Cursed

by Lynn Ricci

  Sarah seemed to brighten, “Maybe the part of the clue to end this all together is in her room? You have already started changing like the curse was being broken . . .”

  Mason interrupted, “It was you listening, and believing me, and looking at my hideous form without pity.”

  Sarah blushed and looked down but reached out for his hand. As she did the few lights in the room went dead and they were in complete darkness. Instead of a gentle squeeze, she clutched at his hand, surprised by the blackness.

  “We finally lost the power. I thought we were going to make it through the storm.”

  Mason stood up, holding her hand and guiding her around the furniture to the windows in her bedroom to look out at the street below. The other brownstones along the street were mostly dark from people traveling but there were several windows illuminated and many of the front porch lights glowed yellow still at this late hour.

  “Sarah, don’t be alarmed, but if we are the only building to go out, I think there is foul play at work.”

  Sarah did look scared but it was quickly replaced with hope. “My laptop should have a few hours of battery life. Hopefully I can hack into a neighbor's wireless connection and research how to break a witches' curse, or make a witch go away.”

  “She will never let me live in peace, Sarah, she will never go away. For as long as she finds men out there to sap energy from, she will stay young, strong . . . and vengeful.”

  “There has to be a way." Sarah returned to the living room and grabbed her laptop, clicking away at the keyboard while Mason stood helplessly nearby.”

  “Do you have a flashlight, Sarah?”

  “No, only candles. Can I light some, given the situation?”

  Mason seemed hesitant.

  “I will be careful, Mason, I promise.”

  “Okay. Not too many, please. We don’t need a fire on top of everything else.”

  Sarah lit a few scented candles and sat back down with the laptop. After a few minutes of watching her fearful face in the glow from the candles and laptop screen, Mason had to do something.

  “Sarah, you said there may be something in her room that could help or offer a clue. There were books on the shelves with the glass jars and herbs. I am going to head down to the basement.”

  “How will you get in?”

  “I have a sledge hammer down there and it's just a row of bricks, no wall behind it so it should be simple.” He rolled his shoulders and moved his arms and back around. “I haven’t felt this strong or fit in a hundred years.” They both laughed at the absurdity of the statement and from nervousness of the situation. Neither had said it, but for the lights to be off, the witch that went by both Selena and Zoe had to be close by.

  Sarah was staring at the screen, reading fast. “Mason, when you come back up, bring that glass jar you mentioned.”

  He turned to leave her at the counter bar to head out but she grabbed his arm. “Please be careful.”

  “You, too.” He couldn’t tell her how fearful he was that he was going to lose her a second time, but right now time was of the essence and they both had a job to do.

  Practically running down the stairs, he grabbed the mag light and hand held spotlight from his apartment and made his way to the basement. He set the spotlight in place, shining a big bright round bulls-eye of light on the brick and went to work swinging. Within minutes he had broken a hole into the wall large enough to walk through. Shining his flashlight in, sweeping the dark hallway and closed doors he felt like he had stepped into the past.

  Entering Selena's room, smelling the closed up smell of a basement he stopped. Sweeping the room with his flashlight he remembered that night of looking for the mouse and how she had tried to seduce him to sap his strength and youth. The beam from the flashlight landed on the shelves and walked over, feeling uncomfortable to be back in that room.

  The books and jars were covered with a think layer of dust and wiped his hand across the spine of the books to see the words. Some just had strange symbols, others had no words, and two had titles he could read – The Magus and Incantations.

  He then shined his light on the jars. It was hard to see what was in the green and brown glass jars. Mason twisted one jar in its place and on the backside of the he saw a small white label. He twisted the next and the next and they all had the small white paper labels, dirty and discolored with time, on each jar. Mason leaned closer, trying to read the faded ink but could only make out letters . . . A.D., B.B. What on earth could this be? He shuffled to the side to get a closer look at some of the other small jars, holding the flashlight close. A.T., P.T., C.T., M.T. Oh my God! These jars must hold something from each of us!

  Mason backed away from the shelf and returned to the other side of the basement where he grabbed the glass jug from under the stairs, also thick with dust, and returned to the third floor as quickly as possible.

  As he entered the apartment he could smell Christmas trees and peppermint, a happy holiday fragrance that masked the evil lurking just outside their building.

  "I broke through – not sure if we will need anything from in there but there are a lot of books on that shelf. And jars labeled for each one of us from that time. Except mine – I didn't see a jar with my initials. We need to do something .I need to do something. . . Something to end this forever.

  Sarah had been busy. A note pad was beside her with scribbled notes and she was clicking away at the end of the ballpoint pen as she read more on the screen.

  “Mason, we can try to kill her, although I am not sure how I feel about killing someone – even a witch." Sarah began.

  “Seriously, you have a moral dilemma over a witch that killed you once before?”

  “I have a moral dilemma over killing a spider.” She shuffled through her notepad, pulling the candle closer and started reading to Mason. "And, there's the whole issue of if she does have a demonic side to her – or a succubus as you called her – and how to stop that. There is very little I could find this quickly on how to rid yourself of a succubus but what it did say is that sometimes you allow them into your home by having a small item of theirs hidden in the house or given as a gift."

