Witchful Thinking (and other crimes of the heart)

The haunted greenhouse was not made for interventions. But that didn’t stop Vess.

Candles flickered around the mossy stone circle, each flame suspiciously emotive. One sobbed quietly. One muttered something in Latin. One wore a tiny mustache that quivered with judgment.

Vess stood at the center like a witchy ringmaster, arms outstretched. “Welcome, friends, fiends, and dramatic disappointments. Today, we confront love. Or something dangerously adjacent.”

“I thought there’d be snacks,” Rommer muttered, arms crossed and teeth slightly bared.

“There are,” said Vess. “If you enjoy emotionally charged revelations served with haunted tea and poor impulse control.”
Kiki sipped from a skull-shaped teacup. “Tastes like repressed longing and regret.”
“I brewed it myself.” Vess winked.

Ellian adjusted his velvet cuffs and sat down with all the tragedy of a marionette cut from its strings. “I doth not see the purpose of this gathering, save to torment my weary soul.”

“Oh hush,” Kiki said. “You love drama. It sustains you like cursed poetry.”
“I merely observe the folly of mortal affection,” he said, tossing his hair. “And then write sonnets about it.”
“Exactly.”

Nilo hovered at the edge of the circle, clearly regretting every life choice that had led him to this moment. Why was he here? Why did he bring the doll? Why was he like this?

“So,” Vess purred, “we are here to discuss Ira. And the strange emotional voodoo that keeps zapping through her whenever someone pokes a certain doll.”

Nilo froze like a ghost caught in flashlight beams. “There is no doll. Dolls are a myth. I am very normal.”
Rommer snorted. “Dude, the toad-kick heard ’round the class? That was not normal.”
“Ira said it wasn’t on purpose!”
“She also stared at her own foot like it had committed treason,” Kiki added.

Vess turned dramatically to a corkboard she had absolutely dragged in for this moment. It was covered in red string, polaroids, a pressed flower, and a cursed teacup that hissed when you got too close.

“Exhibit A,” she said, pointing to a sketch of the doll labeled DEFINITELY NOT SUSPICIOUS.

“Exhibit B,” she continued, “emotional outbursts in Spell Theory, several lingering glances, and one deeply incriminating blush.”

Ellian cleared his throat. “I hath written a poem on this very subject. Ahem:
She doth not smile, but oh- when flustered bright,
Her cheeks betray the heart she tries to slight-”

“Ellian,” said Kiki gently, “we get it.”
“Thank you.” He bowed solemnly.

"Exhibit C!" Vess proclaimed with flair after being rudely interrupted. "I haven't even mentioned Nilo, and he's already sweating like he owes taxes."

Vess grinned like a cat with not just the cream, but also a cursed cookbook and a doctorate in emotional sabotage. She leaned in, voice dipped in sugar and menace. “My sweet, translucent fool,” she purred. “This isn’t just voodoo. This! This is worse. It’s the foul enchantment of affection, the ancient curse of sentiment. You absolute buffoon. You’ve caught feelings for the porcelain doll girl. And worse- you kept them.”

She paused, letting the silence thicken like magical gravy.

“You’re emotionally compromised. Doomed. Bewitched by longing.”

Kiki choked on her tea. Rommer’s eyebrows vanished into his hairline. Even Ellian looked mildly intrigued, which for him was equivalent to a standing ovation.

Kiki high-fived Rommer. Rommer missed.

“Now what?” Nilo asked miserably.
“Now,” said Vess, “we make things worse.”

Meanwhile…
Ira had locked herself in the dorm room with Blanche the candle(not on purpose), a salt circle, a bundle of emotional suppression herbs, and a string of protective beads she’d angrily tied into a curtain.

Her side of the room now resembled the magical equivalent of a "Go Away" sign.

Vess’ side of the room had somehow grown a second vanity. It hissed when spoken to. She ignored it.
Blanche flickered thoughtfully. “He touched the doll again.”

Ira dropped her spellbook.

She turned to the mirror. Her reflection was blushing.

“I will hex you,” she snapped.

The mirror fogged up in the shape of a heart.

“I will shatter you.”

Blanche whispered, “You care.”

Ira screamed into her pillow. The pillow murmured, “Same.”

She sat up, staring at the wall like it owed her answers. It didn’t. It just had a sticky note that read: Denial is a temporary solution.

She was losing it. Possibly already lost it. It was halfway to becoming a tragic love ballad.

Back in the greenhouse, Vess was preparing glitter bombs of emotional sabotage with the focus of a cursed wedding planner.

“Tomorrow,” she said cheerfully, “we push them toward mutual confession.”

“What if they explode?” Kiki asked.

“Well, that's just not part of my resume.”

Ellian sighed and pulled out his notebook.
“Oh cursed fate, thy threads do tangle tight,
As hearts confess by haunted doll at night…”

Rommer blinked. “Wait, was that a haiku?”

“No,” Ellian said darkly. “It was a tragedy.”

Vess just smiled, radiant and terrible.

Everything was going according to plan- especially if your plan involved chaos, doll-based emotional interference, and a deeply inconvenient amount of feelings wrapped in denial and glitter.

And tomorrow… tomorrow was going to be spectacular.