by Brea Viragh
The howling wind took on a mind of its own and a ferocious gust knocked a tree limb down from the large silver maple in the front yard. The resulting crash did the trick and the men and women scattered.
My mind fractured in a thousand different directions and none of them made any sense. Shock and confusion had my nerves thrumming. Prince. Curse.
I had wanted answers, hadn’t I? Be careful what you wish for.
Chapter 4
I clung to the door until the wind died down and the floor steadied underneath my feet. Feeling untethered, I could only fight to draw air into my lungs when it felt like the world had changed around me.
A witch…
A curse?
Gray must be mistaken. He must have said whatever first popped into his mind to hurt me, because I would have remembered having that kind of magic, that kind of power. I certainly would have remembered a freakin’ prince. Right?
Someone I might have hurt, although I had no memory of such a thing. What had I done? What have I done?
And when?
My head spun. “Mom? Momma!” I called out, stumbling as a gusty breeze, filled with magic, slammed the door closed behind me.
Magic.
Gasping, I tripped and went down hard on my rear, the same bruised spot from yesterday aching when I landed on it a second time. I scrambled to rise. The floorboards creaked as I ran into the kitchen, my mother swinging around to face me, with pale features.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, eyes narrowing, wrinkled lips drawn in a straight line. Like she hadn’t been eavesdropping on the conversation. Like she hadn’t heard everything Gray said to me, and everything he had not.
I slammed a hand down on the nearest flat surface to stop her from speaking again before she could give me nothing but hastily fabricated excuses. The same ones she’d been giving me to explain the abnormalities and the gap in my memories for the last few years.
“Tell me why it is that Gray Matthews, who just proposed to me by the way, told me that I am the one who apparently cursed some poor man to become a beast?” His face flashed in my mind’s eye and I trembled. My fingers curled, knuckles turning white. “A beast, okay? If he’s correct, then how would I have the power?”
Patricia’s eyes cast to the side to avoid mine. I expected as much but the shock still hurt. “Reila—”
“And don’t try to bullshit me again, because it’s time I got an explanation.” I paused long enough to wipe my eyes against the burning there. “You owe it to me and I’m not going to leave you alone until I get it. Is it true? And if it is, why would I curse a man? How?”
My mother gestured toward the living room and the threadbare gold-fabric sofa which had permanent dimples where we’d sat for too long in the same places on the worn cushions. “Okay,” she said softly. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But we need to be quiet so Thomas doesn’t overhear. He’s up in his room finishing up one of his school projects and he won’t understand. He…was too young to comprehend the severity of what happened.”
Already I’d started to sniffle, and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. Why couldn’t I control these emotions? They surged out of nowhere in a commanding wave I could only endure and do nothing to prepare against, to fight against. Yet the wave refused to crack open the door to my memories despite its strength.
“What happened?” I asked.
Patricia joined me on the couch, although she made sure to keep her distance and keep one eye on the door like she might make a run for it at any time if I didn’t appreciate whatever she had to say.
Was I such a terrible person that my own mother may need to run from me?
Fear and anger warred inside of me, the gravity, the reality of the situation slamming into me with enough force to break bones.
Had we moved to this cottage, this place of isolation, not in consequence of my father’s death…but because of me? Had my loved ones sacrificed everything to keep me from hurting anyone else?
I straightened my spine against the horrible truth of whatever she prepared to tell me. When the silence stretched on, me trying my damnedest to hold on to my sanity, I knew I couldn’t take much more. I’d already had too much hacking away at my soul.
“Tell me!” I demanded when she remained quiet for too long, my nerves already on edge.
Patricia spoke at last. “Reila, honey, you were born with something…extra.”
“What, like a tail that some doctor had to snip off?”
My joke went sideways; her dark eyes were serious and a little sad. At once she looked like she’d aged ten years and the weight of the day, the weight of our life, pressed down on her hard enough to cause extra lines around her mouth and eyes. Had I been too hard on her earlier?
“I know what you’re thinking. There is nothing wrong with you, sweetheart, and there never has been. Gray might have gone a little overboard with whatever he said tonight, but I want to assure you that you have always been normal. To me. To your father and brother and to the people who really matter. I don’t care what anyone says or what you might have done.” She dropped her gaze to her quaking hands.
“Stop dancing around the truth, please,” I urged. If she kept stalling, I would lose it.
“I’m simply saying that Gray doesn’t know what he’s talking about. At least, he doesn’t know the details of the situation because he wasn’t there when it happened. He wasn’t invited to the castle the evening it happened.”
Castle? A dense ball of fear settled in my stomach and filled my mouth with the taste of copper. I could tell there was more to be said, more she wanted to keep from me, and apprehension warred with the pressing need to know more.
“What…did I do?” I whispered. “Did I really curse someone?”
Pathetic. I was pathetic for not being able to remember. I focused on the sound of my breathing, the erratic way my heart beat.
It couldn’t be so bad. Nothing we couldn’t fix, right?
Then why did the town hate me?
