Cursed to Love: The Golden Curse

Chapter Three: A Peacock in a Snare

‘Every child that endures the blood of your line, shall also endure your curse.’ – From the Witch’s Curse

The dark man walked home in the moonlight to his cottage. His long legs were eating the distance rather quickly. His sister and brother were waiting for him at home. They would want dinner and he had forgotten to purchase the bread his sister had been looking forward to. She was a terrible baker. He sighed. That little blonde girl was taking up too much of his time. All he’d managed to do before the shops closed was to buy the woolen socks he had been sent for, but he knew Freya didn’t care about those. It was the sourdough she wanted, crackling hard on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. She’d send him back in an evening or two, which was inconvenient as there was every probability he would run into her again. Freya couldn’t go into town herself, and Frederick was too young. He sighed. Why did he have to get involved in that stupid skirmish? He slid his hand through his long tangled brown hair.

He’d gotten involved because he couldn’t let the girl be harmed by that horrid man. It wasn’t because her beauty effected him the way it did other men. It didn’t. It must have been because he’d known her since she was a child. Watching a little unsupervised girl, just watching, had quickly degenerated. It was impossible to simply watch a six year old child! Especially one whose Grandmother was too old to keep up with her. Could he really just watch, and not stop her from tumbling over a ravine? What kind of person simply stood by and watched as a child fell to her death? It had happened time and time again.

He had thrown a branch into the water when she had fallen into the creek and nearly drowned as a scrappy nine year old. He had even chased the first rabbit into her pathetic snare when she was twelve and she her Grandmother were starving after a bad winter. He’d gone so far as to carry her, unconscious through a blizzard when she had become lost in the snow and fallen asleep on the ice. It wasn’t a surprise that he couldn’t stay out of things now that more than her life was in danger. If he let her be harmed now, it would be a waste. A waste of a girl he had personally kept alive for the past 12 years.

He rounded the bend and saw the little stone cottage in the moonlight. It wasn’t really little. It was fully two stories, it was just less than he had once been used to. The tableaux was a picturesque one, considering what they were. Freya was in the doorway watching for him wearing a long blue dress that billowed in the slight breeze. Fredrick was on the roof adding fresh reeds to the thatch. Glints of moonlight caught his feral eyes as he performed his work in the darkness. Freya leaned out of the doorway, hanging on by one arm.

“Where’s my bread Freyr?” She asked, one eye brow raised. She couldn’t smell it, and he didn’t appear to be holding a large enough bag. Fredrick leapt down from the second story roof, landing lightly on his feet – cat like.

“Forgot it? Didn’t you?” He asked, his blonde head c****d to the side. Freyr sighed deeply. Damn that gilded girl.

“Yes I forgot it.” He said throwing the bag of socks 30 feet into his brother’s stomach. Fredrick flipped backwards onto his feet as if bowled over by it.

“Can’t eat these brother. Did you bring us anything worthwhile?” He asked. Freya wrinkled her nose, sniffing the air, and shook her head.

“Freyr?” She asked closing the space between them and pulling a long golden hair off his leather jerkin. “The girl? We agreed.” She said accusingly. Fredrick perked up and took it from his sister’s hand.

“THAT girl? Nicely done.” He said smiling with his head c****d again. Freyr growled and shoved his brother back.

“It’s not what you think. I had to keep a shop keeper from throwing her down…in the middle of his shop! During business hours!” He looked at his sister. “I merely kept him from hurting her, and then I left.” Freyr ran his fingers through his hair again. “You don’t understand, it’s become impossible to keep her safe. You should see the way they act around her in town…” He stopped speaking, he had said too much. Keeping the girl safe had never been part of the task. Freya sighed deeply.

“Then perhaps you should stop. Things would be easier for us if you did…and you might remember my bread. You have one duty when it comes to her. If you want to change the rules…” Freya began in a sanctimonious tone. Freyr cut her off.

“No. The rules are fine. Obviously they are fine, I made them. No changes.” He was capable of just watching. He didn’t have to interact with her anymore…she was older now anyway, and she should be capable of protecting herself. It wouldn’t be the same thing as just watching an innocent child come to harm. Freya gave him a suspicious, calculating look.

“If you are sure. I just don’t want you to get distracted.” Frederick laughed.

