The Cursed Girl, #1

by Maria Vermisoglou

  The boys exchanged a look and sat. “Why?” Jonathan asked, always curious.

  “I don’t think you want to lead an army with blond hair. Do you?”

  “I certainly don’t.” He frowned. “But I won’t have my mustache.”

  “That’s a minor detail. I am sure they will recognize you even without it. And you did not have a mustache for several years, so I am sure they will know you. Being unrecognizable is not bad, you know... you might avoid getting killed that way.”

  He shrugged. “But it suited me.”

  “Hardly,” I said.

  “So you don’t like it,” he said, with a triumphant smile.

  “I didn’t say that,” I said, trying to seem indifferent.

  “You said so.”

  “I certainly did not.” I went to work to Alec’s hair and didn’t say anything else about Jonathan’s mustache or that argument would never end. Stupid, Eva, you are stupid. Alec smiled. “What?” I asked, agitated.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  After I finished, we went to bed. The boys lay in the bed with Alec on the right side and Jonathan in the middle. I took my place on the left side, and Midnight put herself between me and Jonathan. “If you use me as a pillow again, I will cut all of your hair,” I threatened him.

  “No, thank you. And it was not intentional,” he said.

  I turned on my side. Once I fell asleep, unfortunately, I dreamed. It was the same dream I had once before: a raven with a crown eating a snake. Then, black smoke poured out of a volcano and a cat and an eagle were attacked by a snake—the same snake as before.

  I woke up with a start, and Jonathan was holding my hand tightly. At least he wasn’t sleeping on me again. I tiptoed to the bathroom to get dressed, and when I returned, I saw the boys had woken up. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”

  “Don’t worry,” Alec said. “We have to wake up anyway. We have a meeting.”

  A meeting for war was hardly a meeting, but I didn’t say anything. I noticed Jonathan’s hand had some red marks. “What happened to your hand?”

  He scowled. “I accidentally pulled Midnight’s tail.”

  I tried not to laugh. “That would do it. You are lucky she didn’t scratch you in the face.”

  Embarrassed, he nodded and went to set the table. After breakfast, I was restless. They were going to leave soon, and what I could do? They took only the necessary things: swords, knives, some pieces of armor, and some rope. That was it. No more bags for them, no carrying, and no walking. Just fighting for a good cause. Why was I so sad?

  I took my bag and theirs, which were now lighter and we went to the stables. I put the bags on Sunshine, and Alec hugged me. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  “Thank you. For everything. What are you going to do now?” Alec asked.

  “I am going to Italy,” I said with a high, squeaky voice that was not mine. I tried to compose myself while Jonathan shook my hand.

  “Thank you, Eva. For everything. I don’t think I can express my gratitude or do something that will be equivalent to your actions.”

  You could stay. I smiled—a small, broken smile—but all I wanted to do was cry. He hugged me, a warm hug, and he smelled of honey and mint again. How was that possible? We had been in the streets for months, eating and bathing poorly, and obviously not using any perfumes, and he still smelled good. How was that possible? I had no idea. Maybe it was another oddity that I would never solve.

  Jonathan pulled away with a shy smile. “We better go.”

  They mounted their horses and left. What, no kiss this time? Whenever he went to war, he kissed me. What changed? The horses ran and Jonathan turned back and waved to me. After a few more minutes, I couldn’t see them anymore. “Let’s go,” I said to Midnight, and we take off too toward Italy.

  The End of the War

  We traveled for at least half the day and then stopped for lunch. I missed Alec and Jonathan—their jokes, their talking, their laughs, their stupid remarks, and their faces. After eating, I climbed back on my horse with Midnight seated in front of me. Several hours later, I saw a carriage and stopped.

  The carriage looked like a cage. The front was like any other carriage with a driver and horses, but instead of the back of a normal carriage, there was a box with iron bars. I was sure it was a cage, and I heard yelling from the inside. Who did they capture? And why? Normally, I wouldn’t have cared, but this carriage had come from Italy, I had no doubts. Was it a criminal or someone innocent? Midnight put her paw in the air like she wanted to grab something, which was her way of telling me the carriage really needed investigating. Never argue with a cat, especially not a witch’s cat.

