Curse of the Night Witch

by Alex Aster

  “But I am also the mother of the darkness that has eaten up villages. The truth is, Tor Luna, there is someone coming for me and my dark power. One that is not half, but all evil. A man who will not rest until he controls the island. I cannot stop him; I have been weakened, and my heart has been tainted, ever since that day they took my father. But yours, foolish as you are, is still intact.”

  Tor did not know what she meant. Or who she was referring to.

  “I saw your wish on Eve. A boy unsatisfied…a blank canvas. Years ago, I blessed a few good Emblemites with a second, or even third emblem, in the hopes they would be the ones to help me destroy the darkness I created, and the host it inhabited. But, pure as their hearts seemed, they were eventually consumed by their power. Darkness ate them up, just as it had me.

  “I realized then that what I needed was not several good people, but one who didn’t want power at all. So they wouldn’t be tempted to exploit it. See, the best leaders are the ones who don’t want to lead, Tor Luna.” She looked at him intently. “When you wished to be rid of your leadership emblem, I knew you were the one I had been looking for. I led you here and made sure you didn’t die on the journey. Do you really think you could have made it here without my help?”

  His chest felt full of tar. So he had been cursed for a reason. Not because his wish had been bad—but because it had been useful.

  “You passed my test, Tor, by choosing Sacrifice. Now I know you are truly worthy. On Eve you wished for a new emblem, a water-breathing one, and I will give it to you. I will also give you so much more.”

  He knew now what she meant…what she wanted to give him.

  Tor could never be a Wicked, the basis of the word witch, a person with multiple markings. Since he was a little boy, he’d learned the evil of having more than one emblem. It was forbidden, a sign of malevolence. His family would become outcasts; his mother could lose everything she had worked so hard for.

  “Despite your reluctance, I have made my choice. You will inherit all of my power and will replace me in every way. Including in the fight against darkness.”

  He hadn’t wanted to lead a village, let alone an entire island against the evil force she was alluding to, whatever it—or he—was. Evil he himself was afraid of.

  “Agree to be my heir,” she commanded.

  “Never,” he yelled, pulling out his dagger and pointing it in her direction. He pressed his thumb against the ruby that decorated its hilt as hard as he could, and something strange happened. All at once, the blade shot forward, growing until it became a long, gleaming sword. Then, the entire weapon, from hilt to tip, hardened into a transparent crystal.

  It’s enchanted. Hope bubbled up in him like liquid in a cauldron. Maybe he still had a chance.

  The witch lunged forward, her dress floating behind her, but Tor swung his sword before she could get anywhere near him.

  In one quick motion, she raised her hand, and the ground beneath Tor’s feet began to shake. It broke open, and dozens of shards of rock like teeth trapped his legs, then torso. The sharp stone tips pierced his clothes, crimson stains blooming through the fabric in blotches.

  Tor gathered all of his waning energy and dug the tip of his blade into the ground. The rocks confining him crumbled into powder.

  The sword must be able to control the elements. The witch flung her arm out in front of her. From the tip of her finger came a bolt of lightning—long, crackling, and glowing silver.

  Tor held the sword parallel to his face, hand outstretched, ready to be fried to a crisp.

  And from its blade came a frozen shield that covered his entire body.

  The witch’s flames crackled against the ice-shield, in glorious orange—but it did not melt. With every burst of fire, the ice grew stronger, hardening over and over again until he could barely see in front of him.

  The cave went quiet. Tor waited a few more moments, then dropped his aching arms, shield vanishing, sword tip touching the ground. The witch was hunched over, breathing hard.

  She had been weakened.

  This was his chance. Tor saw her neck—out in the open. Vulnerable. All it would take was two seconds and two steps; a slice through the air, and the Night Witch would be gone.

  Tor would be a hero.

  He did not move.

  The Night Witch began to laugh, the sound echoing through the cave behind them. Tor took a few steps backward as she rose. “I have not seen restraint like this in a while,” she said. “Yes, I made a fine choice. Though, even if you had wanted to, it’s important you know you never stood a chance at killing me.” She closed her fist.

  And Tor’s sword shattered into a million pieces.

  The witch took his hand and pressed her thumb right in the middle of his palm before he could pull away. He felt a prick like a bite and winced. The black lines on Tor’s arm faded back into the light blue of his veins. The eye on his wrist closed, then shrank, until it too was no more.