“Ohhh Freyr…is she distracting? All that time you were calling her vain, selfish, foolish, and irritating…was she distracting you? Our noble brother who made the rules…and you’re itching to break them.” Frederick kept on laughing. Freyr growled and launched himself at his brother, knocking him to the ground. Frederick laughed and leapt back up to his feet, assuming a fighting stance, hands up. Freyr stood across from him, on the balls of his feet, deciding whether or not to hit him. Freya inserted herself between the two of them, her reddish hair whipping around her face.

“Enough!” She shouted. She put one arm out on each side of herself between the two of them. “This is ridiculous. Freyr go inside. Frederick – not another word.” Freyr made a move toward his brother. Freya caught his arm and held it.

“Leave off.” Freyr shouted yanking his arm back and heading toward the house.

“Frederick will watch the girl tomorrow. You need time away from this.” Freya shouted after his retreating back. Freyr whipped around.

“Not tomorrow.” He said firmly. Freya raised her eyebrows.

“Frederick can handle this now. It’s been two years since…” She stopped speaking as Freyr shook his head and whispered in her ear. Freya inhaled. “Ahhh. Not tomorrow.” She sighed. “Alright. Then I will do it.” Freyr growled again.

“No.” He said quietly. Freya shook her head.

“You need some distance from the girl. I can do it. I’ve been better lately. You know I have been better lately. I won’t let myself get distracted. I promise. We’ll be safe.” She assured him. It dawned to Freyr disturbingly that the thought that they wouldn’t be safe had not even entered into his mind.

Gilda was alone in the moonlight. Something dark and terrible was stalking her from behind the trees. She could hear footsteps inside the bracken like the crunching of bones, but she could see no one. Warm hands gripped her shoulders and turned her around rapidly. Gilda’s breath caught in her throat as she was brought to his chest and held there firmly. Her heart raced in her breast as he held her in solid arms, his hands caressing her. She was no longer afraid of the beast or man following her in the darkness, in these arms she was utterly safe and secure. She turned her head up to find the face of the tall man who held her, but she could not see it in the velvety blackness of the night. Invisible lips touched the top of her head gently, breaking the spell and ending the dream. As it always did. It shifted suddenly to a different dream, the same lips on her forehead. But this time with a soft voice, almost a murmur. “Don’t you dare die on me. Gilda, my beloved. Don’t you die or I will kill you myself.”

Gilda woke up confused. The same dream of the man in the moonlights…and then the memory that wasn’t. It was intolerable. But, her snares were a day overdue, and her Gran would still insist on cooking with the animals in them, regardless of whether they were fresh or not. She didn’t wish to endure the stomach pain that such experimental cooking could induce.

Gilda regretfully got up out of her tangle of bed coverings and laced up her boots, running a brush through her curls with impatience. Waking up before a conclusion left her with pent up energy. She stepped into the kitchen several minutes before her Gran would have rapped on the door.

“Gilda! You up an ready a bit early ain’t you?” Her Gran said in surprise. Gilda shrugged her shoulders.

“The traps are overdue.” She said by way of explanation. She tucked the book she had been reading into her waist pouch and sat down to the inevitable porridge bowl. On cue with her thoughts Gran dumped a spoonful of it in front of her.

“Don’t know why you bother with all that readin’ nonsense. Ain’t none of the village boys gonna care if you know your courtly manners or whatever fool book you’re reading now.” Her Gran said petting her shiny hair. Gilda just sighed and took a bite of the thin, tongue burningly hot, flavorless porridge. She gulped water to save the skin on her tongue and coughed.

“I enjoy reading. Besides, I don’t care a fig what the village boys like or don’t like.” Gilda said sipping her hot porridge rather than using the spoon. It was too hot to spoon up, sipping off the surface was safer and quicker. Gran was the one who’d sent her to the village school to learn to read in the beginning. Shouldn’t she be glad that Gilda had continued?

“You’d best care!” Gran said shocked, turning to face Gilda from where she had been stirring the porridge. “I ain’t got morin’ one or two winters left in me and you can’t live here all on your own. Mos’ all your friends been married two or three years now.” Gran scolded with concern. Gilda stood up and embraced her grandmother.

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’ll out live me!” She said feeling the narrowness of her Gran’s slight shoulders, and marveling for the first time that Gran was shorter than she was now, and had been for some time. “Besides, I didn’t mean that I have no intention of finding a husband, I meant that I suspect he won’t be a village boy.” Gilda said fluffing her hair and raising an eyebrow. Gran scoffed.

