13 Curses

by Michelle Harrison

  “Impossible to guess. Could be minutes or hours.”

  Though it had stayed unspoken, Red knew that the talk of overpowering the Hedgewitch meant that it would have to be her who did it. The thought scared her more than anything had in a long time. But there was no other option: Eldritch couldn’t move, and the human man’s foot was injured too badly for him to be able to move quickly enough. It all depended on her. And all there was left to do now was wait.

  “Let’s talk,” she said eventually, desperate to think about something, anything except what was yet to come.

  “What do you want to talk about?” said Eldritch.

  “Why don’t we begin with ourselves?” the man suggested. “That seems as good a place to start as any.” He paused, shifting to loosen the laces of the boot on his injured foot. “If we’re going to be working together to get out of here, then we should get to know one another.”

  Red nodded. Above, the Hedgewitch’s chant continued, low and steady.

  “Warp and twist, fool and convince the onlooker’s perception….”

  She shuddered, eager to block out the terrible sound.

  “Fine, I’ll go first.” She closed her eyes, allowing herself to look into the past. “I’m here because of my brother. He was taken from me last February. I’ve come to get him back.”

  On the first morning in the children’s home, Mr. Bones was gone when Rowan awoke. One of the twins must have come in quietly and collected him. She had slept fitfully and, as she sat up, snatches of bad dreams pricked at her like poisoned thorns.

  She pushed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. On the dressing table was an alarm clock. It was still early, just coming up to seven o’clock in the morning. She looked over to check on James. He was awake, lying quietly in the crib. As she leaned over and reached in to him, his face broke into a smile. He grabbed hold of her good arm and pulled himself up, then clung to the side of the crib, stamping his feet as he took in his surroundings.

  “Want Mummy,” he said.

  “I know,” Rowan whispered. “So do I.” She patted his chubby little hand, then moved away to unpack her suitcase.

  “Want Mummy,” James repeated, his little voice rising. “Want Daddy.”

  “Shush, now,” said Rowan, glancing back at him. His large blue eyes were following her in confusion as she started to put clothes into drawers.

  By the time she had unpacked and gotten to the bathroom, the water was tepid and once again the plughole was clogged with hair, soon slurped up by the disgusting fairy in the drain. After she’d washed and dressed, a staff member from the nursery came and took James, and after a short protest, she had to be content with being told that she would see him later in the morning.

  The first breakfast was the worst. Rowan had never enjoyed being the center of attention, but now, being the new girl, the center of attention was exactly what she was. Some of the girls whispered or pointed at her. Some offered tentative smiles, some offered words of comfort, and others simply stared with unabashed curiosity. None of it was returned. Rowan stared at her bowl, half filled with some kind of sugary cereal. Her stomach growled, yet the thought of food made her nauseated. Instead she sipped at a chipped cup of lukewarm tea. Soon, she was joined on either side by two slight figures.

  “Hello,” the one on the left said in a chirpy voice. “What’s your name?”

  Rowan looked up into a friendly, freckled face that was surrounded by a shock of short, dark hair. She recognized it as one of the twins who had peeked around her door the night before. “My name’s Rowan,” she answered.

  “I’m Penny,” said the twin. “And this is my sister, Polly. We’re nine, but Polly’s twenty-four and a half minutes older than me. We’ve been here for two months now. We—”

  “Stop rabbiting,” the other twin interrupted. “Can’t you see she wants to be left alone?”

  Rowan turned to look at the second twin, Polly. She had the same friendly face as her sister, but it was tinged with concern. Rowan tried to smile, but her mouth didn’t want to.

  “She talks too much,” said Polly. “I keep telling her about it, but she doesn’t take any notice.” She reached up and scratched her mop of dark hair. “If you need any help learning your way around, just ask us. We’ll show you.” She turned to her twin. “Come on, Penny.”

  “Wait,” said Rowan, suddenly not wanting to be alone. “Perhaps… perhaps you could show me around after breakfast.”

