Curse-Bearer (Part One)

At night, Ammi feels most alive. Perhaps it because the legends are true, and that woodland spirits—the spirits some believe to wield control over life itself--  awaken during the night, gliding through the trees like wind. Or perhaps it because that one particular spirit, the one who keeps her the way she is, the one whose essence courses through her veins, is particularly powerful during the night. During the darkest hours, for that is where he is rumored to have dominion.
Or perhaps it is merely because during the night, when the world is steeped in darkness, no one can truly see her.
Part of her wishes that it was always night, that she could always go about freely, unburdened by the weight of stares and hushed gossip. She could travel without her cloak, uncover her face—even pretend that she is normal, healthy. Not scarred by the disease that has ravaged her body since she was born, causing her to be misshapen, deformed. Some have even referred to the state of her body as twisted—and although it pains her to hear those words, she cannot deny the simple truth of them. Her limbs, meant to be strong and healthy and straight, have been so contorted by her disease that they have taken to growing in spirals, like weeds worming their way through undergrowth.
It is no wonder, then, why she is never allowed to be uncovered in the light of day.
She understands why the people of her village shun her, turn her aside. After all, her appearance, glimpsed occasionally by her in the reflection of a murky puddle or a small pool, often frightens even her. Horrifies her. Sickens her. But that does not necessarily mean that she doesn’t feel the pain of the rejection. That she does not feel the heavy, unyielding agony of being ignored. That she does not wish that someone, anyone, would be willing to simply look her in the eyes without flinching, touch her without immediately drawing away.
If she still had all her fingers, Ammi could count on them the number of times she has been touched throughout her entire life.
That might be the most painful part of it all: not being touched. She can understand why they would not want to see her, to look upon her various deformities and imperfection. But she cannot understand them not touching her, for there is no reason not to. The disease she has—the one that causes people to recoil, to avert their eyes—is not contagious, not in the very least. It is a sickness brought on by the Night Spirit, a curse inflicted upon her since the moment she was conceived, and that means that her affliction—as well as the spread of it—is determined not by exposure or contact, but by the will of the Night Spirit himself.
Why Ammi has been afflicted, she cannot say. She has heard rumors, of course—idle tales that her mother offended the Night Spirit in some way, inciting his wrath against both her and her child. But she has never heard anything definitive. In fact, she is fairly certain that no one, aside from the Spirit himself, know the reason for her curse. That is, she is ignorant as to why she specifically was cursed, has no idea why she, out of the dozens of beings in her village, was selected for this affliction.
But she does know why beings are chosen for the curse. Everyone does. It is a simple, accepted fact—something that is never questioned because it is, plainly and simply, true.
The curse brings balance.
The world, as Ammi and her people have come to see it, is governed by two opposing forces: The Adaama and the Haavah. The Adaama embodies all that is wrong with the world: it is dark, evil, destructive, while the Haavah represents the exact opposite. For where the Adaama is blacker than night, more vile than death itself, the Haavah is blindingly radiant, the brightest light of all, and it is life-giving. It is as separate from the Adaama as the sky is from the land, as the day is from the night; and yet, somehow, it is undeniably similar to the Adaama. Both seek to rule; both seek to dominate; and both were, are, and will be locked in a battle with one another.
The battle, of course, has no foreseeable end. When the Haavah is victorious, when it creates life and brings about the day, the Adaama is there to strike it down. To depose it. Where once was life and goodness and the light, the Adaama establishes its kingdom of death, evil, and darkness, effectively unraveling the Haavah’s victory for a time. But then, inevitably, the Haavah will rise again, defeat the Adaama, complete the cycle. That is, until the Adaama disrupts it once again.
This battle, this constant cycle of good and evil, life and death, is what creates the balance. In fact, it is the balance—and without it, all would be thrown into chaos. The Haavah would become too bright, searing the world with its brilliance, while the Adaama would be become far too dark. Far too destructive.
That is why the balance must be maintained.
