The Curse

The gravel beneath the tires of Shelley Winters’ car crunched, but did not break, beneath the pressure as she drove down the long driveway. For the beginning of autumn, the Weeping Willow trees that were rooted on each side of the road all the way to the circular drive near the front door seemed quite barren. The landscape of the one hundred and twenty acre home of the Winters family looked quite desolate and deserted. The grass was brown not only because of the coming of winter, but because of the lack of care given to the grounds while Shelley’s mother was in the hospital. There were trees that were dead and lying every which way all over the property due to the frequent storms as well as to old age. The clouds in the sky whispered about rain to the cold autumn wind that howled through the sparse forest and whistled past and wrapped around trees causing bits and pieces of dead leaves to swirl around over hills and across streams.

Pulling up to the front door, Shelley killed the engine of her car and stepped from its warmth. The distant rumbling of thunder could be heard, and when she looked far off in the distance she could see the brilliant streaks of lightning momentarily lighting up the sky. Wrapping her jacket around her snugly, she looked up at the house. A few wayward planks covered some of the broken and dirty windows on the lower level. The siding on the outside of the house, which she remembered being a bright white in her childhood, looked as if someone had taken a sharp object and brutally scraped the paint away, revealing the old wood beneath. The chimney was falling apart, and she would not be surprised to find a load of bricks sitting in the fireplace on the inside. The weeds had taken over the front yard and probably the backyard, too. Some had grown so tall, and so large, that they needed the two dusty-looking pillars, that held up the front part of the house, for support. They crept over the cracked, stone stairs leading to the front door; they whipped against the window panes, and they gripped at the dirty and warped planks that made up the front porch, causing them to splinter. To her, the house had aged and crumbled in disrepair. It was ancient, deserted, and filled with memories of her childhood, memories that sneaked into her mind unbidden and unwanted.

For a moment, a memory intruded into her mind. It was of two girls playing and they both had white dresses on. Frowning, Shelley looked around the desolate landscape. She had never had any friends when she was growing up, especially to girls in white dresses. Where had that memory come from, and why was it so clear in her mind? Quite suddenly, she heard the echoing laughter of children coming from somewhere behind her. Turning around, she saw no one, and she saw no activity of any kind coming from any living creatures anywhere near her. Her light brown hair whipped around her face as the wind started picking up. Looking up into the sky, she saw many dark, menacing clouds rolling in. It looked like Boonville was in for one hell of a storm. She turned around in a full circle, taking in all of the damage to the property, and then looked back up at the sky. A streak of lightning and a following boom of thunder echoed in the distance again.

"I sure hope this house holds up in this weather." Her husky voice talked to no one in particular, because she was all alone. There were no children nearby, and she probably had not really heard any laughter. It had to have been the wind or maybe a combination of the wind and the thunder. Climbing up the stairs and walking across the porch carefully, she removed the house-key from her pocket, unlocked the door and walked inside.

While doing this, she thought about how her mother had just recently died, leaving her home to her one and only child. Shelley’s mother had been the only living relative she had because her father had died when she had only been a baby. Her mother had not liked to talk about him much, and whenever Shelley had questioned her about him her mother became angry and punished Shelley with a few strong snaps of her belt, and left her alone in her room for the remainder of the evening. Needless to say, a few episodes like that and she never asked about him again. She sighed as she looked around the dark house. She had not felt like turning on any lights when she first came in because she felt like familiarizing herself with her old home with nothing whatsoever to disturb her. The place itself was filthy with layers upon layers of dust. Probably because her mother had not been there for ten long years. She needed to touch everything there so that the could remember some of the good memories of her childhood like when she was playing with her dolls in the living room, creating her own little world. As a child, her mother had kept most rooms, except for the living room, Shelley’s room, and the kitchen off-limits to her for some unknown reason. The door to the attic had always been locked with a padlock, the key hidden away in her mother’s bedroom because of some secret her mother had not wished to share with her daughter.

There were only a couple of remote times that she enjoyed being with her mother. Most of those times revolved around the jolly Christmases where they would go out into the thick, dark forest together with only the full moon to light their way so that they could chop down a tree. Then there would be those glorious mornings when she awoke to find out that Santa Claus had come. All the presents under the tree were a magnificent sight to behold. Because Shelley never had any girl-friends to hang out with as a child, and no sleep-overs or anything that young girls did together, she did not realize how dysfunctional her home was until she reached college and met other people her own age, and sometimes even their families. But she could understand why she was the way she was. She was a quiet woman, always keeping to herself. She only went places when she was invited. She did not really enjoy hanging out with the boys all that much, and she did call her mother every weekend. Her mother had never socialized while Shelley was growing up. Shelley always figured it was because she wanted to provide her daughter with all the love and support one parent could give. Then again, she blamed her mother for her lack of social skills. She just was not good at it, and she had never acquired the proper etiquette, or whatever it was that young women needed, to find a nice man. Over the years, the fact that she was socially inept caused her to resent her mother, and she stopped communicating with her.

