Chapter One
By Keona Polhamus
“Ill luck shall follow her. If she remains in one place for more than a week, it shall be struck with famine. The ones she loves will die.”
Her mother burst into tears. She should have known that this would happen! The son of a witch should not have been the one she fell in love with; yet she did. Now, their daughter was cursed and he didn’t care a penny.
There was no hope for her daughter.
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“Mother, why must we always be travelling?” I ask. I don’t know why we are always on the move. I have never lived somewhere for more than a week.
Never.
Ever.
In my life.
“Starr,” my mother says quietly, in the voice she uses when she’s about to say something that she doesn’t want to say, “there is something I should’ve told you a long time ago.”
“What?” I ask expectantly.
“The day that you were a year old, your grandmother came to me.”
“Father’s mother?” I ask.
My mother nods.
I have never met her before. Apparently she hates me.
“She was, well, a witch.” My mother continues.
That’s a shocker.
“Nine years and a month ago, she said to me that I would pay for taking her son from her. The thing was…. I didn’t. Your father was a careless man who only loved his mother. He never cared for you, or for me.
“On your second birthday, she returned. She cast a, ah…. curse, upon you. She said that anyplace you stayed in for more than a week would be struck with famine. You would always have bad luck. Anyone you loved would die.” My mother is crying now.
I can’t process it for a minute. I’m cursed?! And she waited almost eight years to tell me?! I don’t know what to say.
“And you believed her?” I ask.
“Not at first,” my mother says, “but after a month, everyone in our town was starving, and when we left, the crops where plentiful.”
I take a deep breath, soaking it all in.
“Wow,” is all I can manage.
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The curse always hangs over me. Always sits in the back of my mind. Years pass. It is agony moving constantly, knowing that I always will.
It is my sixteenth birthday.
I am amazed when my mother tells me that we are going to a restaurant for the occasion.
Not an inn.
Not a tavern.
A restaurant!
I put on a dress, my nicest, and I brush my long hair as well as I can.
I look in the mirror and see a girl with long, wavy, golden hair. Sky blue eyes. Very, very fair skin.
But the girl I see does not look cursed.
Far from it.
But she is.
Well, people aren’t always what they seem.
Mother and I have wonderful dinner, and we still have five days here in this city.
When we go to an inn, the only room left only has one bed! So we decide that we might as well share it. It will be much more comfortable than the time we both had to sleep on a cement floor.
Lying in bed, I wrap my arms around my mother and, very quietly, say words I have never said to anyone before, “Mother, I love you so much.”
Suddenly, I realize what I have just done.
My mother gasps. I begin to sob, “I take it back!” I scream, “Mother! I take it back! Mother!”
But I know it’s useless. My mother seems to shrink in my arms. She grows very pale.
That’s when I really lose it.
Before I know it, I’m shaking her. I’m screaming mindlessly.
I hit my head hard on the bedpost, but I hardly notice.
Men are rushing into the room, trying to pull her away from me, but I won’t let them.
“Starr!” my mother says with her dying breath, “Find Moirah Dune. She can break the….the curse.”
I nod frantically, hysterically.
“Starr,” she whispers, “I love you.”
I realize that she is dying, no matter what I say or do, so I say it back, “Mother, oh, mother! I love you too! So much! I love you too!”
But she doesn’t hear me.
Suddenly, the hysteria is gone, and I realize I am blacking out.
I must’ve hit my head really hard.
I only have two fleeting thought before I lapse into unconsciousness.
Find Moirah Dune.
I love you too, Mother.
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