Curses, Inc. And Other Stories

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "Papa!" Marietta screamed, but already the air shimmered from the heat, and already it was hard to breathe.

  Will just sat there, holding her tight.

  As the paddle wheeler went up the river, the passengers caught a glimpse of the burned-out shell that had been the DuChamps family home for three generations. Daniel Clarke shook his head at the terrible waste.

  But then he turned his attention back to the charming and beautiful young Creole woman. "Much more opportunity in the North," he assured her, finishing the thought he'd started. "I'm sure you and your..." He hesitated, unsure—she was obviously too young to be the child's mother. "Sister?" he asked.

  "Ceecee's closer to being my niece."

  "I'm sure you and your niece will love Philadelphia," Daniel finished. He hesitated, not wanting to sound too forward, since they'd only just met. "But if you don't know anyone in Philadelphia, I'd welcome the opportunity to be your guide."

  "How kind of you," Ceecee's aunt said. "May I repay you by telling your fortune?" She took his hand, then looked up, her dark eyes pleased and friendly. "Look"—she showed him where—"a nice, strong, long lifeline."

  The Witch's Son

  1776—Summerfield, New York

  WHEN ABIGAIL BREWSTER brought her son, Hugh, back from the dead the first time, he looked all fragile and wispy, like morning mist on the village commons.

  She was so startled to see her magic actually work—though she had studied and planned the whole year for just this thing—that for long moments she could do nothing but silently gaze at him. His face was pale and she'd forgotten how young nineteen years old looked, but his expression was peaceful, which should have set her heart at ease.

  Except that his blood was bright red against the white of his homespun shirt.

  And there was so very much of it.

  They'd had him buried before she got home, saying that he'd been killed by a single musket shot and that he'd died instantly. He hadn't suffered, Josiah Blodgett had assured her repeatedly: The deed over so quickly, Hugh had never known what was happening. But now Abigail saw that he'd been shot several times, and she feared that if the first part of what they'd said wasn't true, there was a good chance the second part had been a lie, too.

  Anger and grief returned her voice to her. "Hugh," she whispered.

  Still, he was already beginning to evaporate like the morning mist.

  She reached out...

  ... and felt nothing...

  ...and by then he was gone.

  The second anniversary of Hugh's death, Abigail adjusted the amounts of what she had boiling over the fire, and she made sure to gather all of the ingredients—not just the mandrake root—at midnight under a full moon.

  Once again steam and vapor bubbled out of the pot, more than the heat and the ingredients could account for, and once again Hugh took shape in the cloud that formed in her kitchen.

  "Hugh." She spoke sharply, and immediately, lest the spirit once again dissipate with the steam.

  Abigail saw nothing to indicate Hugh was aware of his surroundings. His eyes were open but unmoving. Abigail couldn't tell if he was breathing, if his heart beat once again.

  "Hugh," she called a second time, but already the steam was thinning out.

  Had it lasted longer this time? Was the vision more solid? Abigail couldn't be sure. Next year she must be calmer; she must take careful note of what happened, which changes were beneficial, which had no effect. She must take her time, she scolded herself, even if she had to work with a year in between each step of the way, for the spell could only be done on October 18, the same day that he had died, and only after two-thirty in the afternoon, the hour he had died. You won't get him back next year, she told herself. Or the year after, or the year after that.

  With that settled, she told herself: So you must make each attempt count.

  The fifth year Abigail worked her spell, Hugh still didn't seem to see or hear her, but this time, just as the steam spread out—much too early, disturbed by a draft from under the door—she saw him blink.

  The eighth year Hugh gazed about the room when she called his name, an unhurried, untroubled gazing, as though he heard her but was unable to identify her voice or where, exactly, it came from.

  The tenth year his expression was more vague and dazed than previously and he didn't react at all to her voice, but the blood was gone, his shirt no longer tattered from musket shot.

