! Can’t you see that I need this!?”
“You’re...bleeding...”
“What?” Tom shouted in confusion, his face twisted in nervous anger.
“Your...nose...”
Tom thrust Sheila away from him, and she struggled to maintain her footing. He picked up the mirror and examined himself. She was right...blood was trickling down his nose.
“Just one last thing.” Tom promised her, his voice tuned down several notches, as he dabbed his nose with a tissue. “I need to know if she still loves me.”
“One more thing, then.”
Sheila scurried around the table to retrieve an item from the bottom of a dusty chest. It seemed to be a blunt dagger, with a corroded silver blade and a rusted hilt.
“I will help you.” Sheila swore, reluctantly handing Tom the dagger. “The dagger is blessed. It will tell you what you want to know...”
“What do I do?”
“Hold it with both hands. Strike the mirror with a single swing.”
“What will it mean?”
“Break the mirror first, and focus...”
Tom felt himself begin to perspire, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. The mirror rested face-up on the table before him. He didn’t waste another moment. With his hands wrapped firmly around the hilt, he raised the dagger above his head.
“You had better not be fooling around with me.” He said, threateningly.
“Focus. Keep in mind why you are doing this...”
Tom took a breath and tried to recompose, puzzling over Kathy’s true feelings for him as he balanced the dagger in his hands. He didn’t know what Sheila was going to do next, but his head was throbbing and he was desperate.
He plunged the tip of the blade into the mirror, shattering the glass on impact. The mirror had been split into several pieces, all of which remained safely within the frame, although each shard was loosely in place.
“Come, now... I will...interpret what the spirits are telling you... Remember, Tom, their answer is...irreversible...” Sheila said weakly, and took the mirror into her hands.
Tom nodded his head once, understandingly, and watched with twitching eyes as Sheila carefully picked out each piece of the broken mirror, one after another.
“She loves you.” Sheila said, picking the first piece out of the frame and laying it onto the table.
Tom waited silently, on edge, still clutching the dagger in his right hand.
“She loves you not.” Sheila pulled a second shard from the mirror frame.
One after another, Sheila picked out the pieces of the broken mirror and laid them onto the table in this way. And one by one, she came closer to revealing the answer to the question that had been haunting Tom for months.
Sheila paused for second, and looked at the few remaining pieces in the frame. Tom could tell that she had already seen the answer.
“She loves you not...” Sheila whimpered, pulling out a rather short piece of the mirror from the frame.
“Hurry.” Tom groaned. Whether it was because of his anger or nervousness, or because of the sheer congested feeling of being in the room, he was boiling under his jacket; sweat dribbling down his temples.
“She...” Sheila paused again, and slowly forced a smile. “Tom, she loves you...!”
Tom glared at Sheila, wide-eyed and speechless, hysterically wiping sweat off his face with his sleeves. But he knew from the sudden change in her expression that something was amiss.
“Tom...she loves you...” Sheila repeated, her voice shaking, as she tried vainly to convince an unstable, almost hyperventilating Tom.
“NO!” he bellowed, glowering at her and drowning out her weakened voice. He slammed the dagger’s blade into the table, and stomped toward Sheila, shouting, “Liar! Give me the mirror!”
Sheila backed away, alarmed, “She loves you, Tom! She loves you!”
But it didn’t take long for Tom to back her into a corner. He violently jerked the mirror out of her hands, and scowled into the frame.
It was just as he feared: a single shard still remained inside.
She loves me not, he thought to himself. The words thrashed about in his head, almost managing to knock him off his feet.
“NO!” Tom cried, hurling the frame into a wall. “NO!”
But really, he’d always known it. He’d seen it in Kathy’s eyes, in her body language. There was no question about it. She may have loved him once, but she didn’t anymore. She loves another man, and Tom knew it. He had naively refused to believe it for so long, always searching for a reason to think otherwise. But there was no more denying it.
And there was no stopping him from what he was going to do next.
“Tom...” Sheila whimpered, inching closer to him.
Tom wouldn’t respond. He was hunch-backed, looking away from Sheila, his palms were pressed flatly against the table, and his head was throbbing in pain. He was lost in deep thought, utterly vexed and plagued by resentment.
“I know...that you are upset...” she continued as she came with reach, and raised her hand towards his shoulder to comfort him.
Tom’s deceptive composure completely caught her off guard when he swung around, lunging his arms at her neck.
“You don’t know...how I feel...” he said, gritting his teeth as he shoved her into a wall. She tried fruitlessly to release herself from the deadly grip of Tom’s beefy fingers as he growled, “And you LIED. You’re full of it!”
“Tom...control yourself!”
“DO SOMETHING.” Tom shouted into her face.
“Okay...Tom...please...Do what?”
“MAKE HER LOVE ME.”
“Tom...please...you know I can’t...just...”
“USE YOUR GODDAMN SPIRITS.”
“Wait...Listen to me...!” Sheila cried. Tom grunted, and let her speak. Her back was to the wall, now. “What is done...cannot be undone... Let her go...You’re only hurting...yourself...”
“NO.”
“Tom, we are all...like...poppets!” Sheila raised her voice at him, and Tom momentarily remembered the peculiar little figurine he had crammed into his pocket earlier.
“Just walk away from this..." she went on, seeing that Tom had been slightly distracted. "Control yourself...or you’ll only be putting...another needle in your back...a nail in your coffin...”
“NO.” Tom cut her off, shaking his head.
He refused to hear another word. He rejected her pleas, held his breath, and directed all his hatred toward her. He strangulated her with ease, as if he were crushing a bushel of bananas with his bare hands. And when she had passed out, he tossed her away like a rag doll.
