“Of course, I have heard of it. I will have you know, that is one of my specialties. But fairy godmothers do not fall in love, and neither do imps. And we certainly do not fall in love with each other.”
“I know it makes no sense, but I fell in love with you that day. Every time you come to help Lily, I feel it, and I have to come see you.”
Wendy did not know what to say or do. The imp’s words sounded sincere, but she had never felt love for anyone except her godchildren. Something stirred within her heart, though, and she realized she felt something for this imp. It was not love, but it could grow to become love.
“What is your name?”
“George.”
I looked over at Bobby again. He’d switched to colored pencils, filling in the gray lines he’d drawn across the page, and just as with Wendy’s name, he’d spoken as if he’d known the answer all along.
“How do you know that, Bobby?”
He shrugged.
This was getting weird.
“Lily!” Sue interrupted, stretching out the syllables as she shook my arm urgently. “Read!”
“George. What is your name?”
“You love me, but you do not know my name?”
“You have never told me your name.”
“Oh. Well, my name is Wendy. Nice to meet you.”
She held out her hand to shake his, and then she realized he did not have hands. But he backed away from her.
“We cannot touch.”
“What? Why not?”
“I cannot say.”
“Is it part of the curse?”
He did not reply, and since it was an unspeakable curse, Wendy knew she was right. They could never touch as long as the curse remained unbroken.
“No!” Sue wailed, drawing the syllable out even longer and adding even more undulations than she had with my name. “How are they gonna kiss if they can’t touch?”
“Sue, one more interruption, and I will stop reading,” I warned her. I was actually hoping she would interrupt one more time. That would give me an excuse to stop reading this story. I wasn’t sure why, but I was getting more and more uncomfortable the longer I read.
She pressed her lips together and mimicked zipping them shut.
Darn it.
And so the years passed. Wendy’s goddaughter grew and became more powerful, as the blessing had said she would, and with her power came more trouble. George continued to appear when Wendy went to her goddaughter’s aid, and although they could not touch, the strange feeling in Wendy’s heart grew and blossomed into love. She began to search high and low for a way to break the curse, but she knew there was no hope, because she did not know the curse, and he could not tell her.
One fateful night, however, Wendy’s goddaughter herself provided the solution.
‘Twas the night before Valentine’s Day…
I paused, but Sue kept quiet. Of course she did. Why would she point out the obvious problem with Valentine’s Day appearing in this kind of fairy tale? And in wording that echoed A Visit From Saint Nicholas?
I resigned myself to continue reading.
‘Twas the night before Valentine’s Day, and Wendy’s goddaughter was very ill. Wendy and George met outside her home, but they could not go inside yet, because a strange man was tending to the girl. So, they listened at the window while they waited.
The man said many things that made no sense, but it was easy to see he cared about the girl, and so Wendy did not interfere. He spoke of things she knew and things she did not, of her goddaughter’s power and frequent bouts of sickness, of stories and legends from near and far. When he spoke of blessings and curses, Wendy listened even more closely than before, and she knew George was listening, too.114Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaPn8Itpx5M
However, when he finally stopped speaking and left, they still did not have the answer they sought.
They went inside the house together, as was their custom for several years now. Wendy saw her goddaughter was asleep and the strange man’s care had helped her a little, and she was grateful to him. She began to use her magic on her goddaughter, as she always did, and then the girl said something very strange.
“The unspoken breaks forth when it is spoken.”
Now, it is important to note that Wendy’s goddaughter did not know about her fairy godmother, George, or the unspeakable curse. Because of the blessing and the curse, Wendy thought it was best that way, so she always used her magic to make the girl forget her visits. The girl could not have known that which she spoke. But she said it, and she did not speak again.
Wendy finished taking care of her and left with George, and as they always did, they stayed together and talked until he had to leave.
“Do you know what that means?” Wendy asked him. “Is it a way to break the curse?”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “Or perhaps it means speaking the curse will release it and allow it to happen.”
“It is already happening. Do you not see? The trouble that follows her is from the curse. The sickness she gets after using her power is from the curse. If she uses too much power, she could die, and my power will not save her. Could speaking the curse make anything worse?”
“The curse is not at its fullest. There is always a cost with a curse, whether making or breaking it, and the cost may be worse than the curse itself.”
His ominous words struck Wendy’s heart. She loved her goddaughter and did not want to see her harmed, but she also loved George, and she longed to touch him. It was not an easy decision to make.
“Speak the curse,” she finally said.
George’s time was nearly up. He felt the pull from below, but he summoned the demon’s words, and he spoke them.
Speak the words best left unsaid,
And though she lives, her heart is dead.
There is no love, nor is there hate;
The curse now speaks about her fate.
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A touch would kill, both hers and yours;
The power would heal through rage and storm;
But now, the love that broke the law
Will free the hateful tooth and claw.
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Death will follow in her wake,
The tears she sheds shall never slake
The hunger waiting in the dark
To tear apart the lives she marks.
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All will be well for many days.
The two may touch and while away
The months of silence as it grows;
But time will tell what both now know.
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Her touch still kills, her power, still strong,
Belies the seed, though dormant long,
This night planted deep inside
Her heart of ice, the time to tide.
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The blessing and the curse are one.
The angel and the demon come
By blizzard from the seed within
Matured into virtue and sin.
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Her hope, and yours, remains the same:
The truth which she will never name
Can spread the seed and thus the tree
That brings the life to set her free.
“Why did you stop, Lily?”
“Lily?”
“Lily? What’s wrong?”
I stared at the words on the page, reading them over and over again, each syllable a knife to my chest. It was me. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know why, but it was me. I was the curse who brought death to others. My touch killed. I kept everyone at arm’s length, afraid to love, indifferent to hate.
And I was sitting in a room with two precious children who needed to stay far away from me.
“Well, it’s past your bedtime,” I said, injecting as much fake cheer into my voice as possible. “The rest of this will have to wait. Come on, get in bed.”
“But you didn’t finish!” Sue wailed.
“It’s late, Sue. You need to—”
She yanked the book from my hands. “Fine, I’ll read it. ‘And then they kissed, and everything was better, and everybody lived happily ever after. The end.’”
“You made that up,” Bobby interjected.
“Well, it’s what should have happened.” Sue snapped the book shut and stood. “I said it wouldn’t be any good. There weren’t any pictures!”
“I drew a picture.”
“Lemme see it!”
I wanted to bolt from the room, but I sat there, frozen, as they behaved the same way they did every other night when I read them a bedtime story. Sue ran across the room to Bobby, studying his drawing as he put his pencils away. She was so focused, she could have been an art critic.
“I like it,” she finally pronounced. “Show Lily.”
A tall, slender fairy in shades of gray. Long hair, long gown, black-veined wings. No face.
I’d seen her before.
“You can keep it,” Bobby said quietly. His brown eyes met mine, and I wondered again how he knew.
It didn’t matter.
I tucked them in and kissed their foreheads, and then I left the room. When their parents returned, I’d leave for good.
Date of creation: 03/05/2025
Word count: 2,999
Author’s note: I had to choose from multiple prompts and write a short story containing part of any myth or legend between 1,000 and 3,000 words. I selected prompt #1: "The Cursed Kiss" - A powerful curse prevents two lovers from ever touching. On the eve of Valentine's Day, they discover a forgotten piece of magic that might break the spell-but at a terrible cost.
Author’s note: Thanks to SeraDrake for helping me to (finally) decide what to call George’s entity.
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