“Best not be setting your sights to high, or ye be liable to fall in the mud there girly.” Gran said looking dismayed by Gilda’s excessive vanity and optimism. Gilda laughed, she disagreed with Gran’s constant warnings that she know her place.

“I don’t think I’ve set them high enough.” She said kissing her Gran on the top of the head and skipping toward the door. Didn’t the fact that she was more educated and more beautiful than the other village girls mean that she deserved better by way of a husband?

“Be off with you then.” Gran gave a dismissive wave of her hand. Gilda took the dipper from the barrel and filled her water skin before heading off down the path with a wave.

Gilda began her familiar route feeling slightly less terrible about the night before. Mr. Grummold was not actually going to accuse her of anything, and she would most likely never see the dark man again…so she really ought to stop dwelling on it. She needed to concentrate on things she could change…like her poverty for instance.

Gilda pulled a small mink out of her first trap. Pity. It wasn’t as if she could sell him for much now that she couldn’t take him to the dressmaker’s shop. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a russet colored blur to the side of the path. Her breath caught in her throat – was that her phantom rustling? It had been huge, much larger than a wolf. She was driving herself crazy, if there was a wild animal out there it would have eaten her by now. Gilda forced herself to keep walking as if nothing was wrong. Second trap was empty and tripped. Gilda repaired it quickly and kept walking.

Third trap was empty too. Gilda could have sworn she saw the blur again, but she had to be mistaken, that wasn’t how her phantom worked. Her fourth trap was crushed, beyond repair. Gilda sighed and sat down to build a new one, setting her book open on her lap. The prose was all in elevated language with terms that were known exclusively to the nobility. Given that she had only attended a little village school for a few years, Gilda was fairly certain that she was not up to the standards that her imaginary nobleman’s family was going to expect.

Gilda stood up and brushed off her dress. She took a bite of the cold pheasant pie that Gran had wrapped in a cloth for her. Gilda stopped in her tracks as though she had been shot. In her 5th snare there was a peacock. A beautiful, unbelievable, gold, green and blue creature. It didn’t make any sense! The only way for it to be here – to be real and not a hallucination – was if it had escaped from a noble family’s menagerie. Then after making its daring escape, it would have to wander dozens of miles through the wood, if not more, in order to end up caught in her snare. It was impossible. No snare could be so lucky as to catch an errant peacock.

Gilda sat down beside the trap. She was a witch! It was the only explanation! The only possible explanation that made sense, was that she was in fact a witch, and had willed this poor creature to escape and to run dozens of miles before surrendering itself to her snare. Gilda sat down and took the peacock into her lap. The poor dead creature had just bought her a nice funeral pyre and a horde of angry villagers with pitchforks. Damn the gorgeous thing to Hell!

A rustling in the brush startled her from her anxieties. The russet colored blur was back again, just beyond the edge of her vision, as though it was trying, and failing to stay out of sight. It was doing a much worse job today of being invisible. Instead of a mere foreboding feeling, it was a tangible presence.

Gilda stood up and tied the peacock’s feet to her waist. If she had brought the thing to its doom with just a wish, the least she could do was use it. She couldn’t sell it, as that would get her arrested for poaching… She’d have to use the whole damn bird on her dress for the faire. If she got arrested, she got arrested. If she didn’t, she was pretty sure there was a large phantom creature that was going to maul her to death anyway. Gilda giggled in spite of herself. She wasn’t a macabre person…and this situation was almost humorous. Gilda decided to ignore the phantom, as it had yet to kill her, and to keep walking. Her sixth trap was empty, as was the seventh. Gilda shrugged and restrung it.

“Quite a letdown after the peacock I’ll admit.” Her blur didn’t answer her. Still, talking to it helped to mitigate her fear. She straightened up. “Alright then, so we aren’t going to talk. Rather rude, don’t you think, just to spy on me?” She asked resuming her walk toward her final snare. “If you’re going to watch me, the least you could do is be polite.” She reached the spot where her eighth trap should be, but it was gone. Not so much gone as obliterated…smashed into tiny pieces. There was an enormous clawed paw print in the mud right in the center. Her phantom blur had destroyed it. Had the snare contained a trapped animal that it wanted to eat? Or was her phantom sentient enough to destroy something in order to frighten her? Was he bored of the version of the game that they had been playing? Wild animals weren’t supposed to be able to think like that. The fact that it had destroyed it for whatever reason didn’t frighten her. It irritated her.

