Page 77 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
So I sit down at the kitchen counter and pull out one of my notebooks. I’ve been thinking more about Romeo and Juliet, and particularly Avery Drake and Cameron (that’s what Sebastien said his name was when he was a cartographer in the 1960s and ’70s). And here’s the thing:
I think there’s a chance the curse is breaking. Or maybe it’s already broken.
I start another list, because I do some of my best thinking with bulleted lists.
Reasons the Curse Might Be Broken (or Almost Broken)
Reincarnated Juliets only reappear in Sebastien’s life on the tenth of July. It’s been consistent for hundreds of years, and yet this time, I showed up in January.
(Okay, subpoint: Sebastiendidsee me on July 10 when I was in college. But that was ten years ago. And no Juliets have ever lived longer than two years after she falls for Romeo, so in a way, this is further evidence that things are not what they used to be.)
Avery Drake survived the curse.
Unlike past Juliets, I have some memory of our past. Well, alotof memory. I just didn’t know what it was.
Maybe it takes both of us to break the curse. Other Juliets haven’t known who they were, butIdo. Maybe if Sebastien and I work together, we can end the torturous cycle.
I sit back and look at my list. The reasons are tenuous, at best. But then again, Sebastien said the cycle has always been the same (other than with Avery), and it’s undeniable there are differences this time from all the Romeos and Juliets before.
Plus, Sebastien admitted that he doesn’t know exactly how the curse came into being. He only has a theory that it was Mercutio’s dying words, so we’re really going on conjecture here. I mean, for all we know, it was because, in the Capulets’ mausoleum, Friar Lawrence told Romeo, “You will live,” and coming from a man of God, that became, like, a holy command.
Or maybe the origins don’t really matter. I don’t know.
If the curse isn’t already broken, though, I think it’s worth trying to break it. With all the variances from our past lives—plus Sebastien’s sacrifice in his last lifetime, with Avery—maybe there’s one more difference this time around: Maybe we finally have the chance to change it.
Still, most important, I get to be part of the most epic love story of all time. The one we all grow up swooning over. Who wouldn’t take the chance if they had it?
Maybe extraordinary thingscanhappen to ordinary people.
SEBASTIEN
I find Helene’s bulleted liston the kitchen counter. She was in the shower after I returned from my errands, and I can’t help but read what she’s written.
I wince at her optimism about breaking the curse. Should I have told her that it can’t be done? That I’ve tried, again and again, and failed?
Over centuries, I’ve drunk innumerable potions and paid a king’s ransom for spells. I’ve traveled the world to consult with gurus in remote Indian villages, medicine women on snowcapped mountains, and shamans in Africa where they still practice the old ways. I ran away when I met Avery; the curse simply adapted and came back with renewed fervor—a wretched, relentless boomerang of ill fate.
But I think Helene needs to believe there’s a solution to the curse. Her nature is so primed toward optimism, she craves the light at the end of the tunnel; that’s how she’s survived a life that hasn’t always been the easiest. It might break her to know for certain that there’s no recourse for us, no sanguine goal to work toward.
