“They’ve disbanded.” 

“What?” I exclaimed, setting my book upside-down on the table, open at the page I was on. I stared wide-eyed at my mother as she walked through the front door, setting her straw hat down on the coat rack. “Why?” 

She sighed, removing her sunglasses and putting them in her pocket. “This is the third time they’ve wrongly predicted the end of the curse.” 

My shoulders slumped, and I sat back on my seat. “I see.” 

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” she said, making her way to me and sitting down on the chair next to me, clasping my hands together with her own. “They were a bunch of liars anyway. They just wanted the attention. I still think we’ll make it out of this.” 

“I don’t.” 

Her eyes widened. “Lorelei, come on. Don’t think like that. There’s always hope.” 

“I dunno, mum,” I said, sliding my hands away from her. “I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.” 

She made a face at me, the face she always made when I said something that didn’t agree with her point of view. “Having a bad attitude just makes—” 

“Bad situations worse, I know,” I drone over her words, rolling my eyes. “But that’s for things in our control. Or at least kinda in our control. Like, doing stuff we don’t like doing. People are dying, mum. What if you’re next? What if I’m next?” 

“You won’t be,” she snapped, and I flinched a little in my seat. She closed her eyes, her jaw clenched, and let out a long breath, her face softening again. “Maybe there won’t even be a next.” 

I shook my head. “And if there is?” 

“Then we deal with it when it comes.” 

“No, see, I hate that. I hate that so much.” I stood up, my palms flat on the table, and glared at her. “That’s what we did when Papa was still alive. We hoped. We believed that maybe it only affected people who were bad, or old, or – or something. Then it took him, and that hope was there, just mocking us through the weeks of crying and wishing he would come back.” 

My mother’s eyes began to well up with tears as she stared at me. “That doesn’t mean we should stop hoping.” 

“Yes! That’s exactly what it means!” I shouted, slamming a fist onto the table, and this time it was my mother’s turn to flinch. “I am not going to sit here and hope that you won’t die! I’m not putting myself through that again, and you shouldn’t either!” 

The tears started rolling down her cheeks, and I sat back down, folding my arms on the table and resting my head on them. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t apologise,” she sniffled, and I heard her wipe her eyes on a handkerchief. “I just… I can’t bear to think about losing you, too. I just can’t.” 

I swallowed painfully, tears starting to form in my eyes as well. “Me neither.” 

After a brief silence, she got up and walked over to me, wrapping her arms around me. She didn’t say a word, and neither did I. We just remained there, the wind outside the only noise that could be heard. 

— — —

The last vestiges of the sun were disappearing over the horizon as I made my way down the road to the graveyard, flower in hand. I opened the gate, noticing the new grave. It was done up like most of the others; a mound of crudely dug-up earth with a rock for the headstone, engraved by hand. A wreath of flowers was placed over the stone, and someone was kneeling in front of it, their head hung. Crying, no doubt. 

I passed him, walking through the rows towards one in the far corner, one of the first graves to have been dug. This one was far neater, and the headstone was professionally carved with the words: Nelson Rivers. Loving husband, and father to all. I knelt at the grave, placing the flowers on top of it and clearing the old, dead ones off. 

“I miss you, dad,” I whispered, placing my hand on the headstone as if he could somehow feel my touch. I stood up again, turning to leave, when I saw the face of the other person here with me. My eyes widened. 

“Charles,” I whispered under my breath, walking over to him. He’s sobbing into the dirt, and I kneel down, putting my hand around his shoulders and pulling him towards me. 

“Why’d you have to go?” he sobbed into my chest. I clenched my jaw, finally taking a proper look at the headstone before us. The words, crudely etched into the stone, read Carla Arwen. 

His mother. 

I held him tighter, taking the bouquet from his fist and laying it on top of the dirt mound. 

“I’m sorry for your loss.”