  There were several other girls in the wing that Rowan shared, though as the day wore on, many of their names escaped her. She paid attention only to those who she thought she would have closest contact with.

  “There’s Sally, she’s nine, the same as us,” said Polly. At the sound of her name, Sally looked up and gave a friendly smile. Rowan gave a weak smile in return, but then her attention was caught by a scared-looking girl who was alone and seemed to be hiding behind her hair.

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “Oh, that’s Lara,” the twins replied in unison.

  It turned out that, like Rowan, Lara had a younger sibling, a sister aged three. Rowan often saw them in the nursery when she was there with James. Sometimes Rowan made small talk with her, but for the most part Lara kept to herself. Rowan wondered what Lara’s story was, how she had come to be there. Most of the children were there due to unfortunate family circumstances. Some, like the twins, had been neglected. But no one seemed to know Lara’s story. And no one seemed to care much either. In fact, no one took much notice of her at all—until the day her little sister disappeared.

  It was late afternoon when it happened, three weeks after Rowan and James had arrived. Rowan was sitting on the floor in the common room, staring at her book of fairy tales with James on her lap. Across the room, the twins were embroiled in a noisy card game, while Sally and two other girls were playing a board game. They had given up trying to get Rowan to join in, instead leaving her to her book. On her lap, James gurgled contentedly. Already, he was crying less for their parents. In private, Rowan was crying more for them.

  Her broken left arm was still in plaster but healing well. Unfortunately, she happened to be left-handed. Until the plaster was removed, the things she could do were limited. Getting dressed was difficult enough, however the thing Rowan really wanted to do was to write a letter. And this was the kind of letter that couldn’t be written right-handed. It was an important letter, which had to be perfect, and the more that time passed and the more she thought about it, the more monumental a task it became.

  She was going to write a letter to her aunt Rose, her mother’s younger sister. Aunt Rose, with her shabby cottage full of animals, whose name always brought about a little worry line on her mother’s forehead and a crease on the bridge of her father’s nose. It was true that Aunt Rose was an oddball. But she was also the only family Rowan and James had left. So Rowan had decided that her letter was going to ask Aunt Rose to take her and James away from there.

  Rowan was staring at the pages of her book, only half seeing the beautiful color plates that lay before her. The illustrations were of “The Little Mermaid.” It was one of Rowan’s favorite tales, but today her mind was occupied with how to begin her letter. If she got it right, the letter could be her ticket out of this place.

  The door to the common room flew open, and Lara dashed in, her face ashen.

  “Has anyone seen my sister?” she demanded, her voice uncharacteristically loud. “Well?” She scanned the room. A sea of blank faces, Rowan’s included, stared back. “Has anyone seen her?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Polly. “She’s in the nursery, isn’t she?”

  “I’ve just come from the nursery,” said Lara. She was breathing very quickly. “I was there, with her, then I went to get a glass of water. Two minutes later I came back and she’d gone. We’ve been looking everywhere and no one can find her. I wondered if she’d managed to walk this far down.”

  Just then two harasse
d-looking members of staff rushed into the room. One of them Rowan recognized as one of the nursery attendants, and the other was the cleaner, an odd-looking woman with a mop of untidy brown hair and a pair of flip-flops on her feet despite its being January. It was she who spoke first, addressing Lara.

  “Is she here? Have you found her?”

  Lara shook her head, and the worried expression on the two adults’ faces deepened.

  “Don’t worry, pet,” said the cleaner kindly. “She can’t have gone far, now, can she? She’s probably just playing hide-and-seek. We’ll find her.”

  Rowan got to her feet, snapping her book shut.

  “I’ll help you look for her.”

  “So will we,” said the twins.

  A flurry of activity ensued as the place was turned upside down in the search for the little girl. Every room and every cupboard, every little nook was explored, yet seemingly Lara’s little sister was nowhere to be found. Minutes dragged by, and the staff was beginning to panic. People were calling out as they burst into rooms. To the little girl: “Megan? Megan?” And to each other: “What was she wearing?”

