Serena's Curse

Chapter 4

I didn’t sleep, the innkeeper’s words clung to me all night, curling through my mind like smoke. I laid on the thin mattress, listening to the creak of old beams and restless rustle of the trees behind the tavern, while the weight of the mysteries pressed against my chest all night.

I rose at the first break of light and stepped into the streets of Windrest. I wandered without purpose in the hushed, quiet streets, letting my feet take me where they pleased, until I reached what had to be the heart of the town, Windrest Square.

The square was wide and paved with weathered stone, and at the centre was a towering statue of a woman carved in pale granite. She stood proud and unyielding, her stone eyes lifted toward the heavens, a staff in one hand, the other extended as if commanding unseen forces. The statue radiated authority.

I stopped to have a look, but I ended up staying longer than I intended. Something was unsettling about it, her face was carved in the likeness of someone who could bend the world to her will.

“You’re not from around here,” a voice croaked behind me.

I turned to see an old man hunched over a walking stick, his clothes patched and ragged, his eyes bright with the kind of gleam you only see in someone who has lived long enough to be half-forgotten themselves.

“How can you tell?” I asked, trying to force a smile.

He ignored my jest, hobbling closer until he stood nearly shoulder to stone hem with the statue. “Serena’s statue drew your attention, everyone else is familiar” he said softly,

“Serena, uhm” I repeated, tasting the name.

He looked up to the statue with reverence. “The great witch of Windrest. Centuries ago, this town was besieged by shadow beings and beasts that crawled from the cracks of the world. They came at night, destroying everything in their path. No one thought Windrest would survive.” His voice lowered, as if the shadows might return at the mere mention. “But Serena stood against them and singlehandedly saved the village. She tore a rift wide enough to drown the creatures, in which she burnt them all.” He ended with flair.

I glanced up again at the statue trying to picture everything. “And the village chose to honour her,” I murmured.

The old man’s eyes glinted, his mouth curving into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Yes, but it wasn’t all gratitude at the end.” He added with a drastic tone drop.

I turned to study him more closely, but he was already gazing past me, eyes on a horizon only he could see. “What do you mean?”

He leaned heavily on his stick. “They turned against her. In fear of the same power that had saved them, they burned her alive.”

My pulse quickened. “They killed their own saviour”

He gave me a sharp and piercing look, as if he weighed my very soul. “Windrest was never the place for simple endings. After saving the village, she cursed it.”

The words struck like a stone dropped in still water. I turned around, stealing another look at the statue. “Why would the one who saved the village also curse it…?” I spoke, but as I turned my head back, the old man was gone, vanishing without a trace as if swallowed by the morning air.

I spun in a slow circle, scanning the square as quickly as my eyes could move, but there was no sign of him. A chill traced down my spine. I tried to piece them together: the innkeeper’s warning and the old man’s tale of a puzzle. I began to understand why my father had warned us about this place, but I was already in it, and the more the mysteries accumulated, the stronger the urge I felt to remain in it.