This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN Print – 978-1-7335994-8-1
ISBN eBook – 978-1-7335994-9-8
Cover Design and Interior Formatting
by Qamber Designs and Media
Edited by Lindy Ryan
Published by Black Spot Books,
An imprint of Vesuvian Media Group
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
Dedication
With infinite love, to Julia and Anna. So much of this book was written while you were babies sleeping on my lap while I typed one-handed. Thus, it will always be my favorite thing I’ve ever written.
Chapter One
The Forest of Looming Death was, as one might guess by the name, a dreary place. Through it ran the Brook of Dashed Hopes, which was as bleak a brook as one could imagine. The brook was where the coal mine upstream dumped all the byproducts of its mining operation. It was full of bony, inedible fish, which were the only creatures hardy enough to live there. Since the fish were the only creatures in the brook, they were cannibalistic by necessity.
Just beyond this brook, and over the Bridge of Misery, it was a hop, skip, and a jump to a cave, which (unlike most landmarks in The Forest) had no name. But if it had had a name, it would have been called the Dwelling Place of Mirabella the Traitor. The Forest was where banished criminals of the land were sent to live out their remaining days, and Mirabella had been a resident of its shades for nigh on twenty years. She was the sister of the Queen of the Land of Fritillary, and as if that wasn’t enough distinction and rank for her, she was also the only person in all the land who did not have a soul.
At least, no soul that anyone could detect.
Most days since her banishment to the Forest of Looming Death, Mirabella spent her waking hours hunting, tending her vegetable garden, and fighting other criminals off her prime forest real estate. Most nights she plotted revenge. She had been plotting with her partner-in-crime since Day One of her banishment, so it was as nice a revenge plan as ever a villain could hope to concoct, full of twists and turns and heartbreak and sweet, sweet justice for all the wrongs she believed herself to have suffered.
Bent studiously over a piece of paper on the stone floor of her cave, large black quill in hand, Mirabella scribbled away industriously. She paused, pondered for a full minute or so, and then dipped the quill in the bowl of raven blood she used as ink. She had made the paper herself by hand out of plant pulp and water, and—since if you are going to do a thing you might as well do the thing well—she had decorated the margins of the paper with various pressed wildflowers and pine needles, so it was quite lovely.
Mirabella wrote a bit more, read it all over, and, with a pleased smirk on her gaunt face, breathed, “It is ready.” Her soulless eyes turned to a crudely made sundial on a flat bit of rock just outside the cave entrance. “And just in time, too.” She scooped up the paper and added it to a stack of others that sat on a small wooden table near the wall.
Then, she began preparations for her visitor. She pulled her only chair and an upended log up to the table, procured two mugs from her meager supply of kitchen goods, and tended to the fire that was heating a kettle for tea before stationing herself at the entrance to her cave to wait for her guest.
While she waited, she didn’t fuss with her hair or worry about her appearance because, for one thing, Mirabella didn’t care one iota about the opinions of others. And, for another thing, she happened to be one of those ladies who always looked good without trying.
Though she’d spent half her life in a in a cave while being harassed by murderers and thugs of all description, Mirabella had unnaturally good skin and long, wavy black hair unsullied by gray. Her face was a bit lined from all her brow-furrowing and squinting through late-night plotting sessions by the light of a single thin-flamed candle, her ratty old clothes were rather filthy, and she was concerningly thin since she’d never really gotten the knack of hunting even after two decades of banishment, but all in all, it could safely be said that she looked a lot better than one would expect, considering her circumstances.
If only she hadn’t had those soulless eyes…
But, then, if she’d had a soul, she wouldn’t have been banished to a cave in the middle of The Forest of Looming Death, and there’d be no need to be carrying on about how she looked pretty good all things considered.
At last, a great horrible swirl of smelly smoke appeared out of nowhere, startling a few chubby doves Mirabella had been eyeing hungrily, but not affecting Mirabella in the least. This was the visitor she had been expecting and his smoky mode of travel was nothing new. Her eyes still following the doves, Mirabella waved some smoke away from her face and turned her gaze from the doves to her visitor.
The great evil magician, Farland Phelps, strode from the depths of the smoke, too cool to cough. Mirabella had often wondered how long it had taken him to perfect that, the not coughing as he walked out of his big magic smoke column thing. Did he just hold his breath? Did the smoke seriously not bother him?
“Mirabella,” he said in his sleazy voice.
“Farland,” she responded, dryly. “The plans are complete.”
“Excellent,” he sleazed and followed her into the cave.
Mirabella the Traitor held out the stack of papers to her partner-in-crime.
He took them and began to read, cackling evilly at the contents. He laughed harder with each page, until he’d flipped too many pages for that to be sustainable, and then the laughs remained at the same intensity for the rest of the stack.
It was really a pretty big stack of paper.
So much evil cackling.