  The thirteenth year his body still free of the wounds that had killed him, Hugh looked instantly and directly at her when she called.

  And recognized her, she was sure of it.

  She stepped forward to hug him, forgetting he was just smoke and vapor, and felt something—like the memory of a touch—before he slipped away into nothingness.

  Maybe next year, she told herself.

  And cried every bit as much as she had the year he had died.

  1789

  For Hugh, coming back from the dead felt like waking slowly out of a fever dream. He was aware of himself, in a way that was somehow different from the way in which he'd been aware of himself up until then—different, yet familiar. He was drifting away from someplace he hadn't intended to leave, and he felt a moment of panic. There had been bright colors and feelings for which he no longer had names, and so they slipped away from him, like a dream where the more you try to remember, the more it's gone.

  But there was brightness here, too, and sound, as though he was awakening long past daybreak, to a morning already half gone: He'd lived in the same house all his life, but for a moment he was confused, unable to place where he was in relation to doors and windows. His body was weak and ached all over, and he thought he must be just getting over a long illness. For some reason, he didn't know why, he put his hand to his chest, but that didn't hurt any more than the rest.

  He heard his mother call his name, and he turned to see her standing before him. In the moment it took to realize that he was standing, too, and that they were in the kitchen—so he couldn't have been awakening from his sickbed—in that moment Hugh remembered dying.

  He swayed and clutched at a chair, then let go when he realized he was going to fall anyway and he didn't want to bring the chair down with him. In a moment Mother was there, putting her arm around him, lowering him to the floor more gently than he'd have made it on his own, and how could that be if he was dead and she wasn't?

  Hugh felt the solidness of her arm; he felt the hard wooden floor under his knees, the heat from the fireplace, and the cold from under the door. He took a deep shuddering breath and was disconcertingly aware that it was the first in a very long time.

  Out on the street, Tessa Wakley passed in front of Brewsters' Apothecary and saw that Abigail Brewster had the door to the shop barred and the house shutters closed. I hope everything is all right, Tessa thought at the unaccustomed lack of activity.

  But then she realized the date. Though it was warm for late October, Tessa began to shiver.

  And she began to remember, though she fought hard not to.

  Fourteen years ago, Tessa was five. Seventeen-seventy-five had been a year of people shouting, that was her clearest impression. People who used to be friends spat at each other on the street. All the grown-ups were caught up in the debate: loyalty to England or independence. At the time she didn't understand what was meant when her parents said they were patriots and the Brewsters were loyalists. At five, she only knew there were certain of her friends that she was no longer allowed to play with, and certain people with whom her parents and their friends no longer did business. There would be no more going two doors down and getting cookies from Mrs. Brewster, her parents said.

  Fourteen years ago today, Mr. and Mrs. Brewster were away visiting a sick relative. This worked out well for Tessa because now she wasn't exactly disobeying her parents' instruction not to visit Mrs. Brewster, and because whenever the Brewsters' son, Hugh, was in charge of the cookies, she'd get two instead of one. Also, Hugh let her sit on the tal
l stool behind the apothecary counter.

  On this particular day, Hugh had opened the door between the shop and the living area, for he was working at the kitchen table, going over the account books, which meant he was being too serious to be good company. After finishing her cookies and climbing up and down the stool four or five times, Tessa had just entered the kitchen to let Hugh know she was leaving when she heard the door to the apothecary open. Tessa turned and, for a moment, couldn't make sense of what she saw—sticks? thin metal pipes?—sticking through the doorway.

  All in an instant, Hugh grabbed her arm, dragged her back, shoved her head down, and gave a hard push that sent her sprawling onto the floor behind the barrel of flour that stood between table and stove.

  There was no time for outrage. Tessa heard four explosions, muskets being fired, and the air filled with smoke and the smell of burning powder. Hugh staggered backward, his hand to his chest, as blood seeped between his fingers.

  Tessa backed away as far as she could, caught in the corner between barrel, stove, and wall.

