First Kiss

by Tara Brown

  I can feel frustration and anger welling inside of me, but I can't reach it, not properly. I point at the mirror, "Baylor? The magic mirror? The curse and this terrible land? I don’t get it. You’re talking in circles. What has happened to me? Has a year past or not? Am I in a coma in the real world and this is my imagination or dream? Does the mirror represent something?"

  He shakes his head, “I don’t know. It was always rumored that witches could make the people disappear into the mirror. Your mother used this very mirror to see images of the landscape when we first got here. I assumed you would be able to do the same thing, but you seemed like you had no powers.”

  "DID YOU KILL MY MOTHER? WHAT IS HAPPENING?"

  He jumps at my shouting, “I never touched her. She left here one day, pregnant with your sister, and I never saw her again. I don’t know what is happening. I don't know any more than you. I don’t know anything. You were a child when your sister brought us here. Baylor called upon an evil curse and sent us here. Your father is not dead, Lynnie. We have all been stuck here this many years." He looks as angry as I think I feel. He jumps up, grabbing my arms, "Break the curse, I beg of you! Remember!"

  I sob, "I don’t know what to do."

  His face is so close to mine it gives me an idea. I have a feeling. Maybe it’s the Disney stories I have watched, but I grab his face and plant my lips upon his. I can feel the cuts and hardened scars of his skin against mine. I close my eyes and grip to him. His lips are soft, the way I imagined them to be. I press into the kiss harder, breathing him in. I hate that this stolen kiss, done out of anger and confusion, is my first kiss. When I no longer feel the scars, I open my eyes. The house is a shabby mess again but his face is as it was when I met him before.

  "Bash, you look normal again. Maybe we don’t belong in the nut house.”

  He touches his face hesitantly, “I told you, you could do it.”

  “I have magic!” The curse dawns on me. I gasp, “Can you breathe? Did the curse hurt you?" I reach for him but he jumps back. He is scared of me I think. I see his eyes looking behind me like they are locked there. I turn, jumping at the face of the scarred man in the mirror.

  He touches his face, "I am me again."

  I look at him, "You are you. But now I have kissed you and you will die."

  He walks to the mirror, looking at the scars and ignoring my words, "I am me but the house isn’t the same as it was back home. Is the curse broken? Was it so simple all along? Are we home? Is this how it looks now? Is it dilapidated and ruined? Has she ruined all my lands while we have been gone?"

  “I don’t know what you mean."

  He looks around us, “I’m not sure the curse is broken.” He shakes his head, "I don’t feel different. I look it, but I don’t feel it. Do you have your memories now?”

  I shake my head, "What do we do now? How do we stop the curse from hurting you?"

  He looks around, "The house is the same—what does that mean? It doesn’t look the way it did when it was your father’s house.”

  “I kissed you, you might die.”

  We are both talking and not listening.

  I grab his arms, “The curse—it might kill you now. I kissed you.”

  He laughs, finally listening to what I’m saying. “You have to understand the curse. It is not what you think it is. It was your sister all along, really."

  I look at us next to each other in the mirror, "But I think I love you, Bash, and I kissed you."

  He shakes his head, "You cannot love me. Just like I cannot love you. Your family must pay for their crimes. You must run. It’s why I didn’t want to bring you back here after I spent that week with you. You’re not evil like them. You don’t deserve the fate that will await you here."

  “You sound like an idiot. What are you even saying? Why can’t I love you or you love me? I kissed you and you’re better. The bad you is trapped in the mirror. I saved you. Why can’t you love me? Maybe we’re meant to be, and that’s why I was able to save you and break the stupid curse.” I sound desperate and rash.

  He gives me the most horrible look. It is the one he was giving me at the party, "I am grateful for you breaking the curse, but I can’t love you, Erralynn—ever. I never imagined that what I had to do was make you love me back. In fact, it is cruel that your sister made that the way to break it. Your curse is your family, Erralynn, and you will never be free of that. You must run.”

