To my granddaughter,

If you are now reading this, that means my end has come and it is time to pass this onto you, for you are the only remaining female on my side of the family.

I know that this has probably been sudden and you have many questions.

I'm unaware how you will be when you read this, but I hope you'll understand me when I ask to keep this a secret from everyone: only before it is your time that you will continue to pass this down the line. I could never let them suffer alone like that…

Now I want to tell you a little story: about the curse of those dolls and about our family.

Everything here started with my great, great grandma over a couple hundred years ago. Her name was Louisa and her family had moved to Korea due to her father's Korean family, leaving her mother's extended family in Europe. It was hard for them to enter the country, only her father being Korean born made it possible, and they were forced to live the Korean way. Her family found difficult at first to get used to their new lifestyle: the culture, food and language was all unfamiliar. She was only 8 when they had first moved, and knew nothing of the powers she possessed. As Louisa grew elder, so did her beauty; catching much attention. To fit in more and in attempt to stand out less: she would wear the plainest clothes and use her hair to hide her pretty face. Unfortunately no matter how hard she tried, she was still treated like an outsider. It also didn't help that her hair tone was a lot lighter than the black hair of the people around her.

One day she had an argument with one of her Korean cousins: they had pushed her into the mud, telling her that was where she belonged. Her anger, which had only been bottling up inside of her over all these years, finally escaped. She screamed and some of her auntie's best vases broke from inside. The adults believed that they had been running in the house and had knocked them over, punishing the both of them. From then on, she knew she was different. She would spend most of her free time looking at books trying to find something that would suggest what had happened.

Over a year later and she still hadn’t found any clues, yet she still believed that she had broken those vases without touching them. She had been walking in the market when she had noticed a strange stall owned by an old woman. As she had approached the strange little stall the little old woman had pulled out an old book from under the stall and shoved it in Louisa's face. When she had asked what was with the book: the old lady had said that she would need this and free of charge. Not trying to be rude, Louisa had accepted the book and tried to give the old lady some money in return, but the old lady would not hear of it. Louisa insisted that would give something return for the book. The old woman smiled and told her that all she wanted in return was to know Louisa's name.

When she returned to her room, she opened the book: it was a book of spells. At first she thought it was silly, but then she remembered that the old lady knew that she was looking for something like this and had said that Louisa would need it more. Did that mean that she was a witch? Louisa kept it hidden and secretly tried casting spells, with great success.

With the knowledge of what she was and what she was capable of, she grew a new confidence: she started to not care about being an outsider. And people started to forget that she was an outsider.

Everything seemed to be going good, until her father told her that she would have to get married. She was secretly horrified, but had learnt to keep her thoughts to herself and bow slightly at her father as he left the room. There were already 12 candidates; one of them would most likely end up being her future husband. All of them were good looking and came from wealthy families also, but the thought of having to marry someone was overwhelming. And if they were to find out what she was, would they still love her?

Her freedom was stripped from her as she was expected to meet one of the candidates each day and go on dates with them. She decided to test them: to test if they really loved her or if they only wanted to inherit her father's fortune. It wasn't to her surprise when she found out that they really didn't love her. Nevertheless, she continued to pretend that she was still being fooled by their fake love. How could she choose to marry one of them? She decided to spy on them at night and found that a lot of them had plans such as: stealing her father's fortune and running away with their real love, leaving Louisa and the rest of her family with nothing. She became enraged.

She told them all one-by-one to sneak out on the next full moon and meet at the lake in the forest, if you love me you'll be there, she added. That full moon she waited by the lake for the 12 men. Unsurprisingly, all 12 came. She knew they were only going to keep this up until they got what they wanted. They were surprised to see all the other candidates there as well. When one asked why they were here, she told them that this would be the final test of love. Then she showed them her true self: the witch that was inside of her. They were horrified: some ran while others tried to kill her, both failing as they stood, unable to move. A tear slid down her cheek, 'You with hearts corrupted, corrupted men, let your greed consume you, your lives bound to the will of riches and power. Let me show the burden of the power you search for!' with that they turned into dolls. She scooped them up and put them onto the rock next to the river, and she jumped into the lake. Instantly one of the dolls came to life and started to control the water: making Louisa rise from the bottom of the lake. She landed flatly on the grass, unconscious. Another of the dolls came to life and used healing powers to bring her back to conscious. She smirked, 'Now you all are bound to protect me for the rest of my life and protect my family for all eternity. Only when you fully are unable to feel greed and your corrupted hearts become uncorrupted will love set you free.'

No one knew what had happened to those 12 handsome men, only that they had mysteriously disappeared. Many believed that they had run away. Louisa hid them in a carved wooden box with carvings of the different powers that these dolls possessed. With no candidates left and deceased from a recent accident: Louisa was free to marry who she wished and soon fell in love with a poor farmer boy. They moved away to the country and she left that life behind, including using magic. Only that throughout her life, that her family were always protected and when she grew too old she passed her secrets onto her daughter and in turn would be continued to be passed down, along with the 12 dolls.                    

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havent updated in ages, sorry. hope you enjoy