Family Curse

“Speak now,” said the maker of the mannequin, using the formula the traveling mage had sold her along with the plans. She moved her hands through the complicated motions of the final conjuration.

For a moment the wooden mannequin on the kitchen table seemed to prepare itself to utter a sound, moving its head awkwardly on a short neck. It shifted jointed arms and legs like a person stirring in a deep sleep. Then it subsided, just as its maker knew it would.

Just as it had the other fifty-two times Dorrekus commanded it to speak. She had counted.

“You must have done something wrong,” her friend Aleyshia said.

“You think?” Dorrekus Godefeld ran stiff fingers through her hair—what remained of it. Quite a bit had been singed off when she activated her wooden creation a few days earlier.

So disappointing. She had spent two years carving all the parts, several more months assembling the body as shown on the mage’s detailed diagrams. Years of her life wasted, when what she needed was a fully functional assistant. She did not have much longer before her family’s curse set in, limiting her own mobility.

“It tries to respond,” Dorrekus pointed out. “So what’s stopping it?”

Haltingly, Aleyshia moved closer to the mannequin. She poked at it with a cautious finger and then, getting no response, grasped one wooden wrist and moved the arm. It moved freely. “Hmm. No resistance.”

Dorrekus held back an impatient “I know!” She had, after all, asked Aleyshia to come take a look for this very reason: if someone she trusted went through everything step by step, maybe they would be able to spot what Dorrekus had missed. There had to be something. Dorrekus refused to consider the other possibility, that the traveling mage had cheated her out of money and precious time.

Aleyshia dropped the mannequin’s arm and gasped. She stepped back, wiping her hand on her leather constructor’s apron. Brow furrowed, she stared at the mannequin with what seemed like . . . fear? Shame?

“What’s the matter?” Dorrekus asked.

No answer. Aleyshia seemed frozen.

Dorrekus repeated the question to draw Aleyshia out of whatever emotion held her still. Without taking her gaze off the wooden figure, Aleyshia shook her head and said, “I’m not sure. Really.” She drew in her lower lip and cast a brief sidelong glance at Dorrekus before returning her attention to the mannequin. “Something feels off about it, that’s all.”

When Dorrekus pressed her for details, Aleyshia lifted a silencing hand. “I have to study on this. Give me a few days.”

Dorrekus agreed, for what choice did she have? Aleyshia came from one of the most famous constructor families in the region—the Karrvens, whose reputation put them at a whole other level above the Godefelds even before the curse began to afflict one generation after another of Dorrekus’s forebears. As the last Godefeld, Dorrekus had hoped to break the curse while she was young enough to have children and raise them to know that theirs was an honorable name.

She had tried everything to keep her joints from beginning to seize, as her mother’s had done, and her grandmother’s, burning like fire during storms and eventually preventing them from even rising from their beds. But nothing had taken away the lurking stiffness and vague pains that had begun to afflict Dorrekus.

That was when the traveling mage had knocked on her door and given her both hope and a plan. She had followed every detail of his instructions, carefully, not allowing herself to rush through and make a mistake. And yet the mannequin remained quiescent. Out of ideas, Dorrekus had asked Aleyshia to stop by and check her work.

She was certain that the problem had to lie with the carving or assembly of the uncooperative wooden figure, not the conjuration, which had successfully activated the mannequin and prepared it to do its maker’s bidding. The Karrvens might have been stellar constructors, but the Godefelds knew how to conjure.

Dorrekus followed Aleyshia to the heavy oaken door and said goodbye. For a few minutes she stood in the doorway, watching her friend proceed, dainty silken skirt swishing around her ankles, along the flagstone path to the cart track that led to the village.

She assured herself that Aleyshia would figure out the problem. Nevertheless she retreated into the house and pored over the plans for the mannequin one more time, only to be answerless yet again. Dorrekus ran a hand over her thin tufts of hair. “Why won’t you obey my command?” she asked, as low shafts of sunlight shining through the window reflected off a thick fog of dust motes.

Of course the mannequin made no response.

