Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 15 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

The Cursed Doll That Always Comes Back No Matter How Many Times You Get Rid of It

A young girl living in a certain country picked up a doll she found on the side of the road.

Its golden hair was glossy. The pink dress it was wearing was very beautiful. Its blue eyes sparkled like gemstones. With a single glance, in that moment, the girl was captivated by the incredibly beautiful doll. She didn’t know whom it belonged to, but she liked the doll so much that she took it right home with her.

However, the girl’s mother took one look at the doll she’d brought home and frowned, and she scolded the young girl lightly.

“Oh no, you shouldn’t pick things like this up. Take it right back to where you found it immediately.”

To all appearances, the incredibly beautiful doll did not look like something that would have been thrown away. It had likely been lost. The owner might have been looking for it at that very moment. Her daughter needed to return it to where she’d originally found it before anyone got the idea that she’d stolen the doll, the mother thought.

“Awww…,” the daughter whined. She was disappointed because she’d felt so very lucky to find the doll.

But her mother reasoned with her—“If you want a doll, I’ll buy one for you”—and suggested that they go together to get rid of the old doll and then go right to the doll shop, where her daughter could pick out a pretty new doll that her mother would buy her as a present.

“…You will?” the girl asked. All the new dolls that lined the shelves of the doll shop were rather fancy and rather expensive.

“It’s okay. Your mother’s been making a pretty penny at her side job.”

“What’s your side job?”

“Resale.”

This is a digression, but the lady had been earning a decent amount doing small jobs from home.

“Yay! Thank you!”

The girl forgot all about the doll she had found and went home with her mother, hugging her new doll instead.

Then, the following day—

While the mother was making breakfast in the kitchen, she suddenly felt a chill run up her spine. She sensed an uncomfortable set of eyes on her, as if she was being watched by somebody.

So she turned around.

“……?”

Then she tilted her head to the side in confusion.

There was nobody behind her.

However, there was a doll sitting in one of the dining room chairs where the family usually had their breakfast.

The doll, with its glossy golden hair, dressed in a very pretty pink dress, with blue eyes that sparkled like gemstones, was the very same doll that she was certain she had helped her daughter get rid of the day before.

“My husband must have happened to pick it up.” The mother didn’t give it too much more thought and went to discard it on the roadside just as she had the day before.

But it was the strangest thing.

During breakfast, when she asked her husband about the doll, he just looked puzzled and said, “I never picked up any doll?”

And of course their daughter hadn’t picked it up again.

So then, exactly who had placed it in the dining room?

“It’s almost like the doll walked in by itself.” The husband laughed jokingly as he nibbled at his bread.

“…Don’t say weird things like that.” The wife smiled, caught up in her husband’s easygoing mood. Even as she smiled, she felt those uncomfortable eyes on her again from somewhere.

Ultimately, no matter how much thought she gave it, she couldn’t figure out what could have caused the doll to come back on its own. But this time, she had gotten rid of it for certain, so she was sure everything was all right.

However, that evening—

When she came home from work, the mother froze as soon as she opened the door to the house.

“…How?”

There in the entryway. Right in front of the door.

The doll was sitting there, waiting for the mother’s return. It was sitting flat on the floor, looking up at her with its manufactured smile.

The woman got goose bumps. She was afraid. At that point, she finally understood that something supernatural was taking place.

Then, from that day forward, the doll started to follow her whole family around.

No matter how many times they got rid of it, the doll always came back.

Whether they returned it to the road where they had picked it up, or threw it away in a garbage can, or guiltily gave it to someone else, or tried to sell it to a store, no matter what they did, no matter what happened, the doll seemed to have taken a great liking to them and always managed to come back to them.

No matter how many days passed, no matter how many times they discarded it.

The doll always followed the family around.

Then one day, when she returned home to find the doll, which was waiting for her in the entryway as always with a creepy smile on its face, the mother finally reached the limits of her patience.

“Oh, give it a rest already! Quit following our family around! What on earth are you after?!”

Overwhelmed by the weirdness of it all, the mother sank to the floor and started crying.

“I have heard of your predicament.”

By the way, it just so happened that there was a wandering witch there, leaning back against the door that was standing ajar, wearing an unruffled expression on her face.

