The Cursed Girl, #1

by Maria Vermisoglou

  “I don’t know. Our mother put us on a horse when the war started and told us to go somewhere safe, and we found ourselves in Poland...” She sighed. “And we came with some others when the war was over who were coming towards Spain...”

  It was a miracle the children were still alive. I hoped their mother and father were already in Spain or would be here soon.

  “You can stay here but only in half of the house because as you can see...” I gestured toward the house. They nodded and I put some blankets on the floor to make a bed and gave them some pillows. “Do you have food to eat?” They shook their heads. “If you help me move some of this mess from the kitchen, we can make something to eat.”

  We started moving rocks and cleaning. After some hours we had moved all the rocks from the kitchen and it was clean. They started a fire in the fireplace while I cleaned vegetables, and we would have some hot food soon. We put blankets down and made a makeshift table on the ground and we eat.

  “I’m Leticia and this is my brother Mario,” the girl said.

  “I am Eva and this is my cat Midnight.” Midnight let them pet her.

  “Are you the healer?” the girl asked.

  I arched an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”

  She smiled. “Our mother comes to you very often.”

  The boy clapped. “She says you work magic.”

  Leticia smiled. “He means that you are very good.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled.

  After we finished eating, we put the dishes in the half sink. Since there was no water, I took some buckets and gave them to the children “Come on. We will take water from the river.” We walked to the river and found others doing the same. We filled our buckets and we learned that there would be bread tomorrow in the square. Someone said, “They will give it for free. It’s from the king.”

  We returned to the house and put the buckets in a safe place after we each had a drink. “I have to go and see if my shop survived, and I will come back. Will you be all right on your own?”

  They nodded. “Don’t worry. We will be fine,” Leticia said.

  I propped the door up with a chair behind it so it wouldn’t fall before I left. I passed through the village and tried not to see or feel. People were making makeshift beds or using tents for the night. I reached my shop, and it was a wreck. There was nothing left, not even a sign, so I left it alone.

  When I returned to the house, Mario asked, “How was your shop?”

  “Well, you know... there isn’t much, but it will be rebuilt.” The truth hurt but I would find a way to help people even now. The children looked at me sadly. “There are worse things than this,” I said. I was sad for my shop, but someday it would reopen.

  The light of the sun woke me up. I kept my eyes closed, but it wasn’t easy with the bright light. Soon, I couldn’t sleep anymore, and I went into the corner we had designated as a makeshift bathroom and dressed. I ate some bread that I had in my bag and left some in the kitchen for the children to eat.

  I went to the center of the village and found soldiers dispensing bread. The one who gave me bread told me there would be a food stall where we could eat a full meal later in the afternoon. I thanked him and left. When I arrived at the house, the children were awake and had eaten. We stored the bread I had gotten from the soldier, and Mario asked, “What about the rats?”

  I laughed. “I pity the rat that will come here. Midnight would never let them live.” They laughed too.

  After a while, someone knocked on the door, and then boom! The door and the chair crashed to the floor. “I am so sorry,” a man said. The woman with him said, “Hello, miss. I am sorry about the door. Can we ask you if we could stay here for the night?”

  If everyone kept asking to stay here, soon an army would want to live here. The man and woman had nowhere else to go, and I couldn’t refuse. They put the door back up, and they put their blankets on the floor. The woman helped me with the preparation of the food and we all ate together.

  In the afternoon, we went to the center of the village to find the food stall the soldier had told me about. It wasn’t much. There was a table, and they had the food already prepared and cold water to drink. We took our share, and we sat under some trees to eat. After we ate, we returned to my house.

  The next day, something woke me up, but it wasn’t the daylight. I looked out and saw the gray clouds, and I hoped it wouldn’t rain—or it would be a light sprinkle. Everyone woke up when they felt water on their faces. “It seems we have a little problem here,” the boy said, and we all laughed. We went to the kitchen with our blankets and we tried to stay comfortable. I wrapped the children in an extra blanket so they wouldn’t get cold, and Midnight crawled under my blanket with me to keep me warm. If it continued to rain like this, people would get sick and die from the cold and wet.

  The rain stopped in the afternoon, so we could go to the food stall. Before leaving the house, I let a pigeon go with a note to Alec. I let Alec know that if it rained any more or if we had bad thunderstorms, people couldn’t find shelter in the trees. I knew he was a royal now, but we were friends before and still could be. Even from a distance.

  The following day I was busy. I had to lean the door on an outside wall because it fell on every time somebody knocked, and many people were knocking today. As I had predicted, many people had become ill from the cold and wet and wanted medicine.

  “Why do you give them medicine for free?” Leticia asked.

  “They are not for free. Everyone gives something. It’s mostly herbs but some give money too.”

  She watched me cooking the medicines. “But herbs are not money.”

  “No, but they help me too. Some are herbs I am running low on while others are herbs I haven’t discovered yet.”

  “And you know how each herb works?” Mario asked.

  “I wouldn’t have opened a shop if I didn’t know. If I don’t know something, I have a book that I can consult. But as you can see, I can make a simple medicine for a cold.” I winked.