Before the sun disappeared below the horizon, Dorrekus went outside and split wood for the fire to make sure she would have enough on hand for the next storm. She brought in an armful and stacked it in the box beside the fireplace. That chore done, she told the mannequin, “This is supposed to be one of your jobs.” She hesitated, the words “See what happens to wood that doesn’t work” trembling on her tongue.

She left the threat unspoken. The mannequin could not help its immobility, any more than she would be able to, once the family curse crept deeper into her muscles and joints.

Instead she grumbled, “I guess we have no choice but to wait and see what Aleyshia has to say.”

A flare of anticipation, the feeling of magic stirring in the air, caught her senses, raised goosebumps on her arm, lifted the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. Dorrekus held her breath, waiting for something to happen. The mannequin didn’t move; it seemed as unalive as the wood she had split. She spun around, head high, questing like a hunting dog for whatever was giving off magical traces. But there was nothing.

* * *

Dorrekus did not have to wait a few days, though her impatience made the creeping passage of time feel like forever; her friend returned midafternoon the next day.

In the shadow of the doorway, Aleyshia’s face looked pale and drawn as she slipped into Dorrekus’s cottage. Scarcely had the door closed behind her when she burst out, “It was my family that cursed yours. I never knew, never suspected.”

“Wait.” The words made no sense to Dorrekus. “What do you—?”

Aleyshia, fingers twisting together and untwisting, began to answer before Dorrekus finished the question. Her words tumbled over each other. “The conjuration looked familiar. I found a version of it in my grandfather’s spellbook. It’s the one he used when your grandmother went to him, asking him to try to remove the curse from your mother.”

“What do you mean, remove the curse? I thought nothing could be done.”

“It’s not a conjuration to remove the curse,” Aleyshia explained. “It’s the one that created the curse in the first place and then renewed it upon every member of your family. The Karrvens cursed the Godefelds.”

Dorrekus’s heart thudded in her chest, the pain of betrayal as heavy and inexorable as a maul striking a splitting wedge and tearing a single piece of wood in two. She struggled to put that aside. “But why?”

Aleyshia shrugged. “I found no explanation for that, not in any of the spellbooks or journals kept by the oldsters. But I’m pretty sure I understand how the conjuration works.”

“What does it have to do with the mannequin? Are you saying the mannequin should work . . . ?”

“I fear one of my uncles—no idea which one—came to you in disguise to strengthen the curse. Your mother died before bringing you to . . .” Aleyshia took a deep breath before saying, “us . . .” Her voice tapered off.

“To try to take off the curse,” Dorrekus finished for her.

Impossibly, Aleyshia looked paler than before. “In selling you the plans, did this traveling mage perform the conjuration so you could see the gestures?”

“Yes, but—”

Aleyshia nodded. “Did your stiffness worsen after that?”

Dorrekus’s hand fluttered up to her breastbone as she realized the implications of Aleyshia’s discovery. She pressed hard against the bones that covered her aching heart. “You’re saying he strengthened the curse? That I might have partly escaped . . . ?” She could not finish. She swallowed hard. “What might my life have been?” she whispered.

Every youth in the entire valley knew about the Godefelds’ curse of immobility, which had afflicted her family for more than a hundred years, so no one ever came courting Dorrekus. In her teens, she had been prepared to do anything to delay the onset of the curse long enough to have children. When her twenties arrived, she knew she would have to break the curse herself, and with all those generations of Godefelds who had gone to the Karrvens in a vain quest for help, she had not bothered the famous constructor family. If they had not sought her out and tricked her, would she have been able to at least bear one child? But who would she have found to father it?

She gazed at Aleyshia and caught her friend staring sadly back at her.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Aleyshia stepped toward her and made to put an arm across Dorrekus’s shoulders.

Dorrekus retreated.

Aleyshia bowed her head. After a long, awkward moment she gestured toward the kitchen, where the mannequin still lay limp and unresponsive on the table. “In the same spellbook, I may have found a way to reverse the curse placed on the mannequin. Are you willing to let me try? I’m not very good at conjuration, you know that. But I didn’t dare steal the spellbook.”

