The House That Watched Back

Content Warning: This story contains depictions of fire, family conflict, and themes of voodoo/black magic. It also touches on themes of grief and loss and features a character implied to have mental health struggles. Reader discretion is advised.

The doorbell wouldn't shut up, its ring cutting through Mariah Carey's voice blasting from our ancient stereo – the one with the broken volume button that only plays at full blast or dead silence. I felt it before I even touched the brass doorknob, its cold surface sending goosebumps up my arm – you know that feeling when something's just... off? Like when you walk into a room and can tell someone's been through your stuff, even though nothing's moved. The kind of feeling Meme Josephine always said was our "gift" kicking in. Yeah, that kind of feeling.

The delivery guy on our porch looked normal enough, stamping his feet against the cold in scuffed work boots, but the package in his hands? That was something else entirely. Gold wrapping paper that seemed to catch light that wasn't there, shimmering like fish scales underwater, tied with this black ribbon so dark it looked like a slice of midnight. The kind of ribbon that belonged at a funeral, not a Christmas delivery. The longer I stared at it, the more my teeth started to ache, like biting into ice cream too fast.

"Miss Camille Dubois?" he asked, his accent pure Louisiana backroads, thick as molasses and just as sweet. His name tag read "Mike," but something about how he said my name made me think that wasn't his real name at all.

The package was heavier than it looked, like picking up what you think is an empty pot only to find it full of gumbo. Even through my winter gloves – the fancy ones Celine got me last Christmas with the touchscreen fingertips – it felt weird. Like it was humming or something, vibrating at a frequency that made my fillings buzz. Goodness, I sound crazy, but I swear that's how it felt.

Then Celine's voice exploded from the kitchen: "Aïe, ya yaille, cher! Non, pas ça!" When my sister breaks out the Cajun French, something's gone seriously wrong. She only does it when she's either really mad or really scared – a habit she picked up from Meme that she swears she's trying to break. The crash of breaking glass confirmed it, followed by the distinct sound of her favorite spatula hitting the tile floor.

The delivery guy just grinned – showing teeth that seemed a little too sharp at the edges – wished me happy holidays, and booked it down the steps like he couldn't wait to get away. His boots left weird marks in the frost on the steps, marks that seemed to fade even as I watched. Smart man.

We were already having the day from hell – I'd ruined two pecan pies (burned the first, dropped the second) and Celine's favorite casserole dish, the blue ceramic one she'd painted herself at that pottery place on Magazine Street, was now in pieces. With Christmas breathing down our necks and a stack of orders from people counting on their holiday pies – including Mrs. Thibodeaux's annual order for her church group, which you DO NOT want to mess up – we really didn't need this nonsense.

"C'est pas possible!" Celine was practically growling in the kitchen. I could see flour in her dark curls, making her look like she'd aged thirty years in thirty seconds. "The spirits are messing with us, I swear. This kitchen's straight-up cursed. First, the oven acts up, then the mixer goes crazy, and now this?"

I shut the door, but that weird energy from the package followed me inside, making the Christmas lights flicker just slightly. Our Christmas tree was doing its best to make everything feel normal, filling the house with pine smell mixed with what was left of the sweet potato pie (the one that survived, thank God, though its crust was a little darker than our usual standard). The ornaments – a mix of old family ones and the tacky ones we buy each year from the dollar store – trembled slightly as I walked past, like they could feel it too.

"What's in the box?" Celine asked, coming in with flour all over her vintage Saints t-shirt – the one she swears brings good luck to our baking, even though we both know it's got more holes than actual fabric at this point.

"Let's find out," I said, though part of me wanted to chuck it in the trash alongside the burned pie remains. My hands trembled as I pulled the ribbon, which seemed to unravel itself like a living thing. Inside was... a dollhouse. But not just any dollhouse. This thing was our house, every detail perfect down to the tiny Christmas wreaths (exact replicas of the ones Celine had insisted on making from real pine this year) and the little dusting of snow on the roof. Even the crack in the third step of the porch – the one we keep meaning to fix – was there in miniature.

"Okay, that's creepy as hell," Celine said, leaning over my shoulder, her breath smelling like the vanilla extract she'd been taste-testing again. "But damn if it isn't gorgeous."

She wasn't wrong. Whoever made it was an artist with the patience of a saint. Little lights inside actually worked, casting this eerie glow over the furniture – every piece an exact copy of our second-hand finds and family heirlooms. They'd even put in a tiny Christmas tree, for crying out loud, with microscopic ornaments that matched ours right down to the broken angel on top that we refused to replace because it was Meme's favorite. But something about it made my skin crawl. It was too perfect, like whoever made it had been watching us through our windows for months, cataloging every detail of our lives.

The next few days were nuts with holiday prep – between filling orders and trying to keep our ancient KitchenAid mixer from giving up the ghost – but that dollhouse... it was like it had its own gravity. I kept catching myself messing with it, moving the tiny furniture around. I even put a miniature pie on the dining room table, crafted from a bit of clay I found in Celine's craft drawer. That's probably when things started getting weird.

The morning I found a tiny fire in the dollhouse kitchen, I thought I was seeing things. It was just a flicker, no bigger than a match flame, dancing in the miniature stove. Then our actual kitchen nearly went up in flames – same exact spot. The wiring behind the stove sparked and smoked, leaving a black scorch mark that matched the one in the dollhouse perfectly. Celine stopped being skeptical real quick after that, especially when she noticed the tiny crack appearing in the dollhouse's kitchen window minutes before our real one splintered from the heat.

"This is some straight-up Amityville Horror stuff," she said, clutching her grandmother's rosary – the one she claims she only keeps for decoration. "But make it voodoo."

That's when I remembered Meme Josephine's old book, tucked away in the trunk beneath my bed along with dried herbs and crystals we'd never had the courage to use. Our grandmother was the real deal when it came to this stuff – the kind of woman other practitioners would come to for advice – and sure enough, there it was in her grimoire, the pages still smelling of sage and secrets. Sympathetic magic, the book called it. Someone was using this dollhouse like a voodoo doll but for our whole house.

It hit me like a ton of bricks, the realization making my knees weak. "Aunt Mathilde," I whispered. Our grandmother's sister, the family nutcase who'd always had her eye on our house. The woman who'd been banned from family gatherings after that incident with the chicken bones and holy water at cousin Marie's wedding.

We didn't mess around after that. Christmas Eve, while the rest of New Orleans was partying on Bourbon Street, we were digging through Meme's book, setting up protection spells with herbs from her garden and candles blessed by three different churches (because Meme always said when it comes to blessings, more is more). The whole house felt like it was holding its breath while we worked, the air thick with incense and anticipation.

When it was over, something changed. The dollhouse stopped feeling like a threat and started feeling more like a shield. Christmas morning was actually... nice. Normal. Like a weight had lifted. The sun streamed through our windows, catching the crystal prisms Meme had hung years ago, sending rainbow patterns dancing across the walls.

A week later, we saw it in the paper – Aunt Mathilde got arrested for arson over in Bywater. Apparently, she had a thing for dolls and black magic and a whole collection of miniature houses in her apartment. Each one matching a building that had reported mysterious fires. Go figure.

The dollhouse is still on our mantle, near Meme's beloved statue of St. Michael, but it serves as a reminder that New Orleans sisters are voodoo-savvy and should not be messed with. I swear that occasionally, in the middle of the night, I see the little lights flicker in sync with our breathing as if they were on guard. There is magic in this city, both good and wicked, lurking in every crevice and under every shadow. We were fortunate to learn from Meme which was which, and more significantly, how to ensure that good magic always prevails in the end.