  My eyes well again, "I don’t understand, don’t you see? You haven’t told me anything. I mean the magic, isn’t so shocking. I think I always knew it was there, but the rest of this, is crazy. Is the Lake curse gone? Am I free of it?"

  His smug look is back, like he’s tired of me. "The Lake curse is not what I was stuck with, you simple girl. The Lake curse doesn’t exist except in the imaginations of a bunch of idiotic, small-minded townies. It never has. You and your kind are your own curse, and the townspeople of Lakeland have no idea what they’re dealing with. When you kissed young Sam, I wasn’t lying. You were the victim of the people of this hateful place. I hate the way they have treated you, but you are in your power now. If you were in Lakeland, you could make them pay. Here in our land, you will have to hide it though.”

  I cock an eyebrow, “We’re still in Lakeland.”

  He shakes his head, “I feel so sad for you, Lynnie. I will always hate Baylor for the spell she put on us. She has always hated you. You were the life of the party, a sassy little charmer who won everyone’s heart with your artist ways and charm. But when I put her to trial, you must stay hidden. You look too much like her. No one will believe you are not her."

  “You aren’t making any sense.” I am lost in a thousand thoughts, but he gets up and leaves me there on the floor without a single answer. I shake my head, “Wait—my mother—where is she?”

  He walks to the front door and looks back at me, “I don’t have that answer. She left us here. I don’t know what happened to her. I trust you will go to your aunt’s house now and seek refuge with her. When the kingdom finds out what your family has done, they will call you a witch. Stay hidden, Lynnie. I will protect you the best I can. Your aunt has all the answers you need. I must find my brother. I’m sorry, I don’t have time to answer your questions. Thank you though, for freeing us and returning us home.”

  I jump up and follow him. The yard is a mess. The horses and carriage are there. Heidi, Lance, and Tim are waiting for him at the foot of the carriage. They look like they want to say something to me but they don’t. Tim waves at me as they climb aboard, “Thank you, Miss Erralynn.”

  Alex walks past me, ignoring me completely, and boards.

  Bastion looks over at me, "Goodbye. I have to find my way home now. I must stop your sister and get back my throne. I will return your servants to their homes. You must see if you can find your father. If your house looks like this, I fear for him. If you don’t find him, go to your aunt’s house. Three-days walk to the east from here—never leave there." His grey eyes look at me for what feels like the longest moment ever, “I hate the way I feel about you.”

  My jaw drops "What?" Of all the nonsense he has said to me, I am stuck with that as the last thing.

  He ignores me and walks to the carriage too. He climbs onto it. I run to it but Lance shouts at the horses and they pull away from me.

  My heart is in my throat. "Wait! Don't leave me here!"

  They ride down the mushy road too fast for me. Tim peeks his face out of the black curtain. I scream as they pull away and round the corner, leaving me there. I drop to my knees, "I don’t understand. I don’t understand." I sob, dropping to my hands, squishing the mud in my fingers. "I don’t understand."

  I look back at the decrepit mansion, shaking and rocking and waiting for an answer.

  Chapter Eight

  It was all a dream. A dream that I am just waking from. A nightmare, really.

  My feet ache, but when Brandon's parents’ store comes into view, at least I start to feel some semblance
of sanity creeping back in. I am in the real world. No aunt’s house, haunted mansions, or disfigured kings with scars I can kiss away with my poisonous kiss.

  I am in Lakeland. I never imagined I would be grateful to see the damned place, but I am.

  I stagger past the store, almost rushing in and begging to know what year it is and if I can have some water, but it is closed for the night.

  I walk down Main Street, noticing the way it has not changed in the year I have been gone. When I get to Mary's, I walk past the red car and the gate and stagger into the yard. The house is unlocked, as it always is. "Mary!"

  She doesn’t answer me. I walk into the kitchen and pull open the fridge to find it full of fresh food. I grab an apple and eat it as fast as I can. I crack open a ginger ale and guzzle it to the point my throat hurts from the sugar. I am gasping for air and stuffing things in my face. I never knew I was so hungry. I catch a glimpse of myself in the microwave. I am a mess. I turn and wander up the stairs to take a shower. Mary is hiding on me, no doubt about to jump out and murder me any second. I don’t care though. I don’t care at all.