  “A green dress, her sister says.”

  Though an effort was being made to keep calm, the confusion and chaos were frightening. Then, just as Lara began to cry, there came a shout from the twins.

  “Here! She’s here—we’ve found her!”

  Rowan followed Lara, who was now sobbing, along the corridor to Lara’s room, where the twins’ voices had come from.

  There, fast asleep in Lara’s bed, with her thumb in her mouth, was Megan. She was burrowed down into the covers like a little dormouse, stirring only when Lara pushed her way into the room and swept the little girl up into her arms, hugging her tightly.

  “Where have you been?” Lara wept, but there was only relief in her voice, not anger. “Don’t ever wander off like that again!”

  Megan yawned widely. “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “How on earth did we miss her?” Sally wondered aloud. “We searched this room already.”

  “Like a little creature hibernating, she was,” said the cleaner, who had been second to arrive on the scene.

  As more people arrived, Rowan slunk away, not wanting to crowd poor Lara and Megan. Now that the drama was over, she went back to the empty common room and picked up her book before quietly going to her own room with James. She lay down on her bed with James in her arms, reading to him in a low voice, and, without meaning to, dozed off.

  She awoke with a start to find that the room was in darkness. Hours must have passed, for night had fallen. Her mouth was dry, and she was cold. She sat up, shivering, shifting James in her good arm. He was awake and smiling placidly. Only when she looked toward the doorway did she see that someone was standing there, silhouetted against the lit hallway.

  She jumped, squeezing James a little too hard.

  “Sorry,” said a quiet voice. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “Lara,” said Rowan, recovering herself. “Is everything all right?”

  Lara hesitated. “No,” she whispered finally. “Everything isn’t all right. I think… I think there’s something quite wrong.”

  Rowan got up and snapped on the light, making them both blink with the sudden flood of brightness. A quick glance at the clock showed that it was nearly eight. It would soon be bedtime.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “It’s Megan,” said Lara. “She’s not herself. She’s acting… strangely.”

  “Perhaps she’s not well,” Rowan answered. “Ask someone to take her temperature.”

  “No, that’s not it,” said Lara. “She’s not ill, she’s just… different. No one else has noticed, but she’s… not her normal self. I’m the only one who’d notice. I know her. I spend time with her. Just like you and James. That’s why I came to you.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” said Rowan. A trace of annoyance had crept into her voice. She immediately regretted it as Lara’s eyes filled with tears. “Look,” she continued hastily. “Sit down. Take a minute to think and try to tell me what’s bothering you. Be specific.”

  Lara walked to the bed and sat down on the rumpled covers. Rowan sat down beside her.

  “She’s talking less,” Lara began. “She’s normally a chatterbox, but this afternoon she’s barely said a word.”

  “Maybe she’s tired,” Rowan said, but Lara shook her head.

  “No. It’s like… like she’s taken a step backward, or several. She’s asking what things are, like a book, or a cup, things she should know. Things she does know. It’s almost as if she’s relearning things. And her voice is different too. When she speaks, it sounds odd, higher at first, but then sounds more normal as she carries on. And she hasn’t stopped eating. She’s been demanding food all afternoon, when normally she’s picky about what she eats. Now she’ll eat anything that’s put in front of her.”

  Rowan frowned.

  “No offense, Lara,” she said carefully, “but maybe you’re tired, or upset from when Megan got lost earlier. Perhaps you’re just imagining things—”

  “Don’t tell me I’m imagining it!” Lara smacked her hand down on Rowan’s pillow in frustration. Fresh tears began to stream down her face. James’s eyes widened at the outburst, and then he began to howl. But Lara took no notice. Instead, she stood up and walked to the door.

  “I came to you because I thought you might understand. Your baby brother means the world to you, just as Megan does to me. You’d know if something was wrong. And I’m telling you, something is definitely wrong with my little sister!” She sniffed suddenly, and wiped the cuff of her sleeve across her face. “But what do you care? What does anyone care?”