Who could she be?

The lady of the house raised her head and inquired, “A-and you are…?”

When she asked, the witch tossed her hair dramatically and replied, “I am the Ashen Witch, Elaina. A powerful and clever witch. Today, I got wind of someone in trouble, and I came here.”

“A powerful and clever witch…?” The woman cocked her head, obviously wondering what this stranger was talking about. I’d meant it as a joke to break the tension, but she seemed to have taken it rather more seriously.

“Well, more importantly, you, madam, seem to be suffering abuse at the hands of a supernatural stalker.”

I, the powerful and clever witch, glossed over my own overenthusiastic gaffe and moved the conversation forward.

“Th-that’s right…! Th-the doll is…! No matter how many times we get rid of it, it always comes back…!”

The woman grabbed on to my skirt and clung to it as she sobbed furiously like a child.

What are you doing?

“This doll is likely what’s known as a cursed doll,” I said. “It probably set its eye on you when your daughter first picked it up.”

“Huh…? How did you know my daughter picked the doll up…?”

“Because I was there.”

“…Are you a stalker, too?”

“Not at all.”

I just happened to be there.

“…Can you lift the curse on this doll?”

“Ah, sorry. I forgot to say so, but curses are not one of my areas of expertise.” I shook my head. “So it’s not possible.”

“Y-you’re kidding…” The woman slumped her shoulders.

“Stay strong, madam. This sort of cursed doll lies in wait for the moment of its owner’s mental weakness. You mustn’t show any vulnerability.”

This was something I had learned by reading it in a book. Apparently, many cursed dolls wore away at their victims’ sanity over time, before eventually taking their lives.

“But, but… If I stay strong, like you said, then how on earth—?”

“Money.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s make some money, madam.”

The woman was bewildered.

“What in the world are you talking about…?”

With a very, very serious face, I told her, “Can’t you just smell the business opportunity coming off of this doll?”

“Hold on, I genuinely do not understand what you are saying.”

In that case, it seems like you need me to explain the particulars.

I crouched and whispered into the woman’s ear, even though there was no one else around.

“No matter where you leave it, this doll comes back to you, is that right?”

“Yes…”

“And, madam, I cannot help but notice, it looks like you send a lot of packages.”

Looking into the house from the entryway, I could see several wrapped parcels. She appeared to be making a little money on the side buying and selling household goods.

“What would you think about enclosing the cursed doll in one of those packages?” I suggested.

“Even if I do something like that, the doll will somehow come back to me…”

“That’s right. But don’t you think it will be good publicity if you attach advertising notices to the doll?”

I’d heard that some people involved in that kind of sales business would include little treats or notes in their packages to show their gratitude to their customers. The woman could package up the doll in much the same way and get her customers to leave the doll on their doorsteps after they had accepted their packages.

As long as they did that, the doll would come back to the woman’s house on its own, and along the way, it could do advertising duty.

In short, while she was working her side gig, she would also be able to pull in ad revenue.

“…!”

With the advent of a new business opportunity, the woman’s eyes got their light back. She said, “I never thought of that!” clapped her hands together, and picked up the doll.

No longer was the doll in her arms simply a cursed doll. It was her business partner.

“Thank you, Lady Witch! I’m going to give it a try!”

In this way, the woman rose to sudden fame as someone who had invented an entirely new business using a cursed doll. All sorts of different businesses took notice and approached her wanting to embroider their business names onto the clothes of her famous cursed doll, and there was no shortage of people who wanted to get a look at the intriguing doll and placed regular orders, hoping it would show up.

By that point, the sight of the doll parading through town covered in logos from various businesses had become one of the country’s better-known attractions.

“Oh, that’s just wonderful.”

I was a little excited by the extra income I was making, so I was in a fairly expensive café having a leisurely breakfast when I saw that there was a special interest article on the woman who had started the doll business adorning the front of the newspaper.

According to the article—

“It’s all thanks to my keen sense of smell that allows me to sniff out good business opportunities at any moment.”

That was the gist of it.

The article continued to note that much of the credit for the woman’s incredible success was owed to a certain witch who had put the idea in her head.

And who on earth could that be?

That’s right, it’s me.