Again, Mirabella suspected Farland of pretension and guessed that those demonic chortles were, perhaps, rehearsed. It took him so long to peruse the papers that she had time to make a mug of tea for each of them, which she set down on the table just as he finished up.
“Well?” she asked.
“It’s perfect. Perfect. These plans are all I could have dreamed of. And,” he added, impressed, “the paper is quite pretty, too.”
“Oh, thank you. Be careful not to touch the red flowers. They’re poisonous. A little safety measure to keep the information between us alone.”
Gingerly, he readjusted his hold on the papers. “Very clever.”
“Tea?” she asked, gesturing to the table.
“Oh, lovely!”
They sat across from each other and sipped in silence for a few moments. Mirabella was thinking about her garden and wondering how the asparagus crop was faring. Farland was thinking about Mirabella. The closer they got to the completion of their revenge plot, the more acutely aware he was becoming of the fact that, over the span of these twenty years of plotting and planning, something had happened to him. He had fallen in love.
Or something like love, anyway.
Mirabella was smart, and pretty, and funny (if you liked mean-spirited sarcasm, which he did). He had not analyzed his feelings too much since paying too much attention to feelings is a sign of weakness, so he wasn’t sure whether it was love exactly.
But he knew for sure that he really liked being around her, that he would soon no longer have a reason to be around her, and that that knowledge made him gloomy. She had never expressed any interest in doing anything other than plotting revenge with him—no walks along the riverbank, no picnics, no anything—so he had a good feeling that, once their plans were completed, she’d be fine parting ways forever.
“Good tea,” he said, wishing she were weak-minded so that he could read her thoughts. He could only effectively read the minds of people who were not very smart, and Mirabella was the exact opposite of not very smart.
“It’s from my garden.” Ack. He was looking at her with that sappy expression she’d been noticing on his face more and more in recent months.
“Ah.” He paused. “Weather been good out here in The Forest?”
“Quite.” It had been a mistake to make tea and give him a reason to stay. She sipped a small sip from her cup and stared witheringly at him over the rim.
“Because it’s been raining like crazy in the capital.”
“Mmm.” Sip.
Farland shuffled about uncomfortably on his seat.
Mirabella tapped her fingers on the table and stared at the roof of the cave. Stalactites.
“Okay, well, I guess I’ll be off then. Got get these plans moving,” he said at last, looking toward the stack of poisoned papers.
“No time like the present,” she agreed.
He set down his cup. “I’ll come back in a week to keep you abreast of the developments.” Genius! He’d manufactured a reason to see her again soon!
“No need,” she responded, appraising him coolly.
“But won’t you be curious to—”
“No.”
“But—”
“I don’t like you, Farland.”
His face turned the same shade of red as the flowers in her paper. “I never said—”
“Your sappy eyes as good as said it.”
He shot to his feet, embarrassed and angry. “I—I—”
“It’s nothing personal, Farland. You know I don’t have a soul. I can’t like people.” When she had been younger and hadn’t known herself quite as well, she actually had considered him as a potential husband, but since her banishment, she’d had plenty of time to think it through and now knew that marriage (to him or anyone) was not for her, no matter how dreamy and smart the candidate might be.
“Yes, but I thought maybe, given time...”
She laughed. “Right. Look, you’re a good-looking guy and I like the way you think, but I—”
He cut in sharply, unable to take the embarrassment of rejection a moment longer, and grabbed at the papers still on the table between them. “I’ll be going now.”
And he went.
Poof!
Mirabella gave a cry of frustration and made her way, coughing and bumping into things, out of the smoky cave. He could have at least had the decency to disappear outside the cave. Now it was going to take ages for the place to air out.
Chapter Two
At this point, you’re probably wondering about the revenge thing, so let me give you some backstory. Come with me, back, back, back through the shades of time. Back just a bit further, to when Mirabella and her twin sister Lillian were wee toddlers. Lillian, chubby and sweet, and Mirabella, distant and (even at two years of age) gaunt, and with suspiciously empty eyes. Both girls were early talkers, Lillian’s first word being “mama” and Mirabella’s being “never”. Sentences were soon to follow, and with language came proof of their parents’ fears that something was not right with Mirabella. For with speech came nothing but insults, sassy comebacks, and unsettling observations—all things that cause parents worry.
Mirabella and Lillian’s parents requested the assistance of the great wizard, Wendell, to see if he could find a glimmer of a soul in the empty-eyed little girl. When he had finished waving his wand, muttering under his breath, and sprinkling various sorts of shimmery powders, his results had proved inconclusive. However, considering that, in all her short life, Mirabella had never said a single kind word and caused nothing but heartache, calamity, and trouble wherever she went, the general public decided that for all practical purposes, Mirabella the Traitor was soulless.
Of course, at this point, she was not yet a traitor. That came about when she was nineteen. She and her sister lived with their parents on a small asparagus farm in the South of Fritillary. Their asparagus crops were known far and wide as being the most crisp, and the most pure. Even if you boiled them too long, they didn’t go all mushy, which, if you’ve ever over-boiled asparagus, you’ll have to agree is pretty neat. The reputation their asparagus enjoyed was a point of pride in a land where asparagus was as essential to the daily diet as grain products are today.
