by Hudson Wilding
Wilhelm found out about my secret last night. I let him tie me to the bed and I told him he could do whatever he wanted. Once he had my arms and legs bound, he searched the pockets in all my clothes until he found the key to the box in the bottom drawer of my bedside table.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Wilhelm has never been the dominant type. He can’t even spank me without immediately apologizing. I should’ve known he’d had an alternative motive the moment he tried to trick me into thinking he had a new-found rope kink.
When he opened the box, he looked so devastated I almost felt bad, even though he was the one invading my privacy.
“You told me you were done,” he said.
I’d forgotten how homely the poppet was until he pulled it out: stitched from a stolen t-shirt of my ex’s; stuffed with feathers I’d filched from her favorite pillow. A lock of her hair was even sewn to its little head, making it look like a balding infant.
I pulled at my bound wrists, not wanting him to touch it.
“I didn’t lie to you, darling. You should put it down. It’s dormant now.”
“Why do you still have it?”
“You can’t destroy a poppet without killing the soul you’ve fused to it.”
“What is it for in the first place?”
“It was supposed to encourage affection from the person it was modeled after, but, well, here we are, so obviously it didn’t work.”
He was a bit upset, naturally. He’s not the type to keep mementos from past relationships.
“I want you to get rid of it,” he said.
It struck me as funny that he didn’t ask me anything about her, the inspiration for the strange effigy. Wilhelm’s always been odd that way; he hates discussing past lovers.
“We can put it in the attic,” I offered.
“It can’t be in our house.”
My wrists were beginning to chafe. “Then put it in the car. I don’t care.”
His quivering lip collapsed as he moved from anger to tears, a string of mucus running from his nostril over his philtrum.
“Do you love me at all?”
I squeezed my eyes closed. It was not the time for that conversation. Not again. “We can bury the box in the yard.”
“So you can dig it up again later? I should just destroy it.”
“Darling.” I struggled to keep my voice even. “You don’t want to do that. We can go to the cemetery and bury it there.”
He frowned, not crazy about the idea. But what else was there to do? He was not a violent man, nor foolish enough to mess with black magic on his own.
He untied me.
Once freed, I put some sweats on over my lingerie and got the flashlight. Then, while Wilhelm got the shovel, I sealed the box with duct tape and a small sigil meant to promote peaceful rest.
We drove to the cemetery in silence, and he parked right by the entrance. I wanted to tell him he should be careful—cops were always patrolling burial grounds at night, even if all you wanted was a jar full of cemetery dirt for a spell—but he was in such a state, I didn’t dare recommend he park a bit further up the road. We got out of the car and stumbled up the grassy knoll, shovel clattering as it trailed behind him.
It was easy to find an opening in the fence leading to the oldest part of the grounds where he began to dig. I wanted to rip open the box and stroke her hair one last time as I waited: those lovely blonde locks that always smelled like peppermint and tickled my nose. I wanted to give her one last dream of me, one last pulsing memory of our love.
Instead, I sat down on the ground, listening to the shovel hitting stone. I tried not to think of where she was now, and whether she’d feel any different with a part of her buried underground.
When Wilhelm finally lowered her into the earth, his breath insistent and uneasy, he looked as if he were on the verge of tears. I felt a swell of pride just watching him. My love magic skills had improved so greatly since I cast that spell on her so long ago. All it ever took was a single look at Wilhelm to remind me all my hard work had been worth it.
HUDSON WILDING’s fiction has previously been published in Infernal Ink, Menacing Hedge, Massacre Magazine, and Not One of Us, among other horror journals. More of her short stories are forthcoming in Foglifter, Wells Street Journal, and the Tainted Love: Women in Horror Anthology. You can find her on Twitter @HudsonWilding.
