2.79: Of Curses and Blessings

The curtains closed briefly, giving the crew cover to do their magic. Aoi rushed past energetically. Tables were cleared, caskets lifted away, and the center of the stage was reset. She guided the cradle into position while the lighting crew adjusted their angles so the fabric would catch the light softly. When the marks were hit and the space stilled, she slipped back into the wing. I caught her and pulled her into a quick, excited hug.

“You don’t need to be such a stranger. Great job!”

“You’re an actor, Susu. I have other duties in between, you know.” She winked.

“True,” I sighed. “I wish I could help you set up the stage at least. Standing here looking princely behind the curtains is tiring.”

“I’ll bet. Save all that energy for your performance.” Aoi giggled.

Yuna cackled softly, warming up for her next performance.

Riko clasped her hands behind her back. “If you’re feeling lonely, Sumire, I still have a little time before my scene.” She sidled closer and rubbed her hip against mine, being far too familiar for my comfort.

“Save it for when you cop a feel in your kissing scene, baka,” Aoi muttered as she wandered past.

It was hard to forget the way she shook her hips at me in the locker room. I flushed, looking away.

“Aoi doesn’t seem to understand a single thing about being chill and sharing,” Riko muttered.

“Relationships don’t work that way,” I said, biting my lip.

“Why not? The world is a big place. Hearts should be big too. Why can’t we all just share? Why do we have to fight each other? I know that you actually like me.”

DOKI-DOKI

I looked away, turning faintly pink.

The curtains rose, cutting her off.

Light spilled across the stage as the baby doll was brought forward. A murmur passed through the audience, instinctively reacting to the presence of ‘an infant’ onstage with warmth. The Queen took Aurora into her arms at once, drawing her child close, one hand braced protectively over her back as if the world itself might reach for her. She did not sit there. Instead she stood, her shoulders squared, daring fate to approach.

The Endowers rose together, their pace unhurried and stately, forming a quiet arc around the cradle.

Endower #1 stepped forward first, her voice was clear and measured.

“I give her beauty. Not mere decoration—”

She inclined her head slightly.

“That which makes cruelty flinch.”

Endower #2 followed without pause.

“I give her wit. Not cleverness for party tricks—”

Her gaze flicked briefly toward the court.

“Clarity that sees through flattery.”

Endower #3 advanced, her hands folded.

“I give her goodness. Not obedience—”

She looked directly at the Queen.

“A heart that refuses to become small.”

Endower #4 moved next, her skirts whispering as she stopped.

“I give her grace. Not the grace of silence—”

Her voice softened, but did not weaken.

“The grace to move through danger without losing herself.”

Endower #5 completed the circle.

“I give her courage. Not reckless courage—”

She paused deliberately.

“Courage that remains when fear tries to turn her into stone.”

The Endowers settled back, the air thick with the weight of what had been given. For a breath, it seemed as though the ceremony might end there, whole and complete.

The King straightened, her eyes turning toward the far end of the table.

“Sister,” she said carefully, “will you give your endowment?”

The Uninvited Thirteenth rose at last.

She did not hurry. She pushed herself to her feet as though savoring the tension, her eyes bright with it, her lips already curved.

“Oh, I will gladly give it,” she said. “And you will remember me every day you wake.”

I clutched at my upper arms, my heart beating quicker as I listened and watched.

The Queen’s voice broke the moment, firm and desperate.

“Don’t!!!”

The Uninvited Thirteenth did not look at her.

“On the day she reaches her fifteenth birthday…” Her voice carried easily, mercilessly. “She will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel…”

A moment passed… perfectly timed.

“And she will die.”

The words struck the gym like a physical force.

A shock wave rippled outward, through the court, through the audience, through the air itself. The Queen clutched Aurora to her chest, her arms closing around the child with an instinctive ferocity, as if she could shield her simply by holding on hard enough.

The curse landed, and the hall didn’t know what to do with itself.