And sometimes, maintaining the balance means that there must not be too much good residing in one place. A happy, healthy village—one like hers—cannot be too happy, nor too healthy; there must be some sadness thrown in, some malady to taint the good health. Some ugliness to counter the beauty.
When it is necessary, the Night Spirit, who is of the Adaama, is required to maintain this balance within a village, and must bring down a curse on one of the villagers. Perhaps he could select more; perhaps he could curse several at a time, choosing instead to afflict each with lighter illnesses. But for whatever reason, he only selects one, imbuing him or her with all of the Adaama essence necessary to maintain the balance. Creating, in the end, someone like her.
Creating a Curse-Bearer.
Ammi knows, somewhere deep in her soul, that this is necessary. That she is, in a strange, grotesque way, important. Vital, even. But knowing this, holding this truth in her heart, doesn’t quench the agony of the curse or comfort her with the knowledge that she is suffering for the good of her village. That she is their martyr. Quite the opposite—the fact that she is doing this for people who ostracize her, who will not even see her, makes her curse that much more bitter. And it makes her hatred toward them—the Night Spirit, her village, the pointless war between the Adaama and the Haavah—grow all the more.
If her heart had not been ripped from her long ago, it would be filled to the brim with hatred.
As she hobbles painfully toward the edge of the village—the villagers would not dare have her living too close—Ammi finds herself trying to feel angry, to feel hurt, but instead finds that she can feel scarcely anything at all. All that is inside her, all that is left of her humanity, is longing. An intense, incessant craving for…everything. For touching, and for others touching her. For health. For a face that people will not shrink away. For something—anything—besides this curse.
She would like, just for once, to be normal .To be like everyone else. To be rid of the curse, if only for a moment. Any relief, however brief, would be absolute bliss. For to one enslaved since conception, even a moment of freedom is sweeter than anything he or she will ever experience.
Wincing at the pain that shoots up her mangled limbs, Ammi limps into her tent, then lowers herself to the ground. For now, she will have to make do with sleep, let it be her sweetest thing. Her freedom. Possessing a shadow of thing, a faint echo of it, is far better than to have nothing at all.
Or at least she tells herself this.
Just as she prepares to take hold of this almost-freedom, however, she is jolted fully awake. Something—she is not sure what—is touching her, brushing along her spine. At first, this sensation elates her; she can almost imagine what it would be like to have someone touch her there, where she’s so vulnerable. In fact, she almost convinces herself that someone is touching her there, drawing fingers along the mountains and valleys of her vertebrae, but then she rolls over. Finds a piece of parchment instead of a warm, human hand, and sighs.
Just my luck, she thinks bitterly, dejectedly. She begins to reach for the parchment, intent on ripping it shreds. On making it match the state of her heart. But something in her stops her, makes her hesitate. She rarely gets to hold parchment; the only time she does is when people discard them, tossing them into the waste-burning pile she lives beside. And even then, what is written on the parchment is always incomplete; she can make out a few words, a few sentences here and there (she has taught herself to read by leafing through discarded parchment), but nothing is ever whole. Entirely there. So perhaps this time, this one time…perhaps there will be something complete.
Picking the parchment up with what remains of her gnarled fingers, Ammi turns the parchment over carefully. The parchment isn’t damaged or scorched in the slightest. It is white—pure white, the whitest white she has ever seen—contrasting sharply with the stream of letters flowing across it. In fact, the contrast is so stark, so clear-cut, that reading it in the soft moonlight is fairly easy; she doesn’t have to squint at the words, strain her eyes. She simply reads it, simple as that, as if she reading in the light of day.

Dearest Ammi,
I am aware that you don’t know me, and that is fine. I would be surprised if you did. But as it happens, I do know you, and I know that you’re a Curse-Bearer.
How I know that is irrelevant at this time. What I instead need to explain to you—what you have to understand, what you must grasp—is this: your people are wrong about the curse. And I can prove it. Just venture out into the forest on the night of the new moon (which is tonight, I believe), and you’ll have all the proof you’ll ever need.
