Page 1 of The Curse

Prologue

There weren’t many times in the past year that I felt any semblance of peace, but when I was stretched out on my back on the roof of my dorm, looking up at the stars, peace was so damned close that I felt like I should be able to reach out my hand and grab it. Even so, there was something missing. Like some really vital thing I should know, but couldn’t quite grasp. It had all started on my last birthday and the closer I got to this year’s , the more it tormented me, this thing I should be remembering, but couldn’t.

My dorm was the tallest on campus, fourteen stories high, with a slightly slanted roof, making it perfect for stargazing while I was up there smoking a joint. Okay, so maybe smoking a joint on a slanted roof, fourteen stories off the ground, couldn’t technically be considered a good idea, at least not a safe one, but I defended myself by arguing that we all had different opinions of what was considered good and peaceful. Mine just happened to be a bit dangerous, especially since I was fucking terrified of heights. It was one of those stupid, unexplained, irrational fears, since I’d never fallen or been caught in a situation where I was afraid of falling, but the fear was real. As in, fucking terrified.

Why do this, then? Because, obviously, I couldn’t smoke a joint in my room, and once I found a way to access the roof, I knew it was the perfect place. No, I didn’t have any kind of death wish, but I loved lying there and communing with the moon and stars. This may sound crazy, but sometimes I could have sworn the moon was leaning out of the sky to whisper a name to me. Even the stars chimed in one by one to softly chant the word, but the harder I tried to grab onto it, to let it slide into my conscious mind, the more it slipped away. There were some who said it was just the weed, but I knew better.

It’s well-known, among those who smoke a lot of marijuana, anyway, that to stop smoking is to invite a sudden torrent of crazy, vivid dreams. Just Google “weed and dreams” and there are tons of stories. So it was easy enough to chalk up all the weird dreams I’d been having this past year to my use of illegal substances. But I knew better. I knew that whatever it was, it was coming for me, for good or ill, and I had to be ready. And I knew that when it came, it was going to change my life. All I had to do was remember what the hell it was.

My college was a small, no glam, no prestige university called Kempler College, nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. It was a state funded school where many kids like me who grew up in the foster system, were given grants and scholarships so we could attend college for free. Tennessee was where I’d spent the last five years of my life and had, up until my birthday a year ago, been where I’d planned on spending the rest of it. Then all the dreams and yearnings started, and I began to feel like my destiny was someplace else, someplace far away from the beautiful Tennessee hills. All I had to do was figure out where that place was.

I’d gotten a late start in college, because, while I had received a small scholarship, it didn’t pay all the bills and I had to work and save for a couple of years after high school to be able to afford tuition. I majored in History, maybe because there were so many gaps in my own, and I had graduated at the end of the first semester that year. For lack of anything better to do, I applied for a Master’s program and had been accepted. I was taking a little break until summer session started up in June. I had some vague idea about eventually teaching, but mostly I guess I was just drifting, waiting for my future to happen.

All my plans and dreams changed abruptly one day, though, with one brief visit from a lady I’d never met or even heard of before.

I’d made plans to meet a friend of mine after class, but first I’d decided to stop by my room and change clothes. As I walked through the front door, I noticed a silver BMW parked in front of my building. An elegant, white-haired lady was sitting in it as I passed by. My first thought was that she must be some parent picking up their kid and then I wondered if she was lost because of the way she was looking around at all the students passing by. As I sauntered past the car, the window glided down and she leaned out. “Excuse me, boy. Are you Nicholas Bailey?” she asked, looking me up and down. “You are, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yes ma’am that’s me. But I have to tell you if you’re selling magazine subscriptions or Avon or something, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m as broke as a convict.”

She looked at me like I’d suggested she might come up on the roof and light up a joint with me. “No, young man, I amnotselling magazines, and I don’t think people go door to door selling Avon anymore, do they?” she asked with a little sniff. “No, I don’t have anything to sell you, but Ihavebeen looking for you for the past year.”

“You have? Why?” I blushed a little because she was still staring at me so intently, and I was puzzled as to what this could possibly be about, but I didn’t want to be rude or anything. I mean, she was kinda old. And rich. I could see that as she got out of the car, wearing expensive clothes and flashing a lot of diamonds on her fingers and wrists.