  “Wait, Lara,” Rowan began, startled at the usually gentle girl’s outburst. “I do care! I just…” Her voice trailed off. She was talking to an empty corridor. Lara was already gone.

  “Great,” she muttered. She sat there on the bed for a few minutes, trying to decide whether to go after Lara and try to make amends or just leave her alone until her anger had burned itself out. Eventually, guilt got the better of her. Sighing, she got up again, shushing James, who was still grizzling softly into her shoulder, and went out of the bedroom. On the way to the stairs, Rowan passed the common room, where most of the older girls were sitting, making their bedtime drinks last as long as they possibly could to snatch a few extra minutes of television or games. She ignored the twins’ calls to join them and carried on.

  The nursery was situated on the ground floor, at the farthest end of the building. It was a large room, full of cribs, toys, and playpens, and several murals were painted on the walls. Toward the rear of the room was a set of French doors that looked out onto the garden.

  Lara was sitting by Megan’s bed, a few feet away. As soon as Rowan entered the room, it was clear that Megan was having a tantrum. Lara simply stared back at her, unmoving.

  “Pick me up!” the little girl shouted, and even Rowan winced at the tinny, scratchy quality to her voice. James wailed even more loudly.

  Lara shook her head, biting her lip.

  “For goodness’ sake, pick her up!” Rowan said fiercely, but froze as she drew level and saw Lara’s face. It was a mask of fear. She stared up at Rowan with glassy, shocked eyes.

  “Her hair,” she whispered. “It’s grown. In a day. I thought I was imagining it, but look! I’m not, am I? Tell me I’m not!”

  Rowan stared at the little girl. With a jolt, she saw that it was true. The child’s hair had grown at least two inches. Her bangs were now in her eyes.

  “No, you’re not.”

  Suddenly the child stopped screaming and looked Rowan directly in the eye. “I’m hungry,” she said, licking her lips.

  “But I fed her!” said Lara, in despair. “I fed her only twenty minutes ago!”

  Rowan did not answer. For, there, right before her eyes, something was happening. Something deeply unsettling. Megan’s eyes were starting to cha
nge color. As she watched, the pupils dilated, larger and larger, until they completely filled the brown irises. But even then, they did not stop. They continued to grow, to spread like black ink that had been spilled, until the whites of the eyes were black too.

  Rowan blinked, trying to make sense of it all. Her eyes must be deceiving her, surely. But then she gasped audibly as Megan’s dark hair and skin began to pale drastically, then flooded with a pale, sickly green tinge.

  “What?” Lara said. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” Rowan managed, clasping James to her and holding his head tightly into her neck. Somehow she knew that it didn’t matter, that if he looked at the little girl on the bed he wouldn’t see what she was seeing. For it was evident that Lara could not see the horrifying spectacle either. Rowan took a step back as the child’s ears suddenly protruded from its hair. They were now pointed. She took another step back as its limbs seemed to ripple and elongate, the hands and feet large and out of proportion to the rest. She knew what she was seeing, then in the same moment she knew she could never tell anyone. For she wouldn’t be believed. She could barely believe it herself.

  “When… when did you first realize something was wrong?” she whispered.

  “Within a few minutes of finding her, after she got lost earlier. But I thought I was imagining it.”

  That confirmed it then. Even as the child on the bed stared back at her, a scowl forming on its face, Rowan knew what had happened.

  Someone or something had taken Megan and left a creature that wasn’t her in her place.

  Whatever it was that sat on the bed was an impostor. It wasn’t Lara’s little sister. It was something else. It was fey.

  “Rowan, what is it? Why are you looking at her like that?”

  Rowan was unable to tear her eyes away. To her relief, the creature on the bed slipped back into its imitation—its imitation of Megan. The fairy features dissolved and morphed into something human once more.

  “Nothing,” she stammered. “I don’t know anything.”