“Any twinges?” I ask Connolly.
“No,” he says. “I’m not sure what to expect, though.”
“Presumably something like a voice in your ear, calling you worthless, telling you to end it all.”
He frowns. “How would that work if I know better?”
I shrug. “Lots of people know better deep down. Doesn’t keep them from having doubts, from sometimes feeling worthless.”
I open the next door.
“Do you ever feel like that?” he asks before I can slip inside.
I pause. “I compare myself to others more than I should. Whether it’s Ani or . . . others.” I shrug. “You meet people who are doing so much better, and it can make you feel as if you’re not trying hard enough.”
“You run your own business.”
“So do you, and one of us is doing it a whole lot better.”
“Because one of us had every advantage money can buy, Kennedy. If anything, I am in awe of what you’ve accomplished without those advantages.”
“I had advantages, Aiden. My dad was a doctor. My mom ran a successful business.”
“Yes, but you lost them both. Not every advantage is monetary.”
I reach out and squeeze his arm. “Thank you. The answer to the original question is yes, I’ve doubted myself, but I’ve never felt worthless, and a voice in my ear telling me that isn’t going to send me crashing into the depths of despair. The curse would only work on those who are already teetering on the brink.”
“That’s . . .”
“Unbelievably cruel? Yes.” I ease back on my heels. “I do understand that the woman who commissioned these paintings was in incredible pain. When my dad died . . .” I take a deep breath. “It happened so fast, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it for weeks. The shock was too much. I hated the person who hit his car, but she died too, so there was no one to blame. Then Mom was diagnosed with cancer, and it felt as if Fate would grant us a pass there. We just lost Dad. Surely we wouldn’t lose Mom, too. Even by the time we realized the cancer was terminal, we still had plenty of time to say goodbye. But if there’d been someone I could blame for both deaths? Someone I could punish? Hell, yes, I’d have wanted to do that. To punish that person. Specifically that person. The idea of hurting them by tormenting and killing others? I can’t even conceive of that level of . . .”
“Evil?”
I balk at the word. I was brought up to be careful with language. As children, we were never “bad”—our behavior was naughty. The woman who was texting while driving and hit my dad wasn’t evil—she was selfish and careless and a shitty person, but not evil.
Connolly’s right, though. This is evil. It’s a breathtaking act of cruelty toward Athene, but it’s even worse in its utter disregard for every other person the curses touched.
This women lost three of her children in a day. I cannot imagine her grief. Yet this wasn’t lashing out in blind rage. She commissioned a painter . . . and killed him once he’d finished. Then she did the same to the curse weaver. Months would have passed during the process, and at no point did she reconsider her revenge.
Athene is right to refuse to name her. She does not deserve it.
Connolly and I search that apartment together, and the next one, too, as if neither wants to be alone after that conversation.
In the following one, I force myself to stay in the doorway while he searches. When we reach the next, he murmurs, “I’ll be right here,” and I smile over at him and say, “I know.” Then I go in.
The apartments all have the same layout. Front hall with a big hall closet. Then the hall turns, with a door to the bedroom on the one side, a kitchen straight ahead and the living area in the corner between the two. I open the bedroom door. It’s empty. Long empty, without even a trash bag left on the floor. I back out and—
The click-clack of a keyboard stops me. I go still, head turning to follow the sound. It’s coming from the living room. I take a step in that direction and see an old sofa. The typing sounds come from across the room where a woman sits at a computer desk. Paper is piled on either side of her computer. As she types, she reaches over, gaze never leaving the screen as she moves a sheet from the pile on her left to the one on her right.
Data entry. I’d done a little of that for a summer job, and I shiver at the memory. Endless typing for rock-bottom wages. The woman is a squatter. Working a job that doesn’t pay enough for rent. I’m taking a slow step back when a cat meows. The woman stops typing as a black cat leaps onto her lap.
“Ellie?” I whisper.
The woman swivels in her chair as she reaches for a cat treat. That’s when I see her face. My face. Ten years older than I am now, but clearly my face.
I take a slow step backward and smack into a hall table. On it are a series of photographs. Photos of people I know, but otherwise unrecognizable. There’s Hope in climbing gear with mountains in the background, Rian’s arm slung over her shoulders. Then Ani and Jonathan with two little children, a desert behind them. Other friends, all with partners, some with children. And one, half tucked in the back, of Connolly and Theodora toasting from a yacht.
There are envelopes on the table, too. Some opened, some not, all with “Overdue” stamps on them. Unpaid and overdue bills.
I want to laugh. Burst out laughing. This is a supposed vision of my future, where everyone else in my life has found love and purpose, and they left me here, in this horrible little apartment, doing a horrible little job. Something went wrong in my life—maybe the shop failed and I owed so much money I’m still digging out. Whatever happened, it’s just me and my cat.
Cue the sad violins . . .
I should laugh, and I do not, because somehow this overwrought, overdramatic scene hits its target, deep in my subconscious.
I’m cursed. Literally cursed. Fall for someone who doesn’t love me back, and I could doom him to a terrible fate. It’s supposed to protect me—protect my heart—but the problem with curses is that they can backfire spectacularly. Like wishes, Mom always said. How many stories are there of people making wishes only to end up suffering horribly because they didn’t think it all the way through? The same applies to curses.
The curse on me was woven by Mercy. She owed Hector a favor, and he demanded payment, and apparently, that’s a big deal for immortals. He wanted to punish Vanessa for her affair with Marius. Mercy tweaked the curse to punish false lovers instead of real ones, which meant that the person who should have actually suffered was Hector. Except Hector gave the necklace to Harmonia, intending for it to ruin the marriage of Vanessa’s beloved daughter. Since Harmonia’s groom actually loved her, the curse had no effect . . . until it was passed on to others and those tragedies did hurt Vanessa.
Positive intentions; unexpected negative results.
What if the curse doesn’t just punish false lovers? What if it also punishes a lover who wants to give more but can’t? In other words, someone like Connolly, busy with his career and his family drama, moving on as soon as a relationship becomes yet another responsibility. A guy like that doesn’t deserve to be cursed for honest choices.
I flash back to that cursed mirror. I couldn’t see myself in it, and now I think I realize what that meant. I am afraid of disappearing. Of fading from the view of everyone I love and being alone.