Sliding her shaking hands through her tangled hair, she looked around each room. She had not inherited much, that was for sure. After putting up with her mother’s eccentric behaviors for years, and trying to be the good daughter, all she received to show for all her troubles and hard work was a pile of rotting stone and wood. After receiving word that her mother had passed away in the psychiatric ward of the city institution, she took care of the cremation, and had seen the lawyer on the will’s reading. The old house was hers now, however much she hated the memories it evoked sometimes, the dark memories. Once it was determined that the house and all of her mother’s things were hers, Shelley made it a point to come to the house, and visit everything her mother never let her see, and that included the attic. When she remembered the attic, and how her mother had locked its secrets away from her, the deep-seated hatred she had for the woman who had raised her surfaced. She would go through Mary Winters’ room and find the key, the old skeleton key that would open the gateway to a room filled with so many family secrets. Her mother had yelled at her once upon a time, when she was quite young, about her never, ever going into the attic. Shelley remembered that day so well.

She had only been ten years old, and until that very day, she had never gone remotely near the attic door because she wanted to be mamma’s Ôgood little girl.’ Her mother had been outside, working in the weed-infested garden at the time. Shelley never understood why her mother even bothered with the damn garden because she hardly knew anything about gardening. Shelley, on the other hand, knew a lot of things about gardening, but mother never wanted her to help. She never wanted her to help with anything. Making her way upstairs, Shelley stood in the upstairs hallway and stared at the large, black door leading to the attic; the paint was peeling badly to reveal faded wood beneath. The door had been calling her that day, just like it had everyday after that event. It wanted her to open it and climb the stairs that would lead her into a realm she had never seen before.

Walking slowly down that hallway, the ceiling light bulb flickering, Shelley had watched the door as she had moved towards it. She could feel a life-force emanating from just beyond that door, and it, not the door, was calling her. Shelley’s small hand encircled the knob, the tarnished, silver knob, and slowly turned it clockwise. She could hear the mechanisms inside working together to pull back the latch that kept the door in its place. After what seemed like an eternity, the door finally creaked and moaned, as if it were stretching muscles that had not been used in years, and opened. Peeking through the small crack she had made, she could see nothing but darkness reaching out to grab her. Opening it still further, the flickering light from the hallway cast an eerie grayness into the small space so that Shelley could see a mountainous staircase beyond.

The urge to climb that staircase was so much greater than the guilt and fear that had suddenly washed over her. She felt guilt because she was almost positive that her mother did not want her going anywhere near the attic, and she felt fear because it was so dark up there. She could smell dust drifting down the stairwell. Taking in a deep breath, Shelley opened the door still further and entered. The staircase had not looked so long when she had first opened the door, but now it looked positively enormous! Putting one small foot on the first stair, a cold chill passed through her, and she shivered. Turning her head, she looked behind her to make sure her mother was not there, then she turned back to her mission of reaching the top.

There must have been a broken window up there because even though she wore a sweater, she could feel goosebumps breaking out all over her arms. She pushed herself fully up onto the first stair, grabbing hold of the splintery banister for balance. Each stair was like climbing the rungs of a ladder -- she felt as though she were leaving the earth behind her to ascend into the unknown. After what seemed like forever, she reached the top. Her eyes had caught sight of a candle and a box of matches on a little table sticking out, nearly blocking the entrance into the attic. Taking the candle in one small hand, she struck a match and lit the candle with the other. It took her a few tries, because her hands were shaking so, but she finally managed. The light made the shadows grow and quiver all around her, and she became even more frightened. Taking tiny, little steps, Shelley squeezed past the little table and entered a maze of old trunks, and odds-and-ends of varying sizes. Shelley’s eyes grew round with wonder at the new world she had discovered. Her fear had nearly fled, that is, until she saw the picture.