  I stand under the hot water and try to make any of it make sense. Even just a small detail I must have overlooked.

  It doesn’t work.

  My mother went there and died, but he never saw it. The house was my father’s, but my grandfather lost it fifty years ago when my father was an infant. Bastion was a king in his mind, but he is a ghost in mine.

  None of it was real. Nothing that confusing could be real. It was a dream, a nightmare.

  I just see his face over and over, telling me he didn’t love me. He never loved me. He played me the week he was here, protecting me and being kind to me. He was trying to trick me into coming to live at the mansion from hell. And to top it all off, the Lake curse isn’t real? I don’t have a friggin’ clue where to start. So basically my entire life has sucked for no reason at all.

  “It was a dream, Lynnie. All a dream.” I shake my head as I wash my hair and think about his week with me here. It’s so weird, he needed me but then he left. He never brought me to the mansion. He was angry when Lance did it for him. He is a ghost who has tortured me for a year, if I have even been gone that long.

  I feel like I have been trapped in a painting for a year. Forced to deal with the things in the painting.

  It was a dream. I push it away and nod, "It was all a dream."

  I get out, surprised Mary never took the chance to kill me in the shower. The white curtain really would have added flair and shock to the whole scene. My room is empty. She has thrown out all my things including the bed.

  I look at the carpet and see it is fixed. The place I used to stash my money is gone.

  I turn and go into her room. It stinks of cigarettes and old lady. I steal a pair of jogging pants and a tee shirt. It's better than nothing.

  I steal a pair of her sandals and a raincoat and leave the house. I look homeless but it suits my situation. I have lost my mind. The cold drizzle is a discomfort but it, at least, is real.

  I walk to the bar I used to sing in and notice the boarded-up windows.

  A desperate scream fills the air of the silent street. "Lynnie!" I turn to see Sam running towards me. He looks the way he did in the mirror—professional and clean cut, only he is here and not in Boston. His handsome face is the same, but I can see that I have been gone long enough for him to become a man. He grabs me, sweeping me into his arms. He hugs so hard I can barely breathe. He speaks in a muffled voice, drowning in my hair. “Lynnie!”

  I smile as he puts me down. "Hey!"

  “Hey? All you have to say is hey? I can’t even believe it’s you! I thought I was crazy there for a minute.” He shakes his head, "What are you doing here? What are you wearing? Are you okay"

  I blush and look down as I answer, "I stole some clothes from Mary. I came to see her but she isn’t home."

  He looks crazed, "Where were you? I looked for you everywhere.”

  I shake my head, “Working. I need to find Mary.”

  “I'm sorry to hear about her. I know you’ve never liked her, but she is your grandma."

  I pause, "Yeah." I have no idea what he's talking about. Is Mary sick?

  "Want me to walk you to the hospital?"

  I nod, "Sure." I guess that answers why she never murdered me in the shower.

  We walk no more than ten steps before he stops me, "I need you to know, I told everyone it was the sesame seeds. I know it wasn’t you. I told them we never kissed."

  I start to cry. I can’t stop myself. He is the first real thing I have seen or touched. I lose all control. I don’t even know why. Maybe because I can see the scar on his throat, or maybe because I am so confused and lost, or because I am a little scared that I've gone crazy and have been living in the woods for a year. He wraps his arms around me, kissing the top of my head, "I am so sorry for what everyone said."

  I just cry into his chest. I think it's a release. He has no idea as to why I am a puddle of emotions, but I think I need it. As far as my brain and body are concerned, the whole thing happened about a month or two ago. But maybe it has been a year. I’m exhausted like it has been.

  He holds me to him, cradling me almost. I stammer, "I'm so-so-so-sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to like you that way."

  He shakes his head, "I liked you that way, I'm glad you did. I'm glad I wasn't alone in it."