Also, asparagus tips, when dried and powdered, were essential elements in the highest forms of magic. So perfect were Mirabella’s parents’ asparaguses that the majority of their crop went straight to the Magical Commerce Division at the Capital, where it was numbered, cataloged, and distributed to wizards lucky enough to be able to afford such top-of-the-line goods.
The day that Mirabella earned her suffix “the Traitor” started out like any other day on the farm. Her twin sister, Lillian, awoke with the sunrise and hummed a contented tune as she prepared for the day, combing her long black hair until it shone, which didn’t take much time because she was always brushing it. “Get up, Lazy Bones!” Lillian laughed with a musical trill that had been likened by many to the merry tinkling of fine crystal wind chimes. “How can you lay there abed while there is such beauty in the world waiting to be seen?”
She then flung open the window of their bedroom as if to prove her point. “Oh dear, dear sunshine, blessing us with your warmth!” she said as she spun around in its rays. “Lovely, lovely little robins serenading us with your sweet songs!” she added, spotting one representative of the species perched on a tree branch just outside their window.
It eyed her distrustfully and gave a small chirp.
“Mirabella, look! Look and hear! This little dear is singing us a song!” Lillian extended a gentle hand, crooning softly to it, her finger offered as a perch.
It flew off, alarmed.
No matter how kind you are, a wild animal is not going to sit on you.
Lillian gave a pout, then flounced to her wardrobe to find her apron.
Mirabella abandoned her pretense of sleep, opened her eyes long enough to give her sister a cold stare, then rolled over and contemplated the blank white wall, her back to the sunshine.
“Oh, Mirabella,” Lillian sighed. “You silly dear. Well, if you don’t care to see this beautiful morning, and if you don’t want to go out and pick asparagus in the sweet sunshine, then it’s all the more for me!” With that, she giggled and skipped out the door.
As the door swung closed behind Lillian, Mirabella rolled onto her back and regarded the ceiling as she eavesdropped on her sister’s arrival in the next room. “Good morning, Mama! Good morning, Papa! No time for breakfast now. That asparagus won’t pick itself!”
They all shared a good chuckle.
In a few more minutes Mirabella could hear, through the open window, Lillian singing as she went (probably skipping or dancing) over to the asparagus field. Mirabella shuddered and decided she might as well get out of bed. If she didn’t, her mother would soon be knocking on the door, insisting that if her industrious sister was already up and picking asparagus then Mirabella should jolly well be doing the same.
She slowly got into her clothes for the day, but unlike her sister who wore her hair down, Mirabella braided hers tightly and wrapped it into a knot on top of her head, making her appear even more severe than she naturally did. Stalking out into the main living area that was combination kitchen, dining room, and family room, she gave a slight nod in response to her parents’ greetings and went strai
ght out the front door without touching the breakfast her mother had set out for her like she did every morning—no matter how often her daughter ignored it. Closing the door behind her, Mirabella picked up her asparagus basket from its place on the porch, then walked out to the field and started picking in a row far enough away from her sister that they wouldn’t be able to speak.
The morning progressed uneventfully for two hours or so, Lillian and Mirabella harvesting asparagus while their parents took the wagon to the market. Mirabella worked mechanically, never once pausing to look up and admire the beautiful countryside that stretched out below their hillside farm or to appreciate the majestic mountain range looming behind them. Lillian, on the other hand, often took little breaks to enjoy the scenery and breathe the crisp air. In spite of all her shillyshallying, Lillian still somehow always managed to pick more asparagus than Mirabella. It was a great source of frustration for Mirabella that Lillian so constantly outshone her at every task, since the fact so often meant unwelcome comparisons from their parents and neighbors. Why couldn’t people just leave her alone?
Eventually, Mirabella stood up to stretch her back and saw a regal procession making its stately way down the dirt road that led to the farm. Shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun, she detected tan banners with puce dragons embroidered on them. She smiled a creepy smile (the only kind of smile she had). It was the Prince, coming to visit her sister. And that meant...
She searched the procession again now that they were close enough that she could make out the faces of the individuals in the party, and sure enough, at the prince’s right side was his personal wizard, Farland Phelps. Farland was, as usual, the very picture of dark and mysterious, with his black cape and his black hood casting a shadow over his face. At this point in our tale, Mirabella was still young and didn’t yet know herself too well, and Farland hadn’t yet lived long enough to get too pretentious. Mirabella already knew her dark heart was incapable of love, but if it had been, she would have pledged it to Farland Phelps. He was the second-greatest wizard in the whole Land of Fritillary (the first being, of course, Wendell), and he was intelligent, and—as was the talk of all the royal court—available.
How to Break an Evil Curse Page 1
