The Crate in the Cellar

Twenty years had passed since my parents’ divorce, and I had long since moved out, but when my mother fell ill, I returned to the old house in the countryside of Portugal. The place had a heavy silence that clung to the walls, a silence that seemed to swallow sound whole. Mom was bedridden, and I spent my days tending to her, the quiet broken only by the creak of floorboards and the occasional distant rumble of thunder from the Atlantic storms.

One evening, as I sat reading beside her bed, we heard a muffled thud from the cellar below. Mom’s eyes widened, and she whispered, ‘It’s the rats again.’ But I knew she was lying. I had checked the cellar weeks ago and found no sign of rodents. I went to investigate, my flashlight cutting through the dark as I descended the wooden stairs. The air was thick with dust and the smell of old wine. The thud came again, seeming to come from behind a stack of crates in the corner. I moved them aside and found a small, locked wooden chest that I had never seen before. It was covered in a strange carvings, like a spiral with symbols I didn’t recognize. I tried to open it, but the lock was old and rusted. I decided to leave it.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the chest. In the morning, I told Mom about it. She turned pale and demanded I burn it. When I asked why, she said, ‘That chest holds something we should have destroyed long ago. Your father brought it back from his travels, and we never opened it, but it brought us nothing but bad luck.’ She refused to explain more. I was skeptical but agreed to take it to the incinerator. But as I carried it out, I stumbled, and the chest hit the ground, the lock breaking open. The lid creaked open, and I saw a single object inside: a small, hand-carved wooden doll, no bigger than my palm, with hollow eyes and a twisted smile.

I felt a chill run down my spine as I picked it up. It was cold to the touch, and I could have sworn I heard a faint, high-pitched giggle. I quickly shoved it back and brought the chest inside, hiding it in my old room. That night, I placed the doll on my nightstand, thinking I would examine it further. As I drifted off, I dreamed of a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed, its eyes glowing like embers. When I woke, the doll was gone. I searched the room, but it had vanished.

Over the next week, strange things began to happen. The TV would turn on by itself in the middle of the night, showing static. I heard footsteps pacing in the hallway when I was alone. And one night, I saw a silhouette pass by the frosted glass of my bedroom door, but when I opened it, there was no one there. I began to feel like I was being watched. Mom grew weaker, and she started muttering in her sleep, saying, ‘He’s here. He’s waiting.’

I decided to confront her. One evening, I asked her directly, ‘Mom, what is that doll? Who does it belong to?’ She looked at me with fear in her eyes and said, ‘Your father found it in an Italian village, buried under a tree. It belonged to a witch who cursed it. Anyone who possesses it will be haunted until they die, and then the curse moves to the next person. I tried to dispose of it, but it always comes back. I hid it in the cellar, hoping it would forget us, but now you’ve let it out.’ She started coughing violently, and I realized the curse was on her. I had to destroy the doll, but it was already gone.

I searched the house frantically. In the attic, I found a diary my father had left. He wrote about the doll, how he had tried to destroy it many times, but it always returned, and he believed it was the cause of their divorce and his own failing health. He wrote that the only way to break the curse was to return it to the spot where it was found, but he never went back to Italy. The diary had a map to the village. I knew I had to go there.

I told Mom I was going to the village, but she begged me not to leave, saying, ‘If you leave, the curse will take you.’ But I had no choice. I booked a flight, determined to end this. As I packed, I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. Whirling around, I saw the doll floating in the air, its hollow eyes fixed on me. It whispered in a voice like dry leaves, ‘You cannot escape.’ I grabbed it and locked it in the chest, driving to the airport with the chest locked in the trunk. On the plane, I felt a strange calm, as if the doll was enjoying the journey.

I arrived in the village, a quiet place of stone houses and narrow streets. Following the map, I found a gnarled olive tree at the edge of a field. I dug beneath it, and to my shock, I found an old brass key. As I touched it, I heard the doll’s laughter echoing in my mind. I opened the chest and took out the doll. I placed it in the hole and covered it with dirt. As I did, I felt a release, a weight lifting from my shoulders. For the first time in weeks, I could breathe freely.

I returned to Portugal, feeling lighter. Mom’s health seemed to improve, and we even shared a laugh. But one week later, as I was tidying my old room, I found the doll sitting on my nightstand, its smile wider than before. In the middle of the night, I heard a crash from the cellar. I went down, and the chest was open, empty. And then I saw it: a shadow in the corner, slowly taking shape, with the doll as its face. It spoke, ‘The curse can never be broken. It can only be passed on.’ And I knew then that I was not the end of this curse, but just another link in its chain.

I am writing this now, from a small room in a foreign city. I have changed my name and moved across the world, but the doll always finds me. It appears on my nightstand, or in my suitcase, or in the mirror. Even now, as I type, I feel it watching from the corner of the room. I don’t know how much longer I can run. The only comfort is that I have not passed it on, and I never will. But I fear that when I die, it will simply wait for the next person to stumble upon it, as I did. And the cycle will continue.