  Men came in, their boots loud on the wooden floor. Someone walked directly to where Tessa hid, shoving the flour barrel so that it tipped over.

  She closed her eyes and covered her ears. But still she heard someone shout, "No!" And it sounded—Tessa hardly dared hope—like her father.

  She opened her eyes and looked all the tall distance up to the face of someone she didn't recognize. Someone holding a musket.

  A moment later her father pushed this man out of his way. "No," her father said again, forcefully.

  She held her arms out and he picked her up, the way he would pick her up in the morning to bring her down to the table for breakfast. In a moment, she thought, her father would use that same forceful voice to tell them to leave Hugh Brewster alone, to get bandages for him.

  For the men had forced Hugh to the floor. Josiah Blodgett had his foot against Hugh's chest, holding him down while the other two men reloaded their muskets. But her father said nothing.

  "Daddy," she said, and he gently pushed her face into his chest—to quiet her, to prevent her from seeing any more than she'd seen.

  He was carrying her out of the kitchen, out of the shop. How could he fail to see Hugh's danger? "Daddy," she repeated, but he told her, "Hush."

  Out in the street, she heard the crack of their guns. She buried her face deeper yet into her father's chest, even knowing that at the same time he carried her, he also juggled his hunting rifle, the barrel warm against her leg from having just been fired.

  That was what Tessa Wakley remembered about the day Hugh Brewster was killed.

  So she didn't knock on Abigail Brewster's door.

  Abigail sat on the chair—which was not a rocking chair—and rocked back and forth.

  Hugh was making busywork for himself, fussing with the fire, which, Abigail estimated, didn't really need fussing over. But Hugh very obviously preferred not to look at her as yet. He remained crouched before the fire for a very long time, staring into the flames.

  Abigail would have feared that being dead had affected the boy's mind, but Hugh had spoken. "Mother," he'd said, clasping her hand so tightly that in other circumstances it would have hurt, and "Here," as he'd helped her up off the floor and led her, stiff and tottery, to the chair, "sit down." As though he were speaking to one of the village grandmothers, she thought, before she remembered that now she was old enough to be his grandmother. But Hugh had always been a polite boy.

  She became aware of her own rocking, and she willed herself to sit still, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  It was, after all, Hugh who finally started. "How long?" he asked in a shaky whisper, finally looking up at her.

  "Fourteen years," Abigail said.

  That was obviously worse than he'd expected, no matter how old she looked. Hugh momentarily closed his eyes.

  "Among your father's books of medicines," she said, "which were passed down to him by his father and his father before him, were very old papers. Recipes. Mixtures." There was no use mincing words. He knew it wasn't medicines that had brought him back. "Spells. This one could only work..." Her voice caught for a moment, and she finished, "...once a year."

  Hugh accepted all that. He asked, instead of any of the other questions he could have asked, "Where is Father?"

  "He died," she answered as gently as anyone could give that answer, "after surviving the war for independence, in a riding mishap."

  Hugh wrapped his arms around himself. "Can you do"—Hugh couldn't find the words and gestured helplessly—"this," and she knew exactly what he meant—"for him?"

  She shook her head.

  "You brought me back."

  "Because you died here," she said, the words slipping out of her painlessly after all. "I had your blood—" She didn't want to tell him how she and John had come home to find the body already removed, surprising Prudence Wakley on her hands and knees, crying and scrubbing at the bloodstains. Abigail wasn't ready to say how she had saved that bucket of soapy bloody water, and how—when it was all used—she had pried the floorboards up and chipped the plaster from the walls. "I had your blood to work with," she said, "and the exact spot you died."

  Hugh stood abruptly, looking sick—though you'd think a man more than a dozen years dead wouldn't be squeamish—looking as though he needed to get away. But there was no place to go, and he only turned his back on her.

  "There's more," Abigail said, because there was no good time to say what she had to say, nor a good way to say it. "The men who..." She couldn't say the word.

