Which … isn’t an unfair assumption, considering I pretty much said so the minute I told Jesse about the curse.
Jesse just shakes his head and fixes his collar. “We should go. It’ll be night soon.”
The train creaks with his departing strides. After a couple more stunned seconds, I get to my feet and glance across the empty seats.
“I hope you enjoyed the show,” I mutter, and I let myself imagine I hear a ghostly laugh trailing behind me.
At the grocery store, I push the cart’s useless wheels down the frozen foods aisle. Given the month I’ve had, comparing the price of bread and debating between Swiss and cheddar feels deliciously normal. Just another boring Saturday afternoon at the market. Any minute now, Lucia will come around the corner, pushing a cart with Aida crouched inside. Rainie will pretend not to know any of us but keep an eye out on the store attendants, just in case someone decides to give us trouble. I would arrange my groceries around Aida and try to sneak peeks at her sketchpad.
God. I miss them so much. They were my family. The only people I had here.
I roll my shoulders back and tighten my grip on the cart. There’s being melancholy, and then there’s being melancholy in the middle of the pasta aisle. I can already hear the gossips of Ward reporting back to their friends: “Did you see Mina Mansour crying in front of a box of discounted fusilli? Odd, right? Maybe … oh no, do you think her credit card declined?” Before you know it, the entire town shows up with lasagna because my dad must have lost his job, we’re losing the house, and we can’t afford $1.25 fusilli.
I push the cart into the cereal aisle and contemplate the wisdom of texting Jesse a third reminder that he better be at my house by six thirtyfor dinner. When I floated the idea past him after the train incident, he’d protested.Apparently,he has food at home. Where, I’m not sure, since my quick peek through his kitchen cabinets revealed exactly one expired bag of instant mashed potatoes and a jar of chili that should’ve been refrigerated after opening.
I told him I wouldn’t talk about my mother’s journal entries unless he joined me for dinner, and he agreed to a free and nutritious homecooked meal like a martyr surrendering to the guillotine.
I throw a package of feta cheese into the cart with a touch too much force. The joke’s on Jesse. There’s nothing to discuss. The newest entries are just about as useless as the previous ones.
The last entry said:The shadows are its vulnerability. They come with the curse, but they cannot be controlled by it.
The one before it was longer.
From 1640 to 1710, the curse lived in Germany. Small, impoverished town. High child abandonment rates. There, a destitute and orphaned street sweeper invited in the curse. Overnight, he had a home, grander than every home in that desiccating little town. A town full of children nobody would miss. Years passed, and his family grew. In those conditions, the curse should have been thriving. But for some reason, it didn’t. The house was falling apart. This family was starving the curse, even though they suffered along with it. The last birth announcement I could find was of a daughter. A little girl born in the house and abandoned shortly after by her mother, who walked into their family lake and drowned herself. The father lived across the country and returned for the birth of his child. He managed to rescue the baby and took her back to his city, leaving the house empty.
Four days later, fifty-eight people were dead. It took the newborn last.
The entire bloodline had been wiped out. The debt hadn’t been paid, and the curse collected. But why not eliminate the lineage earlier, when they were feeding it one or two kids a year? Why wait until then? The timing didn’t make sense, until it occurred to me that if the child hadn’t passed the test
She’d stopped there. Her ink had bled around the last letter, as though she’d been interrupted while writing and dug her pen in.
I suppose I should be as interested as Jesse is in determining what “test” the journal means. I should wonder why she thinks the shadows don’t necessarily obey the curse, since they’re clearly a package deal.
Except, I can’t convince my mind to unwrap those questions. I can’t bring myself to read my mother’s words and experience anything other than the throbbing betrayal that’s lived between my ribs since the minute I found out who she truly was.
I told Jesse about my last night in the house. About opening the door. When he asked the inevitable, I had no choice but to face the answer.
I don’t remember what happened after I opened the door.
I toss a box of chocolate granola into the cart with excessive force, shoving my cart around the corner. It slams into a solid resistance, sending a basket flying out of someone’s hand and emptying its contents onto the floor.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I rush to the ground, scooping as many items as I can carry.
Spiked combat boots enter my field of vision. Purple stripes weave across the leather in the style of an artist I happen to know. Those boots are older than time itself, though you wouldn’t think it at first glance. Every year, Aida paints over the fading patches. Every year, Lucia gives Rainie a new pair of boots for her birthday, only for Rainie to stubbornly hold on to this decaying pair.
My gaze travels up ripped camouflage pants and pepper spray danglingfrom a belt loop. Past a skintight black shirt and a red choker. I stop at the impassive face of my former best friend.
I stand slowly, halfway convinced I’ve conjured her through wishful thinking alone. “Hi.”
Rainie stands a few inches taller than me, but after so much time with Jesse, everyone under six feet seems downright diminutive. “Hey.”
I unload the mess in my arms back into her basket. “You dyed your hair again.”
Purple fingernails tuck locks of spiky red hair behind Rainie’s ear. “Yep. Went on a Manic Panic binge at three in the morning.”
“It looks great.”
Shoppers shuffle around us, bumping against my cart. Rainie’s knuckles tighten on the basket’s handle. “Thanks. I should get going.”