Straight in front of her, resting in a golden frame, was a picture. Shelley could not really see it from where she was standing. But she could discern two people in it. The glow from her candle was causing the rectangular frame of the picture to dance wildly against the wall behind it. As if in a trance, Shelley walked over to the tiny table, with its odd number of legs, to get a better look at the picture that seemed to be filling her with a sense of dread. There were two little girls in the picture, she noticed; one looked shorter than the other. Though the picture was in black and white, Shelley could tell that their eyes were blue like hers and her mother’s. The taller of the girls wore a black ribbon in her hair near the base of her neck, while the shorter one wore a white one in the same place. They wore white, frilly dresses and a string of pearls. They both looked nearly identical except for a few minor differences: the shorter girl had this look of devilishness on her face, and her hair was light brown. The other girl, whose hair was almost blond, looked devilish as well, but not as intelligent. They both seemed evil no matter how many differences there were between them.

Picking up the picture to get a better look, Shelley noticed that there had been a small, leather-bound book behind the frame. Putting the picture down, she picked up the little book and opened it to the first page. Written in bold, black script were the words: The Curse. That was when her mother had burst into the room.

"Shelley Mary Winters!" she’d hollered. "Get the hell out of this attic! Get our of here now!" Shelley had never seen her mother so angry before. Standing in the doorway with the flickering light from the hall behind her, and the candlelight in front of her made Shelley’s mother seem demonic! Her hair was in disarray and her apron had dirt smudges on it. Shelley had dropped the book and quickly exited the attic, leaving the lit candle on the table where she’d found it. From that day onward, a large lock could be found on the door leading to the stairs of the attic.

Strangely enough, Shelley began having dreams about the two girls in the picture whom she believed were sisters. When she left home to go to college, the dreams stopped. It was during her time there, that she tried to forget the town of Boonville, and tried to forget that she had a mother with very strange behaviors. Once she had caught her mother cutting the head off of a rat that she had found raiding the food in the pantry. She had mumbled something about Ôhellish male demons’ before severing the head of the rat. The poor creature had still been alive when she had done it, too.

As Shelley struggled her way through college, she began having these strange anxiety attacks. Sometimes she would see squirrels running around the campus in the spring, during mating season, and she would imagine for days what it would feel like to just tear its head off. Then she would have dreams about her catching a male squirrel and doing the most horrific things to it. One day a very handsome man actually stopped right in front of her, and she felt as though she were going to have a heart attack. The urge to kill him was so great because she was reminded of those damn squirrels! Then she had passed out. The dreams with the two girls had not started up again until a few weeks before her mother’s death. They always left her in a cold sweat and with a feeling of satisfaction, yet the contents of each were still very vague. The only recollection she had of them were the sounds of whispering and giggling of two girls.

Shelley made her way to her mother’s room and opened the door. It was amazing how this room looked so much nicer than the rest of the rooms in the house. An anger overcame Shelley, and she began throwing pillows and clothes around the room. Mother never let her touch anything, and now that she was dead, Shelley could touch anything in the world that she wanted to touch. After throwing a few more of her mother’s Ôprecious’ items around the room, she made her way to the jewelry box, the place she knew her mother kept the key. It was hidden in a little compartment in the back. Her mother never thought that she knew about that little spot, but Shelley was smart.

Finding the ancient-looking key, she stared at it for a few moments. It had the Winters’ family crest engraved into it. She knew that it was the crest of her family because she had seen an old faded picture of it above the fireplace once when she was a child. Shelley really did not know much about her family. All her life she had wondered who she was descended from and what her ancestors had been like. The attic would contain the answers that she sought. She just knew in her heart that she would find it up there. A cold shiver passed over her as she clutched the key in her hands. She would finally discover what the strange curse was that held her imagination captive. The light in the hall, leading to the door, no longer flickered so she had plenty of light to guide her. The door with the large, silver padlock on it had been painted over a few times, and each layer was peeling to reveal the old wood beneath. It seemed as though the wood purposely made the paint peel, as if it did not like the sticky, smelly substance coating its skin. With a shaky hand, Shelley inserted the ancient key into the rusty lock and turned it. At first, nothing happened, but when she turned the key harder, the lock finally clicked.

