A Witch Bottle. A Ghost. A Dollhouse

June 2025

The Witch Bottle

Author: Sean McLachlan

A short story inspired by a real folk magic practice in the British Isles.

Funny and weird in the best way!

British Isles folklore meets a messy breakup. It’s like watching a couple who can’t handle their separation like adults. So, instead of talking things out, they go straight to using witchcraft on each other. Just perfect!

Henry has no clue how to do magic, so he relies on his servant Malcolm who comes up with a method. What's the method? A witch bottle. Malcolm asks Henry to urinate in and put in his toenails.

Catherine crafts a neat little effigy of Henry and jabs it with a pin to get her revenge. The whole thing plays out like a magical domestic squabble, with Henry giving up literal pieces of himself while Catherine just jabs and twists a needle into the doll. I think it's funny how petty and spiteful it all gets. Henry does back down by the end because he still does love his wife. But just when you think it’s only about their feud, someone else is quietly making moves behind the scenes.

As someone who's been trying to get back into the reading habit everyday, it was really nice to find something that got me hooked from beginning to end. Actually, I wished it had been a bit longer because I wanted to know more about Malcolm and I also liked the fight between Henry and Catherine.

Overall, it was a great read. Weird, funny, and smart. And in case you're wondering…Yup, witch bottles were a real thing, used from the 16th to 19th centuries to reverse curses. People filled them with nails, hair, bones, even urine. Folk magic is wild. No wonder it made for such a weird and wonderful story.

A Ghost Story: Where He Was Buried

Author: Stephen Miller

Von Laront was just a kid trying to help his brother. Trying to keep his mother breathing. Trying to hold on to what little good was left in their broken, magic-torn kingdom.

But one night... one choice... was all it took to shatter everything.

A story that pulls you in and makes you want to know what’s really going on.

Right off the bat, you feel something for Von. You sympathize with him immediately. You get a sense of his life early on, shown through little things like a deflated soccer ball and the way he interacts with his family.

The story follows young Von, who looks up to his older brother Cai and wants to help out his struggling family. Life is tough but filled with small moments of love and joy. A lot of themes are already starting to surface: grief, unprocessed trauma. The way the characters act, especially Von, feels like they’re walking around with something heavy on their shoulders.

Even this early in the narrative, it gives you that pull. It’s told in a nostalgic, almost dreamlike tone. Von is remembering a time when things were less difficult, but there’s also some foreshadowing that something tragic is coming. You get that sense of something going on, and it makes you want to keep reading to find out what happened and what Von becomes.

A Dollhouse for Lizzie

Author: Cynthia C. Scott

When Zarina inherits a dollhouse from her great-aunt that had been passed down through the generations from their enslaved ancestors, she befriends the little girl who lives inside it.

In “A Dollhouse for Lizzie,” Zarina inherits a dollhouse from her great aunt. But this isn't just any old toy.

The dollhouse is a handcrafted replica of a mansion, complete with miniature, luxurious furnishings. As Zarina describes it: “This dollhouse was made for a rich man's child. It was modeled in a Georgian architectural style…”

When Zarina's co-worker and lover, Trent, hears about the dollhouse, he suggests she get it appraised, saying, “Got 2 b big bucks in it if that old.” Thankfully, Zarina doesn’t take his advice.

This dollhouse holds more than just monetary value. It carries a painful history. Made during the slavery era in the U.S., it's been passed down through generations, its painful memories slowly fading. By the time it reaches Zarina, all she knows is that it was “a gift to the daughter of a slaveholder by the name of Colonel Montgomery Ewel,” whose plantation outside of Richmond, Virginia, served as the model. But the memory of the black carpenter who crafted the dollhouse is long gone. As the will-executor says, “Nobody knows who he was… but as you can see, he had talent.” It's quite a tragedy that the memory of the man who made the dollhouse is erased, while the legacy of the slave-owning Ewel family survives.

Zarina soon uncovers an unexpected and emotional connection to the past. Inside, she learns about the life of Lizzie, a young black girl whose experiences are tied to the painful history of slavery. And as Zarina learns more about her family’s past, she starts to slow down and rethink her busy, corporate life. It’s a shift from a world that’s forgotten history to one that’s finally connecting the dots. Had Zarina followed Trent’s suggestion and treated the dollhouse like just another antique, the history of her ancestors would have been lost.

This story blends fantasy and history to tell us how important it is to understand and preserve our past, even when it’s painful. It raises powerful themes about memory, identity, and the impact of history on our present lives. “A Dollhouse for Lizzie” emphasizes the importance of digging deeper into the stories we inherit, acknowledging the voices that have been erased or forgotten, and understanding that history is not just a collection of facts, but the emotional truths that shape who we are.

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Readers' Reading Corner

Because good stories connect us.

Midnight Oil by Firniel (suggested by anon): “An emotional story that gets into memory, identity, and survival. The writing is poetic and moody, full of reflection. Each chapter is short, like a flash fiction, and each one peels back another layer of pain and numbness, without ever feeling forced. If you’re drawn to stories that sit with grief, and the strange comfort of isolation, this one will stay with you.” [Read on Royal Road]

Let’s Not [Obliterate] by Little Help (suggested by Omnii): “This story is amazing. While it uses an overpowered protagonist, the story puts not her power first, but instead her mind. This story follows a broken woman who carries more power than anything can handle as she travels the world to do good. This is a psychological masterpiece that teaches a broken woman how to love and eventually make herself a family. She shifts from monotonously following quests to doing as her morals tell her. Time starts as meaningless to her, but as she opens up while travelling, every moment starts to matter. Yet, this also means it will hurt all the more when she has to use her powers to save those she loves.” [Read on Royal Road]

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Fun Fact: First Copyright Law

In Great Britain, before 1710, writers didn’t actually own their work. Once they gave it to a printer, that was it. The printer held all the power, decided how it was published, and usually made the money. Writers might get a small fee upfront, but that was the end of the deal. No royalties, no rights, no control.

Then came the Statute of Anne in 1710. This was a big deal. It was the first law to say, hey, maybe the person who actually wrote the thing should have some rights to it. For the first time, authors were given legal ownership of their work for a set time, which was 14 years, and they could renew it once if they were still alive. That meant they could control who printed it, how it was distributed, and maybe even make some money off of it.

The law also had a bigger goal: to encourage learning. Once the copyright expired, the work would go into the public domain, so everyone could access it. So it wasn’t just about protecting writers, it was also about making sure knowledge didn’t stay locked away forever.

This one law kicked off everything we now know about copyright. It gave writers a voice in how their work was used and started the long, messy conversation about art, ownership, and who really benefits from creative work.