Page 5 of The Cursed and the Broken
“Robi ate all the chicken feed today,” I said as I popped more palacsinta into my mouth. “The ladies were less than impressed.”
Mama scowled. “The devil sent that rooster himself, I’m sure of it. It’s a wonder he gets any attention from the hens at all.”
Eszter laughed. “Robi is a softie at heart.”
“Tell that to my ears when he crows well before the dawn,” Mama grumbled as she set to work preparing dinner. “Eszter, darling, can you help me?”
My dutiful sister braided her long, voluminous hair efficiently and grabbed an apron from the hook on the wall. She gave our mother the side-eye as she began chopping tomatoes. “Another girl has gone missing,” Eszter said carefully.
Mama froze, her hands halting over an onion. “Who? How long?” Her voice was quiet, strained. Tension rippled from her in waves and I shifted in my seat.
“Hanna, the herbalist’s daughter. She’s been missing for five days now. Her mother thinks she left in the middle of the night,” I offered quietly.
“And her sister said Hanna’s cloak, travelling boots and blade were still in her closet,” Eszter piped in.
I shot her a sharp look. “You didn’t mention that earlier.” That information changed things. No one in their right mind would venture out willingly in the middle of winter without layers or protection?not without a death wish.
Eszter’s eyes widened. “I thought you said”—she blushed as she glanced at Mama—“I thought you said she was going to the woods to … you know.”
Frowning, I looked at my family. “Hanna is the fourth girl to vanish within the last three years. It happened again. Another girl has disappeared, never to return.”
“You don’t know that she won’t come back.”
I set my jaw. “Mama, we should go look for her.”
My mother shook her head fervently. “Kitarni, I won’t have you running off and putting your sister in danger. There are things in those woods that are better left alone. The banya will search for her.”
“We don’t even know where she lives,” I snapped. “For all we know, the banya has forsaken us.”
Perhaps that was a stretch, but only a select few had ever been in her presence and, ever since Death visited me three years ago, I hadn’t been able to forget what he’d said about her. He’d implied that she’dliedto us.
Many stories were told of her, but she was an enigma to me, little more than folklore to keep witches in line and remind us of a higher power. Someone whosupposedlykept us safe.
Even when she picked an apprentice, the banya came and went like smoke. Gossipers said she came veiled, her face hidden. Some stories said the gods favoured her and her form would blind any who looked upon her divinity. Others said they had defiled her face. Such was the price of her magic.
I didn’t know what to believe, but the witches loved and respected her, worshipping her like a god. Although I yearned to be recognised, for my power to prove worthy of something, it never sat well with me how little we knew of our so-called protector.
“Kitarni Bárány,” my mother said sharply. “You will not utter such blasphemy in this house. She is as close to godliness as a witch can get. If that poor girl is within her domain, the banya will know and return her to us.”
I scoffed. Would she though? None of the banya’s apprentices had ever come back, and all the girls who’d gone missing remained lost. Whatever the banya did to occupy her time, it seemed a few wayward witches weren’t enough to concern her.
My cheeks warmed and I jumped out of my seat in anger. “We are witches, Mama. We can use our power to find her, to bring her home. What if I went missing? Or Eszter?”
The blood drained from Mama’s face, and her knuckles whitened as she clenched her apron. “I will not lose either of you. Ever since that night. Ever since …”
I knew what she wouldn’t say. The night Death came for us—for me—it changed everything. Mama had grown stiflingly protective, to the point of devout with her protection spells and the charms she would make us wear. She had coddled Eszter especially, keeping her under a close watch.
My sister was capable, but she was naïve and trusting. Combine that with her beauty and personable nature, Mama barely let her out of her sights. Eszter tolerated it for now, but there would come a day when her wings would spread and she would leave the nest.
I never told Mama what had really happened that night. The exchange between Death and me. Something told me she wouldn’t have believed me if I did. She’d say I’d been under a spell or lost in an illusion.
But there were some things that were undeniable.
Three jagged lines down my back from where Death had marked me. The scar.The promise.
He never said what my future would entail, only hinting at a life shrouded in lies.
Something told me that had more to do with the girls going missing than I yet knew.