Releasing a sigh, not even realizing that she’d been holding her breath, Shelley turned the knob clockwise, which had tarnished even more so with age, and opened the door wide. Because she was much older, and was no longer afraid of the dark, she could see well up the staircase which had seemed so much larger when she was a child. Cobwebs interlaced themselves, and clung to the walls of the stairwell probably because there had been no one around to take care of the pesky spiders that loved making their homes in dark, damp places. A flash of lightning from the small window she knew was up there caused the webs to momentarily shine like silver threads. Once the flash had gone, they faded into partial invisibility once again. Apparently, her mother had not been up in the attic for many years due to her incarceration in the psychiatric ward, thus explaining the cobwebs. Climbing the stairs, her progress noted by the loud creaking of each stair, Shelley knocked down as many of the cobwebs as she possibly could. Reaching the top, she found the very same candle she had used as a child, only it looked as if the wax had been used a few times after she had used it, but not many more than that.

Taking a slightly damp match from the box of match-sticks resting on the same ancient table that still blocked the entrance, Shelley struck the phosphorus head against the sandpaper side of the box. She watched for a moment, as a flame danced in front of her blue eyes. For a split second, the flame stood tall and hot before dying down to a small flicker. She brought the limp wick of the candle to the match so that she might bring light into the room. Though the candle would not be able to provide light for a very long time, it was giving off a sufficient amount to see well by. A bolt of lightning streaked past the tiny, broken, near non-existent window in a remote corner of the attic again; a rumble of thunder shook the house soon after the bolt’s disappearance.

Looking around her, Shelley discovered that not much had changed about the room. The place still looked like a maze of trunks and odds-and-ends of junk littering a very cramped space. But she was not up there to look in trunks. She was there so she could read about "the curse" and look at the picture that had haunted her for so many years. The only place where cobwebs seemed to have avoided entirely was the little, odd-legged table that still guarded the picture of the girls. For some reason, Shelley expected them to be as old as her now, but they still grinned evilly at her from the black and white photograph as little girls. However, the picture did not interest her half as much as the small, leather-bound book peeking out from behind the still shiny, gold frame.

Grabbing a crate, Shelley walked over to the little table, put the candle down, sat on the crate, and took a firm grasp on the thin book. The pages were yellowing with age, but amazingly enough, they were still whole. When she opened it up to the title page, she half expected her mother to burst into the room and tell her to leave, but her mother was dead. Nothing could keep her from appeasing her curiosity now. With an inhalation of breath for courage, Shelley turned the page to the starting paragraph. Glancing quickly through it, she found it strange that it was in two distinct handwritings:

Hello, Miss Winters. Or are there two of you there? It matters not, I suppose... We suppose! I am Shelley Winters, and I am Mary Winters. You probably have one of our names or both (if you are alone). Do you mind, Mary? Not at all, Shelley. (Shelley is the dominant one!) Shut your mouth, Mary, before I shut it for you. I have a tale to tell our relative or relatives here. Sorry. Sister Mary and I were abandoned, so to speak, by our abusive father when we were ten. We were not abandoned in the traditional sense where he took us to a relative and left us there or even put us in an orphanage. He just left the house one day and never came back. Contrary to what you may be thinking, we are twins. I’m the tall one! Mary! Sorry. Yes, Mary is the tall one, but I am the smart one. I am the one who figured out how to get rid of father.

Shelley stopped reading as a cold chill passed through her body again. She could not believe that she was reading something that involved relatives of hers, relatives who seemed quite vengeful by the sound of things. Shelley listened as large drops of rain began to pound on the roof. The lightning and thunder came faster than before, and the wind had picked up considerably. The candle’s flame was beginning to flicker. Looking around, Shelley saw more candlesticks laying on the dusty, wooden floor near the table. Grabbing one, she stuck its wick in the flame of the already lit candle. Once it started to burn, she blew out the other flame, pulled the wax off of the stick once it had cooled, and set the new one in its place. Then she continued to read:

I want to tell some! All right, Mary. We were ten at the time. The doctor’s never told us how father died, but we already knew. They put us in a children’s home. The place was infested with rats and we were underfed. They whipped us when we were bad, and they whipped us when we were good. It did not matter how hard we tried. All of the men in our lives were abusive so we eliminated as many as possible. People thought we were crazy! They locked us away when we were older. But we got out! We pretended to be good! That was my idea! We knew we could not let men control our lives like father did, and the men in the orphanage, and all of the other men in our lives. We also knew that no one is immortal in the true sense of the word. We had to, in some way, control men. We needed the power over them somehow, and that was when I came up with the brilliant plan to pass on to future Winters like yourself or selves. Shelley! Quit hogging the book! I would like to tell some of it. Fine. We dabbled a bit in voodoo and witchcraft, social taboos in our time, and cast a spell on this book. We each let a drop of blood fall on these pages, a little of our souls you might say, and wrote down our instructions. Don’t think of it as a curse, dear, but as Salvation!

