Cursed

Prologue Part I

On the highest branch of the tallest tree they sat.  

It was a refuge of sorts, because the brown-eyed boy could pretend anything. If he closed his eyes and ignored the ever present smell of smoke and focused on the songs his friend was humming, he might just be able to forget. 

The girl was far too young to be where she was: an ungainly measure away from the ground accompanied by a roof jumping boy who wanted to escape from the smoke. Smoke that a was heavy with the dead's ashes. Smoke of a country at war. 

A breeze blew greyed air across their freckled noses, and the girl sneezed. 

"I'm cold," she announced quietly.  

The boy broke the twig he had been playing with into half, and, without looking at her, said, "Told you to bring something warmer." 

"But if I went inside, Nino wouldn't have brought me here!" she exclaimed.  

True, that. The boy, Nino, shrugged. "I came here to be alone." He looked at her, with very bright eyes that have always reminded her of her Mama's honey and cinnamon sticks. "I never wanted you to come. I'm sick of you sticking to me like a pest. Next time if you yank on my leg, I'll push you so you fall." 

"Nino is mean. Why are you being mean? You said you'll always stay with me." Her voice was small, her dark red hair covered her face as she crouched low on her perch.  

"I said that because you were crying. I didn't mean it. I'm not your mother. I don't have to take care of you." 

He cursed the day he taught her how to climb the thick quercus trees; she was a quick learner. (In fact, she was nearly -nearly- better than him, a truth he was loathe to think of, let alone admit.) 

She was silent. He couldn't see her face, for she was sitting in a lower branch than him. That may be because she couldn't reach for the higher branch. Or perhaps she wanted to be close but didn't want to disturb him. Either way, the arrangement was fine by him. 

He idly played with the sticks, thinking nothing of how he had hurt her, until he heard a barely muffled sniff. He looked closely in time to see a tear make its way down her cheek. 

Seas. He'd made her cry. He tried to pretend not to have noticed but his guilt increased tenfold. Damned conscience.  

His sticks gripped tightly in hand, he stood up, spreading his arms out slightly to balance himself, then jumped to the opposite branch, the one just on top of hers. Gently, he eased himself onto her perch, tested the branch's solidity throughout its length, then sat cross-legged across from her. Resting his elbows on his knees and his face tucked in between his palms, he stared at her, mutely, intently, until she smiled. After she wiped her eyes he reached out for her hand and rubbed it between his own dry yet admittedly warmer ones. Her skin was stone cold, and he realized that she must have been suffering the temperature for a long time. 

"Papa came home yesterday, " she remarked suddenly. "He doesn't look good." 

"Of course he wouldn't. He's at war." 

She gave him a glance then looked away, like she wanted to ask something. When she didn't, he told her to move away from the tree a little, then he went to sit in that place between her and the tree. He pulled her length against him and told her to rub her hands together. 

He felt inadequate: the girl's mother trusted him to keep her safe. Instead he tried to shake her off, he never answered her questions, war-related or otherwise, claiming that he didnt know what was going on either, he made her cry and then left her go cold. 

He could blame it on his parents- their continuous fights got on his nerves so much that he once considered running away. But the girl had nothing to do with his parents and their quarrelling, he had no right to treat her as though she was to blame. 

He didnt know what he could give her to make up for it, and she seemed to be content in his embrace. But she wouldn't know what she wanted, she was only five, burn it! 

He thought of the girl's mother, too ill to notice that her daughter was almost freezing to death. And her father, who might one day leave to look for survivors among the rubble as he did everyday and find the barrel of an enemy's gun pointed at his face. He had to take care of her. No one else would. So: 

"I promise I'll always look after you. I'll be your friend." 

And they sat like that for minutes more, the brown-eyed boy and the red-haired girl, oblivious of death's dark wings looming over them, intent on striking a prey no matter the cost.