“Bloody irritating is what this is!” She said, her speech common and vulgar with her anger. “Why’d you have to go an’ do this eh? Not enough is it to frighten me out-a my wits? You have te crush me livelihood too?” She asked the silent woods. Her fury had undone years of training her speech. Good God she was crazy.

Gilda exhaled loudly in defeat and got out her book again. She was surprised that she wasn’t frightened, she felt like she should be. Her life had just become so strange lately, that finding out her phantom was most likely a wild animal and not something mythic or evil, was actually reassuring. Gilda repaired the snare and read another chapter in her book of etiquette.

Gilda felt a defiant impulse brewing inside her. She stalked further into the woods and placed a ninth snare. If whatever wild animal was watching her didn’t like having her in the woods, it was going to be disappointed. She wasn’t leaving.

Gilda walked back towards the cottage feeling irritated and tightly wound. She was pulsating with pent up anger and frustration. She could raid the little cabinet of liquor that Gran thought she was unaware of, or she could take a bath. Given that it was the end of summer, the portion of the creek that she had dammed off to make a bathing pool would be particularly warm. In summer Gilda took baths twice a week – especially once she had learned to swim. Gran never seemed to bathe at all. When Gilda mentioned how warm the creek was in the summer for bathing, as a sly hint, her Gran had just laughed at her.

“I was nekked when I was borne, and I didn’t much like it then, so I try not to do it much now.” Had been her sophisticated reply. Gilda returned home to an empty house. Gran must still be out doing laundry. Gilda hung the mink and the peacock up in the shed to clean later. She grabbed her soap and her bathing dress.

Gilda slid out of her corset, dress, and under garments and into the thin material of her bathing dress. With a shake of her head she dove head first into the water. She didn’t hear any strange rustling. It was quiet and still. Gilda felt relaxed for the first time in weeks. She could all the tightly strung muscles in her body unbending.

Gilda climbed out of the creek at last and hung her bathing dress to dry. She shivered slightly as she struggled to get back into her clothes again. Tucking her shoe strings over her arm and holding her skirts up to her knees, she began the walk back to the cottage.  Unsurprisingly, it still looked empty. Gilda stopped short. The yard was not empty.

“Oh, oh my.” A young man said, going wide eyed and dropping the armload of yellow buttercups he was carrying. He must have brought several bags as he had set up rows and rows of cut buttercups as though they were growing in her yard.

“How did you know I was coming? But you did, look at you!” He said running towards her as if he were going to grab hold of her. She honestly had no idea who he was. Gilda dropped her boots and skirts raced up the porch steps. She grasped the broom by the door, and held it across herself.

“Please, Sir. Do not approach me!” Gilda felt slightly panicked, standing barefoot by the door, and extending the broom to keep him at bay.

“But why? You can’t say now that you were not expecting me? Surely you went to all this effort in order to impress me?” He asked climbing the steps.

“Expecting you? I don’t even know who you are!” She said, still holding the broom. He wasn’t red or stammering. He must be one of the older boys. He stepped back as though she had struck him.

“Don’t know who I am? We attended grammar school together – you were the only girl there. Surely you remember?” He was incredulous. Their love could not be exclusively in his head! Peasants who lived outside of town bathed perhaps twice a year… Other than to ready herself for an important guest, what could such an effort have been for?

“There were over 20 boys.” She said. It was true that she had attended school, and was one of the very few girls to do so. Why should she remember him? She was the memorable oddity, not him!

“I sat behind you every day!” He said sounding close to despair. He had sat behind her glowing golden hair for two years. The scent of it filled his dreams. Gilda just shrugged her shoulders apologetically.

“I’m very sorry.” She said truthfully. He looked crushed.

“You didn’t know I was coming? This was not for me?” He asked crestfallen.

“Surely you do not mean that you thought I would…” She trailed off, unable to finish the lewd sentence. He gasped in surprise.

“No Miss Lillan! Never, I only meant that since you knew I would be coming...” He was horrified. He would never presume that his angel was anything other than pure as snow. Of course he had not assumed that she bathed to in order seduce him! A woman like Gilda was meant to be admired, like a glass ornament, not to be broken.

“Why would I know that you were coming?” She asked putting down the broom. He looked so dejected and deflated. At the moment he seemed harmless, now that his ardor had cooled.