  "The charcoal burner and incense. She gave that to you as a gift to try to gain entry against the protections I've set up. She was trying to find a way in.”

  Sarah feverishly tried to get back to that website and as Mason spoke they realized it must be the burner. She stopped at a page and scrolled down. "Here it is, Mason. It says . . . you need to identify exactly which item or object you have bought recently, and there have also been a number of instances where the victim had been given an object – an item that may have been cursed, or even been used in actual black magic rituals. If this item is identified, the best advice would be to remove the object from the home immediately.

  Mason strode across the room and easily found the burner and incense pouch left hours before on the coffee table. Sarah looked perplexed as she asked, "What are you going to do with that?"

  "Throw it out the front window. It will land in the street and will be off my property."

  Sarah followed Mason as he made his way down the short hallway and into her bedroom. Unlocking and pushing up on the window in the front, and then the storm window, a cold gust of air and icy crystals blew in at them. Mason tossed the two items out into the night and watched as the burner and incense arched out and down to the street below where they landed, the burner bouncing a few times on the white, snow streaked street. As soon as the cursed items landed, an agonizing scream arose in the distance. It almost sounded like a hurt animal crying out into the night. The wailing hanging on the cold crisp air and coming to them over some distance sent shivers up Mason's spine.

  Sarah instinctively moved closer to Mason and he put his arm around her as they looked out to the otherwise eerily quiet sleeping neighborhood. He felt his pulse quicken at the sound as well as having Sarah tucked under his arm for safety.

  Sarah looked up at him and in l
ooking into each other's eyes, neither speaking – both knew it was not an animal's cry but their enemy acknowledging they had lost some ground in this timeless battle.

  Mason closed the window quickly and re-locked it. He walked to the side window where the fire escape was and there were cat paw prints in the snow. Not fresh by his eye, but certainly after the snow had stopped falling and well after the cat had been here the night before. Just when was she here and could she hear us talk?

  Sarah was holding the mag light he had brought back upstairs with him and her other arm was wrapped across her mid-section, almost to steady herself in the face of this ominous opponent. They returned to the candlelit kitchen area.

  Looking at the laptop screen, Sarah announced, "We don't have a lot of time left. We need to figure out what we are going to do."

  "Go on – what else did you find."

  Sarah looked back at her notes and jumped to another site she had been on for reference. "There are all kinds of different ways to kill a witch, and you are right, collecting urine would be what some people would use with these jars." She pointed at the small, ten inch tall green glass jar on the counter with the old and bent rusty nails and pins and hair lying in the bottom. "But none of the websites say how you would get someone accused of being a witch to give up their urine? Or to get it secretly."

  "We thought it was from outhouses. They would set a jar under the hole and wait in the shadows for the intended to use the outhouse."

  Sarah raised her eyebrows, "Well that doesn't sound very pleasant. Hmmm . . . "She flipped the page of her notebook." People have also used vinegar or wine to replace the witch's urine but it doesn't have the same effect or end result of the witch not being able to urinate until she is in such pain she calls back the curse or dies.

  Most of what I read called for the witches jar to be more of a protection against a witch. If you are in fear of having a curse or hex put on you, or you fear that you might already. The spellbound one was to urinate into the jar that had the sharp objects and bury the jar upside down on the property or have it hidden in a place where it would not be found. Burying underneath the hearth was a favorite spot. The few articles I saw on this said that the spell being sent to the person or home would be instead trapped into the bottle since the person's urine is a part of them."

  "Well, I could certainly do that and hide the jar again. Any other tricks on that thing?" Mason motioned with his head towards the laptop.

  "Well, we could do our own spell to break the curse. There are several different methods listed here but all are very similar." Sarah ticked off three or four different incantations and the use of herbs or black or white candles. "And, there is one thing we can do that will reverse the spell. Send it back her way . . . three times over. Something about the Law of Threes. But we need to start a fire with oak and boil water over it to perform the ritual and it should be done on consecrated grounds."

  "Like a churchyard?"

  "I would suppose so. It's not like we can get a priest here at this hour of the morning on Christmas to bless your yard and sprinkle holy water on it."

  Sarah watched as Mason mentally calculated their chances pulling any of this off. "You know she must be close and watching us. We are safe here. The church at the end of the street has a small side yard but we can't go starting a fire outside with her around. Plus, they must have a midnight Mass that would be getting out soon." Mason checked his pocket watch and saw it was a few minutes before one o'clock in the morning on Christmas.

  "Are you suggesting we get to the Mass?"

  "I'm thinking it will need to be later after everyone is gone. Priests and parishioners may not take too kindly to our setting a fire on church property – even if it is to stop a witch." He grinned a little and Sarah responded with the same grin as conspirators and partners in this and he knew they were in this together all the way. Maybe after all this time, the suffering would finally end tonight.

