Every year my mother-in-law secretly gave me a porcelain doll: at first I thought they were harmless gifts, but one day my husband accidentally found them and ordered me to burn them 

Every year, my mother-in-law, behind her son’s back, gave me a porcelain doll.

At first, I thought they were just innocent presents. They reminded me of the dolls my own mother had given me in childhood, and for that reason, I even felt a little pleased.

I didn’t understand why a grown woman would give dolls, but I accepted them so as not to offend her, and hid them away in a box in the attic.

The second time, the same thing happened: the same porcelain doll, the same face, and again the request not to tell my husband.

— “You remember,” my mother-in-law said sternly, “my son must never know about these dolls.”

— “Yes, of course,” I replied. “They’re all in a box, he doesn’t know anything.”

I didn’t think much of it. I thought maybe she was afraid of her son’s mockery — that he’d say these gifts were silly and useless. And so ten years passed. Ten identical anniversaries, ten identical dolls.

But one day my husband accidentally discovered the box with the dolls. His face changed. He turned pale, as though he hadn’t seen dolls, but something terrifying.

— “What is this?” he asked sharply.

— “Your mother’s gifts… for our anniversaries,” I stammered. “Why?”

— “Burn them immediately!” he shouted, recoiling in horror.

I didn’t understand why. But when he told me the truth, a chill ran through my body.  To be continued in the first comment 

It turned out that many years ago his mother had lost a child, one no one had ever known about.

In their family, there was a belief: every gifted doll replaced an unborn child. The woman who accepted such dolls risked losing her own ability to have children.

— “Do you understand now?” my husband looked at me with pain in his eyes. “She transferred her fate onto you.”

At first, I refused to believe it. I thought it was just a grim superstition. But in ten years of marriage, we had never been able to have a child…

We burned the dolls. All ten. Their porcelain faces cracked and melted in the flames, while fear and relief battled inside my heart.

And the incredible happened a few months later: I became pregnant.

I will never have the courage to tell my mother-in-law. But even today, sometimes, in the silence of the night, I think I hear the faint crackle of porcelain…