Page 42 of Too Cursed To Kiss
The kind of shivers you get when people walk over your grave crawled down my back, but I also couldn’t stop looking at them. Whoever’d put this together had a weird taste for the creepy. I don’t think I’d ever seen this many photos withpeople lined up in the same direction, all staring at the same thing. It was kind of bizzarro.
Wald settled into the chair across the room. His eyes were behind sunglasses, but the scrutiny was apparent from the tilt of his head. Whatever this book was, interested him. I shifted, settling the book on my lap.
The eyes in the photos moved.
I must be imagining it. I purposefully slid the album to one side and my body to the other. The eyes followed me, so they were still staring. I squealed and slammed the book shut.
“What the hell is this thing?” I asked, lurking in the desperate place between wanting to look at them again and wanting to run away.
“It’s not a thing. They are our family,” Agatha said, returning from the hall, carrying two tall glasses full of ice and a clear red liquid. She set one glass on the table beside me, then handed the other to Britannia. They exchanged glances that unsettled me more.
“But the pictures moved. Are they people?”
“Of course. You looked at them. They weren’t trees.” Britannia laughed, but her expression was a cross between a cat eyeing a mouse and a hyena watching a lion finish off a gazelle. Why was this so interesting to her?
My thoughts jumped around. Britannia, Wald, and Agatha weren’t normal people, so their family album might be a little strange too, right? I mean it tracks. But the pictures moved like they were watching me. Like they were real people. “So all these photos are people in your family? But there are no photos of you?”
“Of course not,” Agatha said, waving a hand as if it would explain. “The family in there have all passed through.”
“To where? Like, are they trapped in there?” The words blurted out, then bounced around my head as I tried to makesense of them. The running away option was becoming the attractive one.
“There’s no trapping. They’ve merely passed through.” Agatha laughed a bit too maniacal for my taste.
“Passed through what?”
“Life, of course. Try your drink. I only make it for company I haven’t met before.”
I looked at the glass, my hands still in a death grip with the book. I didn’t want to be rude.
“So, the photos are of dead people?” I choked back a laugh.
“Family who have passed through this life. You might consider them dead,” Agatha replied, nodding at the glass that had beaded up from the ice. She should have brought a coaster with it.
“You don’t consider them dead?” I pried my left hand off the book. I wasn’t moving the right one, which held the book closed. That was a sane thought, right? The dead people one, not the keeping the book closed. Taking my hand off at this point would be insanity.
The glass was sopping now, the ice-sweat dripping on my corselette as I moved it to my mouth. I took a sip of the unnaturally bright red concoction, smiling over the glass at Agatha.
It was sweet, sickeningly, like the powdered kids’ drinks with all the chemical dyes, but it had a kick of something, bourbon maybe. It was hard to tell from the sugar level. There was a mint leaf floating on top. It wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever put into my mouth. I took another sip and smiled at Agatha, then set the glass down, lining it up with the wet ring. I couldn’t leave that alone. Britannia’s eyes were glued to me. Her lips looked like she was holding back asnake strike. Now, I was worried. Drinking more of it wasn’t happening in this lifetime.
“Do you have a tissue or a napkin or something that I can put under this?” I asked, nodding at the glass.
“Don’t worry about it, honey. Didn’t you say you had something to show me?” Agatha asked.
“What?” I asked, taken off guard. “Not that I know of.” I hadn’t said anything about the box burning a hole in my pocket, and I wasn’t hauling it out with Britannia in the room.
I also wasn’t done with the photo album. This time I opened it about halfway. The photos were color, and the people were still all looking at me. I moved my upper body to the left, and the eyes followed. I moved to the right, and they still followed. I reached out with a finger to touch a photo of a little boy riding a bike with training wheels.
“Don’t touch the photos,”Agatha said.
The words roared silently in my head. My hand snapped back, and I looked up. Britannia laughed and took another sip from her drink. I didn’t like her tone. I never liked her tone.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on? You’re talking to me, without talking, about not touching a photo of a dead person, who’s able to move in what looks like a regular photo. Either you’ve drugged me, or I’m insane, or a bit of both. Can I get some clarity here?”
“Agatha has some special talents. She can read your mind when she pleases,” Wald replied.
“But she hasn’t licked me,” I said but wanted to take it back in so many ways. Britannia’s head cocked sideways, her eyes narrowing as she all but snarled at Wald.
Wald’s lips widened into a smile, but he didn’t look at her.
