A Blessed Curse

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

For the first hundred-fifty years as a spirit, Morgan tried any sort of method or spell to physically interact with the world if only to stop the incessant noises that haunted her. The clock in Sara’s dining room echoed throughout the cold house, and a faucet’s handle was left ever so slightly on. Morgan winced as the Tick. Tick. Tick. was met on the offbeats with Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

She realized her conundrum almost immediately after vowing to watch over her daughter, protecting her from the evils in the world, as Morgan died giving birth centuries ago.

The electronics made a hum and the flies still buzzed, but her hand passed right through the physical world. She could stop a breathing human soul in their tracks with a curse, but no amount of Ex Nihilo or Transgaltanus could turn a television off in the middle of the night.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Morgan flowed her physical self – people’s vision went a little blurry if they ever looked in Morgan’s direction, but she simply didn’t exist in the earth realm – to Sara’s bedroom. Her daughter that was once a little child curled in a blanket. Her daughter that Morgan swore to protect at any and all cost. Her daughter that grew strong and mighty, making Morgan brim with pride. Her daughter that discovered immortality and unknowingly cursed her own mother.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Morgan whisked above her daughter’s bed as she slept soundly. She was safe, Morgan’s eternal vow made sure of that.

Not that Sara had any idea.

The first time Sara believed she killed someone with some forgotten curse she was at the supermarket. Sara was getting ready to host her first get together at her house for her high school friends. It was another new school. Sara kept her ID’s from each public school in her closet, and in just her second year had five ID cards tacked to the wall. At Independence High her guardians got sick and couldn’t afford to keep an adoptive child anymore, so Sara was moved to another home. At Sycamore High, Sara fell impossibly behind in class when she came down with pneumonia, and instead of working with the school system to catch up, the state simply moved her to Elliot High where she just never really fit in.

This was Virginia Prep. And finally Sara was having some luck both in class and in her social life. It seemed the summer off to recover from a turbulent year did some good. Even asking some girls in English class – the ones that actually passed notes to her and laughed at inside jokes they conjured – took courage. But Morgan was beyond ecstatic when she watched Sara say with feigned confidence, “My, um, parents,” (She kept being an orphan secret) “are out of town this weekend. Do you all want to come by and watch movies?”

Sara’s smile never went away for the rest of the day.

After school, Sara walked back to the house and stopped by the store to pick up, gosh, to pick up a little bit of everything! To spend most of her savings on popcorn and grapes and string cheese and fizzy water, oh, and a few movies from the Red Box she had always wanted to see.

“Don’t you look a little cute.”

Sara kept looking for the perfect vine of green grapes oblivious to anyone else. Then she felt a hand on her back and she froze.

“You know I’ve been watching you shop, and I think I’d check you out at the counter if I could.”

Sara didn’t’ move. She held the grapes in her hand and simply couldn’t move.

“What do you think you’d go for? Fifteen dollars? Twenty? Maybe even Thirty? I’ll pay it.”

Sara hazard a turn of her head to look at whoever was saying this. It was an older boy, at least one or two years above her. Maybe she saw him during lunch before?

Morgan rose to the ceiling of the store to get a good look at this assailant, her eternal vow turning like a gear in her conscience.

“I, I need to go.” She dropped the grapes and went to leave.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I meant it as a compliment.” He said, starting to follow Sara.

Sara quickened her pace and said under her breath, “I wish you would just leave me alone and die.”

That’s when Morgan noticed his hands reaching into his pockets. For what? For a phone? For zip ties? A knife? The vow in Morgan clicked and uttered the killing words. The florescent lights flashed for just a moment in the store and the boy dropped. Stone. Cold. Dead.

Sara turned around at the sudden flop of a body and screeched.

Sara’s diary that night was like a whisper, her handwriting was small, like it was trying to hide the words from even the page. But in the tears of the day was the little phrase I think I did it.

It wasn’t intentional on Morgan’s part to send her daughter own the road of alchemy and the supernatural. But Sara from then on believed her words held power. They did, of course, but just not the killing kind she believed them to hold. Until she found The Swirling Blood. That god-damn book.

Sara studied the words older than Latin and looked at the rune inscriptions older than the mountains until she could kill with words. Until she could protect herself. Until she found more books and created spells herself.Until she spoke the words to make herself immortal.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Morgan flowed over her daughter’s bed, the most powerful entity in this world and likely the next. She did keep her daughter safe. That was Morgan’s goal, wasn’t it? The vow eliminated assassins, it ended would-be thieves.

Only, Sara does that herself now. She’s outgrown her mother without even knowing it. She’s protected herself for lifetimes. Now, Morgan doesn’t need to save Sara. She can’t. She can’t even turn off the faucet.

Morgan was going mad. And after three hundred years there was nothing she could do to change her vow. She was stuck. She was dead to everyone but her own mind.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.