Curses and cures

It is said that time heals everything, but it depends on everyone's own feelings and if they want to be healed.

“Yes, I remember him. Victor” Hana says while rubbing her forehead as if it has a headache.

“No… Everything was going so well since you woke up saying that you had no memory” Valentine sits on the couch next to her friend “I thought this could be a new start, again. I don’t know why you fell asleep for so long and taking care of you wasn’t easy. I just knew if was Victor’s fault somehow and I was so happy seeing you forget about him”

“You know, a curse is a reality alteration for the victim. In order to cast one, you must analyze the behavior of the target and then use magic energy to give a little twist”

“Like that guy that you cursed into talking only in rhymes?”

“Yes, he was proud of his way of speaking, so that’s where I attacked” Hana smiles, and then gets serious again “In my case, Victor knew how easily I get attached to people. He knew me very well, I analyzed the curse he left on me and looks like I can’t have any sort of attraction to someone or the curse will try to kill them”

“What? So he wanted you to be alone forever?”

“Not exactly, when the curse activates I hear his voice… He doesn’t want me to be alone, he wants me to be only with him”

“After all what he did to you? Oh that piece of sh…” Valentine gets mad for an instant and then the light in her eyes changes like if she had an idea “Can’t you undo the curse? Break it? Whatever, eliminate it. You are very powerful after all”

“Sadly, no. Only the caster has the power over the curse. So I have to find Victor to do so, and only if he wills to do it”

“Not fair! And how come both of you fell asleep? What’s up with that? Was that part of the curse?”

“Well, we were cursing each other at the same time… maybe it was a setback, a secondary effect of magic energy” Hana tries to explain and then looks at her friend “wait, did you say both? Was Victor equally affected? Do you know where he is?”

“Uh, yeah, about that…” Valentine tries her best to evade visual contact “Yeah, he was affected. I tried to cut his throat as soon as I had the chance. But his skin had some sort of shield, I don’t know, it wasn’t possible”

“Ah, protection until the slumber finishes. It would be getting weaker with time, maybe I had something similar. What did you do then?”

“I… got rid of the body” Valentine moves her eyes from one side to another “After I took your body and left it on bed… I grabbed a shovel and then Victor’s body and flew far away. Maybe I dropped him a couple of times by…accident” She smirks “Finally got to a graveyard and I dug a hole and leave him there to rot”

“Do you know where that place was?”

“Not really… Everything has changed so much”

“Probably he died, no way he could survive to waking up one day buried 3 meters underground”

“Oh, it was more than that, much more” Valentine smiles with an expression as if she remembered something funny.

“Geez, remember me not to get on your bad side. Guess I’ll have to get used to live with the curse then… another new thing” Hana sighs “Everything is so different”

“Yeah, humans have created and updated a lot of things in the last 100 years, and I mean A LOT. Cities aren’t even the same after a lapse of just 10 years”

“It’s a shame I missed great part of that evolution”

“Well I have memories, photos and videos. You were there, just asleep”

“What?”

“Yeah, I may have used all the sunlight protection potions by now but I made good use of them. I started my own business, made sure we never lost this house, bought you all kinds of stuff I knew you'd like, and took care of your body since it still grow older and your hair and nails never stopped growing too”

“You did?” Hana takes a look at her nails, she hadn’t really noticed but there is some clear nail polish on them and were trimmed in a circular and cute form “wow I had no idea, thanks” She smiles and hugs her friend.

“No worries” Valentine hugs back “Every Thursday night was the moment to take care of you. I got lucky you didn’t wake up when I used those weird nail polish, or when I dyed your hair”

“You did what?”

“Sorry, I was bored. Your hair is just so beautiful. And in pink it looks just like cotton candy. Tell me, how could I resist?”

“Is it still dyed?” Hana touches her hair and pulls it a bit to take a closer look.

“Nah, I stopped doing it over 20 years ago. But you can have a look. Wait here” Valentine gets up and leaves for a couple of minutes and then returns with some old photo albums “Have a look”

Hana takes the big book looking objects and looks at the pictures and there she is, almost in each one there’s a smiling valentine and a sleeping Hana. The bed sheets change, even Hana’s nightgown changes.

<Wow, she waited for me all this time> Hana thinks filled with joy <I couldn’t ask for a better friend>

Then she arrives at some pages with only Hana pictures in them. She’s sleeping as always but her hair is what is interesting there, each one of those pictures she has a different hair color. Green, blue, yellow, pink, red, purple and sometimes mixed.

“I loved how you looked in pink” Valentine points at a picture “I had a lot of fun, but someone told me that if you dye it too much it will damage the hair so I stopped”

Hana doesn’t know how to feel, it was done without her consent but at the same time she thought about how hard those years should have been for her friend being all alone, so she just let it pass. In the picture with the purple hair she notices an orange cat.

“Oh? Who is this?” Hana points with her index finger “You have a cat?”

“Had…my dear Skimbleshanks left me alone some time ago” Valentine sighs.