  Mason looked at her list and finally said, "Maybe we should do a few of these spells and not put all our eggs in one basket. Just in case we choose one and get it wrong. But, Sarah, that would mean we would be tinkering in magic ourselves. Are you okay with that?”

  Sarah's eyes were wide and she looked scared in the flickering candle light. He knew she was trying to act brave by finding these remedies, but do they really want to play with black magic? He had concerns about exposing Sarah to Zoe or Selena or whatever the foul witch was calling herself, but if it meant breaking this spell for good and sending her away to keep Sarah safe, he would muster all the bravery he could tonight.

  "We don't have a choice, Mason. These last forty-eight hours I have come to believe in a lot of things, things I would never have given any credence to in the past, but I don't feel we have any choice and need to fight this with the only tools available to us." She looked at her computer screen. "If I could have found a more rational way of facing this, believe me I would tell you. But banishments and spells and magic of all kinds are the only things I could find.”

  They laid out their plan at the counter, deciding on which to do and making a list of what they would need. One item that Sarah thought would be problematic was a black candle but Mason hoped he could find one in apartment 2A. The man that lived there had a contemporary black and white decor and he thought he had seen black candles on the dining room table one time in a fancy silver candelabra. Another was for several pounds of salt but they figured by searching every apartment they might be able to come up with enough.

  They decided to check the Baldwin's apartment for herbs and mistletoe, which was a requirement for one charm that they luckily had in the building for Christmas.

  With their list made, Mason picked up the green bottle and flashlight. The jar's contents rattling, he poured the items onto the counter, carefully pulling the hairs and fingernails to the side.

  Sarah gathered up the few small personal pieces of Selena and put it in an envelope to hold aside for later. Mason then returned the nails and bent pins to the container and excused himself for the bathroom to fill the jar and initiate their plan.

  Chapter 22

  “Mason?” He heard fear in her voice as she stood behind him. The light wavered on the doorknob from the flashlight she held. Turning the keys on the large brass circle he selected the one for the Baldwin’s unit.

  “It’s okay, Sarah.”

  Mason entered the apartment and found his way in the dark to the kitchen with Sarah following closely behind, her hand on his back. They quickly opened and closed cabinets until Sarah found the salt and dried rosemary. As she added these to the bag they had brought to carry her notebook, two white candles and salt shaker from her apartment, Mason held up more white candles. “Found more candles.”

  They moved off to the apartment across the hall and as Sarah searched the kitchen, Mason went on a hunt for the black candles.

  “Damn it!” Mason’s voice sounded tired and exasperated. Sarah appeared next to him, shining the flashlight towards the middle of the table. A holiday arrangement of silver and white ornaments filled a shallow bowl.

  “Well, it must still be here somewhere.” Frantically she swept the room with the beam of light. Mason steadied her arm and she looked back to him, immediately calming and finally smiling. “I’ll go get the salt.”

  Mason began exploring the china cabinet looking for the black candles and wishing he had brought the second flashlight with them. Sarah could be heard rummaging around in the kitchen as Mason went to work pulling out table clothes, vases, and other odds and ends from the china cabinet. He felt around blindly with his hand until he felt a waxy cylinder. Wrapping his fingers around the candle he pulled it out and held it close to his face but couldn’t see well with only the moonlight coming through the windows. It looks black. Feeling around he found two others, and then a fourth.

  “I have it,” Sarah called out. Mason strode to the kitchen and held the candles under the light and smiled. Two black and two white.


  “How much salt?”

  “Not enough. Not yet anyway.” She looked at the candles in Mason’s hands and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”

  They moved on, creeping down the marble stairs that led to the lobby. Moonlight splashed in through the front door window and spilled across the marble floor below. Their footsteps echoed in the high ceilinged foyer as they descended. “I don’t like the feeling I have down here.”

  “Why are you whispering?” He whispered back.

  “I’m not sure. I just feel like someone is listening to us.”

  “No one is in the building, Sarah. I’m sure of it. Let’s just go through 1B and get what we need.”

  Apartment 1B held a jackpot; a new unopened box of salt, perhaps even enough for what they needed the salt for. Locking up 1B they quickly crossed the foyer to Mason’s apartment door at the back. Once inside Mason grabbed his box of salt and Sarah lingered in the living room. Returning with the box he stopped short as he noticed Sarah staring up at the paintings on the wall. Shining the flashlight upward, she moved from painting to painting. In the bizarre upward glow of the flashlight, Mason observed her facial expressions as she went through multiple changes of recognition and confusion, delight and fear.

  Mason cleared his throat causing Sarah to jump a little and then shake herself free of her inner thoughts. “I still can’t get over this, Mason. I look at these and they are so familiar yet . . . that feeling is replaced with looking at something entirely new. I know from experience I can’t do this,” gesturing to the painting on the wall, “but if I were to paint, this is exactly how I would stylistically envision painting the scene.”

  “Catherine was quite gifted, and although I am convinced there is some of Catherine still with you, you are your own person and uniquely special, too.”

  Sarah looked at him, searching his face and finally a hint of a smile on her lips. She placed her hand on the middle of his chest and he knew she must feel his heartbeat hammering away.