Curses and Other Buried Things by Caroline George EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Caroline George
- Language: English
- Genre: Teen & Young Adult Multigenerational Fiction
- Format: PDF /EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Susana Prather
July 4th
Blood holds all kinds of curses.
I’ve heard those words since I was in diapers. A saying of sorts, like “get
while the getting’s good” and “cain’t never could.” I figured all families
cautioned their young to remember their ancestry. To mind their
inclinations. I assumed I wasn’t the only person in Berryville, Georgia,
whose great-great-great-great-grandma cursed her bloodline.
Around here, there’s no shortage of ghost stories, but hexes aren’t so
common, especially ones like mine. Going back generations, every firstborn
daughter, from Suzannah Owens to Mama, lost her mind and met a tragic
end.
The curse remained dormant until their eighteenth birthdays.
Nanny won’t admit she believes the folklore. She thinks superstition isn’t
Christian and claims stories are stories and curses are the consequences of
sin. Whenever someone mentions the hex, Nanny rolls her eyes and calls it
hooey. Even Papa says the family curse is nothing more than a scapegoat,
what people blame when life isn’t fair.
But my grandparents nail horseshoes above doorways to bring luck to all
who enter. They never leave a rocking chair rocking to prevent haints from
taking a seat.
Occasionally the words leave their mouths.
Blood holds all kinds of curses. Mine holds more than most.
My grandparents deny belief in the unnatural, but I sense their dread.
They won’t look me in the eyes and confess what we all know.
They’re waiting for the curse to take me too.
Even now, as they huddle with everyone around the dining room table,
counting candles for my birthday cake, I feel their unease like the breeze
from the box fan.
Nanny impales the sour cream pound cake with eighteen candles.
I crush an embroidered napkin in my fist. I pick at its stitched flowers as
everybody lowers their forks and swivels in their seats to watch me blow in
another year.
My grandparents divided the party between two tables. My friends sit at a
foldout. JC Owens, Cleo Shealy, Daisy Ruger, Stokes Burrell, and Holler
Sloan. My family occupy the main table. Nanny; Papa; Aunt Missouri Jane;
her boyfriend, Randall; Uncle Ronnie; his wife, Kaye, and my eight-yearold cousin, Charlie.
Nanny wouldn’t risk the bad luck of seating thirteen people at her dinner
table.
Papa shimmies a disposable camera from his pocket. “Smile big for me.”
He glances through the viewfinder. “Oops. Hold on. Forgot to wind it.”
I maintain a smile until his camera clicks.
Missouri Jane fumbles with a lighter. She holds the flame above wicks,
quivering as she lights candles one to eighteen. “Make a wish, Susana.” She
squeezes my shoulder before lowering into the chair next to me. Her
powder-blue uniform reeks of burnt sage and incense.
She’s never been one to camouflage her superstition.
I lean over the spread of Southern cooking. Cheese pie, chicken livers,
purple hull peas, tomatoes sliced and seasoned. I extinguish the candles
with two breaths.
I wish for cooler weather. I’ve tried wishing for other things, but Mama
hasn’t emerged from the swamp, and the curse hasn’t become any less of a
threat.
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