  I can’t face him after my admission. I can’t face him or anyone else in the town. I realize that as we stand there. My old wounds have not left me. Lake curse or no, I am still the curse girl.

  He wraps an arm around my shoulders and forces me to walk. "Where did you go, Lynnie? Tell me you were safe."

  “I was.” I look down, wondering how I answer that. "I went and worked for a rich family who didn’t know me." It's only a partial lie.

  "You come back looking like you’ve spent the year in the woods and don’t call anyone? You've been gone for over a year. Not a word to anyone. Didn’t you think we'd worry?"

  I’m almost grateful it really has been over a year, so at least I have one fact about my time missing. I shake my head, "No."

  He kisses my head again, "Never do that to me again. I searched everywhere for you. I hired someone to look for you when Brandon told me what had happened.”

  I don’t have a response to that so I just mutter, “It’s not a big deal.”

  He nods against me, "It was a very big deal. I almost took a year off from school to find you. Brandon told me what Mary did to you—took all your money. Your nineteenth and twentieth must have been awesome!" His sarcasm gets lost as I instantly start to realize what that all means. “I confronted her, but she’s old and cruel. She doesn’t care about you.”

  I look up at him, I feel my mouth go dry, "What's the date?"

  He scowls, "It's October twentieth."

  My birthday was three days ago. How the hell is it fall already? It was spring this morning at the mansion. I’m losing my mind, like my mother.

  He smiles, “Did you at least get your inheritance?”

  The money from my father. Wait—if the Lake curse is fake, what about the money?

  It was all a dream. The money is there. It has to be. I shake my head, "I just got to town tonight." There is a crippling fear that Mary has somehow taken my inheritance and blown every dime of it or it never existed. But I force myself to believe I am a Lake. My pace quickens to the hospital.

  Sam tells me about Harvard. I don’t really care. He has become a real man in the year and a half I have been gone. The year and a half that feels like a month and a half. I am sick with worry and more confused than before. I bet I was living in the woods, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, living with the dead, believing I saw things I didn’t.

  When we get to the hospital, I smile at the lady at the front desk, "Hi. My grandmother, Mary Lake, is here."

  She gives me the look. I have almost missed it. The way people pull back like I am a
leper and then they always give the person standing next to me a questioning look. She smiles through her fear or disgust or whatever, "Room two-ten."

  "Thanks."

  Sam points, "It's this way. I was in that room when I got my appendix out."

  I look at him, "You have had a lot of surgeries."

  He nods, "Four. Tonsils, appendix, tracheotomy, plugs in my ears when I was little."

  I shake my head "You're a train wreck."

  He laughs, "I know it." He wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him. He kisses my hair, “You seem different. If something happened, you can tell me. I would do anything for you.”

  I close my eyes and hate myself for ever liking Bastion. I shake my head, “Nothing happened. I swear. I was just working in an old mansion.”

  When we get to the room, I stop. I can't make my feet walk into the room. I hate her in so many ways, but I need answers and my money. I take a breath and walk in, at least Sam is with me. He doesn’t give us privacy, thank God. I imagine he knows the stories of the way she treated me. Everyone does, and yet, no one helped me. Me or Rosie.

  She looks a million years old and fragile in ways I can’t even imagine possible. She is frail and weak looking. I can’t even see any of the malice. I sit next to her. She smiles, "You must be my nurse." I can see she truly doesn’t know me.

  I shake my head, "I'm your granddaughter."

  She nods, "My Rosie. My sweet Rosie. You came back. You came back to me. How did you get out of the mirror?"

  Oh shit.

  I almost cry but I've honestly had enough crying to last me a lifetime. I nod, "How are you, Grandma?"

  Oh shit.

  The whole thing was true?

  She shakes her head, "You watch out for that sister of yours, Rosie. She is pure evil. Pure evil."

  My heart stops almost, "Why Grandma?" I can see Sam giving me a strange look. I shake my head at him subtly. He won't believe anything he hears anyway.