As Shelley read the word "salvation," a bolt of lightning hit a nearby tree, splitting it down the middle, but it did not catch fire. The flame danced wildly on the wick of the candle as if someone were repeatedly waving her hand in front of it to make it move. Maybe it was Shelley’s breathing as it rushed out of her mouth in little huffs. Her heart rate was accelerating and she was beginning to sweat.

You must have a child of your own. It must be a girl. If you have a boy, it must never see the light of day...ever! No man must ever control you or your family. That means your husband must never control you or your family. He would be just like all the others! The others that used us like we were property... like father!

Shelley noticed a drop of blood from her nose had fallen onto the page right after that sentence. She had noticed a stain of dark brown in that very spot just before the drop fell. A drop of blood maybe? All of this that she was reading seemed so very strange to her. These girls, women now by the complex use of their language, were talking about exterminating men like pests, like rodents! Was that what her mother had done to her father? She had also felt a sudden sense of something when her drop of blood had touched the ancient pages of the book. She felt as if a part of her that had been missing for so many years had suddenly presented itself in the form of two little girls. She inhaled the smoke from the candle deeply, and felt it filling her entire being as if someone’s soul were filling the empty portions of her own soul. She was finally becoming whole!

You became part of the Winters’ Clan when you opened this book. You share your soul with us now, and you have a tradition to uphold. No man shall ever control this family! After all, mother died because of what our father did to her! He got her pregnant! That was his crime! All men must pay for their crimes! Mother gave us her last name. Father never wanted her! He never wanted us! He used us!

Shelley’s hands began to shake as she turned page after page of history -- the female line -- belonging to her family. That was why her mother did not want her be in this room with these objects! It would have been too soon for her if she had attempted to read the book at the young age of ten. Would she have even understood it then? Probably not. But now she understood that her mother was saving this event for her. She was trying to make it special for her in some sense. Maybe put the lock on the attic door and hiding the key had been her mother’s way of telling Shelley that it was not time yet. Maybe her death was supposed to be some sign to Shelley that it was now okay for her to read about this history. It felt like a "coming-of-age," a maturing, a "coming into" the Clan, an initiation! The book was nearing its end; Shelley could feel it. What did the twins want her to do? She turned to the next page and continued to read the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of those two twins.

It is your Destiny to keep our family going. It is up to you to make "them" understand that you are someone of importance, not some piece of property to be bought and sold. The power is in your hands. Wield it!

The writing was getting quite erratic. A sense of excitement started bubbling up inside of Shelley. They were going to let her help them in their quest! They were allowing her to join the Clan! There was not step she had to take to become involved. She had the Winters’ blood flowing through her body, and she was a woman in the family. Those were reason enough.

It is in your blood, Shelley-Mary! Take your place... on our family tree!

Shelley glanced briefly at the picture of Shelley and Mary Winters. They were smiling at her. They were proud of her. She could not possibly let them down now that she understood everything! -Father had tried to walk out on mother! She was too dependent on him! She could not let that happen so she made him pay for his crimes just like Shelley and Mary wanted her to! Father drove her insane so she died in the psychiatric ward. They had to continue the line to save the lives of future Winters and that is what I must do.- Shelley suddenly stood up, the quickness of the action causing the crate to fall over. Her hands clutched the warn, leather-bound book as if it were a life-line saving her from a miserable death!

A bright flash of lightning caught her attention and she turned her head towards the window. Her eyes widened at what she saw there. She saw two girls dressed in white. One girl had a white bow in her hair near the base of her neck, and the other had a black bow in nearly the same spot. Shelley smiled because they were smiling. A sudden gust of wind blew the little attic window open and snuffed out the candlelight. The girls bobbed there outside in the rain for a moment before they said in a whisper as gentle as a breeze: Welcome to the family, Shelley Mary Winters. Shelley held up the book and glanced at the last line as a flash of lightning lit up the room:

Welcome to the family, Shelley Mary Winters.

Looking up again, she saw nothing, except the raging storm outside. Funny. She felt very, very calm all of a sudden, and she finally felt as if she belonged to a family, the Winters Clan. It was now up to her to continue where her mother had left off. She must continue the legacy that she was predestined to perform. Shelley and Mary were counting on her. Her mother was counting on her. Countless other members of the Clan were counting on her. She was not about to let them down. It was her turn to add to the growing line. It was her turn to continue the family tradition.