“I was coming to ask you to attend the faire with me on Saturday…everyone says I am sure to be King. My father owns so many of the buildings in town…it’s just what everyone says…” he said sheepishly, as though his family’s wealth was an embarrassing reason to be chosen to be King. “Since everyone says you will be Queen…it seemed…they’ll all expect…I just thought… I mean, you would know that we should attend together. Surely you knew I would be coming to ask you?” He looked at his feet.

“Oh. You’re Theodore Brandon!” She said. She really ought to have known who he was. His father was the banker, and he held the mortgages to many of the properties in town. She had often thought that one of his sons might be a possibility, should a young nobleman not chance her way. The oldest, Theodore, was unfortunately not the handsomest of boys. Despite being the eldest, he was skinny and looked quite young. He hadn’t been the smartest of the young men either. She hoped his father wasn’t grooming him to take over the business.

“You do know me!” He said his voice rising in adulation. “So you will go to the faire with me?” He asked hopefully. Gilda sighed.

“I’m sorry Theodore, I had honestly intended to go alone. I will save a dance for you.” She said hesitantly, to soften the blow. He reached out to take her hand. When his skin touched hers it discharged a mild shock of static from the dry straw of the broom. He pulled his hand back.

“Why did you do that?” He asked holding his hand. Do that? Gilda c****d her head to the side. Surely he had been shocked before? By straw or wool or anything?

“It was a shock, I didn’t do it to you on purpose!” She said, but he was already backing away. He had heard rumors about her of course…but he had never believed them. It was just jealous mutterings of people who didn’t understand her…still there was something strange and unnatural about the girl he loved.

“I…I will see you at the faire…I didn’t mean…any harm. You didn’t have to wave your broom at me, or to strike me like that with your...” He backed away from her garden and then turned to walk quickly away up the path. The spell of having been in her presence was broken, and now his own behavior appalled him.

Gilda watched him go. Strike him? Like with lightening from the heavens? He couldn’t possibly have thought she had intended him injury? Gilda shook her head and walked into the house. This was getting worse by the minute! She sat down at the empty table. Gran would be home soon, she would know what Gilda should do. Gilda put her head in her hands. She was so tired. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately and today had been rather overwhelming. She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew Gran was shaking her awake.

“Gave me a fright sitting there not movin! Thought you were sick! What’s a healthy thing like you doing sleeping this early? Don’t you have chores to do?” Gran demanded.

“Yes, I’m fine! Had a bit of a strange evening is all. You saw the flowers?” Gilda asked standing up and going to the stove to ladle a bowl of soup for her Gran. Gran took the bowl from her and sat down.

“What flowers?” She asked confused. Gilda set down the ladle and walked to the window, full of apprehension. She looked out into the front garden, which an hour or so ago had been filled with hundreds of buttercups. There was not a single one left. Not even a crushed petal to betray their presence. It was as if they had never been.

________________________________________________________________________

Miss Lamb cracked her knuckles to loosen the joints in her hands. She had been hard at work all afternoon with her current charge and her fingers were stiff. Bleeding the evil spirits out of a possessed woman was not easy. The body had to be made utterly uninhabitable for the demons. Unfortunately that was often fatal to the owner of the body in question. It was unlikely that this particular farmer’s wife would survive the night. Ah well. No harm done. The woman’s family was neither wealthy, nor well connected. Miss Lamb looked up as Mr. Pike came in from outside the barn.

“Did she give you the names of any more of her coven? Is she guilty?” He asked giving a disconcerted look toward the semi-conscious woman. Miss Lamb smiled in a reptilian sort of way.

“She named half the village before I was through. We may be here awhile.” She said placidly. Mr. Pike inhaled sharply. That would be entirely too time consuming for his liking. This town didn’t even have a decent tobacconist, let alone a decent place for taking spirits. Still, there was always the possibility that a few of the accused would comely. Interrogating a comely witch was a task he didn’t mind undertaking now and again.

“Ah. Well. We will have to get started in the morning.” He said as he turned to leave the barn. Miss Lamb nodded as she removed her black gloves. They would need to be replaced. The interrogation had utterly destroyed these.

“Indeed. I find that I am terribly fatigued just now. Besides, rousting women from their beds on suspicion of witchcraft with torches in the middle of the night is so dreadfully gauche.” She replied with a thinly raised eyebrow. She gave a backward glance to the woman chained to the center of the room. If only she hadn’t been so thorough in her interrogation. This witch most likely wouldn’t even survive to be burned! Miss Lamb sighed. There were downsides to being so tenacious.