CHAPTER NINETEEN PRESENT DAY
At the grocery store, I push the cart’s useless wheels down the frozen foods aisle.
Given the month I’ve had, comparing the price of bread and debating between Swiss and cheddar feels deliciously normal.
Just another boring Saturday afternoon at the market.
Any minute now, Lucia will come around the corner, pushing a cart with Aida crouched inside.
Rainie will pretend not to know any of us but keep an eye out on the store attendants, just in case someone decides to give us trouble.
I would arrange my groceries around Aida and try to sneak peeks at her sketchpad.
God. I miss them so much. They were my family. The only people I had here.
I push the cart into the cereal aisle and contemplate the wisdom of texting Jesse a third reminder that he better be at my house by six thirty for dinner.
When I floated the idea past him after the train incident, he’d protested.
Apparently, he has food at home. Where, I’m not sure, since my quick peek through his kitchen cabinets revealed exactly one expired bag of instant mashed potatoes and a jar of chili that should’ve been refrigerated after opening.
I told him I wouldn’t talk about my mother’s journal entries unless he joined me for dinner, and he agreed to a free and nutritious homecooked meal like a martyr surrendering to the guillotine.
I throw a package of feta cheese into the cart with a touch too much force. The joke’s on Jesse. There’s nothing to discuss. The newest entries are just about as useless as the previous ones.
The last entry said: The shadows are its vulnerability. They come with the curse, but they cannot be controlled by it.
The one before it was longer.
From 1640 to 1710, the curse lived in Germany.
Small, impoverished town. High child abandonment rates.
There, a destitute and orphaned street sweeper invited in the curse.
Overnight, he had a home, grander than every home in that desiccating little town.
A town full of children nobody would miss.
Years passed, and his family grew. In those conditions, the curse should have been thriving.
But for some reason, it didn’t. The house was falling apart.
This family was starving the curse, even though they suffered along with it.
The last birth announcement I could find was of a daughter.
A little girl born in the house and abandoned shortly after by her mother, who walked into their family lake and drowned herself.
The father lived across the country and returned for the birth of his child.
He managed to rescue the baby and took her back to his city, leaving the house empty.
Four days later, fifty-eight people were dead. It took the newborn last.
The entire bloodline had been wiped out.
The debt hadn’t been paid, and the curse collected.
But why not eliminate the lineage earlier, when they were feeding it one or two kids a year?
Why wait until then? The timing didn’t make sense, until it occurred to me that if the child hadn’t passed the test
She’d stopped there. Her ink had bled around the last letter, as though she’d been interrupted while writing and dug her pen in.
I suppose I should be as interested as Jesse is in determining what “test” the journal means. I should wonder why she thinks the shadows don’t necessarily obey the curse, since they’re clearly a package deal.
Except, I can’t convince my mind to unwrap those questions. I can’t bring myself to read my mother’s words and experience anything other than the throbbing betrayal that’s lived between my ribs since the minute I found out who she truly was.
I told Jesse about my last night in the house. About opening the door. When he asked the inevitable, I had no choice but to face the answer.
I don’t remember what happened after I opened the door.
I toss a box of chocolate granola into the cart with excessive force, shoving my cart around the corner. It slams into a solid resistance, sending a basket flying out of someone’s hand and emptying its contents onto the floor.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I rush to the ground, scooping as many items as I can carry.
Spiked combat boots enter my field of vision.
Purple stripes weave across the leather in the style of an artist I happen to know.
Those boots are older than time itself, though you wouldn’t think it at first glance.
Every year, Aida paints over the fading patches.
Every year, Lucia gives Rainie a new pair of boots for her birthday, only for Rainie to stubbornly hold on to this decaying pair.
My gaze travels up ripped camouflage pants and pepper spray dangling from a belt loop. Past a skintight black shirt and a red choker. I stop at the impassive face of my former best friend.
I stand slowly, halfway convinced I’ve conjured her through wishful thinking alone. “Hi.”
Rainie stands a few inches taller than me, but after so much time with Jesse, everyone under six feet seems downright diminutive. “Hey.”
I unload the mess in my arms back into her basket. “You dyed your hair again.”