For a breath, everything held still, as if the sound had pinned it there. The Queen clutched Aurora tighter, her arms closing about her child on instinct. Her crown caught the stage lights, making her look steadier than she was. The Uninvited Thirteenth stood with her chin lifted, terrible and satisfied, as though the entire court existed to give her this moment.

“Have pity!” the Queen cried. Her voice cracked on the word, raw enough to scrape, “Call your fate down on me instead. Not her. Not our child.”

The Uninvited Thirteenth’s expression did not soften. If anything, it cooled further, like metal left too long in winter.

“Pity is for those who were loved.”

My throat tightened. I tasted copper, as if I had bitten my tongue, even though I hadn’t. Onstage, the King’s hand went to her ceremonial dagger, her fingers curling around the hilt until her knuckles paled.

And that was when the air changed.

The scene had reached its peak, but something else set my nerves shrieking. At the edge of the lights, near the ceiling where the stage ended and the gym began, something was moving.

I felt it before I saw it.

A chill ripped up my spine, sharp enough to leave me half numb. My breath caught. The hair on my arms lifted. My gaze snapped sideways, past the proscenium, toward the wing, toward the seam of the curtain where shadow pooled thickly, the same way it always did when Pon-chan got loose.

So it’s back… and right here…

This time, the darkness did not stay put.

It peeled itself down from the rigging above, gliding through the air too fast, moving as though gravity had no hold on it.

I gasped and dropped into a fighting stance on instinct.

My eyes widened.

In a blink, it had Aoi.

There was no scream. There had been no audible scuffle. No sound at all. Blackness folded around her, swallowing her shape like an oily ink in water. One heartbeat she was there above me, and the next she was gone, as if the world had forgotten her.

Then neither of them were there anymore.

My heart slammed hard enough to hurt.

I didn’t think, bursting into motion.

My feet were already carrying me before my brain could finish forming the word no. I slipped behind the curtain, my breathing ragged, my pulse roaring in my ears. I knew that it hadn’t just vanished.

Tingles raced along my arms and legs. I was filled with an overriding need to chase that cloud of wrongness by instinct alone. The air in the backstage felt colder, thicker, like the gym had turned into a different place the moment I crossed some sort of boundary.

Behind me, the play kept on.

No one turned their head. No one saw the hole in the world Aoi left behind.

Baku stayed in his seat.

He had put on a fake human face for the festival, the best way in his opinion, to be able to appreciate their fine performance.

Humans, even figments of them certainly are surprising. That’s why I care so much for them.

He wore a smooth, cheerful expression. His eyes were still on the stage, his ears still listening, not as small as they seemed.

Hmm… this play is very entertaining! Far better than anticipated! These children know how to perform!

The audience had gone quiet in the exact way that meant they were rapt, not merely behaving for the sake of appearances. The Endowers’ voices carried clearly. The Queen’s desperation sounded real enough to stir sympathy. Even the pauses felt well-timed.

Still, something scratched at him.

It wasn’t fear. He wasn’t even especially alarmed… and yet…

There was a misalignment, subtle and stubborn, like a seam didn’t quite match.

His gaze drifted for the briefest moment toward the wing at the side of the stage.

He didn’t know why he looked there.

He hadn’t seen anything happen, nor heard. Nothing obvious had shifted in the fabric of the dream. There was no commotion from the audience either. But there was a faint tugging somewhere behind his ribs, a sensation that a thread had been pulled out where it shouldn’t have been.

He swallowed and refocused as the onstage tension tightened.

“Stay your hand, Majesty,” Endower Eleven snapped, sharp enough to cut through the King’s motion. “Strike at an Endower and you will buy a worse curse than death.”

A collective inhalation of breath rippled through the gym. Baku heard it as a single organismal sound, hundreds of people breathing in at once.

The Youngest Endower stepped out into view from one of the wings. She was calm and pale, her posture oddly relaxed.

“My gift remains,” she said.

The Uninvited Thirteenth’s mouth twisted. “Ah. The coward returns.”

“Call it cowardice if you wish.” The Youngest Endower didn’t blink. “I call it timing.”

She faced the Queen fully, and the way she held herself made the stage feel smaller, as if courage had mass like a star.

