Inspiration is a Nightmare

Samantha sighed dejectedly as she stared at the blank canvas in front of her. She had been sitting like this in her studio now for five hours, wishing for the tiniest bit of inspiration to strike her. But no, she had painters block.

Samantha had been painting her own original works in her secluded cabin out in the woods now for three years. She liked being out in the woods. It was calm, there were no distractions, and inspiration was all around her- if she knew where to look. 

And Samantha was desperate for inspiration now, because she planned to enter one of her works into the biggest art contest in all of Maine, the Congressional Arts Competition. Her goal was to create a painting so vivid, so lifelike, that it would tell a story without speaking. She wanted to touch the hearts of the judges, she wanted to make them feel for her painting, even though it was only different coloured inks blended together on the canvas.

Samantha finally stood up from her stool and fixed her messy bun to get the stray hairs out of her face. She decided she was going to go for a quick stroll in the woods around her cabin in order to get the inspiration she so desperately needed. So, she threw on her coat over her striped shirt, jean shorts, and stained apron and headed out the door.

The crisp air was cold as Samantha walked, and she wrapped her coat tighter around herself to stay warm. Normally the woods were bursting with colour and sounds and smells, but that wasn’t the case today, as winter was almost upon her. The trees were losing their leaves, making them look skeletal as they stood against the cloudy grey sky. The dead leaves and grass crunched beneath her boots as she walked, scaring away what little squirrels and birds remained.

Unfortunately, the absence of life was not helping inspire Samantha, so she stopped in a clearing after a half hour of walking. She took one last look around, hoping for something, anything to show up out of the blue and give her an idea… but nothing did. She felt anger cloud her mind and a sense of hopelessness washed over her. “I’m never going to succeed,” she hissed to herself.

She turned on her heel and took a few frustrated steps forward, when suddenly, she kicked something. Frowning, Samantha looked down and saw some of the foliage was raised, as if something had been buried under it. Kneeling, Samantha wiped the leaves and dirt away.

Her eyes widened as she revealed a broken porcelain doll. Immediately, Samantha knew something was wrong with it, not just because it was cracked terribly and missing part of its face, an arm, and a leg. The doll seemed to be staring her down with an angry expression on what was left of the face. The eyes were piercingly green, and the lips were painted in a permanent frown. Samantha instantly thought of it as a pouting child.

She took a moment to inspect the doll with her eyes. This could be the inspiration she needed…

Her mind screamed at her to leave the doll there, to move on and go back to her cabin to get a good night's sleep. But the curiosity in her mind was louder, and she took the doll in her hands, picking it up.

It wore a grey nightdress that hung loosely where her missing arm and leg were, and was torn in quite a few places. Samantha noticed, however, that the longer she held the doll, the hotter it became, until suddenly, she heard a sizzling sound and felt it begin to burn her hands.

She yelped out of surprise and pain as she dropped the doll back to the ground, where it landed with a soft thud.

Samantha gasped and looked at her hands. They weren’t burned badly, but she was still freaked out. She ran out of the clearing, and instantly, the upset in her mind dissipated and she was thinking clearly again. “I need to lie down,” she whispered to herself before heading back to her cabin.

That night, as she lay in her bed, Samantha tossed and turned as a terrible nightmare raged on in her mind.

A girl was standing in her bedroom, tears streaming down her face as she held her smiling doll. It was scorching hot as fire filled the room, surrounding the poor girl, who’s piercing green eyes stared hopelessly around her. Her jet black hair was singed, and her grey nightgown was torn. There were noises outside, voices. Angry voices, who were screaming, “Burn the witch!” “Kill the witch!” And solemn voices who pleaded, “She’s just a child!” “We must save her!” But no one did. As fire consumed the little girl, she closed her eyes and chanted something in a strange, indistinguishable language. Suddenly, her burning body went limp, dropping the doll. The doll’s face suddenly changed from a carefree smile, to an angry frown…

Samantha bolted upright, panting heavily. She was sweating profusely, and the smell of smoke filled her nose, as if she had been in the dream herself. “That doll… it’s the same one,” she mumbled to herself. The doll she had seen in her dream was the exact same one as the one she had found in the woods. Not only that, but it looked exactly like the little girl from her dream. Quickly, she got up and ran over to her phone, dialling a number of the one person she knew could help with her problem.

It rang and rang and rang until a tired voice came through the other end. “H-Hello?”

“Lillian! It’s Samantha! You need to come over, now!” Samantha exclaimed anxiously.

Lillian sighed. “Sammy, it is 1:00 in the morning, and you live in the middle of nowhere. I don’t feel like driving all the way out there. Besides, your house is creepy at night.”

“Please. Lilian, please!” Samantha begged. “I wouldn’t disturb my best friend like this if it wasn’t important.”

Samantha heard Lillian groan. “Fine, fine! But you owe me big time for this,” she muttered before she hung up.

Samantha put her phone down and began to pace around her bedroom, waiting for Lillian to show up. She eventually moved to her studio, and glanced at her blank canvas as she paced, on the off chance that she’d hit a stroke of inspiration in her frenzy. But nothing struck her before she heard Lillian knock at her front door.

“Hurry up, Sammy, it’s freezing! And I’m pretty sure I saw a bear out here,” called inside.

Samantha opened the door. “All of the bears are too busy preparing for hibernation to care about a twig like you.”

