The Nasty Curse on Young Girl’s Hearts

A girl sat alone by the cliff’s edge. She had a letter in her hands and a heart yet to be broken. 

It was the peak of Summer, and though she was fond of the peculiar joy found in rhythms and cycles, her soul always longed for the calamitous. And oftentimes, calamitous omens come disguised as love letters.

Of course, only her soul knew this. With his letter in her hands and the wind wiping at her face, she thought, for a moment, that she’d broken her curse. 

There was only one place on her mind when she woke up to find her lover’s letter waiting in the fairie lair she’d built three Springs ago by a hollow ash tree. That day, no pull of fate would have led her anywhere else. 

The meadows bored her at this time of year. Partaking in her town’s activities would only make her look like a fool when she was inevitably cast aside, and there was nothing she hated more than that. So, heart racing like the winds, she pretended not to hear her mother calling her from inside the house and made a break for the cliffs. 

One might think this place sated her urge to escape the monotonous cycle of her life or loneliness, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. 

The girl never saught the opposite of what she was. There wasn’t a point when it could be found everywhere she looked. Everyone irked her for that same reason. They were so easily liked, when all they had to do to earn it was being boring. 

She had never mastered staying silent, much to her mother’s dislike. This girl was already silent about so many things, and it only seemed fair that she rose to defend herself when false accusations spread. 

Her hands were smudged with weeks-old ink from writing her flower journals, and her knuckles still held small bruisings. Last Sunday, she got into a fight about her decor after mass. Everyone gawked at her, not caring to hide their reproval when she turned on her heel and left the other girl crying on the side isle. 

It was not the first time instances like this had happened. 

She was a lover of Nature’s life pulse, but she often found herself adding kindle to it. The innate nature of chaos soothed her. 

When she stared it in the eye, it was her reflection who stared back. 

She found solace in this place. The waves reminded her of the unfairness in the world, for in this world, her presence made people frown and step back. It was a sentence inked not in skin but in her soul, and though people couldn’t see ghosts like her, they certainly had a privy eye to the former. 

To her credit, she tried most of the time to be like everyone else. The better part of it, she failed. 

But maybe she didn’t need to anymore. 

Maybe Hugh’s existence would change everything.

What better purpose was there to fight for than love?

Love was more than a dream for her. To a girl like her, love was proof. She cast the idea that it would ever find her long ago, but an aching heart fluttered at being seen. At being considered. And she was only a girl, after all. A young girl who had never been in love. 

Until now.

Until him.

This didn’t mean she wouldn’t trade it all to be someone else with a different, more joyful life. And in her heart, she knew exactly what that type of girl looked like. 

This desire of hers was the base of human conviction, and she was, after all, human, despite what her town led her to believe. This girl wasn’t more special than any other. 

Her name was Eilidh, but it might have been Violet or Louise. It didn’t matter. Her life was simple. Predictable. Or it would have been if she couldn’t see more—see them. Her curse and the reason she came to the cliffs that morning. 

Ghosts didn’t come up to high shores, and neither did people. 

Violent tides crashed ahead. Her ghosts and people’s stares seemed irrelevant from up there, and she had something to protect. 

The letter. 

Her proof.

Unperturbed, she unfolded it. 

Hugh hadn’t written much this time, but his familiar handwriting managed to flourish a smile on her small mouth. 

Eilidh,

Your argument makes no sense. I long to make you doubt the foul words that come from your lips in ways beyond paper and ink. I like to daydream about our fights when I’m bored at the forge. Father insists I stay late during these months, learning. I have nothing else to learn. I grow bored. Sometimes I think about leaving town. So I think of you and your words. I find myself thinking of ways to silence you. I like that I’m the only one who knows you like this, and I don’t want that to change. You’re mine, Eilidh. People wouldn’t understand, so let’s not bother with them. 

Most nights, I dream of you, and I wish I could stop. 

What do you think about the new family in town? I find them the worst.

Yours,

Hugh Falkner

She read the words written by a boy she knew only by passage, and she dreamed. She dreamed of what he promised, and she rushed to drop ink onto her own pages. She wanted to tell him in detail about her flower journal, and the progress she was making. He’d point out the flaws in her plan, but it was helpful, and he took the time to read her words. 

To see her. 

She sealed her words with a kiss, like a spell if she’d ever cast one, and she turned to the tides ahead. She observed the boats in the distance, seemingly frozen on the dark canvas of the northern seas. How could such massive things keep themselves in a world so vast? 

They reminded her of them. She and Hugh. The unlikely pair. 

But then again, everything reminded her of him. This girl was in love, the kind that was not good for you. And wasn’t that the nature of every first love? Love that is no love at all.