The Curse Breakers

by Denise Grover Swank

CHAPTER TWO

  When the curse first broke, animals began parading through my dreams, calling out to me for help. And I also began to have nightmares about the past, dredging up memories that had been buried long ago. But after the gate opened all the way, and my henna tattoo began to fade, other creepy crawlies started to invade my dreams . . .

  The creatures varied from night to night, but tonight the creature resembled a badger, although it was many times larger than it should have been. It crouched in front of me, its eyes glowing red. Its teeth were huge, sharp, and dripping with blood.

  “Curse Keeper,” it said. “Daughter of the sea and witness to creation. Okeus is waiting for you to be ready, but I have other plans.”

  Panic washed through me and I took a step backward, holding up the mark on my palm. I had the power to send him away—not permanently, but I could get him to leave me alone for now.

  The animal laughed. “Your mark won’t always work.”

  It wasn’t exactly news. His children had screamed and hissed about these great plans as they spilled out of the gates of hell. Their first order of business was to regain their strength. Torturing me for four centuries as punishment for my ancestor’s role in locking them away was a close second. Despite the way I’d taunted Okeus in the botanical gardens, I knew the last thing I wanted to do was confront him. “Tell Okeus I’ll take a rain check.”

  “Tell him yourself,” the creature snarled. “He’ll visit you soon. Unless I get to you first.”

  A dog appeared behind the badger, hunched down and whimpering, restrained by unseen forces. The badger turned around and attacked with a loud growl, throwing the dog to the ground and ripping open the flesh of its abdomen. Screaming and howling, the dog tried to get away, but the badger continued its attack, ripping intestines from the still-living creature and flinging them to the ground.

  I fought to wake from the nightmare, but the badger looked over its shoulder, intestines hanging from its teeth, and mumbled, “This is only the beginning.”

  I awoke screaming, my nose still filled with the scent of blood. I jumped out of bed and ran to the toilet, throwing up what was left of my dinner from hours earlier. I tried to purge the image from my head along with the contents of my stomach. The image wasn’t as easy to lose.

  After I rinsed out my mouth, I made sure all the window ledges were protected with salt, which helped keep out the nasties. I went into my living room and grabbed my laptop, hoping to uncover some information about the creature from my dream. I wasn’t even sure what to look for. My biggest problem was that four hundred years ago the colonists had been more intent on converting the Native Americans to Christianity than they were on recording their belief system. Multiple tribes had been wiped from existence without making more than a blip on the historical record, which meant that finding specific information about the gods and spirits was next to impossible. I’d already checked the local library and bookstore and performed every conceivable Internet search. I needed to know what I was fighting—or at the very least defending myself against—but there was so little to find.

  I curled up on the oversized sofa with an afghan and glanced at the clock, surprised I hadn’t yet had a visitor. Maybe they’d skip tonight since I’d been out by the tree.

  But that was wishful thinking. The banging on my front door started at 4:00 a.m., close to dawn—when the spirits were usually at their strongest.

  The mark on my palm itched and burned, making me cringe. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with a messenger, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. If I didn’t answer, the thing would keep pounding and moaning and might awaken my neighbors. And if anyone came to investigate, there was a good chance the spirit would take their Manitou, the essence of life in all living things. So I either answered the door or risked killing my neighbors and condemning them to hell. Too bad I liked my neighbors.

  “Curse Keeper! I summon you.”

  Setting my laptop on the sofa, I threw off the afghan and padded to the front door.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Who are you to speak to me this way!”

  I groaned. It had to be Kanim, the messenger spirit of Okeus. As if the badger thing hadn’t been enough for one night. Taking a deep breath, I cracked open the door and spread my legs apart to brace myself against the wind with which the spirit would most likely blast me.

  The cold gust hit me in the face, and instead of the usual dark blob hovering over the wooden floor of my deck, a large bird with a human head and flowing white hair was perched on the rail of my front porch.

  It was Wapi, the northern wind god.

  Oh, crap. He was just a shadowy spirit the first time I met him. I’d seen his true form when the gates of hell burst open, but most of the messengers who’d visited me after that night still showed up as shadows. Wapi had been free the longest of all the gods, so there’d been more time for him to regain his strength. What did it mean about the others if Wapi was already strong enough to come to me in his corporeal state?

  Part of me was terrified. If he’d regained his true form, what was he capable of doing? The marks on my door would only keep him from coming in to get me. They wouldn’t protect me once I left the apartment.

  I gripped the edge of the door. “What do you want, Wapi?” There was no love lost between us. He’d tried to suck out my Manitou a couple of days after the curse was first broken.

  “Okeus has placed his mark on your arm.”

  My hand self-consciously rubbed the zigzag scar made by Okeus’s claw. “Ahone has claimed me.”

  “Ahone,” the bird spit. “Ahone is a weak coward. He hides in the heavens. Where is your Ahone now? Where will he be when Okeus comes to claim that which is his?”

  I couldn’t help thinking that “that which is his” meant me.

  I rested my temple on the edge of the door frame. “I’m tired, so cut to the chase. What do you want?”