“Oh, I’m sorry”

“No problem, he was my last companion. I had some dogs too, you know. It was fun but sometimes it’s hard to know that you’ll outlive everything and be alone again… But we still did plenty of good memories”

“Thank you Valentine… for everything” Hana smiles “Hey, you didn’t tell me about your potions before. I thought you got bored of living under the light, I’ll make you some right away”

“I don’t want to bother you. I just got used to live in the dark again”

“Is not a bother at all. Maybe you can be with us tomorrow. Jeanne will be coming here to watch a movie, huh, or it will be Pierre? I don’t know”

“That sounds nice. If there’s no problem, I would like that”

“Great, then I’ll get right into it” She gets up and goes to the kitchen where all her potion crafting materials are.

“So, how do you feel about her? Him?”

“I liked to be with her today, she’s fun. I would like to know her better but now that I understand the curse I’ll be completely honest and hope that it won't creep her out”

Valentine smiles as she watches her friend from behind while she picks the potion ingredients “Good luck with that, I’ll be by your side to cheer you up if it doesn’t work out”

“I know you will, thanks” Hana turns around and smiles back.

DING DONG

The doorbell rings the next day. Valentine and Hana spent the night talking and looking at photos until the witch fell asleep on the couch, her friend decided to take a nap so she could resist being awake in daylight hours. But they weren’t able to control their time well and weren't fully ready by the time of their guest arrival. Hana uses a bit of magic to speed up her dressing process and can get the door after the doorbell rings for a second time.

“Sorry for the wait, I got into bed really late” She says smiling.

“Don’t worry” Says the guy at the entrance, today Pierre is wearing the same body he did at the bar, with different black clothes and now a cervical collar.

“Don’t break your body again! It wasn’t easy to fix” Hiroshi yells while entering his car “Good day miss, please have a great day you two” Then he turns on the engine and leaves.

“Don’t mind him, he’s only worried” Pierre whispers as if Hiroshi could hear him “But I know it was only an accident so don’t feel bad about it”

“Yeah.. about that…”

Hana lets Pierre inside her house, his eyes are moving from one side to the other looking at how beautiful it is on the inside. Meanwhile she explains her curse, trying to be as clear as possible.

“So this Victor guy was not only mean to you, but he also made sure you weren’t going to try and be happy with anyone else?” Pierre says trying to fully understand the situation.

“Yeah. Seems that if I feel any sort of attraction, the curse will attack the person in a lethal way” Hana says, they are now sitting one in front of the other at the dining table. She has served some coffee for her and is looking at the cup since is not able to look Pierre directly into his eyes “That’s why you broke your neck, or why that flowerpot almost hit you. With that size it would have crushed your head”

“I get it… in other words. Are you saying that you feel some sort of attraction to me? Even if I’m Pierre or Jeanne?”

“I… well I mean…” Hana blushes, she feels like if her face is burning “I think that could be… yes. But we couldn’t be together or you could be hurt”

“Good thing I’m already dead then” He smiles “That way I can handle any sort of attack your curse sends me”

“That means…”

“Yeah…” His movements show that he is nervous. Since he can’t blush, his face is as pale as ever, but if he could then it would be as red as a tomato “Well, I find you very attractive and interesting. So I also feel something for you”

“Oh! I… thanks” Hana moves her eyes from her cup to him and back while blinking very fast “If you don’t mind. We could try knowing each other a little better and see if it could work, is it ok with you?”

“Yes… yes… I don’t mind, I’m not very good at this but I’ll love to give it a chance”

They both lower their heads a bit and enter into an awkward silence. Without noticing, behind the wall near the entrance to that room was Valentine hearing everything from the very start. She has her eyes filled with surprise and is covering her mouth with both hands.

<Oh dear, what just happened?> She thinks <If I weren’t so scared of going into the daylight i would have arrived earlier. But then I would have interrupted their little chat. I wasn’t sure of going inside, I needed them to finish first but that escalated pretty quick> She closes her eyes, breathes and tries to calm down <Ok, Valentine. You can do this, just act natural, it seems like they finally finished talking, I’m going in> She moves and goes inside the room “Hello good afternoon… huh?”

Hana and Pierre are holding hands over the table and their bodies are a little tilted forward like they were trying to kiss. When they heard Valentine’s greet, they let it go and returned nervously to their seats pretending as if nothing happened but Valentine’s keen vampiric eyes saw everything.

<Oh no, I should have left them alone a little longer> She thinks and tries to act “Hey Pierre… Nice to see you, Hana told me you have plans today”

“Oh yes…” He smiles “I brought my laptop. The plan is to watch a movie. Maybe you want to join us? Is about…”

They all had a really wonderful evening and smiled as if they hadn’t a single worry in their lives. Sometimes bad relationships hurt us inside and without noticing we hurt other important people in our healing process like if it were a curse. But thanks to friends and thanks to love we will be able to look to a brighter future, even if it takes some time for our heart to be complete again.

THE END