Page 30 of Hexes and Exes

“Tell me your curse then.”

The branches of the trees lining the street are weighed down with ice. It looks beautiful, like a winter fairyland. The thing is, those branches are brittle. They look like they’re extra strength, encased in a glassy shell. In reality, one sharp blow would cause it to shatter.

“What’s the potion for?”

The song about pollen and summer fills the silence. I guess we’re just going to keep punting this question back and forth. I’m not about to tell him my secrets first.

There’s a long pause. I assume we’re going to drop the interrogation, but then Bram’s deep voice fills the car. “My humanity is slowly burning out. Like a candle in a room that’s gradually losing oxygen. My curse feeds on the negative emotions of others. Every day, any glimmer of joy or happiness gets snuffed out. Eventually, I’ll be taken over by a darkness that won’t allow any light in.”

The shadows in his aura.

“The potion helps numb the curse. Sometimes, it surfaces as a rage so potent I want to destroy anyone who speaks to me. To tear them to shreds with my words and my hands. Other times, it’s complete apathy for everything. Someone could be bleeding out in front of me, and I’ll feel nothing. It’s like a living beinginfecting my body. I never know exactly how it will affect me. When I think I have a handle on it, the curse changes just to fuck with my head. I used to be able to go days without thinking about it, but no longer. It’s a weight that drags me down every day.”

My eyes are focused on the road, but it grows blurry as tears well up. Fuck this town and the curses we’re all saddled with. They are a unique kind of torture, horrible, every one of them. I blink and swallow. I’m sure Bram wouldn’t appreciate words of pity.

“My curse is to be forgotten.”

Bram shifts in his seat, the chair making an alarming creek. His gaze is laser focused on mine, but I keep my face forward.

“How?”

“It’s gotten worse over time.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bram nod. That’s how many of our curses work. They gradually intensify as time goes by. “If I don’t see someone after about a week these days, they won’t remember me. It’s like I’m erased from their universe.”

“And when they see you again? Do they remember?”

“It used to be that. When I would run into an old teacher or classmate, if I reminded them who I was, some knowledge of me would come back. But now that’s not always the case. The longer I’ve known someone, the faster they recall who I am, but just seeing me doesn’t always jog someone’s memory.” Like with Jamie, at the New Year’s coven gathering. He’d looked right at me, and it was a blank. I was a stranger. And yet, somehow, he knew who I was last night. How?

“That’s fucked up.” Bram leans back in his seat. What else is there to say? Any of us with curses know they all blow.

I pull up in front of Fitz’s house with one minute to spare. The sky is heavy with impending snow, but Fitz’s house is a bright spot in the dim bleakness of January. The French rustic style house is far too adorable for someone as sharp and biting asFitz. I stare out at the stone exterior, the perfect arched doorway, and sloped roofs and imagine the witch luring in Hansel and Gretel with all the sweetness.

“Are we going to get out of the car?” Bram and I stare out at Fitz’s house. Despite it being the dead of winter, her flower boxes overflow with lush blooms of geraniums, lantana, verbena, and trailing ivy.

“You first,” I whisper.

“Chicken.” Bram needles.

“She won’t remember me anyway.” Bram and I turn to stare at each other. He narrows his eyes, and I offer him a smirk. Sure, I saw Fitz yesterday, but I’m going to use this curse to my advantage for once.

“Lucky.” Bram sighs and opens his car door with a creak. I stay put until he gets out, watching with amusement when he hits a knee against the door and then his head on the roof. “Fuck.”

I slip out my side of the car with a chuckle. Even though Bram is mumbling under his breath, his aura is a warm green and the shadows are barely visible.

“You’re late,” Fitz calls out, and I nearly jump out of my skin. I lean against the car and place a hand against my hammering heart.

Fitz is standing at the gate that leads to her garden.

“Get in here. It’s fecking cold out.” She has a hint of an Irish accent that points to her heritage, but no one really knows where she’s from. She’s lived in Mystic Hollows as long as I’ve been alive, and for several generations before me. No one knows exactly how old she is, but there’s no doubt she’s up there in years.

Her long white hair is neatly tucked away in a braid and she’s wearing her signature track suit, in a mustard yellow today. Bram and I follow her into her garden, where the temperatureshifts from a frigid zero to a beautiful seventy. Fitz closes the gate with her dragon-headed cane and then uses it to wave us into her backyard. I skip ahead to avoid getting cracked with the thing.

Fitz’s backyard is breathtaking. It’s a fairy garden mixed with the perfect landscape of a prim English country manor. I’m not even sure how you marry those two aesthetics together, but Fitz knows how.

“Sit.” Fitz gestures toward a small wrought-iron table. On top of the table are an assortment of items that have me taking a closer look. The last time I was here, she was crafting a voodoo doll. It looks like she’s up to the same kind of shenanigans today. There are a handful of small burlap pouches laying on the table along with bowls of herbs. Face down are several photographs. I wonder what they’re pictures of?

“No, don't sit there, you dummy, that’s my seat,” Fitz snaps at Bram, who immediately pops up out of the seat, looking annoyed as he takes another. I can’t help but smile.

“What, have you forgotten all your manners, or did those dolts who raised you forget to teach you any.” Fitz smacks the open chair with her cane. “Get the chair for the girl.”

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