  Fortunately, the carriage wasn’t going too fast. I synchronized my horse’s speed with the carriage until I was even with the cage. Carefully, I stood on my horse’s back. If Jonathan had been here, he would have been yelling at me that it was too dangerous. I maneuvered my horse closer to the carriage. I jumped and landed on the only step of the carriage and grabbed the iron bars of the cage. I peered inside and almost had a heart attack. There was a girl inside, and I knew her.

  “Alicia,” I yelled.

  She lifted her head and her eyes widened. She jumped up and grabbed the cage’s iron bars. “What are you doing in here? Did they catch you too?”

  I looked at her and didn’t see any sign of injuries. “Darling, they didn’t catch me since I am on the outside of your cell.”

  She laughed. “It’s so good to see you.” She seemed happy even in a bad situation.

  “Why did they catch you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Do they catch everyone that goes out of Italy? I overheard the guards talking, and they said that I might be ‘her.’ They said they look for someone and they said ‘her,’ but then I couldn’t hear much. I caught some words: Spain, Paris, king, prince, and dangerous. I don’t know who she might be,” Alicia finished.

  “Oh. But I do. But first, let’s get you out of here,” I said and took out one of my “special” knives. This knife could cut through everything, no matter how hard it was. I cut the iron bars as though I were cutting butter. Fortunately, Alicia was small. “I will lift you, and you will get through the opening.” She nodded. I lifted her, and she passed easily through the iron bars, and I put her on the step with me.

  My horse moved closer to the carriage, like it sensed what I was going to do. I lifted Alicia and she stood on top of Sunshine and then sat. I jumped and sat behind her.

  “You should definitely enter a horse contest,” Alicia said. I directed Sunshine to the tree line and we dismounted. We watched the carriage leave. Thankfully, the driver hadn’t felt a thing. “Thank you. Grazie.” Alicia hugged me. “You have a very useful knife.”

  “Yes, it cuts through everything, but no I won’t give it to you. It’s dangerous.”

  “Who do you think they are looking for?”

  “Me.”

  She turned to look at me. “Why do you think that?”

  “The words you heard were enough. I was not exactly a nice girl, and I did help the real king escape along with a prince across the countries. Obviously, they wanted to catch me. There isn’t anyone else that did all those things and is a she.”

  She nodded. “But they took the wrong girl. I have blonde hair and you have black. Err... brown and I am seventeen and you are twenty-one. How could they make such a mistake?”

  I still had brown hair, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that they had confused my age. Why? Then the answer came to me, and it was kind of funny. “I don’t know about the wrong color hair, but I was seventeen when I last spoke to his uncle who was not a king yet. I don’t think he calculated the years that have passed.”

  Alicia laughed. “How stupid of him.”

  Yes, stupid, but why did he want to see me? Because the cage-carriage meant that he wanted to see me. Did he want to make me his prisoner? Did he want to gloat again? Or make me feel insignificant? Either way, I would sta
y out of this until the war was solved.

  “Eva. I have something important to tell you.” She pulled my hand.

  “And that is?” I handed her some bread since I didn’t know when she had eaten last. Alicia took a bite of the bread. “That’s why I left Italy—”

  “You left Italy? Alone? What about your family?”

  “My father went to war and my mama went also to help, and my brother is with my zia in Italy.” Alicia was talking too fast and confusing the languages. “I was coming here to find them or you because I knew you would be here. There is someone dangerous that the king recruited.”

  Leave it to the king to recruit the most terrible beings for this war, but since we saw the Red Death last time, I was expecting something worse this time. “Who did the king recruit?”

  “They recruited the Knight of Hell.”