“I cannot erase what has been spoken,” her voice landed cleanly without any tremor. “But I can change its nature.”

The silence in the gym deepened. Even the usual little noises, the shifting of feet, a cough, the squeaking of a bench on the stage… it all seemed to vanish, as if everyone had learned how to be quiet and still at the exact same time.

He found that he had fallen silent as well.

Interesting…

“She will still prick her finger. She will fall into a deep sleep…”

“...”

“… and after a hundred years, she will wake.”

“In what manner?” the King asked, and her desperation broke through formality.

The Youngest Endower lifted her chin, and for an instant her calm was defiance.

“She will be freed from her slumber by a true kiss… by the one who reaches her.”

“By the one who comes when the curse loosens.”

“By the one who chooses her.”

That sensation of pressure returned in Baku’s guts, persistently twinging.

It wasn’t a feeling of dread… not unlike recognition without context, like hearing a name you knew you should recall.

The Uninvited Thirteenth laughed once, satisfied with her work.

Curious, that. Her curse was abated… Why should she be so pleased?

“Then let her sleep. Let your kingdom rot in waiting.”

She turned and exited, leaving the feast behind like a room after having set it on fire. Although it still stood, it was ruined in a way that reeked of smoke and ashes.

Baku exhaled slowly, his fingers clasping together in his lap.

The applause came a heartbeat too late. Not because the audience didn’t like their performance, rather it was more like they needed that extra fraction of time to relax.

He clapped with everyone else when they did in a measured and polite manner, his fake face wholeheartedly smiling.

And still—

That feeling didn’t go away.

His smile melted as his eyes flicked again toward the same spot on the left behind the curtains.

It’s probably nothing, but… he told himself.

But the thought didn’t go away.

I ran after her.

Not quickly at first, moving carefully and listening, but the moment I cleared the backstage curtains and hit the hallway, my steps lengthened. I slipped out the backway through the festival, dodging and weaving through the crowd with as much skill as I had.

Somehow, I managed to get through without running into anyone.

I hurdled over objects and rushed through a few booths so that I would get where I needed to faster. I chased after that sense of wrongness ahead… a presence that I felt as though a string connected me to it.

When I reached the school building’s entrance, I plunged through more crowds in the foyer where the shoe lockers were, past a classroom running a reverse gender maid café and a haunted house on the first floor.

My lips were dry. I licked them to wet them as I ran, finding that I didn’t have much saliva to work with. I huffed and puffed loudly as I charged through the hallways.

You have to go back. The performance will be ruined if Prince Filia isn’t there for the second Act. What are you doing, Sumire?

I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye and ran harder.

Nothing matters if Aoi-chan disappears from my life! My wife! This won't be how I lose her!

Finally I reached the abandoned wing where the invisible string was pulling me. This part of the school felt extremely wrong. This wing wasn’t in use, even for the festival.

The noises of people echoed from the other wing. Festive noises leaked through walls and doors distantly, laughter and music muffled, sounding warped, like everything was being played underwater.

“Aoi-chan,” I called, keeping my voice low even though panic pressed up against my throat like a knife. “Aoi…?”

Nothing answered me except for the hum of fluorescent lights and the faint echo of my own footsteps.

My chest hurt. Every corner I turned that didn’t have her waiting behind it made the ache worse, sharper. I followed my instincts more than logic, letting my feet take me down side corridors and up and down stairwells I barely remembered using. The wing stretched out around me. The wing felt strangely alien, like it had rearranged itself just to make this search much harder.

I cut past the storage room where I’d nearly been raped by the blackmailing senpai on the third floor—

—and something landed on my shoulder.

I shrieked and spun at the same time, my heart exploding into my throat as claws gripped the fabric of my costume and a tiny body settled against my neck.

Fuzzy and warm?

“—PON?!”

Pon-chan chirped indignantly right next to my ear, his fluffy body pressed warm against my collarbone. His tail flicked across my cheek as he settled himself more securely, as if he had teleported himself onto me.

I clutched at my chest, my breathing coming in sharp bursts. “You—! Don’t do that, Pon-chan! I thought—!”

