The curse from long ago(Fruk)

4

1374

Ten years later.... Peter lay ill in bed. Pearl passed away during childbirth the year before and left behind a beautiful baby girl named Wendy. Peter named his son Dwight after his cousin and he grew up to be a fine young man.

"Arthur... You are forty-nine.... Yet you look younger than me," he laughed, holding onto my hand. I laughed sadly and nodded. "I have no way to answer that," I laughed. He held onto my hand as his son lay on the bed beside him. "What happened to Wendy and Dwight wasn't your fault..... please take care of my son..." he said weakly.

I wiped a tear from my eye and nodded, looking back to Francis. He looked very young too... As if we had both been frozen in time. "Daddy, I love you," Dwight cried. Peter smiled at him and put a hand on his head. "I promise you! I won't let you down," I cried.

~

He died at the age of thirty-three. His son was only ten, and Wendy was one. I felt so sad and one day as I began to clean out our family home, I found a small wooden box that had my name on it. I opened it up slowly and saw a letter.

I instantly recognized it as that witch's letter. I stood up and opened it slowly to read "love within each other," I still don't know what that means. Maybe this is the curse? Seeing my family die in front of me.

Suddenly that's when it hit me... Peter's words as he reminded me of how young I looked. I was supposed to be almost in my fifties... My brothers, had gray hair and I still look the same? I think I stopped aging in my twenties. With this realization, I quickly went to find Francis to tell him about it.

He was shocked at first, but he believed it. He was wondering why he didn't look a day over twenty-six, and everything began to make sense. "What does this mean? Do we just live forever? How do we break the curse?" He asked, scared.

I looked at the paper, and my eyes widened. "This is it!!! She was telling us how to break the curse this whole time!!" I said, astonished. "Love within each other? What does that mean, though?" He asked.

"I think it was because we fought a lot as kids and let's be honest.... We still do..." I laughed, surprised. "So what? Do we become friends? I guess we are friends, Huh?" He asked, confused. "But the spell isn't broken.... Maybe there is more to it?" I asked, annoyed. He shrugged his shoulders, and I continued to look at it. I had no clue what to do....are we being forced to not hate each other so much?

I looked at Francis staring off to space stupidly, and I rolled my eyes. He was such an idiot; that's why he can't get a woman.

Ugh! That was it!! I have to be nicer to him.

"You look.... Very nice today," I said, disgusted. He looked at me with a lifted eyebrow and began to laugh. "Shut up!!' I doubt being "nice" is going to help.... Not right away at least," he laughed. That made sense..... it had to be natural... not forcing myself to be nice to him.

I continued to look at the paper, and Francis took it away. "There is no point trying to think so hard about it... There is nothing we can do... At least not now," he explained. I nodded at what he said and nodded in agreement.

~
Ten years passed again, and this time I was left with just eleven-year-old Wendy. Dwight never had kids, and I wanted Wendy to have some, but she didn't want to, which is fine since she was still young.

I was supposed to be in my fifties, and Wendy began to ask questions. So Francis and I decided to tell her what happened all those years ago. She understood that it would be too late to find the witch since she might also be dead.

She promised never to tell a soul and to refer to Francis and me as her older brothers. By then, we all decided to move to England, where Francis and I put her through school. There were ways for adults to get an education, and Francis and I realized that we should be able to learn to read and write in our language.

Wendy would show us what she learned, and we hired tutors for Francis and me. We both worked excellent jobs, so money wasn't a living issue.

A few years pass, and Wendy is eighteen and so independent for a woman. However, in the end, she did choose to get married. Francis and I never felt old once, and it surprised us. We were both in our sixties and still ran and did anything a young person would.

Finally... At the age of thirty-two, Wendy passed away..... no children and only a husband behind. Francis and I decided to take her body back to France to bury her with everyone else. Thankfully, our mini graveyard was still there, and I made it a mission to visit there all the time to see our family and loved ones.

Francis and I lived with each other still. We had the energy to learn and go to school, so we made sure to help each other get to the point we wanted to. I kept memories of each of my family members, including Lucille. Little trinkets that reminded me of them... But it wasn't enough.

Since I knew that eventually, I would forget what my brother, nieces, and nephews would look and sound like. It made me sad, and for a while, Francis and I would try to tell stories about them to make sure our memories were fresh... But we knew it wasn't enough.