  “Is it difficult?” Mario asked.

  “No, but you have to study the herbs and know for sure that you know which herbs to choose and not make mistakes that can cost a life.”

  The woman came in with my pigeon. “Your letter has come.” I thanked her and opened the letter. It was from Alec and read: “In a couple of days everything will be ready.” That’s not an answer, Alec. What would be ready exactly? The country was a mess. You couldn’t fix everything in the country in just a few days. And why did he talk in riddles?

  “That’s a rare thing to see,” the man said.

  I turned. “What is rare?”

  He pointed at Midnight with the pigeon standing on her back.

  “Yes, I taught them that because I didn’t want any more fights, and there was a time when Midnight was in the house and the pigeon wouldn’t enter so the only solution was that,” I said and the man smiled.

  The days passed and were filled with herbs, staying in the kitchen, and rain. There was much rain, but fortunately no thunderstorms. It was cold too, so we lit the fireplace, but it didn’t warm up the house much because there were only two walls. At least we could warm up the food we made, but even that would run out soon because my supplies were not endless. The children gathered berries and other fruits from trees, and after I inspected them, we shared them but it wasn’t much. The bread helped keep us from starving, and in the afternoon, we had a proper dinner.

  Two days later, my mother and Ritta arrived and they hugged me fiercely. “We missed you so much,” Ritta said and hugged me again. “I can’t believe you died. Again.” Ritta always said what it came to mind, whereas my mother was a bit more reserved.

  “Shh. Someone will hear you.” I didn’t want my business ruined again.

  “How is it going in here?” Ritta asked, and when she saw Midnight she petted her, and Midnight licked her and my mother on their cheeks.

  “Poorly, really poorly. At least we have something
to eat in the afternoon and bread.”

  “You know, we saw some flowers nearby,” Ritta said. “Do you want to see if you need any of them?”

  Time for a private talk. “Yes,” I said and the three of us went to what used to be the park.

  “When we came, we saw something was being built by men of the kingdom,” my mother said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe that’s what he meant...”

  “What who meant?” Ritta asked.

  “Alec,” I said and told them about his letter.

  “Then they won’t be late. They were finishing when we... passed.” Ritta said passed when she meant flew, but we were outside, so there were ears everywhere.

  “Tell us about your adventures,” my mother said, so I told her because Ritta must not have told her everything. When I finished, they told me about theirs, which were only boring, boring, and more boring. Ritta complained that they sat all day, went to the shops, ate, and heard the news from the worlds. Nothing more.

  “Oh, you are in trouble with the princess again, or maybe still?” Ritta said.

  My mother wasn’t angry about it, and I saw pride in her eyes. “I wouldn’t pay attention to her. She is like a dog with no teeth. The previous princesses were much kinder, I still wonder how she hasn’t torn the whole kingdom apart.”

  Like daughter, like mother, or was it the other way around? “Don’t worry. I will tear her castle apart if she says anything,” I said and she smiled proudly. Why was she so proud? “Why are you smiling like that?” I asked, unable to contain myself.

  “Because I am proud of you and because I missed you,” she said it in a manner like it should be obvious to me.

  “Why are you so proud? All I did was to run from country to country and hide. Oh. And I died. Again.”

  “You think you did nothing?”

  I shrugged since I didn’t see what the big deal was.

  “And you call the others stupid,” Ritta added.

  My mother put her arm around me. “You helped people, and you learned things. You put a stop to that bloody war, and you fought without any special ability. Do you know how important that is? You changed the course of history. Darling, that’s not nothing,” my mother said, and I was in awe of her.

  “Isn’t changing of history a bad thing?”

  My mother smiled. “You are quite right to help humans. I was like you once. I helped humans, although I didn’t open a shop. That was a good idea. And the previous princess didn’t seem to mind. Like you said, we fight demons so why not help them? But when she died and the current princess came, she was ruthless in that matter, and when I refused to stop, she ‘exiled’ me to stay here and said ‘since you love humans so much you can live among them.’ I did it. It was difficult, but I learned.”

  I had never heard that story before. “But you can go up whenever you want,” I said.

  “No, I can go up when she summons everyone, like now, and when there is an attack.” Her story confirmed some things like why she hated this princess so much, and it hinted that my father could be human, but I wasn’t going to ask.

  Ritta stretched. “I am glad we’re home. Too much silence can drive you crazy.”

  I laughed. “Silence? Don’t worry. There is none here.”

  My mother took my hand. “So, my dear, what is the situation here?”

  The word situation was an understatement. “All the houses are a wreck. There is literally nothing left. People sleep under trees and in tents, and some in our house—”

  “Hold it,” Ritta said. “What do you mean in our house? I thought you said there was nothing left...”

  “Well, we have half of our house, and they asked to pass the night, and I couldn’t say no. There isn’t anywhere else to go.”

  My mother nodded. “About how many people are we talking about?”

  “Two children and a couple.”

  She clasped her hands. “We can make it.”

  “We can make it? Are you joking?” With each word, I grew angrier, and I didn’t understand why I was so angry. “We have no roof. Yesterday, it rained hard, and we were all cramped in the kitchen so we wouldn’t catch a cold.”

