Harlowe’s Curse – Chapter 15

DAMARA

I told Vitt to come at night, when there are less chances the Wickens will see him, so I have to wait the whole day in spiraling anxiety, wondering if he’ll manage to get the necklace or not. If the necklace will even work for me in this body. I reread our conversation about ten times to make sure I didn’t forget anything, and then I delete all the messages so nobody else can figure out what I’m up to.

Around two in the afternoon, I hear the door of the garage open downstairs and startle as I recognize Clare’s voice.

“Hello, Damara.”

She says it with venom, as though I don’t even deserve my own name.

I hurry to turn off the phone and hide it under my pillow—it’s a miracle Harlowe had kept it on silent, or it would’ve chimed in their presence many times considering the number of messages Vitt left me, but I’m not willing to gamble on that luck now.

Clare climbs up the stairs deliberately slowly. I would roll my eyes if I weren’t legitimately scared of her. I hate how vulnerable I feel without the blood of my ancestors around my neck to support me.

Clare appears at the top of the stairs, wearing a long, black linen dress with silky, see-through sleeves trailing behind as she walks. The Blood stone of her necklace looks like it’s glowing against her belly, and with her long black hair waving down her chest, she looks like a wraith. A barefooted wraith with mud at her toes.

“I’m going to ask you one question,” she says, her voice creepily calm.

“Just one?”

“Correct. And if you don’t answer it with the truth, I will personally go visit Peony Miller to offer her my condolences. I’ll say I’m an old friend from camp and ask if she’s doing pottery again. I’ll even ask about the cat.”

She pauses, and I steel my voice before I say, “But I suppose you won’t let me know what she says.”

She tilts her head, one corner of her mouth turning up lazily. She steps closer to the bed as she continues. “No, I won’t. What I’ll do is ask to go to the bathroom. I’ll get the necklace in the little box under the sink without even touching it, because I suspect you must’ve spelled it. Then I’ll shatter it, annihilating every trace of your ancestry.”

A shiver runs down my back.

Destroying a Blood stone is one of the biggest sins in the Witches Laws. It erases an entire lineage, an entire line of Crafts. It disrupts the Marshes, and the last thing a witch wants is to disrupt the Marshes. Sight and Crystal witches have been known to go after our stones throughout history, yearning for more power, but never other Blood witches. Never our own.

I can feel my blood boiling at the threat. Clare flicks one of her rings to produce a little knife that was hidden in the gem, and when she pricks her own finger and wets my parched lips with her blood, whispering Verum, I know she’ll be able to tell if I lie.

I’m full-on shaking now, terrified of the question she’s going to ask, and of what I’ll have to admit.

“Let me tell you a little bit about myself, first.” She sits at the edge of the bed, an arm across my body as she plays with the hem of my blanket with the other hand, deadly gaze never leaving mine. “You see, I feel the need to know. I can’t help it, it’s my thing. My Craft. Once I know something, I know it for a very long time—I have an excellent memory. I know the members of my family better than they think I do so it’s very easy for me to apprehend their reactions in any given scenario. I know things, but I don’t guess them.”

She lets go of the blanket, now tracing a finger along the black chain of her necklace.

“Before I can figure out something, for example what curse that Sight Witch put on my daughter, I need to know all the necessary facts. And if I can’t solve a problem, it’s simply because I’m missing a fact. A crucial one.” She smiles, just a shadow of rictus, but it’s there, the beginning of a smirk. “And I think I know exactly what information I’m missing here.”

She leans forward, hovering above my face, her hair grazing my shoulders. From this close, I can see the traces of red behind her brown eyes, the magic in her veins glinting there as it’s called upon. My lips burn, the layer of blood itching, but I manage not to let my discomfort show. I just focus on my breathing, her spicy scent tickling my nose.

“So here’s my question, Damara,” she whispers, the same venom in her voice reserved for my name. “What is your Craft?”

I know I can’t lie. It’s no use trying, and it’s certainly not worth the risk of angering Clare further.

“Healing. Myself, not others.”

I say it clearly because I don’t want to have to say it again. I just want her to leave as soon as possible.

The smirk on Clare’s lips grows like the wings of a crow opening to take flight. “I know, then.” The way she says it makes me feel like she already knew before she walked in here, that she just needed a confirmation before she acted on her idea.

“What did you figure out?”

I’m scared it has to do with my family’s cause, with what I still hope to accomplish now that I’ve been offered a second chance. But she says, “If Saleali picked you, it’s because they knew it would make it much harder to break the curse.”

As she talks, she uses her knife-ring to cut my shoulder, a slow line that borders my throat. I stay completely still, determined not to let her see how much pain I’m in, fisting the blankets with both hands.

In just a few seconds, the gash closes, leaving the skin unmarked except for the blood still trailing down my shirt.

“Your Craft works even through my daughter’s blood,” she observes, her eyes still glinting red. “And if you heal, it must mean the only way to break the curse is to kill you.”

Clare slides a hand under the pillow and pockets the cell phone. A strong gust of panic hits me.

“I’ll heal,” I say quickly. “I always do. It’s no use trying to kill me.”

“Don’t worry,” she says, licking the blood at the tip of her tiny blade and tucking it back in the ring with a decisive schick. “I’ll find a way.”

I’m breathing hard, out of words as I watch her walk towards the stairs.

Clare leaves me with one last and haunting thought. “You died once,” she says. “You can certainly do it again.”

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