Cursed to live....AGAIN

Rueanne

Rueann

She sure was pretty, that niece of mine. I had watched her every time she was brought to visit and waited patiently for her to turn of an age that was close to mine when my life was stolen away from me by a witch that mama had crossed. I had been cheated out of the life that I wanted and always dreamed of. No college, no husband, no children. Just cursed to live here in spirit form and wait until someone of my bloodline came along whose life I could live out.

Not being able to speak to anyone or even allow them to know for sure that I was still here, wasting away was almost unbearable. Mama would come up to the attic where I stayed most of the time and talk to me. I was so cross with her that I wouldn't have answered her if I could. I did, however, do things to let her know that I was still here. After years I had learned a few tricks. Like how to cause winds that made the trees scratch the windows and how to cause the house to become as cold as an icebox.

I would play these tricks and watch mama try to figure out how to warm the house again or stop the trees from marking her windows up. It was amusing to see her discomfort. See, it wasn't that I didn't love mama, I did. No, it was that it was her selfishness that led me to this path. She had taken the husband of another because she missed daddy after he died. Lord knows I had warned her that Mr. Winfred was nothing but trouble. Still, she continued carrying on with him as if the whole town didn't know. Well, when his wife found out, I was cursed to this life and mama was cursed to watch me die. Ms. Jeanne sure had done a number on our family.

She fixed it that my spirit and the spirit of every other person in my family could never leave this house once our bodies had died. The woman in any case. The men would face no such fate as this. She had then left a caveat in her curse. We could live again, body and all, but we had to choose. The choice was to take on the body of the next female in our line and live her life. At first, I told myself that I would never do such a thing, ever. Now, years later, I had made my mind up in the opposite direction.

It was lonely as could be and I longed for the life that I was robbed of and not of my own doing. I was a pawn in a game for a man's heart and look at me now. By this time, I had told myself that it was alright. I would get to live a life. Maybe not the one that I would have, but a life none the less. I would go to college, dance at parties and fall in love. I may even become a mother. I would just have to do it as Raynelle. After watching her grow up back and forth between here and Alabama, I knew enough of her to pass for her and noone would be the wiser.

As for her, I just reminded myself over and over that she would also have a chance to live a life. Maybe even one grander than the one I would be taking over from her. She would just have to wait, as I had all of these years. She would even have one thing that I didn't that would make it better for her. That was someone who knew that she was still here and alive in spirit, waiting her turn. Yes, that was how I justified my plan, at least she wouldn't be alone.