The Curse Of The Gargoyle

The Family Curse

I grew up in a family without a motherly touch. My father tried to be both parents at first, but soon relented when he realized it wouldn't help me later on. He tried to be a dad, taught me things like how to fish and how to build my own toys from scraps of wood from his construction work. I remember he would tug gently on my two very loose braids, smiling to himself as he spoke, telling me of a family of ducks he saw crossing the street, or that my grandma was coming to visit. My mother's mother of course. No one on the father's side of the family seemed to stick around, and he had no siblings as an only child. Just like me. Sometimes I wished I had an older sister to look up to, to teach me all the things I couldn't learn from my father. Like bra sizes and which pain killers were most effective. But sometimes I remember the old story and be glad I'm the only one, so no one besides me had to suffer. My grandmother would whisper it to me in the dark of the nights when she slept over. I would stare at the faintly flowing moon from outside my bedroom window as my vision blurred and my grandmother's words slurred into my brain. I didn't need to listen though, as the story was already seared into my brain.

"A poor young boy walked into the darkest woods.

300 years ago and maybe more, he found the door inset into the trunk of a large oak tree.

"Please help me, for I have nothing left!" He called in through the tiny keyhole.

The one who opened the door wasn't one who he was expecting, for instead of a grizzled old woman of crusty eyes was a beguiling young lady with eyes that shone like sapphires aflame and horns like a demon's curling around her ears.

"I shall help you, for a price. No magic is free magic." She whispered to him, and he agreed, not knowing what it would mean. "A heart for wealth."

From that day forward he could pull riches from the ground with the twitch of his fingertips.

A couple weeks later, he met her again, anger and spite in her blazing eyes.

"Return what you stole! This is not a heart of yours!" She screeched, her façade falling away like a shed snake skin. The frightened teen scrambled away,

"No! I gave you my heart, what more could you want from me!" He cried, but the cruel witch felt no mercy,

"I curse you and your blood, for on your 18th birthday, you shall turn to stone. And this curse shall remain as long as your blood runs through the veins of your children." And with that, she disappeared in navy smoke and flame.

Upset and utterly betrayed, the young man knew his 18th birthday was upcoming within the next few days. And so he sought out the only one who was known to be able to stop even a witch's murderous hex.

The Wicca of the Eastern Mountains. Hurrying on horseback, the man reached the cottage of the wiccan, mixed with feelings of bleakness and hope all in one.

"O' wiccan, please help me for I have been given magic and cursed and lost my heart all within a fortnight." As his tears soaked the earth and crowned the petals of the peony bushes at her doorstep, the wiccan felt his suffering in her bones.

"You have traveled far and long for my help, and so I shall give you a life back, but I shall let you know, not even I can break your curse if you have no heart." But the boy only wished to live for now, never mind the consequences that may come to follow.

With the boy's new powers and the wiccan's powers a powerful amulet was forged, forcing away the curse that turned skin to stone and body to statue. For the price of this, was to not use one's newfound abilities in case the amulet would break and one would turn to stone, dooming the family line forever.

And so time went on, and the boy became a man, bearing a son with the wiccan who saved him. But alas the curse held true and carried over, and as the son approached the deaded age, the father whispered his story to his wife and removed the amulet from his neck, placing it on his son's shoulders, blessing him quietly.

"This curse shall be lifted someday, and our family shall once again be full and happy.""

The father turned to stone. Just like my father would one day.

Just before I would fall asleep to the story, I would imagine the witch and the wiccan, both frightening and fiercely beautiful at the same time. The witch and her glowing sapphire eyes that sometimes I would see in my dreams, hyper realistic and full of emotions that could tear me apart. But I wasn't afraid of those eyes, I only wished to gaze into them. And then sleep would overtake me. I would wake to an empty bed, the only indication of my grandmother sleeping there at all was the leftover bits of peony petals laying on the pillowcase. I wished the story wasn't true, every time I remembered. I even doubted it for a long while, until I began to turn to stone as well.

It was just before the end of my senior year in high school. I was just... Average. I had many friends, but hung out with mainly 3 others. I got As and Bs and hoped that someone cute would ask me to prom. Everything was the same every day. School, hobbies, homework, sleep. I would dream of those sapphire eyes almost every night, and sometimes would see them during the days I let down my guard from exhaustion and would stare longingly out the windows. I would see them at 3am runs to shopping outlets while squinting against the glare of cheap fluorescent lights. It was at home when I awoke from a deep slumber to feel the sharp pains on my chest of lack of oxygen. I screamed in surprise, making my deprivation worse. My father barged in, a hilariously old sword that used to hang above our fireplace laid in his hand. He comforted me and asked if I remembered the story Grandma would whisper to me in the dark nights. It was then I saw those glowing eyes again, and all hell broke loose. The window shattered and my dad threw his arm across my chest, sending me flying back. A man dove in, overturning the table next to me and confronting my father who's worried eyes were fixed on mine. He looked like he was about to watch a funeral. With a gentle moment of realization on what he had to do, he turned the sword on himself, immediately beginning to turn to stone from the wound outwards. He hadn't wished to die slowly in front of this person who had horns curling around his ears like a ram. God, the eyes.

I saw those intensely sharp eyes on the boy who stood over my father in shock as my dad slid the amulet over to me. I drew it over my head as I saw my father's reassuring smile freeze on his face as if he had looked straight into Medusa's eyes. I hesitated, backing away from the scene, bile rising in my throat. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.

"I'll give you an hour head start before the Hunt begins, as per tradition." The grave tone of a young man broke me from my stupor.
"What?" I asked, shocked and processing, "the Hunt?"
"The bloodline of thieves was given a head start for each new heir. Your filthy blood deserves less than that. You're lucky I pity you." He stated simply, as if he hadn't just threatened her life, walking towards the front entrance, "You have an hour."

That hour was plenty of time for me to change my life around. Totally.