  “Congratulations, Tor. From now on, you will be the wicked of Emblem Island. New emblems will start to appear very soon. It is up to you to save this island from the shadows. And make no mistake, Tor Luna, darkness has already set its eyes on your village.” He watched the witch walk to the edge of the cliff, dress dragging behind her. She turned to look at Tor one last time. “I pray your heart is better than mine.” Then, she jumped.

  Tor’s eyes widened.

  Instead of dropping three hundred feet down, the witch’s body turned into a dozen birds—half white as snow, half dark as night—and they all flew in different directions.

  And Tor felt very numb, knowing what he had become.

  * * *

  The climb down was treacherous, but Tor did not feel an ounce of fear. His worst nightmare had already come true.

  His friends waited on the beach. Melda rushed toward him, sand covering her arms, her gray eyes wide and unnerving. “You killed her?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “But she’s gone anyway.” He bent down to where Engle sat. The cuts across his chest made by the bonesulker had been healed. “How are you?”

  “I’ve been better,” Engle said. “Luckily, I’m short a pair of lips.” He held out his arm for Tor to see.

  And Tor tried to smile. He had gotten what he had wanted, after all. His friends were safe, and his Eve wish would be granted. Though not in a way that he could have ever imagined. Not in the way he would have ever wanted.

  He should have listened to the legends read to him before bed, the superstitions carried through his village for centuries—he should have heeded the Eve warning and been careful what he wished for. Though it was far too late for that now.

  “Let’s go home,” he said. Melda pulled the telecorp’s enchanted coin out of her pocket. She held it in a fist, and Tor and Engle put their hands over hers. The token glowed, golden light shining through their fingers, for just a moment.

  Before it could work its magic, Melda dropped the coin. It fell onto the sand before Tor picked it up. “What happened?”

  Melda didn’t respond. Her mouth hung open, choking sounds coming out instead of words.

  He turned to see what she was staring at. And when Tor saw a boat with three passengers approaching, he too dropped the coin.

  22

  Home

  Tor, Engle, and Melda watched as their mothers’ boat washed ashore.

  Engle looked confused. Tor guessed his friend probably would have never thought his mother would travel a mile for him, let alone across all of Emblem Island. Melda looked relieved.

  But Tor was horrified. His mom’s normally beautiful, long black hair was completely gray. Like Melda, she had given her color to the goblin. For her son.

  Chieftess Luna must have seen the pain written across his face; she took him into her arms. “You’re okay, and that’s all that matters,” she said, tears streamin
g down her cheeks. She had always been so stoic, calm in the face of every obstacle, big or small. For her to be so emotional now…

  “What are you doing here?” he choked out. Along with the gray hair, Chieftess Luna had a deep scratch on her cheek that had already started to scab. There were a few leaves lodged in Melda’s mom’s curls. Engle’s mother limped; she had clearly hurt her leg at some point.

  The Chieftess glared at her son. “You’re the one who leaves home to journey to the edge of Emblem Island, and you have the nerve to ask me what I’m doing?”

  There, in front of everyone, Tor recounted everything the Night Witch had said. Everything she had done.

  His was a fate worse than death.

  After he finished, his mother held him for a long time and he let her, relief and anger clashing together, water against magma. He had saved them, true. But he would never forgive himself for wishing his Eve wish in the first place. For not having been content with what he had. For risking everything. Because as much as he wanted to blame the Night Witch for what she had made him, he knew the fault was also his own.

  They agreed to keep what had happened a secret, until Tor could figure out how to either get rid of—or control—his newfound power. And for that, Tor was grateful.

  Then, they stacked their hands over the telecorp’s coin, creating a tower-high pile of palms. It glowed gold.

  And a moment later, they were gone.

  23

  Ashore

  A month later, Tor, Engle, and Melda sat on the beach. They met here every morning. It had become their ritual since they returned to Estrelle.

  The sky was the pinkish purple of a bruise, the smallest stream of sunlight poking through. Warm ocean water foamed around Melda’s outstretched legs. She looked more relaxed, Tor thought, ever since Chieftess Luna had enacted policies that helped families like hers. They had received overwhelming support from the village, allowing Melda’s father to get a job in Estrelle, one that didn’t hurt his back. With money raised from neighbors, her brothers received a new treatment for howling cough from a healer in Zeal. Now that they could finally attend their first year of school, her mother worked part-time.

  Tor watched as Melda rolled a shell between her fingers, her head somewhere else. It was strange, but during their daily meetings, they didn’t say much.

  Mostly, Tor used the time to think.

  And regret.