I smiled politely and began to back away from the car. “Uh, I think you must have the wrong Nicholas Bailey, ma’am.”

“No, I don’t think so. You have the look of your father.”Okay, that got my attention.

“My father?” I replied, choking on a bitter little laugh. “Now I know you have the wrong person. My old man is dead and has been since right after I was born. And I have to tell you if this has anything to do with him, then I’m not interested.”

“Don’t be rude, child. If you’ll just invite me in for a minute, I can explain.” She gave me a look that told me, A—she didn’t like my attitude and B—she wasn’t used to people turning her down. What was I gonna do? Turn my back on her? To tell the truth, I would have been afraid to. The look in her bright blue eyes was fierce. I had to admit I was curious. I invited her to follow me inside.

We rode up in the elevator without saying another word and she came in my room looking around at the empty pizza boxes and books and trash on the floor and then gave me one raised eyebrow. I smiled a little sheepishly and shrugged. Hey, she was the one who wanted to come up to my room. She sat down on the edge of the one chair in the room that I got at the Goodwill, doing one of those one butt cheek hangs, like people do when they’re afraid they’ll get the cooties if they sit back too far, but they’re trying to be polite. I noticed she kept her expensive handbag in her lap. Good call—I hadn’t vacuumed the rug in…hell, who was I kidding? I never vacuumed.

I grabbed a Coke from the little fridge I had under my desk and offered her one, which she declined with another little sniff. I shrugged and sat down.

“Lady, if this really is about my father, I have to tell you I don’t really care. I’m not trying to be rude, but my parents—”

I broke off, a little choked up. I had no idea why it bothered me after all this time. Maybe it was the waste of it all. I’d always just assumed my mother and father must have been on some heavy-duty drugs. I didn’t know that for sure, but they had killed themselves five days after I was born, within five feet of my baby crib. With me in it. Selfish bastards.

“People like my parents are not people I want to know anything about.”

She leaned forward a little. “Young man, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Myname is Hephzibah Banks. I was your mother’s aunt, and I know for a fact that both your parents loved you very much. They were so excited when you were born…” She opened her bag and took out a little hankie. No shit. Not some wadded up Kleenex, but an honest to God white hankie with embroidered initials on it. I just stared at her as she dabbed at her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I still get emotional even after all these years.”

“Yeah, um, I see that, but look, Mrs… Uh?”

“Banks. It’s your mother’s maiden name, you know.”

“Okay. And excuse me, but I’m having a problem believing that line of—excuse my language, ma’am—bullshit, since my parents killed themselves like I said and just left me there. I wasn’t found for three days, and not another living soul understood how I even survived. I’ve spent the majority of my life thinking that they hadn’t intended for me to survive. The way I figure it is that they just didn’t have the guts to kill me themselves. So they left me to die slowly, completely alone and surrounded by the decaying bodies of people who should have loved me. What kind of people do something like that?”

She leaned forward again and fixed me with a look. “Young man, I don’t know you. But I can tell you right now, without any fear of contradiction, that you are full of shit.”

That surprised a laugh out of me and she smiled. “Young people aren’t the only ones who can curse when they need to get someone’s attention. Your mother was myniece. Iknewboth your parents well. I visited her those last few months on several occasions, and I helped her decorate the nursery, laughed with her over baby name books and watched her cry real tears of joy when she talked about the baby growing in her womb. Your father was equally smitten with you, working two jobs so there’d be plenty of money to purchase all the things a new baby would need. Regardless of how many hours he worked, or how tired he had to be, he was always excited to come home and see the progress she’d made on the nursery. Because she worked on that room every chance she got. She was so proud of the baby boy coming to her.”

That all sounded really sweet and all, but I still wasn’t picking up what she was putting down. Again, I was calling bullshit in my head, but I let her keep on with her fantasy story. I hated to be rude, but I was going to let her have her say and then politely walk her out to the curb.

Then, out of nowhere, her voice got low and conspiratorial. She leaned so far toward me I just knew she was about to fall off that chair. She acted like she had some kind of epic secret to share. “I have something to tell you, young man. Something shocking. One month before you were born, someone or something frightened your parents badly. Your mother had been expecting it in a way, but when it actually came, she was devastated. Shocked. And after that, everything changed. Your parents were no longer happy and excited about your birth. They became terrified and grief-stricken. They knew they were going to die.”

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