Angelica's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Angelica pressed her webbed thumb against the clasp of a half-finished necklace and told herself she would not try another counter-spell until she knew what had been done to her. The last one had turned her tongue black for two days. The one before had made her eyes bulge wider. Every ritual she guessed at without knowing the source only pushed her further from the brown-eyed woman with the gap in her teeth who used to live in this apartment. She worked at her table with the curtains drawn and the bathroom mirror wrapped in a beach towel. The necklace in her hands was the best thing she had ever made, a row of diamond-shaped stones catching lamplight in reds and greens and clear whites. A buyer wanted it by morning. Her jewelry had grown sharper, stranger, more beautiful since the curse. She hated that it was true. She finished the clasp, boxed the necklace, and made herself leave the apartment before she lost her nerve. There was only one person left to ask. The oracle in the swamp took payment in beautiful things, and Angelica had run out of cheaper answers. The path ended at a low hut hung with glowing vines that shed pink and blue light onto the water. Inside, Morphelia filled the room. Her braids pooled around her purple feet. She did not look up when Angelica ducked through the door. "Frog girl," Morphelia said, warm as bathwater. "You brought me something shiny." Angelica set the box on the low table. "I need to know what kind of curse is on my face. I've been guessing. Every fix I try makes it worse." Morphelia opened the box, lifted the necklace, and draped it across her belly. She smiled. Then her face went still. She reached under her braids and pulled out a cracked shell mask, painted with a serene human face in gold and green. "Hold this to your face," Morphelia said. "Don't ask why yet." Angelica pressed the mask against her frog skin. It was cold. It grew colder. A thin heat ran down her jaw, and the mask hummed against her cheekbones like a struck bell. When she lowered it, the painted face on the shell had darkened along one side. Morphelia studied the stain. Her airy voice went flat. "Swamp-blood magic. Close kin, or close as kin. Whoever cursed you did it with something of yours in their hand. Hair. A tooth. Something you gave them once." Angelica's throat tightened. She knew the person. She knew, now, what the person had of hers. "Can I break it?" "Not without taking it back from them," Morphelia said. "And they will feel you coming the moment you try." Angelica picked up the mask. The buyer's necklace was gone. She had a name in her mouth and no time left to hide from it.