  "Josiah Blodgett," Hugh said in a voice little more than a whisper. "Archibald Godwin. Nick Bonner. Nathan Wakley."

  Abigail nodded. It had been no secret. The act had been considered—not murder, but warfare. There had been no trials, no punishments. So far.

  "Archibald Godwin and Nick Bonner were killed fighting during the Revolution," Abigail told Hugh. "Josiah Blodgett died of a fever two years ago. Nathan Wakley is still alive. And he's part of the spell that brought you back."

  Hugh turned to face her again, looking as though he already suspected what she was about to say, although there was no way he could. He was just expecting the worst.

  She gave it to him.

  "This spell only works for today," she said. "At midnight you'll die again—unless you pay back those who did this to you."

  Hugh had always known his mother as kind and gentle. Now he sat at the kitchen table and listened to her calculating the best way to kill a man.

  She advocated a sneak attack, at night, breaking into Nathan Wakley's house and killing him in his bed before an alarm could be raised.

  As she spoke, Hugh realized there was a tightness in his chest that didn't go away no matter how deeply he breathed. He determined not to take a breath, an experiment to see whether he really needed air, or if it was just a habit. A live man with enough determination not to breathe would eventually faint, he knew, and then his unconscious body would resume breathing for him. Hugh wondered if he was fully enough alive for these natural laws to apply to him: Would he eventually faint and—if he did—would his body take that breath? Or was that why Mother's spell had a time limit: Because eventually his body would require sleep, and if he slept, he wouldn't breathe, and if he didn't breathe, he would die, yet again?

  Except, now that Hugh was thinking about it, he absolutely had to take a breath.

  He realized, in that ragged intake of air, that the room was silent, that Mother was looking at him.

  She had asked him a question, and he had no recollection of what it was.

  "Hugh?" she asked, but Hugh had no idea how far she had gone without him, and he just shook his head.

  Mother looked worried rather than impatient. "You have to kill Nathan Wakley," she said, going back to the very beginning.

  "Are you sure?" Hugh protested. "Are you sure that's what the spell said?"

  She rested her hand on the book that lay on the table. He had
been vaguely aware of it, had seen it and assumed it was the Brewster family Bible. It was definitely not the Bible. Mother opened the volume and turned to the appropriate page. "'Raising someone dead of another's violence,'" she read out loud.

  The book was old, faintly musty, the parchment yellow, brittle, and thicker than the paper used by Gideon Bourcy's modern printing press in the office of the Summerfield Observer. This book was handwritten. Hugh, sitting across the table from his mother, viewed the text upside down. The letters were tall and skinny and unadorned, so that the words looked like clusters of long-legged spiders, and Hugh wouldn't have been too amazed to see them scurry off the page. But that might have been because of the guesses he made regarding the person who had written them.

  Mother read out loud the advisories, the limitations, the preparations, the ingredients. The English was old-fashioned, obscure, but the ending seemed clear enough: "'By the final stroke of midnight,'" Mother read, "'the dead man must have repaid the doer of the deed, or he will sink once more and forever into the realm of the dead.'"

  Even upside down, Hugh could make out those words, written in bold capitals: REALM OF THE DEAD.

  Mother was watching him. Very softly, she asked, "What was it like?"

  And in the hearing of those words, the last of it was gone around corners in his mind, so that he had to answer, in all honesty, "I can't remember." He added, "It was nothing bad." But his answer was based on little more than a fleeting impression, and a memory that, with Mother's spell pulling him back, he'd hesitated.

  "Still," Mother said, sounding very afraid, "it must be better to be alive."

  He wasn't sure how to answer, to cause her the least pain.

  "I couldn't bear to lose you again," she whispered. "I've fought so long for this..."

  "I like the idea of being alive," Hugh assured her.

  Mother took a deep breath. "What else could 'repay' mean," she asked, "besides killing the killers?"