He butted his head under my chin and squeaked, his eyes bright and intent, then turned his gaze down the hallway like he already knew where we needed to go, to where the red string of fate was pulling me.

My fear didn’t go anywhere, but I moved regardless.

“…You felt it too,” I whispered.

Pon-chan chirped once, sharp and affirmative as though he could understand human speech.

“Okay,” I said, swallowing hard. “Then let’s find Aoi-chan.”

We ran together.

Baku sat straighter in his seat when the tone of the play shifted again.

The Herald’s sharp and formal voice carried clearly through the gym. The lines landed.

“By royal decree, all spinning wheels, spindles, and instruments of spinning shall be surrendered. Any who refuse shall suffer the penalty of death.”

A murmur rolled through the audience, their reaction was most certainly not scripted. Baku felt it ripple through the floor beneath him.

Onstage, villagers stepped forward, their faces tight with disbelief and anger.

“Death?” one demanded. “Over possessing a wheel?”

“My children wear clothes because of that wheel,” another said, her voice cracking with something dangerously close to defiance.

A guard stepped forward, armored and unmoving. “Give it up.”

“Will the King weave for me, then?” the first villager shot back. “Will the Queen clothe my children?”

“Give it up,” the guard repeated, harder this time.

Wheels were dragged forward. They piled up. Cloth and light rose to suggest flame, the bonfire was symbolic but no less cruel for it being simulated. The villagers watched with their jaws clenched and their fists tight, their anger forced inward because there was nowhere else to direct it.

“This is for my daughter,” the King said, her voice strained, righteousness stretched thin over desperation.

“And we pay for it,” a villager answered.

The Queen leaned closer to the King, her voice pitched low but it carried.

“You’re making enemies.”

“I’m keeping our child alive.”

“You’re teaching the kingdom that fear is law.”

“Fear is already law,” the King snapped. “I’m just writing it down.”

The Queen didn’t look away. “You’re also proving to the people that we will take anything for ourselves if only we can name it protection.”

The King’s jaw tightened. That one landed.

Baku watched, his fingers interlaced, that same unease pressing against his ribs. The scene was quite effective. It was even somewhat political in a way.

And still…

His attention drifted, again and again, toward the same wing.

He still saw nothing, but he felt something was amiss, but he couldn’t put his trunk on whatever it was. He hadn’t noticed anything overtly occurring. And yet his mind kept circling the absence like a tongue worrying at a loose tooth.

The lights dimmed.

The abandoned wing smelled different.

Dust and old paper, stale air that had barely been disturbed in weeks. Pon-chan stiffened on my shoulder, his claws digging in just enough to settle my nerves a little as my pulse spiked again.

“This way,” I whispered. My feet already knew the way.

The room at the end of the hall was half-lit, one flickering emergency bulb was casting long, broken shadows across desks that hadn’t been touched all year. And there—

My breath halted.

Aoi-chan hung limp in the arms of the thing that had taken her.

It was true.

“Aoi-chan!” I screamed.

The form was definitely hers.

But her face was now gone.

It wasn’t injured, nor hidden from my sight.

It was literally missing!

My eyes looked up and I gasped.

“No…”

The shadow creature now wore it.

It was stretched gruesomely across its surface like a mask that had no bones or muscles to hold to. Aoi’s expression was peaceful and beautiful, yet contorted in a gut wrenching way. It sat in a void, its eyes closed, her lips slack, framed by darkness that made up the rest of the thing’s form.

My stomach dropped out from under me.

Something inside me snapped firmly into place at the ghastly sight.

Rage burned clean and bright inside me, drowning out fear so completely it felt like relief.

“LET HER GO NOW!”

I didn’t wait for an answer.

I launched myself forward, every lesson Aoi-chan had ever drilled into me screaming through my muscles. My foot connected with its side hard enough to jar my whole leg. It reeled, its shadowy substance rippling, but it didn’t drop her.

Pon-chan leapt from my shoulder in a blur of fur and fury, shrieking as he raked at the thing’s arm.

