Chapter 2 #2
“Mary is cursed?” I give voice to my fears. Then, to Papa’s encouraging nod, “But she’s never been to sea.”
“Some curses can go beyond a single sailor,” Papa says gravely. “Some finfolk can cast a curse on a whole ship. Or a family.”
Bumps rise on my skin at the thought. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not so common now, because the finfolk are fewer and their magic weaker,” Papa says. “In the old days, when their magic was stronger, they could curse an entire city. Or a bloodline, to be passed down forever, whether or not we go to sea or ever see one of the finfolk with our own eyes.”
A cold understanding seeps in. “And our family has one.”
Papa’s face in the dark looks carved of stone. “Yes.”
“But we just saw Cousin Mary,” I say, not wanting it to be true. “At her wedding. She wasn’t cursed.”
“Some curses only appear under certain circumstances,” Papa says quietly. “In Cousin Mary’s case, someone she loves very much did something that surprised and hurt her, and … and…”
He turns to the window and trails off, seeming to struggle for words. The silence stretches, Mary’s weeping echoing in my mind. The road slopes up beneath us, and the rough cobblestone of the tangled streets gives way to the smoothness of paving stones.
After what seems like a long time Papa turns to me. “Wake your sister,” he says. “She needs to hear this too.”
I hadn’t even realized that Lydia had fallen asleep, her head tipped against my shoulder, her soft corn silk hair against my cheek, her hand still tucked in mine. I poke her leg until her eyes fly wide, blue and confused.
“Listen,” I whisper, trying to make my voice casual, not reveal to her how scared I am of what Papa’s going to say. “Papa has a lesson for us.”
When we’ve turned to him, Papa says, “Do you two remember when your kitten died last year?”
I blink, nod, wipe my nose on the back of my sleeve. Pepper—a small gray cat I found down by the warehouse one day that I begged and pleaded with Mama to let me bring home. But he’d never grown, and lasted only a few weeks. Papa had said he must have been sick all along.
“Do you remember what it felt like when you found him?” Papa looks old somehow, the scant light from outside deepening the furrows on his face. “That hurt in your chest?”
I nod. I remember, as I remember the terrible stiffness of Pepper’s little body, the strange cold of his fur. But I don’t understand what Papa’s getting at.
“That feeling is called heartbreak,” Papa explains.
His voice is quiet enough that I can hear the chirruping of crickets outside, the clatter of the horses’ feet, the soft sigh of the constant breeze off the sea.
“And when you’re an adult, it can be worse.
For instance, if a person dies and you don’t understand why, or if someone you love betrays you. ”
I’m crying now too alongside Lydia, my mind a confusing jumble of memories, Pepper’s cool shape under my hand and the terrible feeling in my chest, like thorns were growing inside me. I can’t imagine anything worse than that.
“For some people, the pain and sorrow are all there is, and as terrible as they are, they can move past them,” Papa says.
“But some of us are cursed—for some of us that shock opens a wound in our heart that won’t heal.
” He lets out a heavy sigh. “I carry the curse, and I’m sorry to tell you this, my daughters, but so do you. ”
“Does that mean this will happen to us too? Happen to you?” My voice rises; tears sting the back of my own throat as Lydia starts crying again, holding my hand so hard it hurts. Brave, be brave, I remind myself, but it’s hard with the image of Mary’s wild eyes burned into my mind.
“No.” Papa shakes his head quickly. “I brought you here to show you what can happen. Cousin Mary gave too much of her heart to someone else. So when he hurt her, it broke her heart and let the curse in. But it need not happen if you’re careful.”
“Who cursed us?” I whisper.
There is a long, heavy silence before Papa answers.
He twitches aside the curtain and looks out the window at the night city, his shoulders slumped.
Past him, I can just see the dark shapes of the town’s buildings, then the thicket of shipmasts at the docks, outlined black against the cloudy gray sky.
Beyond town, beyond the wharf, the ocean lies flat and black, seeming to swallow the moonlight.
“I can’t tell you,” he says. “It goes farther back than I can say, than anyone can say. Maybe it was Francis Bartholomew Fairfax, who started the company two hundred years ago. What matters is, as long as there have been Fairfaxes in Kirkrell, we have been cursed.” He takes a breath.
“But we oughtn’t blame whichever ancestor came back from the sea cursed, Annie.
Remember that the finfolk cursed the Fairfaxes. ”
Lydia has gone quiet next to me, but I can feel her trembling, or maybe it’s me. I feel stricken. “All of us? Even Kit?”
“Yes, all of us. Everyone who’s born into my bloodline. I’ll tell Kit too, when he’s old enough.” Papa fixes a heavy gaze on Lydia, then me. “Which is why you must never give anyone that power over you. Love others, but not so much that they could ever break your heart.”
“But you’re married to Mama,” Lydia says in a small voice.
“So I am,” Papa replies with a faint, fond smile.
“But we Fairfaxes have to do it differently. I chose your mother not because of her pretty face or some fleeting feeling inside me, but because she is a good and trustworthy woman from a good family whose goals aligned with mine. I love her, as I love the two of you, but my heart is my own. And so yours must be, always.”
He fixes us with an intent gaze. “The whaling is worth it—know that. The magic we bring to people saves lives. It is a privilege to lead the Fairfax Whaling Company, but it comes at a cost.”
He reaches over and takes both our hands, gripping them tight as if to press his words into our memories.
“As you get older, you will hear stories about great romances and quickening of hearts,” he tells us, words coming lower and faster, like we’re running out of time.
“These stories are not for you. You will see your peers courting each other, acting foolishly in the name of love and losing their senses over a pretty face or a sweet word. You must not. You must guard your heart. We’re Fairfaxes, and there is only one path for us. ”
I promised. There, in the carriage, in the dark, with Lydia sniffling next to me and my arm still smarting, I tucked Papa’s words away. Told him I would guard my heart.
But time passes. Storms descend and ships sink and hearts fracture. Boys with blue eyes and warm, slow smiles appear and promise to stitch up the cracks. Easy to say yes when you’re already falling apart. To let someone else in, and cling to them as a lifeline.
Still, perhaps I should have listened.