  The Knight of Hell was a normal knight, and they said he was very strong and had no mercy. Most everything they said about him was typical of any knight, but there was reason to be alarmed. This knight was known to the witch world because he could only be killed by a witch; no mortal could kill him. Even if a human, by a stroke of luck, held a magical weapon, a human couldn’t kill him. The legend said that he would be killed by a witch on the thirteenth day of the moon. I had not shared this legend with Jonathan and Alec because I couldn’t tell them how he could be killed and I didn’t expect the Knight of Hell to be here.

  What was going on? First the Red Death and now this. Had Spain recruited all the deadly monsters?

  I stared at Alicia and sighed. She stared back like she knew what I was thinking, she said, “I am going with you.”

  Take her with me to the war? It seemed crazy, but she was seventeen, and she had already seen fights and deaths already; it was not something I could prevent. The only thing I could prevent was getting her killed. “All right, let’s go.”

  We mounted Sunshine, and I spurred her into a gallop. We were going like the wind, and the trees passed in front of us in seconds. Run. Run. Faster. Faster, I thought. If we didn’t make it on time, they were doomed. At last, I saw the Pyrenees Mountains. We found the way through the mountains, and then the battle was right in front of us.

  There was fighting and blood everywhere. I couldn’t recognize who was Spanish and who was Hope People. The war had started and I didn’t know who was winning. There must be women in the trees to help again because arrows flew through the air.

  “Alicia,” someone called from one of the trees.

  “It’s my mama,” she said, and I directed Sunshine to that tree and Alicia climbed it.

  I didn’t tie Sunshine this time. “If there is trouble, go,” I whispered to my horse. I grabbed my bags and began climbing the tree. Sunshine just stayed there under the tree waiting for me faithfully like the good horse she was.

  High up in the tree, I found two women and Alicia sitting on a sturdy branch. “Eva. It’s good to see you even in this situation,” her mother said, and I acknowledged her and another Italian woman with a nod. Neither one stopped shooting arrows. “I haven’t seen the Knight of Hell if you are looking for him. Nothing out of the ordinary either. Our side has good odds, and things are looking good.”

  I nodded, took out my bow and arrows out of my bag, and stuffed the boys’ bags into mine. Meow. Midnight protested and she got out to investigate. “Sorry, darling, but I can’t carry everything.” Alicia took her and my bag. “Do not lose my bag or my cat.”

  “I promise. I’ll take good care of them.”

  I started aiming arrows at the red uniforms. I noticed a commotion at the far end of the group of Spanish soldiers and I lowered my bow.

  “What’s this?” the other woman asked.

  “I don’t know, but we have to wait to see it.” I had a bad feeling about it.

  “Look.” Alicia pointed and I saw it: soldiers were just falling.

  “How can they fall?” her mother asked.

  It was possible if he was the Knight of Hell. The legend said his breath made normal men fall and die. I retrieved an explosive arrow from my quiver, but I didn’t shoot it. I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Shoot it. We will flee if necessary,” Alicia’s mother said.

  I shot the explosive arrow. It was accurate like every one of my arrows. It found the center of his armor, but he didn’t fall—which I expected. Truthfully, I don’t know how to kill him. I only know he will die on the thirteenth day of the moon, which was fortunately today. I didn’t have much time since it was early afternoon.

  I descended from the tree and ran near the place where he was standing. Or should I say destroying? He spotted me and ran toward me, crushing other men in his path. He didn’t care whose men they were; he just wanted to reach me. He came to a stop when we were twenty feet apart, and we studied each other.

  His eyes were red and his armor was silver, which could be confusing our side because silver was our color. But the Knight of Hell had no colors he claimed. He just wanted to kill to satisfy his hunger for blood. He was not a human; no human could live after what that thing had done.

  “Your days are over, girl. No human can stand in front of me.” He had a low voice.

  My question was how had the king recruited him. “Then maybe I am not just a girl,” I said and raised my knife.

  He laughed. It was a strange sound; it sounded wrong. “Say your prayers before it’s too late.”

  I snorted. “You should say your prayers, thing of hell. Today it’s your last day on Earth.” We ran toward each other, but we didn’t collide because I slipped under his legs. I stabbed my knife in his back, and he yelled. I quickly retrieved my knife and stood on the opposite side of him.