On a side note, I think your people are equally wrong about you being ugly, because you are not. You’re beautiful. Really, you are. It is simply that your people, as blind as they are, cannot recognize beauty, even when it’s staring them straight in the eye.
Maybe you’ll also find that this is true tomorrow night.
With Love,
Yesu-Nim

Ammi blinks. Frowns. Stares at the parchment long and hard, rereading it so many times that her eyes begin to tire—and even then, she does not understand. Does not grasp the words written across the parchment, the words written just for her, because that is not something people do. They would rather not think of her, erase her from their minds so that they can forget—at least for a moment—that evil still has power in the world.
This letter should be impossible.
And yet…and yet the existence of the letter is indisputable. Inarguable. To pretend that it does not exist, to convince herself that she has never read it or held it in her hands—that would be as ridiculous as forgetting the moonlight that washes over her now, turning her silver.
So this leaves her with two options: either the letter was sent mistakenly—maybe there’s another Ammi out there in the world—or the letter is truly meant for her. And quite honestly, the latter option scares her. Scares her badly. For she has never—not once—been the focus of another person, and to even think that she could be makes her feel as though she is falling down a well with no bottom, no limits. No end in sight.
But no. This letter—it is not meant for her. Was not written with her in mind. It was merely a mistake, an accident, and she should not believe that the letter holds any meaning for her. Nothing does, after all. And nothing ever will. The only purpose she has—the only meaning that gives her life shape, gives it significance—is suffering, and even that is beginning to appear pointless to her. To look like it has no rhyme, no reason.
Once more, Ammi is tempted to just rip the parchment to shreds, reduce it to no more than a pile of scraps—but yet again, something stops her. Makes her take a moment to reconsider. Perhaps the letter was intended for her—and maybe, just maybe, the person who wrote it truly meant everything he said. Even the parts about her people being wrong about the curse. Even the parts about her being beautiful. And if that is the case—if he really did mean all those wonderful things—then maybe he’s worth believing, if only to take the edge off her pain.
Except she cannot pretend that, not even for a moment. Cannot let herself believe that anyone would say anything kind about her. That anyone would care to notice her in a positive way, looking past her scars and deformities to see…whatever else there is.
She is not even certain that there is anything about her that doesn’t involve the curse.
And that’s fine and well by her. Truly, it is. She has suffered for so long—for seeming eternities, for entire ages—that pain really has no effect on her. Not anymore, that is.
As she drifts off into a fitful sleep, Ammi reflects that pain—the only constant in her life—is the closest thing she has to a friend.

***

The next morning, Ammi awakens to fresh pains, feels them shooting through her like falling stars. She tries a couple of times to sit up, to pull herself up from the ground—but each time, her body is wracked by an agony so sharp, so intense, that she is almost rendered unconscious. That darkness swims along the edges of her vision, threatening to close in. To descend on her—which, at this moment, does not seem like all that bad of a thing. Darkness means oblivion, nothingness, void—places where pain cannot exist. Where suffering does not afflict anyone, because there is no one to afflict.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, Ammi lets herself lie on her mat for a moment, breathing hard. She glances down at her chest, watches it work hard, watches it strain to feed her more air—then she catches sight of something lying flat across it. With an effort, she reaches out to touch it—whatever “it” is—letting her knobby fingers run across its surface. Letting them evaluate it, scrutinize it like four gnarled, bony eyes.
Another piece of parchment.
Sighing, she curls her fingers about the parchment, brings it close to her face. No long, elegant message this time. Just three words, scrawled across the parchment in large, messy strokes:

He is coming.


Despite the pain raging through her body, Ammi finds that she can muster enough strength to feel somewhat curious. Is it the same person again, the one who’s trying to message the other Ammi? Is it another mistake? Not likely, she surmises reluctantly; the chances that a mistake like that could occur twice within such a small window of time are rather slim, terribly so. And besides, her people aren’t ones to believe in chance, in coincidence. In meaningless happenings. For her people, everything occurs for a reason, even if that reason is not readily discernible. Even if it cannot yet be seen.