Purple fingernails tuck locks of spiky red hair behind Rainie’s ear. “Yep. Went on a Manic Panic binge at three in the morning.”
“It looks great.”
Shoppers shuffle around us, bumping against my cart. Rainie’s knuckles tighten on the basket’s handle. “Thanks. I should get going.”
Disappointment crushes the tendrils of hope Rainie’s appearance planted.
“Oh. Yeah, of course. Sorry for knocking over your basket.” I wrap my arms around myself, turning to the cart.
I don’t want her to see me tear up. I understand her position, I really do.
They’d tried to talk to me at the theater, and I caused such a catastrophic scene that the staff had to pause the movie until I confirmed I hadn’t hit my head when I fell into the pond, and no, I have no “litigious intent,” whatever that means.
Understanding doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Rainie was the first real friend I made in Ward.
I’ve known her since we were in the third grade, when she nut-punched a boy for asking if my parents rode to America on a camel.
She’s the person who comes over when I’m sullen and weepy on Mother’s Day and rips the family album out of my hands so we can binge cheesy action movies.
Watching her hate me for the last three weeks broke my heart. I don’t think I can watch her walk away again.
“Don’t cry, Mina,” Rainie says, sighing.
I whirl around. Rainie hasn’t moved from her spot. She aims a lopsided smile at me. “Remember our deal. I get to pick the music every time you cry. I’m probably up by like sixteen car rides.”
I cover my sniffle with a cough. “I’m not crying.”
Rainie rolls her eyes. “Sure, and I don’t have a tattoo of a scarecrow on my thigh.” After weeks of pointed glares, her exasperation warms me to the core. Exasperation means she cares. It means she hasn’t written me off.
No earthly force could stop me from throwing my arms around her in a crushing hug.
She goes back on her heel, gruffly patting my shoulder. “Okay, alright. C’mon.” She pries me away. “Get it together, Eenie Meenie Mina.”
I groan. “Please do not revive that horrible nickname. I have enough of those going around.”
“Oh?” She raises a pierced brow. “Do tell.”
“Absolutely not. You don’t need any more fodder.”
“Okay, I’ll guess. Minatour, Mina-ty Fresh—”
I grin, shaking my head as she recites an increasingly ridiculous list of nickname options.
We meander around the store, and I keep piling items into my cart to avoid the inevitable checkout line departure.
Rainie regales me with the latest drama at school, and I soak it up eagerly.
Life exists outside this curse. Life didn’t stop when I fell off track; it’s still moving, still marching forward, and if I stay tuned to the beat, I might have a chance of catching up if this curse breaks.
When. When this curse breaks.
At the checkout line, Rainie browses the gum selections. The girl hates chewing gum nearly as much as she hates fruit-scented perfumes.
She’s lingering. Could she be as reluctant to leave as I am?
I pay a staggering amount at the register and load my cart with the bagged groceries. I clear my throat, trying to think of something to say that doesn’t sound as desperately pathetic as Does this mean you like me again?
At the exit doors, I stall, pretending to peruse a barrel of persimmons, but this time it’s out of caution. Rainie might follow me to the car if we walk out together. Fewer people in the parking lot means a higher chance of winding up alone.
“We’re going dress shopping tomorrow,” Rainie blurts, eyeing the persimmons like they’re about to grow teeth and jump her. “Come with us.”
I blink. “For prom?”
“Ugh. Yes. Lucia insisted. We’re driving up to Klamath Falls.”
My brows hit my hairline. “You’re leaving the state to go dress shopping?
Who are you?” Much like Ward, Klamath Falls straddles the border between Oregon and California, except Klamath sits on the opposite side of the line.
Most folks in Ward just drive down to Redding for their big shopping sprees.
She kicks my shin. “I’m buying my outfit from a thrift store. Lucia’s the one terrified of repeating the red dress incident. A couple of girls wear the same dress at MORP one time, and she loses her crap.”
I ache to accept her invitation. A day away from journals and curses and haunted houses, worrying about the neckline of overpriced dresses and arguing over where to eat dinner … the wanting hollows me out. “I don’t think I can. Klamath is kind of far.”