  She took my hand. “I know it’s difficult, but we can clean the rest of the house and take some wood to make a makeshift roof. There is no reason to be angry.”

  But I was angry, and I didn’t know why. The sky rumbled. Please don’t rain, I can’t handle a rain of my doing right now.

  “Stop being so angry and it won’t rain.”

  Easy for her to say since she wasn’t inside my head. Meow. I turned and Midnight jumped in my arms and licked my cheek. I wished everything would be fine, but it wouldn’t be fine. Not for a while. I buried my face in her fur; sometimes I wished I could bury my face in her fur and disappear.

  My mother hugged me and whispered, “I know... I know... it will be all right, you’ll see...” She stroked my hair.

  I took a deep breath, and left her comforting arms and took my face out of Midnight’s fur. Midnight didn’t complain about my tears in her fur and set herself behind my neck.

  It no longer looked ready to pour, but it was still gray. We headed for the house, and I discovered I had customers waiting, so I went to help them. My mother and Ritta went to inspect the damage.

  I found everyone in the house after I had helped my customers. It started raining again, and Ritta looked at me, but I shook my head. That was definitely not me. It was raining heavier, so we all stayed in the kitchen and ate some bread and fruit.

  “Can’t you do anything?” Ritta asked.

  “Wouldn’t I have done it by now? But in this state, I can’t do anything.”

  “I am sorry, you have every right to be mad and sad. I wish I had stayed.”

  “Then we both would have been both in trouble.”

  “Isn’t that always the way? Anyway, that princess isn’t worth the trouble. Having witches for servants? Please. The way she treats them, I wonder why they haven’t turned into evil witches and killed her.”

  Somehow her words or the funny way she thought them made me feel better. In the afternoon, the rain hadn’t stopped, so we took sheets and thick jackets to cover our heads to go to the food stall so we could eat something decent. We took the food, stood under some trees, ate it fast, and then ran back to the house.

  The next several days, it rained constantly, I had frequent visits from people asking for medicine for their colds, and my mother’s idea to gather wood for the roof was being delayed.

  Finally, I woke up to sunny skies. That was good news. After eating, Ritta, my mother, and I cleaned the rest of the house, or what remained of it anyway to make some room. The children removed rocks and gathered broken objects, and the couple asked what they could do to help, so my mother gave them some tools to cut some wood. The man smiled brightly. He must know what to do. Either he liked it or maybe it was his job.

  Once the house was clean, the destruction could be seen clearly. We had wood, so we started cleaning the branches from the wood and shaping it into pieces that could cover the roof. The man was very good at this, and I learned that he used to make roofs and tables and anything wooden. We were lucky to have someone skilled. He gave us simple tasks to do since we were not familiar with this. He even gave tasks to the children so they could help too. After some hours, we had a good shape, and he took the roof and set it somehow. The roof looked good, but we would see how useful it was after it rained. I hoped it held; so much work for nothing would be a pity.

  There was a knock on the door followed by a crash as the door fell. A man stood there with his arm extended.

  “I have put a sign there. Can’t you see it? Do not knock on the door. Can’t you read?” I yelled at him.

  He took a few steps back. “I am sorry. I didn’t notice.”

  “You didn’t notice, but look what you have done now. Someone could have been behind that door, and now he could be injured or worse.”

  The man looked asham
ed. “I am so sorry.”

  “What do you want?” I scowled.

  He took two envelopes from his pocket. “These are for you.” He gave one envelope to the couple and looked around. “Where are your parents?” he asked the children.

  “We don’t know. We got separated and we came back a few days ago,” Leticia said.

  The man put the envelope away. “Come with me.”

  I stopped him. “Where to?”

  He looked at me uncomfortably. “I want to talk to them in private.”

  Maybe he wanted to tell them the contents of the envelope, but I didn’t trust him. “If they are not back in ten minutes, I will kill you.”

  He nodded and the children went with him.

  “Ritta, follow them, please.”

  She nodded and disappeared. Ritta appeared five minutes later. “They are done and must be on their way here now.”

  The couple read their letter, and it seemed like good news, but they didn’t share anything with us.

  The children entered, and we put the door back in its place. The children sat down, and the woman turned to me. “We will leave you tomorrow. Thank you for your hospitality and kindness.”

  The man grinned. “We are summoned to stay in a house provided by the kingdom. I can finish the rest of the house if you want.”

  “Thank you. But you have done more than enough. You have put the roof on, and at least now we will be protected even if it rains. I wish you good luck.”

  “We will have a house too when our parents come,” Mario said.

  Leticia added, “Yes, the man said that we can wait some days for our parents, and we can all move together.”

  I smiled. “That’s great.”

  “Eva? Can we visit you?” Mario asked.

  “Of course, you can.”

  “Thank you.” He hugged me and I smiled. Today had brought some sunlight and hope into their lives.

  Two days later, another couple arrived. “We heard that Mario and Leticia are staying here.”

  I knitted my eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “We are their parents,” the woman said, and I could sense they were telling the truth so I let them in.

  “Mommy! Daddy!” the children cried and hugged their parents.