Was It A Voodoo Doll?

This story relates again to the residential home I worked in. I cared for a lady who, as her health declined, was moved to various rooms in the home to suit her particular needs at the time. This obviously involved a lot of furniture/clothes removal and repositioning in the new rooms.

But the thing myself and my colleagues noticed was the atmosphere or feel of every room she occupied just felt "off". No cold spots or anything we could put our finger on but just a general feeling of something not quite right. And no matter which part of the building or which room she was in, the feeling was always there.

One evening we had to move her furniture to what was her final room in the home. She had a very large heavy mahogany chest where a lot of her clothes were kept and we had to empty this and her wardrobe before moving them.

So after dinner myself and my colleague began removing all the items from the chest and wardrobe and taking them to the new room. We moved the bed, chest, wardrobe etc, set up the room and began replacing all the personal items, clothing, etc back into them.

My colleague picked up a stack of shirts to replace in the draw of the chest, and as she bent to place them inside they toppled and fell out of her hands on to the floor. As she picked them up, she suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked, "What the hell is this? Have you seen this before?" I turned to see her holding a piece of pink gauzy material in one hand and a small doll in the other.

She held the doll out towards me and said "This was wrapped in the material, what is it?" I stepped forward to look. The only thing I can describe it as is a Voodoo doll. It had a pale coloured material body, trousers, an embroidered jacket open at the front, a long lock of hair hanging from its head, and a strange symbol that looked kind of like a child's drawing of a boat on its chest. It also had a drawn on face with small beads for eyes. It was small, an inch and a half in length, but very detailed.

Looking at it gave me the creeps to be honest, but I tried to laugh about it and said "Never seen it before, don't want to see it again! Wrap it back up, put it back and say sorry for dropping it on its head!"

My colleague laughed and said "You're right!" then to the doll "I apologise for dropping you!" wrapped it up and replaced it where she thought it had fallen from. We both felt a bit nervous so finished up and left the room.

We spoke to our team leader about it as neither of us had seen it before and all personal items are documented when brought in. She could find no mention of the little doll in any of the residents paperwork, but added it as a footnote to the existing list.

I often wonder was it a Voodoo doll? I've never seen anything like it before, the detail was very intricate from the face to the embroidery on the clothing, and the symbol on the chest was very weird. Was this why there was always a strange atmosphere in her rooms? Does anyone have any ideas?