Fuming, Tom stormed out of the back room, and headed directly for the exit.
“Don’t sweat it, Tom,” Rupert chimed as he walked by. Tom stopped, turned back around, and flung the bird cage to the ground in anger, with Rupert fluttering frantically inside, before leaving the store.
~~~
It was still quiet in the parking lot; not a person in sight, not a car for miles. Tom stripped off his jacket and basked in the cool midnight breeze in his plain t-shirt, before mopping the sweat off his face with his coat.
He scrambled into the mini-van, tossed his coat into the back seat, and slamming the door behind him.
Waste of time... he thought to himself, as he adjusted his rear-view mirror. He noticed that blood had been oozing out of his nose again.
What the hell is wrong with my goddamn nose? He took a moment to clean himself up with a couple tissues, and then he was off.
He drove for almost twenty minutes, while heavy metal blared over the radio. It kept him awake, and thus focused on the task ahead. He could have finished the job a long time ago, had he not stopped at Sheila’s store. Should have known better, he thought to himself. What would have changed if his meeting with Sheila had turned out differently, anyway? Absolutely nothing. There was no turning back. He should have realized that before.
It took a long time, but he made it. The cottage by the lake.
Tom parked his car on a slope very close to the lake, putting it in neutral gear before clambering out, his head still pulsing. He lit up another cigarette as he rested on the hood of the van, looking out towards the waters, trying to gather his thoughts. The moon had peeped out from behind the clouds, its reflection glimmering upon the tranquil surface of the lake. For Tom, it was an ethereal reminder of the many pleasant nights he had spent here with his wife.
“Kathy...” he reminisced, a waft of smoke rising into the air, “Where did we go wrong...?”
A sudden clunk of metal resonated from behind the mini-van. Tom ignored it, uninterested, and took another inhalation of his cigarette.
The clamour continued, erratically. It went on for a few minutes, until Tom could no longer ignore it. He sighed miserably, tossed his cigarette into the lake, and strolled over to the back of the vehicle. He languidly unlocked the trunk, flung it open, and scoffed at what waited inside.
It was a woman. Her hands and feet were bound, and a red towel had been rolled up and tied painfully around her mouth to keep her from speaking. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, dragging her black mascara down into her pink lips, and her chestnut hair was tousled untidily over her face.
“You’re awake.” Tom groaned, ripping the towel from out of her mouth.
“Tom...!” the woman gasped for air, shuddering wildly. “What...are...? W-where are we? Tom...”
“The cabin.”
“...Untie me...Tom...”
“No.”
“W-why did you...do this...?”
“Because you lied, Kathy.”
“Let me go, Tom!” Kathy shrieked, and Tom flinched as she evoked the image of Sheila’s parrot in his mind’s eye, which had said those same words almost an hour earlier.
That goddamn bird, he thought, expressionlessly standing there with his arms crossed as his wife begged him to release her. Everything she said went in one ear and out the other. He could never let her go after all her unfaithfulness.
“Tom...! W-what are you going to do...? Kill me? Are you going to kill me Tom!?”
“Yes.”
“Tom, listen to yourself! ...Tom!”
“I’ll show you...the price of dishonesty.” Tom mumbled, pulling out the wheeled suitcase that was sitting next to Kathy. He set it aside, next to the mini-van. “I’ll show you.”
“TOM. STOP THIS.”
“Happy Anniversary, Kathy.” Tom said lastly, before slamming the trunk shut.
Kathy screamed, helplessly as Tom walked back around the van, to the driver’s seat, to change the gear setting. Then he came back to the trunk, and began to push the van towards the lake, to Kathy’s horror.
The slope made it easier on Tom. Pushing the van exhausted every fibre in his body, but it only took a few seconds before the vehicle wobbled down the slope, and plummeted into the lake.
Fatigued, Tom squatted down onto the grass and watched in silent, twisted gratification as water gushed through the opened windows of the mini-van, dragging the vehicle, Kathy, and all his frustrations, down into the abyss of the lake.
He sat there for at least ten minutes, mulling over what he would do the next morning. He had everything he needed in his suitcase...some clothes, money, his passport. He figured that he’d have a good rest at the cabin, and then hitchhike back to the city. For a moment, he regretted dumping Kathy’s min-van into the lake along with her, but he didn’t want to hold onto anything that would remind him of her.
Finally, Tom decided he’d waited long enough, and tried to heave himself up onto his feet.
He shuffled around, losing his balance, as the world around him spun out of control. His head throbbed fiercely, as he tried to regain control of his body. He attempted to take a step towards his suitcase, but his knees gave way, and he tumbled onto the grass pathetically.
Tom found it more and more difficult to breathe with every passing moment. It felt as if he was...drowning...from the inside out. He lifted his trembling hands before his eyes to assess his vision. It was blurred, and it worsened exponentially within seconds.
What the hell is happening to me?
He rolled onto his back in dismay, gawking at his hands. He noticed that his wedding ring was missing.
And that was when it hit him, like a bullet to his gut...it might as well have been. He shook his head, feebly, and incredulously, but there really was no other explanation.
The poppet.
It even explained the nosebleeds, and the pain that had been clawing at his head all this time. Was it all because...he had damaged the doll's face?
“Don’t sweat it, Tom!” He could almost hear Rupert squawking at him, taunting him. He was...choking, suffocating, drowning on dry land.
Impossible. Or was it...?
He had put his ring on the doll. He stupidly put the doll in his jacket. And what did he do with the jacket? He took it off, of course, because he was burning up, sweating.
And he left the jacket in the goddamn van.
~~~
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