My mother turned away from me, worrying her lower lip.
“Whatever it is you think you’re keeping me from, even to protect me, I deserve to know.” I tapped the side of my head until the nail on my index finger bit into my skin. “I deserve to know why I can’t remember anything outside of the last five years, and why the people in the village treat me like some kind of freak.”
“You’re not a freak,” Patricia insisted immediately. She slid closer to me, droning on about my virtues. About all the good I’d done for the family in the last few years.
She thought I didn’t catch those words. The last few years. But what about before?
Close to tears, with tension like static electricity sparking in the air around us, I didn’t want to listen to that. “Please, Momma. Stop treating me like a child and tell me the truth! I’m begging you.”
She heaved a sigh. “You’re a witch, all right?”
The statement burst out of her and rocked through me from my head to my heels. My lips opened but no sound came out for the longest time.
“But witches don’t exist,” I finally said.
“Yes, sadly they do, and you have enough power inside of you to bring down the entire continent if you desired. There was an…incident about five years ago, after your father died and we moved into town. You had your heart set on this man—”
“Merek Lyndon?” The prince. I didn’t even know Halsworthy had a prince.
There were a lot of things I didn’t know. Or couldn’t remember.
Patricia inclined her head in recognition of the name. “Yes, Prince Merek. You had your heart set on him and fate had you two meeting. I might have thought you’d have a chance, until he did something to damage your trust. You…went a little overboard.”
Overboard?
Was that what she wanted to call it? Even now the weight of the unknown felt like a blanket stifling me, and I couldn’t breathe. Gray had called him a beast. Cursed. What did I do to the man?
�
�I turned him into something inhuman, didn’t I,” I said through numb lips.
“Honestly, honey, I’m not exactly sure what you did to him.” Patricia sighed. She slid a hand through her thinning gray hair. “I wasn’t there when it happened, so I can only go on rumors and what I saw with my own eyes when you finally found your way home. But I don’t want you to worry. The village hasn’t suffered with his absence. In fact, if anything Bellmare is flourishing without him. It’s for the best this way.”
“What did you see when I came home?” I asked her. Then slid my palms tight beneath my knees to keep from fidgeting.
Patricia’s chin clenched as she tried to determine what to tell me and what to withhold. “You stumbled home completely out of your wits. I didn’t know what to do with you. Your dress was torn, dirt and mud everywhere, and your eyes…Reila, your eyes. You didn’t recognize me. The spellcasting must have cost you more than I realized because it took you days just to wake up from whatever sleep or trance you’d put yourself in. The burnout, my God… I worried for your life! It was several weeks longer before you realized where you were, who you were, and who I was. You didn’t recognize Thomas at first and it nearly broke his heart. But the memories from before that night came back slowly. In spits and spats. You didn’t seem to know that you were a witch but you remembered your family, and I never pressed the issue with you. Having no magic myself, it didn’t seem wrong to keep you in the dark.”
Patricia paused before she scooted closer yet. “Reila, this was a blessing.” It was her “mother voice.” The one she reserved for special occasions. “Magic…it’s not supposed to exist anymore. It has been relegated to the sphere of fantasy because people fear it. And when it became evident that you were born with magic power, I was afraid for you because there was nothing I could do to safeguard you in any way. So when your memory was erased, I considered it a blessing. I thought you’d be safer not knowing.”
I gasped. “It’s a piece of who I am.” And explained why so many strange things kept happening around me. How did I make her understand the toll that having such knowledge withheld from me had cost? “An extremely large piece, apparently. You didn’t think it was necessary to tell me even when it was clear I’d lost my way?”
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t know what to do! You were so headstrong. You insisted on seeing the prince against my wishes and something terrible happened. When you lost your memories, well, it almost seemed like it was fate. It was meant to be this way, to give you a chance at a normal life. A normal future.”
I couldn’t hate my mother for not telling me the truth, although to be honest a part of me wanted to, wanted to rage against her like this was all her fault. A tingling of power began in my fingertips and trailed blue fire until my arms were engulfed in dancing flames.
No, I whispered to myself, not like this, and the flames slowly dissipated. This kind of power could hurt people. Had wounded someone, if the story about the prince was true.
My fear turned to dread, sick and wet, curling up from my stomach and into my throat until I felt like I would throw up. I placed a hand over my roiling gut and tried to tell myself to breathe.
This was nothing I couldn’t fix. Right? If I had indeed cast some kind of spell, well then, I could un-cast it. Or reverse it. Or whatever the process was called. If I had the power to do it, surely I had the power to undo it.
Right?
“If Merek Lyndon is the prince of the kingdom,” I said, “then why hasn’t anyone spoken about him? Why hasn’t the town rallied to try to break his curse and restore him to his power?” It sounded similar to Patricia with her poor health: better to slip it into a dark corner and ignore it entirely.
There were too many things about this situation I didn’t understand.