  “You might be quick but this will get you nowhere,” he bellowed and turned. When he turned, I saw something odd. His armor had cracked. Now I could implement my plan. I put my knife away and took another.

  He laughed. “What, you don’t want to ruin your knife?”

  I smiled and he seemed surprised. “No, but this knife will do a much better job now that I know how to kill you.”

  He laughed. “You can’t kill me. I don’t know why you don’t fall when I pass you, but you certainly can’t kill me.”

  I ran toward him again, and he drew a sword to meet my knife. I had to avoid his attack because that sword could kill me. Why would he carry a sword that could kill witches in a war for humans? Now I would have to trick him to get past him and hit him. How do you trick a bunch of scrap metal? I had no idea.

  Someone shot arrows at him, but he waved them away. They didn’t even seem to touch him much less hurt him. “Don’t interrupt or I will make you stars in the sky,” he roared.

  That gave me an idea. I thought about something that makes me angry, very angry. Yes, you guessed correctly: the king. My anger made it rain. It rained so hard, nobody could see, not even the Knight of Hell.

  “What the Hell?” the knight said.

  “It’s not Hell, but God that rains. You don’t belong here so now beg.” Taking advantage of his inability to see me in the heavy rain, I ran toward him. I jumped and landed on top of him, and he didn’t feel a thing. I jumped to the ground and pierced him with my knife in the same spot as before. This knife was a special poisoned knife. I pulled an explosive arrow from my quiver and stabbed it into his wound. As he turned, I stepped aside, and he found nobody behind him.

  “Where are you? You can’t kill me. No one can. You can just hurt me.”

  “Yes, I can and I did.”

  He turned to face me. “I am still alive,” he yelled.

  “Not for long... in two minutes you will be dead. No more killing for you, monster. Go to hell where you belong.”

  “I cannot be killed, little girl. You better ran.”

  “Yes, you can. The knife I used was poisoned, and in combination with my arrow, you will walk the gates of Hell pretty soon, so get your bags ready.”

  He was angry, but he couldn’t move. The poison had paralyzed him. “But... no
human can kill me.” He was desperate now which was pathetic.

  “But I am not a human. And so on the thirteenth moon, the Knight of Hell shall die, leaving the Earth to flourish,” I said, finishing the story I had heard.

  The Knight of Hell put a hand on the place where his heart must be—although if you ask me, he couldn’t possibly have one—and fell off the mountain.

  I returned to the tree where Alicia was and climbed up. “You did it.” Alicia clapped.

  I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. “Why am I so sad? He deserved to die.”

  “Sometimes we are sad that we couldn’t prevent it from happening. You are not sad for the knight. You are sad for this.” Her mother pointed at the battlefield.

  It was true. I wished I could have prevented it, but I couldn’t. I had so much magic and I couldn’t do anything. It was still raining and try as I might, I couldn’t stop it while in this state. Midnight ran to me and ducked under my clothes. She knew that they were dry even if others saw them as wet. I petted her and I felt better. She licked my hand and I felt a smile creeping on my lips. The sun came out and dried up some of the rain, but they kept fighting. We kept shooting arrows. Men on the opposite side of the mountain were readying the cannonballs, but they couldn’t ignite them.

  “Why can’t they ignite the cannonballs?”

  “Maybe the rain wet them too much and destroyed them,” Alicia’s mother said and laughed. Well, that was one good thing about the rain I caused.

  “Let’s put them out of their misery,” the other Italian woman said, and we each shot one of their cannon guards.

  She was right; those men were in misery because they wanted to serve their kingdom and were simply following orders. If they didn’t follow orders, they would be killed. You couldn’t blame someone because he followed orders or because he was loyal to his king—no matter how cruel this king might be.

  I caught a glimpse of movement from an archer down below and yelled, “Get down.” We moved positions to avoid the arrows. “Go. I will hold them off.” I shot an explosive arrow in the direction the arrows came from. I dropped to the ground to look for another tree to run to. I didn’t know where the others had gone.