Grudgingly, Ammi begins to accept that this might not be an accident. For the evidence that the parchment was sent deliberately, that it was sent with a purpose—it is far too obvious for even her to overlook. To ignore. Everything about it screams “This is meant for you, Ammi” loudly enough to break through her cynical walls and defenses, to bring them toppling to the ground.
But if all of this is true—if the letter truly is intended for her—then there still remains this question: why? Why send something, anything, to her? Why pretend to care, to feel toward her something besides revulsion? Besides disgust? Why lie to her, tell her that she is beautiful? That she is not ugly, diseased, accursed?
Why?
Even after letting her mind run through all of the possibilities, Ammi cannot come up with an answer to that. At least, not one that brings her any measure of  comfort, for she has no trouble imagining scenarios that are…well, less than ideal. It is what she is good at, after all: she has no issue seeing the world through darkened, gritty lenses, because that is how she has grown accustomed to seeing things. Because to her, that is how things are; the darkness, the grittiness, the hopelessness are reality. The rest, as far as she is concerned, is merely a fanciful dream, the idle wishes of someone who is not strong enough to see the world as it truly is.
Maybe that is what she should do now: go back to sleep, and let dreams overtake her. Really, that wouldn’t be all that bad of an idea—especially if her pain level stays where it is, so constant and insistent and loud. So near to breaking her, which saying something, because pain has never broken her. Has never even come close. She has simply grown so accustomed to it, so familiar with it that it rarely holds any potency.
Accept for now.
Biting back an agonized howl as she shifts positions, sending waves of pain blaring through her muscles, Ammi realizes that she needs help. That she needs someone—anyone—to help her ease this pain, if only marginally. Otherwise…otherwise, she is not so certain she will make it through the day. The next hour. The next second.
But who could help? The village healer, perhaps, with her assortment of herbs and poultices and home-remedies. Or perhaps the priests, with all their prayers and shrines. With all their wailings to a spirit that has never, not once, shown itself. Or even been kind to Ammi, for that matter, so—
“Curse-bearer, come here!”
Ammi blinks heavy, fatigued lids. Someone has called her. And not just someone, judging by the sound of the voice—if she isn’t mistaken, the person calling for her is Kanto, the leader of the village. The last person who would ever acknowledge her—even think of her.
Everything in her wants to fall asleep. To let unconscious take her, sweep her far away. But she knows that if she does not respond, Kanto will have her killed, right here, right now. Which might not be that unfortunate a fate, given her current condition—but then again, she has no idea whether or not her pains, her curse, will follow her to the afterlife. Does not know if it will cling to her there, like a scent that refuses to fade, so she decides that she doesn’t want death in this one instance. Decides to roll over and slowly, painfully, drag herself out of her tent.
Kanto, a tall, dark-skinned man with a shaven head, stands twenty or so feet away from her, watching her with a measured gaze. A majority of the village is gathered around him in silence, which is odd. Normally, her fellow her villagers are out attending to their own business, and can rarely be coaxed into gathering together. Not because they dislike each other, of course; in fact, most of them seem to get along quite amiably. It’s just that there are so many other things for them to be doing—good, important things that must be done now, that cannot wait. So whatever brought them here…whatever has made them gather as one, observing her with wide eyes…it has to something special. Something altogether worth it.
Either that, or they’ve been ordered to by Kanto.
“Someone is here to see you,” Kanto says, and he turns his gaze upward. Craning her neck—a movement that sets her spine aflame with fresh agony—Ammi follows his gaze, stares into the clear, azure sky. For a moment, there is nothing to be seen, nothing at all. No clouds, no birds—then before she can blink, something long and dark comes into view, angling toward them like a hawk diving toward its prey. And perhaps that is exactly what this thing is going to do: it will swoop down, grab all of them up in its huge, glistening talons. Make a meal out of them. But when Ammi sees it slowing its descent, its huge, thunderous wings spread like wind sails, she knows instantly that it has something else on its mind.