“Ha, ha, you’re hilarious,” Lillian stated sarcastically. She sat on Samantha’s couch and wrapped a blanket around herself, not even bothering to take her coat off at all. “Now, mind telling me why I’m here?”

Samantha sat next to her best friend and proceeded to explain the evening’s events, starting from when she found the broken porcelain doll in the woods.

Lillian listened to every word, although she seemed quite uninterested. When Samantha finished, Lillian nodded. “So, what does that have to do with me?”

“What do you mean ‘what does it have to do with you?’” Samantha asked, frustrated. “You’re the voodoo expert here!”

Lillian worked as a Psychic in the city, and she knew all about curses, magic, and all sorts of witchcraft. That was actually how she and Samantha met. Samantha went to get her palm read, and one thing led to another, and they became best friends.

Lillian rolled her eyes. “Look, it’s too early to determine whether or not you are dealing with magic. All of this could just be a coincidence.”

“Why would a doll in the middle of the woods burn my hands; and then I have a very vivid and REAL nightmare about the doll and a girl who looks exactly like it?” Samantha hissed. “This is no coincidence. I need you to tell me what type of voodoo it is and how to deal with it!”

“Fine, let’s say it’s not,” Lillian agreed. “Then it sounds like you’re dealing with a cursed object, not voodoo.”

Samantha shrugged. “That tells me nothing, other than I’m in some pretty deep crap.”

“Not necessarily. Cursed objects are easy to deal with. All you have to do is destroy them in fire while chanting a simple spell,” Lillian explained.

Samantha nodded and jumped up. “Okay, great! Let’s go!”

“Now?”

“Yes, now!”

“Why? It’s dark out and I’m tired.”

“I’m not going to be able to get any sleep. So come on!” Samantha insisted, hauling her best friend off of the couch.

“Fine, fine.” Lillian rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as Samantha threw on her coat and boots. She also threw some firewood and matches into a bag, so that when they found the doll, they could light it on fire right then and there. She turned on a flashlight and gave another to Lillian as the duo headed out the back door, into the suffocating darkness of the night.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Lillian asked after fifteen minutes of walking.

“I’ve learned these woods like the back of my hand. Trust me, I remember exactly where I found the doll,” Samantha promised, pulling Lillian along faster.

After another fifteen minutes, the duo reached the same clearing where Samantha found the doll. “Whoa, I’m definitely getting some bad juju here,” Lillian muttered, glancing around the empty darkness. Samantha could feel it as well, she felt the same anger and hopelessness as before.

Samantha trained her eyes to the ground and looked around the foliage for it. Then she noticed an arm sticking out of the leaves. “Over here!”

Lillian came over as Samantha kicked the leaves and dirt off the doll. Lillian’s eyes rolled back in her head as she inhaled. “Ahhhh, yes. I can feel the magic within the doll, it is strong… angry… vengeful.” She turned back to Samantha. “Build the fire!” she commanded. Samantha got to work, unzipping the bag and setting up the wood for a fire. She found a few stones to form a circle and contain the fire, and then lit a match. She threw it down, and the wood erupted into flames, filling the clearing with light and warmth. “Coming through!” Lillian exclaimed, rushing past her friend and chucking the doll into the fire. Samantha could see the burns on Lillian’s hands from her holding the doll, but Lillian didn’t seem bothered by them. She instantly began chanting around the fire in some language that Samantha didn’t understand. “Eerf eht tirips, eerf ti won hcaet eht tirips wohs ti woh.” Lillian repeated this over and over again as Samantha watched. At first, the doll remained the way it was, not cracking or melting in the fire as it should’ve been. But as Lillian’s chanting grew louder and louder, Samantha noticed small fragments of the doll begin to turn into ash as if Lillian’s words were crumbling it. Soon, all that was left of it was the face, and as it crumbled, a terrible, blood-curdling scream resonated through the clearing, filling Samantha’s ears and chilling her bones. As suddenly as it started, the shriek quieted and the fire blew out, leaving the clearing in silence and darkness.

“Woah,” Samantha breathed. Lillian put a hand on her shoulder.

“That was definitely cursed. I’m glad you convinced me to come out here.”

“Why was it cursed?” Samantha asked.

Lillian shrugged. “Witches curse things for many different reasons. My guess for this one is that she was persecuted for being a witch in her community, so she had to hide, and that was her way of doing it.”

“That’s so sad,” Samantha muttered. “But my dream makes sense now.”

Lillian yawned. “Can we go back now? I still have to work, you know.”

Samantha nodded and they went back to the cabin. Once there, Lillian laid on the couch and instantly fell asleep. Samantha took a bit longer to fall asleep in her own bed, but eventually, she couldn’t keep the drowsiness from taking over.

The next morning, Samantha woke up and looked at her clock. It was noon, meaning Lillian had already left to go to work. She yawned and stretched as she got up to go out to the kitchen and have some breakfast. She poured herself some orange juice and grabbed a handful of beef jerky and shoved it in her mouth as she made her way to her studio, preparing for a full day of no progress. But when she approached her canvas, she gasped and dropped her glass of orange juice from shock.

Her canvas was no longer blank. On it was the most beautiful and realistic painting she’d ever seen. There was a girl on it, standing amidst a fire. It was the girl from her dream, she realised, as she stared at the painting’s piercing green eyes, only now they were bright and tear-free. Her lips were turned upwards in a small smile. Samantha could almost see the glow of the flames that surrounded the girl in the painting. Then she noticed a small scrap of paper attached to the painting with two words attached to it.

Thank you.