Patricia shook her head. “I never personally met him. His status was so far above ours, even before we lost our fortune. He’s royalty, Reila. His grandparents owned half the town while they were alive, and when they passed away most of it went to their only son, Adrian, who took hold of this territory after the war and became king. Adrian married, and together they had a son, Prince Merek. The only offspring, the heir to the throne. Spoiled, by all accounts. More concerned with the personal freedom his status afforded than with the health and happiness of the people he was destined to rule. He’s been a recluse since the ball you went to all those years ago. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“And no one thought it was necessary to tell me what had happened?” I asked bitterly.
Because it was as if the whole town had gotten together to keep this from me, draping themselves in the secrecy and going on with their lives as though nothing had changed.
“Some tried, in the early days. Those closest to the monster—I mean, the man.” Patricia hurried to cover her mistake. “They would show up at our door, threatening, trying to break inside to get to you, to find a way for you to reverse what had been done. But you were so fragile then. You’d lost your memory, didn’t understand what was happening, and I thought it best to keep you away from everyone. Eventually, when every avenue seemed exhausted, well, people went on with their lives and did what they needed to do to restore order. As I said, we are better for the prince’s absence. The town council has run things smoothly these past years.”
The roiling in my stomach intensified until even the soft press of my hand there did nothing to calm me down. “What about Merek?”
What had I done to someone who hadn’t deserved it? Or maybe he had. I didn’t know. Just like I didn’t know what to do with the power inside of me. Or if I could even harness it again after whatever blowout I’d forced upon myself.
“No—no, I can’t just…just stay here. Forever. Until I die. Maybe…maybe there is some other way, or someone else who could find a way out.” I mastered my uneven breathing, shoving away the panicked, bleating thoughts.
Patricia shifted on the couch, uncomfortable with my line of questioning. “I’m not sure what to tell you. For the first few months, the talk in town was that he tried whatever he could to reverse the curse placed on him.” She pointedly avoided mentioning my part in it. “But after that, he faded into the background. I’m not even sure if he still lives around here anymore. He rarely came out of his castle as it was. It could be he died. No one knows, and if they do, no one speaks about it. Reila—”
Restless energy filled me and I stood, ignoring the quaking in my knees. The day had long since turned to twilight and I steadied myself by flicking on the lamps on either side of the couch. “I need to do something. I need to fix this.”
Patricia reached for me, to pull me down to her again. “Honey, what can you possibly do? You don’t have that kind of power anymore. And even if you did, without your memories how are you going to know what to do to reverse the curse? You could end up doing more harm than good. You could end up hurting yourself again. For what? For some man you don’t even know?”
I had known him, once. “I need to make it right,” I insisted.
“I’m worried for your safety if you leave the house. Especially now, considering your rejection of the Matthews boy.”
“Maybe you should be worried about the poor prince enduring whatever hell I laid upon him.” My hand went to my head and massaged the ache between my eyes.
I didn’t want to give in to the “oh poor me” victim mentality, but keeping it at bay took more discipline than I possessed. Power. I had power, and a lot of it. Now that I had tuned in to the frequency, I felt it inside of my body, a churning miasma of magic that strangely filled the air with the faint scent of roses. Roses had been my father’s favorite in the days when he and my mother kept immaculate gardens.
“Reila, sit down,” Patricia said, injecting as much authority into her thin tone as possible. I always called it her Lady of the Manor voice, vastly different from the mothering tone she’d used before. Now, it made no difference how she spoke to me. “Get whatever silly notion of atonement you have out of your head. There’s noth
ing that you can do. Sleep on it at least, and see where things leave you in the morning. I don’t want you mucking around with things best left in the past.”
“Mucking around? That’s exactly what I did. I mucked around in things I didn’t understand and I stole his future from him.”
If he even still lived around here, as my mother had said. How was I going to find him in the first place?
“No. There has to be something I can do to make this right. Give me a clue where to find him. I’m leaving immediately.”
Chapter 5
Cars went the same way as technology after the war.
There were pockets in the European Union where tech flourished, cities rising in the wake of these hot spots while the rest of the world went back to a simpler time. A time without cell phones or computers because we had no choice but to adapt. Adapt or move.
Working cars were few and far between and those were reserved for people with enough money to maintain them and to purchase the parts.
My father had taken such pride in his car. That I remembered. And although Patricia kept the piece of junk after his death, now it sat in the backyard like a rusted lawn ornament. I wasn’t sure the old thing would work anymore, too many components in need of replacement and the engine sounding like rocks in a barrel being pushed down a hill if it managed to crank at all.
There was enough summer light left for me to make my way toward the castle on horseback. A proficient rider since the early days of my life, I’d do better on Rudy.
Patricia ran after me, a split second behind and her breathing harsh. Her legs threatened to fail her.
“Reila, stop!” she called out. “This is ridiculous. You can’t just go tearing off on a wild notion at this hour. No one has been up to the castle in years. There’s no guarantee Prince Merek is even there. He might be traveling to find a cure. Stop and think for a moment. That place…it’s not for you. The people say it’s a place of nightmares, a place no decent woman would go alone.”