The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD, THE CURSE OF CHALION
Reese Logan had believed in god at one point, when she was still young enough to believe he was a benevolent deity who cared deeply about the humans he created, answered the prayers of their plights. She knows better now. And now Reese believes solely in Death. Why should she assume otherwise when only one of them had appeared on the corner of Sunrise and May—Reese had prayed that her parents had survived the fiery inferno that ripped through her house, god had ignored her pleas, Death had come and gone before she'd even taken her keys out of the ignition.
There was only one good metaphor she could concoct: if life was a highway and Reese was the vehicle barreling across the tar, then fate was bald tires and misfortune was black ice. Or maybe Reese was the driver, foot glued to the gas, blindfold over her eyes, unaware—perhaps ignorant—that she was set on a collision course for disaster. Maybe if she had known, had been able to peel back the blindfold and see where she was headed, she would have been able to stop it. But destiny was a fickle thing, and the Fates with their affinity for infinite, unceasing torment, would not have allowed it. So Reese was hurtled over the patch of slick ice.
Reese learned the world was not kind to girls like her. Little girls predisposed to bad luck, followed closely by a string of broken mirrors and tiny feet finding every crack on the sidewalk. Then these little girls grow into women, paper cuts stinging from throwing salt over their shoulders, knuckles bruised and swollen from rapping on wood—anything they can do to offset whatever punishment the Fates have demanded from them. But bad luck is not the same as cursed. And Reese Logan is cursed. Because while she could accuse a black cat crossing her path to explain any number of her previous misfortunes (i.e the wilting of the cactus her dad bought her, the death of the family beta fish, Swim Shady, even the whole grandparents dying thing) the fire that tore through a little house on Sunrise Street, that was personal. Reese felt it.
The worst part of it all, family curses don't break easy. No upside down broom in a corner or evil eye dangling from a rear view mirror is going to fix it. Not when they're crafted from the foaming mouths of vicious, hateful things whose blood runs cold with ire, their words embedding themselves deep within a bloodline and rotting them from the inside out. Final words are a powerful thing, spoken with the hand of Death resting upon your spine, these kinds of curses are the deadliest. Aided by the hand of the primordial being who feels the need to seek vengeance on behalf of the speaker. How does one stop something like Death? It takes sacrifice. An eye for an eye.
Reese had never thought of herself as the curse breaking kind, but destiny is not a road easily avoided. Prophecies do not lie. But what is she supposed to do with this? How does one teenage girl, traumatized by the loss of her parents, match up evenly to a curse that has prevailed through generation after generation? Maybe that's the point, she supposes. Death doesn't like to be cheated, and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Reese is the sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter. She will take it though, she will carry this burden on her shoulders, if only so her young siblings won't have to. Maybe she's the right person for the job. She does not fear death, not when she is filled with a grief so thick that it threatens to swallow her hole.
Death and god are not the only power players in this world, she knows. Family curses are just as dangerous, just as unwavering, just as cruel. Reese would wager they are worse.
REESE LOGAN ― lily rose depp
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