“YOU DON’T GET TO TOUCH HER LIKE THAT!” I snarled, striking, my fists burning with each hit, my vision narrowing to just black and white.

For a heartbeat, just one moment, I thought I might actually manage to tear Aoi free.

Then the shadow twisted.

It flowed backward, impossibly fast, clutching Aoi to its chest as it dissolved into darkness and spilled through the far wall like smoke through a crack.

“No!” I screamed, already chasing it again, my lungs on fire, my heart hammering hard enough to hurt.

Pon-chan scurried back up my costume’s pants, up to my shoulder.

The hallway stretched onward as we ran.

The darkness fled me.

And I followed without slowing, without hesitating, without letting myself think of anything except for getting her back.

Light rose slowly over the court on stage.

The banners were brighter now. Celebratory music threaded softly through the hall. Courtiers filled the space with careful smiles and polite motions, the colors of their costumes warm against the bleak stone.

Aurora stood at the center of it all.

Riko. Interesting. I wonder how well she will handle her part. The youth seems too brash to project a proper princess-like aura.

Megumi spoke over the speaker from backstage. “Aurora has bloomed, lovely and graceful. She has become everything that her blessings promised and more. Everyone in the court attends her on her fifteenth birthday.”

She moved very much like someone who had grown up watched by everyone, her chin lifted, her hands folded, her posture elegant. But there was restlessness in how her feet moved, energy that wanted to escape who she had been taught to be. She turned slightly as the music swelled, taking in the rapturous faces around her as if she were already half-bored of them.

Ah… she projects this surprisingly well. Perhaps I was more worried than I should have been.

The Queen stood beside the throne, still as a statue. Her hands were clasped, her knuckles pale, her eyes never leaving her daughter for more than a blink.

The King sat tall, her shoulders squared, her smile fixed into place with visible effort.

“Look,” the King said, her voice ringing with warmth. She gestured outward, toward the court, the banners, the gathered people. “She is safe. There are no wheels left in our kingdom. No spindles left to prick her. Her fate abates and brightens.”

A murmur of approval rippled through the hall.

Their sacrifice was not meaningless, it would appear. Ah, but… it can’t possibly go on as it is.

The Queen did not join the murmuring.

“Fate doesn’t need wheels,” she said quietly. “Fate needs a crack.”

The music faltered, just slightly, then recovered.

Aurora turned toward her mother, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed with excitement, devoid of fear. “Mother,” she said, stepping closer, unable to keep still. “May I wander the castle today? I wish to see every corner. It’s my birthday.”

The King leaned forward, eager to seize the moment. “Go,” she said. “Be happy, Princess.”

The Queen’s response came too fast.

“But do not go near the eastern tower.”

Aurora stopped.

The word tower lingered in the air, sounding heavy. She was immediately intrigued.

Hmm… exactly the twist that I expected. Baku tilted his head thoughtfully, holding his breath.

“The eastern tower?” Aurora echoed, tilting her own head.

The Queen drew a breath, searching for calm that did not come easily. “It is old,” she said. “And dust-choked. There is nothing worth seeing there.”

Aurora’s smile widened, not in defiance, but in delight.

“That makes it exactly worth seeing.”

Very much like Riko. He laughed quietly behind his hand. If this princess is so ambitious, it should go very well. Her natural spirit actually contributes to her part rather than proving to be a detriment.

Before either of them could reach her, she was already moving, her skirts swaying, laughter trailing behind her as she slipped past the courtiers and out of sight offstage.

The Queen turned sharply to the King, her voice dropping low enough to cut through the celebration without stopping it.

“Your ban didn’t change her fate,” she said. “It only hid it in a place you forgot to look.”

“I didn’t forget,” the King replied, too quickly.

The Queen studied her face. “Then why does your voice sound like you’re lying?”

The King straightened, her jaw tightening. “Do not worry. That chamber is locked. The key has been lost for many years. She will not enter.”

The music swelled again and the court applauded.

And somewhere, beyond the reach of banners and smiles, a door waited.

The light fell as the curtains closed.