Bad.
“Emilia, I don’t even want my money back. Store credit will do.”
Emilia made an unladylike gesture involving a finger, and Risa rolled her eyes.
“Fine. I don’t even need store credit. Do me a favor and just take the stupid thing back.”
Emilia was a pretty girl. Long brown hair in silky curls, olive skin unlined and soft. But staring down at Risa, Emilia screwed her face tight in anger, her mouth an ugly snarl, her nose wrinkled with discontent.
“Dousa favor and go away forever.” She slammed the shutters of her window closed.
Risa sighed and dropped the unwanted ribbon, watching it flutter slowly to the ground like a flightless bird. She stood there, in the quiet of Barrow, without the constant drone of perpetual rain to distract her, and considered revealing the truth to Emilia and the rest of town:
She wanted to go away forever,too.
More than anything, Risa wanted to one day leave this place, cross the dark and mossy trees of the Bosque, and come out theother side remade. No longer a shadow or a portent of misfortune, but a real person, free of her curse.
And that day was coming up fast. In a matter of hours, really, though the idea of it was as terrifying as it was thrilling.
She’d been waiting a whole year. Since her parents had sat her down at the banquet table that hadn’t been used for sixteen years and revealed the unfortunate reality of her situation. How her bad luck only kept getting worse. How debts had to be repaid. How Risa was the payment.
“Fine,” Risa snapped, pointing a finger where Emilia had just been. “I hope a family of frogs moves into your toilet.”
There was a loud gasp. Emilia’s voice, muffled by wood, needled through: “We’ve been cursed by the Bad Thing!”
Risa didn’t hear the turmoil that followed. She turned on her heels and stalked up the hill, where her home stood proud. She was determined to spend what remained of her birthday away from the town, Emilia, and her own bad luck.
The sun was at its highest peak when Risa stretched her arms above her head. Beneath her sprawled form, a tattered old blanket barely cushioned the perpetually damp packed dirt. The rays’ warmth turned her skin a few shades darker. Just another reminder that she was different from the average townsperson.
A badge of honor among a terrified, pale crowd.
There on the tallest hill in the barren garden of the mayor’s house was peace. No one sneaking glances. No one saying awful things loud enough for her to hear. No collection of bundled sticks tied in odd configurations to darken the Porto doorstep—witchtrapsmeant to ward off the awful thing that lived within the mansion’s walls.
Best of all, there would be no rain.
“Risa,” she heard her mother whisper-shout from the front door. A click of the tongue. A certain wagging of a finger. “Get back inside!”
Head tipped back, Risa watched an upside-down image of her mother peek out from the entrance of their imposing home and glance up at the sky with palpable worry. Checking for a crack in the heavens or a sign that a storm of epic proportions would soon be unleashed. But nothing would happen until the clock struck midnight and the Bad Day was over.
That was when the rain would return, covering Barrow for another year, the drum of water on metal roofs never lifting, turning the gray town cold once more.
Risa waited a beat, letting Ma’s agitation grow a fraction more. This was a practiced dance, one they repeated every single year. For months before her birthday, her mother would warn, plead, and demand that Risa not find a way out of the house on her birthday. And Risa, like the properly stubborn girl that she was, did exactly what her mother asked her not to do.
She would miss this. Her purposeful refusal to listen to her mother, her mother’s characteristic fretting. She hoped her mother would miss this, too. Remember it fondly when next year came around and there was no Risa to scold.
“I’m fine.”
She could practically hear her mother’s scowl. Ma was preparing to unleash a tumult of admonishments, ones Risa would ignore as she was wont to do. She hadn’t survived being labeled Barrow’s problem bylisteningto everyone call her Barrow’s problem.
If they were going to blame her for being Bad, then she would be worse.
But Ma’s thinly veiled threats did not surface. What rang in the stillness was only deafening silence.
Risa bolted upright.
At the elaborate wrought-iron gate of the Porto home was a woman stooped over with age, her knobby hand gripping an even knobbier walking stick as ancient as the world itself. Wrinkles upon wrinkles were etched into her face, folds so deep and skin so dark that she resembled the trees in the cursed Bosque surrounding Barrow.
Risa cocked her head. That stump of an old woman had to be a witch, as her hooked nose and raggedy clothes were clear indicators of magical ability. She knew so because she’d read it somewhere, and everything written in books was well researched and true.
