Miriam's Demon

The Hager's Curse

Miriam was fully aware that her family functioned like a cult. Once every random number of years, all 12 of the family branches commune at the Hager's vineyard to celebrate a wedding, death or the birth of a girl. Sometimes it was a combination of any of those events. Today it was the death of cousin Felicia from the Golmer Family. Just 2 weeks ago, they had gathered to celebrate her wedding at this very vineyard. It seemed that the women of the family barely live past their honeymoon. Miriam sighed, was it cousin Melisa just a year before Felicia? And cousin Trina before her? Would it be her turn too, when she turns 18? She shuddered. She was only 12 but fully aware that there was life aplenty beyond 18 years on earth. Her small prepubescent frame slipped easily through the sobbing figures clad in black. Death was so prevalent in her family she wondered if anyone ever shed actual tears; most of the attendees were dabbing dry kerchiefs to their eyes, almost as if a symbolic ritual. She remembered how her own mother had drunk herself to death and her father spent all of 5 minutes to look disappointedly over her casket before leaving the chapel with his latest mistress.

The 12 family branches descended from the 12 village elders that signed a pact with a demon. "For all the gold and pretty dresses you could ever want baby doll!" her mother had slurred. In exchange for wealth and power, the village elders swore to marry their virgins to the demon. "Why did he need to get married mama?" Miriam had asked. "I dunnoe, coz' he was a romantic? Heh..Heh..You know this was before the birth of Christ so you know it could be a Hager family Bullshit. Just needed an excuse to kill all their young ones. Heh..Heh.." her mother answered before dozing off. Miriam's mother took to drinking after her older brother David hung himself in his boarding school. Died of a broken heart, her mother said. "Poor baby just wanted to be with his boyfriend. But nooo Your daddy needed him to be a baby-making machine, make more Hager rats. f*****g rats. All of them. Your daddy-King Rat!" Miriam missed her brother and mother so much she felt her tiny heart hurt every time she thought of them. she treasured whatever little time she had with them during her boarding school breaks. She would crawl into her mother's arm while she was in one of her drunk stupors. "I'm here mama." she would whisper, "don't forget me."

"There you are mon petit poupée!" Miriam turned to find her stylish grandmother behind her. The matriarch of the Hager branch, or the Queen Rat, Miriam chuckled to herself. Hiding among the dense foliage of wine grapes, she was certain noone would find her. As if guided by magic, her nanna would always find her. "How do you always find me nanna?" Miriam asked. "Your white hair is like a light beacon, did you ever think of that?" Her grandmother replied, tousling her white curly mane. As if she was stressed as a foetus, Miriam was born with a shock of white hair. The most severe case of Canities he had ever seen, the paediatrician had claimed. Noone else in her family, had ever suffered this deformity. Against her olive skin and green eyes, Miriam's white her made her captivating abnormality in all her class photos. She had always wondered if it was her white hair or her family's wealth that made her classmates avoid her. Perhaps it was the rumors of a family curse that had scared them off. Her family tragedies were high society fodder - a dead heiress or heir was hard to hide. 

They had walked to the peak of the valley, dusk was settling over the vineyard as the air grew chill. "Did you know Miri, that these goblet vines are almost a thousand years old? The first Hager in France brought the bushes all the way from Syria when he saw this sunset." This, Miriam knew to be true. The Hager family had been in France even before France was France. But vineyards were merely a side-hustle. The Hagers were everywhere property development, entertainment, politics - wherever there was money to be made. One Hager was nearly a pope. "I am so sorry babydoll, you were close to Felicia weren't you?" Felicia had been a surrogate sister to her; watching over Miriam while attending the same boarding school. Her motherly nature matched only by her beauty. Miriam's thick white eyelashes lowered as tears came cascading down her face. Nanna dabbed a monogrammed silk kerchief to her eyes. " I wish I could tell you I knew how to take this pain away but I don't. This curse is the price we pay for our privilege, Miri. You can try to escape this but the curse catches up to you anyways. So don't even try." Nanna squeezed her arm. " But I don't want any of this Nanna. I want Mama and David and Felicia and Melisa and Trina and Daphne... I didn't ask to be rich. It's not fair!" Nanna straightened up as if jolted by an icy hand. "We all die, poupée, you might as well die rich." Nanna sighed. Miriam stared at her in disbelief. "Well! Life is just so unfair any way you look at it! But you can make it a whole lot less unpleasant! Come, I have someone to introduce you to."

As they walked back to the chapel, Miriam's sadness turned into anger. Clenching her fist, she wondered how Nanna and her father had escaped the family curse unscatched. Why is it the young ones? The kind ones? The loved ones? The ones who wanted no more than normalcy? Clenching her fist, Miriam made a curse of her own. " Queen Rat and King Rat - you will pay with your life too."