Whatever that could be.
With a delicateness belying its considerable size, the thing lands behind the throng of villagers, so that only Ammi can see it. Can be terrified by it, because that is what it is—terrifying. Frightening. It is not ugly, no; actually, she finds it strangely beautiful, with its long, curving neck, glittering scales, and serpentine body. With its huge, translucent wings, membranes stretching across seemingly fragile bones like silk pulled across a loom. With its blue, crystalline eyes, which meet her own with cool indifference.
No, it is not frightening because of it looks like.
It is frightening because of what it is.
Because it is a dragon.
“Good morning,” the dragon says smoothly—almost pleasantly. He raises one scaly brow, considers the villagers with a look of mild disdain. “No, no, silly children. Not now. You won’t be needed until…” He blinks slowly, as if he is mulling that over. “Oh, I’ll just call you if you are needed, little hatchlings. So for now, I would greatly appreciate it if you all left me to speak with your village leader and curse-bearer alone.”
The dragon doesn’t need to repeat himself, for as soon as the words leave his mouth, the villagers scurry off, leaving her and Kanto alone with the dragon.
“Now, that’s better,” the dragon says, sitting back on his haunches. “We couldn’t be expected to talk openly in the presence of all those commoners, now could we?”
Kanto gazes at the dragon evenly, as if this is commonplace for him. As if this is the most ordinary, mundane in the world, which Ammi finds strange. Up until now, she herself was not entirely convinced that dragons exist—at one time, she thought it more likely that they were merely creatures of legend, mythical beasts woven into old wives’ tales—and she still has trouble believing it. Still wonders if her eyes are not playing tricks on her, making her see wild, impossible things—so for Kanto to be behaving as if he is regarding something as commonplace as a goat defies logic. Is so very, very unlikely that Ammi begins to wonder if this is not the first time her village leader has encountered a dragon.
Kanto’s dark eyes narrow. “Why are you here, Abaddon?”
The dragon—Adaddon, presumably—chuckles, shaking the ground slightly. “Oh, you’re going to pretend now, aren’t you? Oh, that isn’t smart of you, human. Not smart at all. Because there is nothing I hate more than being patronized—and you, of all people, should know what I do to those I hate.”
Kanto pales a few shades. “Forgive me, lord Abaddon, I—“
“Forgive you?” Abaddon repeats, the sound of his voice slamming into her like a storm. “Forgive you? My dear friend, I am afraid you have completely misunderstood me; forgiveness has never, not once, been a part of me. The only reason I won’t smoke you to a crisp right where you stand is because I’m having a spot of indigestion at the moment, and I really don’t feel up to incinerating anything.” Eyes narrowing to slits, he studies her intently. “You there—I’m supposing that you’re the village curse-bearer, yes? Or at least, that’s what they’ve told you, isn’t it?”
Ammi knows she should feel afraid. That she should be quivering right now, burying her face in the earth. But for some reason, she is not—and not only that, she feels strangely energized by the nearness of the dragon, as if some of his power is leaking into her veins. Coursing through her body, through her everything, so instead of just nodding to Abaddon in response, she finds she has the courage to reply. To actually speak to the beast. “Yes, they’ve told me that.”
Abaddon’s thick, scaly lips pull back in an expression that is somewhere between a grin and a snarl. “Would it surprise you, then, to learn that your village wasn’t telling you the entire truth?
Ammi finds herself saying, “Not really.”
His grin/snarl broadens. “Good lass. Trust no one—especially not the indolent fools who’ve volunteered you to bear my curse.”
