Page 112 of Wolf Cursed
“No. And it’s not a tattoo. It’s a birthmark.”
“Whoa, you were born with it?” Isaac asked.
“It looked more splotchy when I was younger. Then, when I was twelve, I woke up one day, and it was this.” I gestured to the mark hidden by my clothes.
“You think puberty maybe triggered the formation coming together?” Idrissa said.
“No idea. My mom got really weird when she saw it.” I blinked away the painful memories. “She left soon after that.”
“You haven’t seen her since?” Idrissa asked.
I shook my head.
“And your dad never said anything?” Isaac’s voice was full of sympathy.
“After Mom left, everything changed. My dad got really paranoid. We moved a lot. And he started drinking. By the time I was old enough to really demand answers, he wasn’t sober enough to give them.”
“Damn, Ash. That’s horrible. I’m sorry,” Isaac said.
Kai’s thumb rubbed soothing circles against my leg. The others were quiet. I could feel all their eyes on me, and while I knew they all meant well, I couldn’t stand this pitiful sympathy party they were all having for me.
“I managed,” I said, shrugging it off. “The point is I don’t know any more than you do. I didn’t know there was a curse or that my mark meant I could break it until Kai told me.”
Kai’s hand squeezed my thigh in silent comfort.
“Okay, let’s just talk about that for one second,” Idrissa said. She looked at me then him. “You told her,” she repeated. “That shouldn’t be possible. I mean, technically, neither should this conversation. I’ve said the word curse like fifty times already.”
Isaac’s eyes lit. “Good point. If this were a drinking game, we’d all be sloshed.”
“I have a theory about that,” I said, and they all turned to me. “I think once you see my mark, it breaks whatever magic keeps you from talking about it.” I looked at Idrissa and Isaac. “That day in the garden, you hadn’t seen my mark yet so you couldn’t say anything. But Kai saw it when we were—I mean, when he got me out of there.”
Isaac smirked. I could feel Kai’s emotions shifting at the memory of our make-out session against that tree.
“And then, I showed it to Oscar, and he was able to talk about it too,” I finished.
“Girl’s got a point,” Idrissa said. “It makes sense. I mean, she’s the curse breaker.”
“Okay, so, one mystery solved,” Isaac said. “Now we just need to, you know, actually break the curse.”
“That journal entry wasn’t much help,” I said.
“The problem is there are too many stories and not enough verifiable facts,” Kai said. “My old man used to tell me the key to breaking the curse was killing all the hexerei.”
I winced at that. No way could I massacre an entire people. Not even for Kai and the twins.
“And our dad thinks the curse will be broken when the original caster returns to remove it,” Idrissa said. She looked at me. “What does Oscar say?”
“He has no idea either,” I told her.
“None of the elders or originals actually know anything,” Isaac said.
Idrissa sighed. “Which begs the question: Can we even trust the stuff in Gran’s journal?”
Isaac frowned.
Kai didn’t answer.
“I think she had one thing right,” I said.
