Cursed Ever After

Prologue

The day started off the way every Bad Day in the town of Barrow began: with the sun shining like a gold coin against a backdrop of cloudless sky. Birds sang loudly off-key while citizens of that strange little town shuttered their windows, hoping the worst had already come to pass.

The mayor and his wife did as their neighbors did, pulling their curtains tight.

They sat at their large dining table, eagerly awaiting the return of Barrow’s perpetual rain.

Mrs. Porto nursed a cup of steaming-hot tea while Mr. Porto read yesterday’s newspaper, since there obviously wouldn’t be a delivery under such dire circumstances.

Occasionally, the two glanced at each other to offer reassuring smiles as they slowly counted down the hours until this Bad Day was over.

But then Mrs. Porto felt a sharp pain start in her belly. She stared at her handsome husband in dismay, realizing that the baby she was carrying would arrive early.

Today.

On the worst day of the year.

Mr. Porto ran out of that grand house on the hill, calling for help.

As mayor, he had access to the best doctors and healers and blacksmiths-moonlighting-as-midwives that their little town had to offer.

Unfortunately, this meant very little now, for he would receive no aid on a day that was deemed very, very Bad.

Mrs. Porto could not sit still on her old wooden chair. She forced herself up, one hand on her belly, the other at her back, and waddled to the front door to survey her poor, deluded husband.

The baby gave a swift kick to remind the almost-mother what was happening.

Mrs. Porto was about to give up and plop onto the first step of the porch when she saw what looked like a mangled tree stump striding confidently to their front gate.

She stared wide-eyed and fearful until the stump came closer, revealing itself to be a wizened old woman with a cane, clad in several moss-covered shawls.

“Need help?” asked the old woman. Mrs. Porto swore that the crone exhaled dust.

“No,” Mrs. Porto called back, ignoring the blinding pain that came from her sudden labor. “We’re perfectly fine here.”

The old woman was not convinced. She raised one scraggly eyebrow as her pitch-black eyes fell upon Mrs. Porto’s burgeoning form. “Really?”

“Everything is quite all right,” Mrs. Porto said, patting her belly before a gush of water burst from between her legs.

“Quite,” said the old woman.

But things were not quite all right.

Things were terrible. Awful. Horrible.

Bad.

And so Risa Porto was born into a sun-drenched world with a shriveled gray hag welcoming her to the town of Barrow, where she would forever be known as a Bad Thing.