A bolt of shock, cold as ice, shoots through her. Makes her go stiff. She has never had a high opinion of her fellow villagers—they are, after all, partly to blame for her curse. But she has never entertained the idea that might be fully responsible; she has never, not once, believed that anyone other than the Night Spirit selected her to bear the curse. To struggle under the weight of it. To be crushed by it, even as the rest of her village goes about healthy and unharmed, free from the bondage she was born to.
The mere suggestion that her village willingly gave her up for such a thing almost shuts her down.
Almost being the operating word, for she still has enough mind to make connections. To realize that the dragon—Adaddon—sitting before her is the Night Spirit, one of the servants of the Adaama. One of the agents of darkness.
As if reading her thoughts, Adaddon grins/snarls and says, “You know it to be true, don’t you? You know that your village lied to you, deceived you. And you want to know something else? That’s not all they lied to you about.” He gazes down at her, reptilian eyes boring into hers hungrily. “But I can disclose all of that to you once I’ve brought you home.”
She thinks she should feel shocked by this. Maybe even outraged, incensed. But for some reason—perhaps because of the pain she is in, or because she has not yet had to time to fully process Abaddon’s words—she feels nothing. Nothing at all. She is only numb, as if her body has lost all capacity for sensation.
But that is not a weakness. Not for her, at least. Evading feeling, escaping pain—to her, that is strength, a power to be celebrated. To be embraced with arms spread wide.
So she does exactly that: she welcomes the numbness. Lets it take hold of her, overcome her. Possess her. For otherwise…otherwise, she will have to look reality straight in its cold, hard eyes, and she wants to avoid that at all costs. Even if it means becoming a little less human, a little less alive.
After all, she has a feeling that she has been dead for quite some time.
Voice flat, unaffected, she asks, “What do you want from me?”
A cold, cold grin spreads his mouth. “Your life, of course.”
“You’re going to kill me.” She says it plainly, as if she is stating a simple fact. Uttering a long-accepted truth.  And…well, perhaps she is—perhaps she has known, from the moment she was told about the curse till now, that the Night Spirit wouldn’t be satisfied with simply making her suffer. No, a creature like him needs more than that, needs something as final and irreversible and absolute as death.
“In a matter of speaking, yes.”
If her mind and body wasn’t still drifting through a haze of numbness, her heart would have turned icy cold right then. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“My dear,” he says warmly, sounding more like a doting old grandfather than a dragon, “one does not need to kill in order to take a life. On the contrary, I found that my alternative—my approach, if you will—is far more…gratifying than death.”
There are hundreds of things that he can mean, Ammi knows, but only one word flashes in her mind, bright as a falling star: suffering. It is what has killed her now, after all; and it is what has been killing her, all her life. What has been forcing her, day after day, to die. So one more death, one more day of being killed—it will not make that much of a difference. Not to her, the girl who now wears callousness as armor.
“Alright,” she says. “Do it. Take me home.”
Rolling his immense shoulders, Abaddon pushes himself off the ground, comes to stand before her. “Good, good. I’d thought you’d never ask. Most of them don’t, in fact; they usually just wail, beg me to let them stay. But you…” He assesses her coldly, pragmatically, as if he were sizing up a cut of meat rather than a person. “I can tell that you are something altogether different. Unique. I get the feeling we should be getting along well—quite well.”
As he bends down to scoop her up, Ammi—or rather, the part of Ammi that still feels, the part of her that wants to live—remembers the letter she received last night. The letter that told her she was beautiful, that she was loved. The one that told her to meet him—whoever he was—in the forest, and she cannot help but wonder what would have happened if she had obeyed that letter, if she had come when she summoned. Would her life be taking a different course now, leading her down some better, brighter path? Or was this always going to be the end result, no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried to make things different?
Her body gently enclosed in Abaddon’s mouth, she tells herself that it doesn’t matter now. That moment—the moment where she could have altered her course, gone a different way—is past. There will be no second chances, no attempts to fix things, no doubling-back—there is only moving forward, and taking whatever path lies ahead.
And the part of her that can still feel gets the impression that that path will be a dark one.


TO BE CONTINUED…