Honestly, Dorrekus could not blame her for that hesitation; spellbooks were often enchanted to prevent thievery, so that they would explode or burst into flame or change the thief into some small but disgusting creature. Aleyshia was understating her lack of ability at conjuration, though. She tended to move jerkily when executing the gestures correctly, only to smooth out the motions in exactly the wrong pattern.

What she should have done was copy the conjuration and bring the diagram to Dorrekus. And what Dorrekus should have done was turn away the traveling mage with a no, thank you. Dorrekus sighed heavily.

She stared into the kitchen at the wooden figure that was, if Aleyshia was correct, useless until someone removed the same curse that was working its way through Dorrekus.

Questions piled up. Could Aleyshia’s intentions be trusted? Dorrekus thought so. Her friend would not have needed to admit to what her family had done. But could Aleyshia actually perform the conjuration? And above all, if Aleyshia did manage to remove the immobility curse from the mannequin, could she do the same for Dorrekus?

Torn, seeing a dim opportunity mixed with a lot of risk, Dorrekus assessed Aleyshia. Her friend seemed fragile, terrified, and suddenly very young, though they were within a few months of each other in age.

Dorrekus asked, “Do you really think you can do the conjuration?” She tried to keep the doubt from her voice.

“I . . . I . . .” Aleyshia cleared her froggy throat. “I did practice the conjuration over and over. I’m sure I can remember it.”

Dorrekus nodded. “All right, then.” She indicated that Aleyshia should precede her into the kitchen.

At the table, Aleyshia turned to her and shooed her away. “It might be best if you wait out by the fireplace.”

Dorrekus accepted that. The cottage was small enough that she could see everything Aleyshia did. Not that she would ever have reason to use the conjuration, she realized; she would be unable to cast it on herself.

Aleyshia’s hands moved—smoothly, Dorrekus saw with a hint of trepidation from past experience. She hoped the pattern was right. The words of a low-voiced incantation did not quite make it to Dorrekus’s ears.

Eventually Aleyshia stepped back, swaying from exhaustion. “Try it,” she croaked.

Dorrekus strode into the kitchen, halted above the mannequin, and ordered, “Speak now.”

The wooden head turned toward her, and her creation said, “Yes? What do you wish?”

Incredulous, Dorrekus and Aleyshia stared at each other, and then Aleyshia flew toward Dorrekus, grabbing her in a tight hug. “I did it!” she sang out.

“Yes, you did.”

The two young women rocked back and forth. Then Dorrekus carefully disentangled herself from Aleyshia and took hold of her friend’s soft hands. “Now take the curse off of me,” she said.

Aleyshia paled, then flushed. “No! It’s too risky.”

“You did the conjuration perfectly for the mannequin.”

“It’s not the same! If I made a mistake, I could just redo the conjuration. With you . . .”

“I know you can do it again,” Dorrekus said.

“My uncle . . .” Aleyshia, apparently realizing what she was asking of Dorrekus, faltered to a halt.

“You’re the only one I can trust to do it. Don’t deny me this chance to escape my family’s curse,” Dorrekus said. “Please.”

Aleyshia tugged her hands free. Dorrekus let her go.

“Mannequin,” Aleyshia said, “do you hear me?”

“Yes,” the wooden figure replied.

“If something goes wrong with this conjuration, would you be capable of taking a message to the Karrven household, north along the river?”

“Yes.”

Aleyshia borrowed a piece of paper and a stub of pencil from Dorrekus, wrote a note, and placed it on the table beside the mannequin. To Dorrekus she said, “If I make a mistake, hopefully my mother will be able to put everything back to rights before it’s too late.”

“You won’t make a mistake,” Dorrekus assured her.

Tears came into Aleyshia’s eyes. She wiped them away with the hem of her skirt. “All right,” she breathed. “No mistakes.”

She launched into the movements of the conjuration that would, if successful, restore Dorrekus Gotefeld’s life—and ruin her own family.