  “You are running out of time. You must choose a side. Okeus or Ahone.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  His leer sent chills down my spine before I slammed the door closed. I expected him to howl and scream in protest, but it remained blessedly silent outside. After a moment, I turned and rested the back of my head against the door.

  The bottom line was that Wapi was right. I would have to choose . . . and it wasn’t much of a choice. Okeus promised me an eternal life in hell. Ahone promised little other than his protection, but at least my soul wouldn’t be damned. Not that I knew of, anyway.

  Not like Collin’s.

  Perhaps I could put Ahone’s mark on my back if I knew what it was. One thing was for sure: I really was running out of time.

  I stumbled back to the sofa in exhaustion and dozed there for a few hours, my dreams remarkably quiet, until Claire let herself into the apartment.

  “You look like shit,” she said as she kicked the door closed behind her and handed me a cup of coffee from the shop across the alley.

  “Gee, I love you too.” I took a sip of the coffee, burning my tongue and nearly dropping the cup.

  She plopped down in the overstuffed chair across from me, dug a muffin out of a paper bag, and handed it to me. “I heard you were in the botanical gardens last night.”

  I peeled the lining paper off the muffin, giving it my full attention. “And where did you hear that?”

  “Tom Helmsworth stopped by my house this morning to have a chat.”

  My gaze jerked up to meet hers.

  Claire watched me for several seconds and when I didn’t answer, she continued. “He said it wasn’t the first time.”

  I took a bite. “He’s watching me.”

  “Why?”

  “He knows that all those deaths are connected to me.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “He thinks you killed those people?”

  “No, but he heard me shouting to Okeus and Ahone, and he’s studied the symbols on my door. I’m pretty sure he knows something’s up.”

  “How does he
know about the symbols?”

  “He says he’s part Lumbee. He asked his great uncle.”

  Claire shook her head. “It doesn’t mean he really knows anything. How could he?”

  I ran my hand through my dirty hair and looked up at her. “My dreams are getting worse.”

  “What did you see?”

  “When Tom brought me home, I heard a call come over the radio. The dispatcher said a mutilated dog had been found. I don’t think it was the first one.” I groaned. “I mean, I know hundreds of animals have already died—in fact, it’s a wonder there are any left—but this time, they’ve been tortured.”

  “What does it have to do with your dreams?”

  “Last night, the creature in my dreams ripped a dog apart in front of me.”

  The color drained from her face; then she sat back in the chair and tucked her feet underneath her. “Maybe it was the power of suggestion, Ellie. It could have just been a dream.”

  I shook my head. “No, this was real. And the thing talked to me. It told me that I had to make a decision soon, that Okeus was coming for me.”

  “You’re okay as long as you have the symbols on the door, right?”

  “For now, sure. But the spirits are growing stronger. Soon they’ll be strong enough to show themselves in the daylight. I’m no closer to finding Ahone’s symbol for my back. What am I supposed to do?”

  Her eyes widened in fear. “I don’t know.”

  I crossed my legs and leaned forward. “I’m not going to sit here and wait for them to come and get me, Claire. I need to learn how to protect myself. And I have to figure out how to protect everyone else too. Sure, it’s dogs now, but it won’t be long before the spirits move on to people.”

  “How are you going to do that? We’ve looked at every resource we can find, both at the library and online. Are you going to visit the Lumbees or something?”

  Pressing my lips together, I considered my options. I needed an expert who knew more about Native American spirits than anyone else. Someone who’d studied these religions in depth. Then an idea struck—one so perfect I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. I grabbed my laptop and searched for universities that offered Native American studies. “If you want an expert, who else knows more than a professor teaching the subject, right?”

  Claire considered it. “You might be on to something there. What are you going to do?”

  It looked like the closest university with a strong program was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Digging into the faculty page, I pointed to the screen. “Here, Dr. David Preston. He’s the head of the American Studies Department and it says he’s an expert on North Carolinian Indians. That means he might have the information I need, right?”

  She looked doubtful. “I guess . . .”

  I stood and stretched. “It’s worth a chance. I’ll leave as soon as I finish up at the bed and breakfast this morning.” I only hoped the anxiety I always felt when I left the island—a wretched side effect of the curse—wouldn’t be too debilitating. But I’d suffer through just about anything to improve my chances of long-term survival.

  “You’re going to go today?”

  “I need this information as soon as possible, Claire.”

  “How do you know if he’ll even be there? It’s summer.”

  “I’ll call and see if he’s available. Maybe he teaches summer classes.” I sat down and turned my back to her, pulling aside the top strap of my tank top. “The henna tattoo is almost gone. It’s my only protection. I have a few days left at most.”

  “So just replace it with what Collin put on you.”

  “But he used Okeus’s mark on my back. The spirits keep telling me I have to choose. If I put Okeus’s mark on my back permanently, it will mean I’ve chosen him. I have to wait until I find Ahone’s symbol.”

  She sighed, nodding reluctantly. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

  I got up and headed for the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll call you later.”

  “Ellie, wait.”

  I paused next to my bathroom door.

  “Let me go with you.”

  “But you have to work.”