  Last week, he had sprouted his first new emblem. It happened in the middle of the night. He awoke screaming at the top of his lungs, feeling like someone was carving at his arm with a butcher knife, then scrubbing it with sea salt. His father held him down while his mother took Rosa, who looked wide-eyed and frightened at his door, back to her room. His sister still didn’t know what he was. And neither did anyone else in the village, other than his friends’ parents.

  He now only wore long-sleeved shirts that covered his arm, and his wrist, where his leadership marks once sat. Even on sweltering days like these.

  There was one silver lining—in the month since they had returned, Tor hadn’t heard from Queen Aurelia. Jeremiah somehow must have known that he had held up his end of the bargain.

  “How does it feel?” Engle asked. His eyes were trained on the water, and Tor wondered how far he could see. “To get what you wanted for so long?”

  Tor lifted his sleeve and looked at his arm, at the symbol of a fish. The emblem for water-breathing.

  “Not like I expected,” he said.

  Engle nodded. “Figured.” Then, he got up. “You know what I miss? From our journey?”

  Melda smirked. “What? The child-eating old lady? Or, let me guess, the bonesulkers that almost killed you?”

  Engle shuddered. “No, nothing that specific.” He sighed “I miss the adventure.”

  Tor rubbed his eyes, itchy with exhaustion. Though it had been weeks, even thinking about their trip still sent a chill up his spine. Ever since the day he’d faced the Night Witch, he’d had nightmares. He replayed the events, over and over in his dreams, reliving what had happened on the cliff. Wondering if he could have done anything differently.

  Melda groaned. “I, for one, will be happy if I never have to leave this village again.”

  “Okay, Grimelda.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Here’s to more adventure,” Engle challenged, holding his hand out, lifeline up. It had grown significantly after the Night Witch had removed their curse. All of theirs had. And the shapes were new, not the ones they had worn before Eve.

  Strangely, their three lifelines now looked almost the same.

  Melda made a show of exhaling deeply, then finally said, “To adventure,” touching her lifeline to his.

  Before Tor could join, something caught his eye. There was a large object floating on the water yards away, tucked between the waves.

  “Tor?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Tor?”

  “Engle, do you see that?”

  Instead of replying, his friend took one look at the horizon, then rushed into the ocean, saltwater to his ankles. Tor, then Melda, followed.

  No one said a word as the object Tor had spotted drifted closer and closer, sloshing with the current. Several minutes later it finally washed ashore, and Tor saw that it wasn’t an object at all—but a person. A girl.

  Tor crouched down, wondering if she was dead. That was when he saw it—an emblem on her wrist. That of a fish. He pressed a careful hand against her arm.

  At once, her green eyes flew open. They were bloodshot. She looked scared, her face white as bone—her skin cold as a corpse. She said just two words before her eyes rolled back and her head fell against the sand.

  “They’re coming.”

  Acknowledgments

  Emblem Island would have lived forever in my mind and on my computer if it weren’t for those who believed it should be printed and bound. Thank you to my incredible agent, Laura Bradford, who championed this story when it was a shadow of itself. To my amazing editor, Annie Berger, whose editorial magic is unmatched and whose suggestion to write more stories for The Book of Cuentos changed everything. To Sourcebooks, the best publisher I could have ever asked for. To Heather Moore—who must have a marketing emblem—Margaret Coffee, Michael Leali, Ashlyn Keil, Sarah Kasman, and Cassie Gutman.

  Thank you to my parents, Keith and Claudy, who made it possible for me to chase this wild dream and raised me to believe I could do anything (look, Mom and Dad, we did it!). Mom, you taught me to be strong. Dad, you taught me to be brave. To my twin sister/other half, Danny, who has read my books since we were thirteen, and whose opinion has always meant everything. To Rron, my heart, whose constant love and support has kept me resilient. To my early reader, Sean. To JonCarlos and Luna, my star and moon—this is for you. I hope you chase your wildest dreams. To Angely, who always says the right thing and is there when I need her. To Carlos, Alfonso, Maureen, and Julio for your never-wavering belief in me. To UPenn, where I blossomed into who I am. To my abuela, Rosenda, whose cuentos sparked my love of storytelling. To the Latin American stories that inspired this one: “La patasola,” “La ciguapa,” “La llorona,” and “La niña con la estrella en la frente.”

  And to you, reader—because I am nothing without you.

  About the Author

  Alex Aster recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in English with a concentration in creative writing. The Emblem Island series is inspired by the Latin American myths her Colombian grandmother told her as a child before bedtime. She lives in New York. Explore the world of Emblem Island at asterverse.com.

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