The Wood

Part 1, Entry 5

Day Five, First Moon, Hunting Year Five Hundred and Four

Mama thinks I should make amends with Jacob Wilder. His mother paid us a visit tonight to say that someone cursed him with a retching sickness and it would be a real shame if two of our youth were found to be cursed, because Jacob's curse was a weak one -- he'll heal in a day or two and with some carefully placed wards, he will be freed of any residual evils -- but the person who cursed him is surely at great risk of falling prey to their own witching, because the people who cast curses are the ones who will succumb quickest in the end. They'll get a taste for bewitchment, and soon they'll grow signs of the Curse. Then it will be too late to save them and all we can do is send them into the wood to live with the other witches, because that's what it does -- eventually, the Curse will turn you into a witch. There's no cure for that. The best you can do is cut off the offending "limb" and expel it from the body. Like Loretta.

Everyone said it was too late for Loretta. The Curse that forms a witch already inhabited her. She had to be expelled before that Curse could spread.

Mama thanked Mrs. Wilder for her warning and gave her a few bars of soap and some protection herbs for her trouble -- the kind you hang on the lintels. It's a customary gift to give when someone visits your home. She was so kind to travel all this way to make sure we were aware and could take the necessary precautions, Mama told her. We would be sure to set an extra layer of wards before nightfall in case the curse or its bearer wandered our way. I think Mrs. Wilder knows it was me. In my defense, Jacob shouldn't have hit me, and he probably should have known not to eat stew that didn't taste right. I'm kind of amazed he ate it. Aunt Martha must have threatened punishment if he didn't finish his food.

Mama knows it was me too, but she would never tell Mrs. Wilder that. Wanting me to be nice to Jacob doesn't mean she wants me to apologize to him. An apology would be an admission of guilt, and an admission of guilt would make people think I made him sick by cursing him, and that could be real trouble for me. If people find out I poisoned Jacob, they might think I'm dabbling in witchcraft. But she does want me to think before doing and she wants me to make nice with him. He's training to be an uncle. It's prestigious to be an uncle and the uncles' wives almost always become aunts, so if I married him, I could do big things to improve curse-prevention and I'd have an uncle to keep me safe. I told her I know Jacob Wilder well enough already and I think I'd rather be cursed. Mama told me I better not mean what I said, and then she made me eat salt until I got sick, too.

Curse Jacob Wilder.

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