  “I’ll work for a few hours and then tell them I’m sick.” She gave me a wry smile. “I’m worried about you. Chapel Hill is a good four hours away, and I don’t want you going by yourself. What if . . .”

  “What if what? I get attacked by the badger thing that showed up in my dream?”

  She looked down into her coffee.

  “All the more reason for you to stay home.”

  Her face shot up, a determined look in her eyes.

  I sagged against the door frame. I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her. But I also couldn’t stand the thought of being alone all day. “Thanks, Claire. You’re right. I’m scared to death, and I need you.”

  Claire got up and walked over, pulling me into a hug. “I’m here for you. As long as you don’t try to back out of wearing the maid of honor dress I picked out for you.” I tried to pull back and swat her arm, but she tightened her hold as she giggled into my ear. “I know you hate that dress, but you’re going to have to wear it. It was a concession to my sister for picking you as my maid of honor. So get over it.”

  “I know, but orange taffeta ruffles? Really? I’m going to look like a pumpkin.”

  “Nah, you’re not round enough. Maybe a squash.”

  I laughed, breaking free. “Lucky for you, I’d wear a burlap bag if you asked.”

  She patted my cheek with a sneaky grin. “I’m counting on it.” Her smile slid off her face and she stared into my eyes. “I’ll help you any way I can, Ellie.”

  “I know, Claire. And I love you for it.” But when things started getting really bad, I’d turn away from her rather than put her in harm’s way. I wasn’t sure how I’d manage that, but I was determined.

  “I know how hard all of this has been for you; losing your dad—”

  I waited for the usual tears to fill my eyes, but they stayed dry. Maybe I was cried out. For now. “The best thing I can do for Daddy is carry on his legacy. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  “He’d be so proud of how brave you are.”

  Daddy would have been prouder if I’d taken the curse more seriously from the beginning, but it had sounded like a fairy tale passed down from generation to generation for over four hundred years. I’d stopped believing in the curse when I was eight years old. Right after my mother was murdered. Every piece of information he’d told me completely disappeared, something I’d attributed to the trauma of witnessing her death. Daddy had done his best to reteach me, but I’d turned my back on it. My mother hadn’t believed, and I felt I owed it to her to give the curse up as well. For the last two weeks I’d beaten myself up about it, wondering if Collin would still have been able to trick me if I’d remembered all the details. I’d like to think he still would have snowed me, but there was no way of knowing.

  Claire left for work with the plan that she’d develop a convenient case of food poisoning as soon as I called her with confirmation that the professor would be at the university. I grabbed a quick shower, trying to keep my left shoulder blade out of the water. Anything to make the henna tattoo on my back last longer. I would have skipped showering for another day or so if I weren’t going to see Dr. Preston.

  I left for Myra’s bed and breakfast to help out with the morning chores. It was odd to think of it as Myra’s now and not Daddy and Myra’s. It may have been handed down several generations in my father’s family, but the truth was, it had been Myra’s place for some time. Daddy’s Alzheimer’s had stolen him from us years before his physical death.

  Myra was sitting at her desk in the small office when I walked in through the back door, the heavenly smell of cinnamon rolls and bacon hitting me as soon as I entered.

  “Good morning, Ellie.” Myra looked up and smiled, but dark circles underlined her almond-shaped eyes. My stepmother was
second-generation Chinese, which drew quite a bit of curiosity when I introduced her as my mother. “How are you?”

  I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’m fine,” I lied. “How are you? You look tired.” I’d lost my daddy, but Myra had lost her husband. Sometimes I forgot I wasn’t the only one affected by his death.

  “I am.” She closed her eyes and rested her cheek in her hand. “I’m working overtime at the park site, and we’re sold out here at the B&B for several weeks, which is good since we’re in financial trouble. But with the funeral . . . and everything . . . I’m having trouble keeping up with it all.”

  I squatted next to her. “I’m sorry I haven’t helped more with the inn—”

  She looked down into my face and cupped my cheek. “Ellie, you just lost your daddy, and not under normal circumstances. I don’t expect you to help. I expect you to grieve. You don’t even need to be here now.”

  “What am I going to do, Myra? Sit around and wait . . .” I stopped myself from saying “for the end of the world.” I had told Myra about Daddy sacrificing himself to close the gate, but I hadn’t told her that the supernatural beings had escaped before that happened. She had enough to worry about without adding fear for my safety to the mix.

  “Wait for what?”

  “Nothing. I’m being a bitch and feeling sorry for myself.”

  She frowned. “Don’t say that.”

  I rested my head on her lap, and she stroked my hair like she used to do when I was having nightmares as a girl.

  “I love you, Ellie. I may not have had children of my own, but you know I consider you my daughter. I wish you didn’t have to go through this.”

  I looked up into her face. “Myra, I barely remember my mother. Just bits and pieces. I love her, especially what she did for me.” I paused as the usual pang of guilt struck me. “But you’ve been there for me for all the big stuff. Makeup. Boys. Daddy.” My voice broke. “I know I call you Myra, but I think of you as my mom too.”

  “Oh, Ellie.”

  I rose to my knees and threw my arms around her neck.

  She squeezed me tight. “We Lancaster women need to stick together.”