This is a short story I wrote because the idea demons rudely bit me in the butt yesterday when I was in the shower. Not that I completely came up with this out of scratch, as I'd originally written Juan and Stephen as central characters to a novel idea I ultimately trashed, but that is where the idea for Juan being a curseworker comes from.
Well, it turned out...long. Exceptionally long. Fifteen pages, single-splaced, point twelve Times New Roman in Microsoft Word. >_> Yeah, I feel like I've already scared people away. I didn't intend it to be this long! So I'll post this in two increments, how's that sound? Ok? Ok? (although it'll probably lose a bit of its impact, being a short story meant to be read in one sitting...) Also, a few characters have Spanish names with accents and en-yays (what do you call 'em???), and I don't know how this forum will deal with them. EDIT: Whew, I'm relieved, they translated fine. It'd be weird reading about "Juan de Leon" and "Senor Aguila", wouldn't it...? >_>
If y'all like this, I could possibly make this one of many short stories centering around Juan and Stephen and their involvement with people asking for curses. Or something.
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Curseworker Juan
Juan de León headed through the streets of the city, his dark wool coat wrapped tightly around him, collar turned up to shield his cheeks from the cold. He walked at a steady pace, his strides brisk and business-like, and seemed ignorant of the happy and languid people milling around him. Occasionally they would shoot him odd looks, wondering perhaps where someone could be hurrying to on a holiday weekend, of all times. Juan ignored their observations, though—he just continued to stride as quickly as he could down the city sidewalks, kicking up flurries of snow after him.
The morning was cold but that didn’t stop the people from flowing out into the streets anyway, bundled, like coccooned moths, in ugly holiday-themed sweaters and holding steaming Styrofoam cups of hot cocoa. Children were taking advantage of the early snow to scoop of handfuls of the stinging white flakes and hurl them at each other, but Juan did not share the children’s enthusiasm. It was cold; much too cold. He drew his knit wool cap tighter over his ears, covering up more of his thick dark hair, and quickened his pace.
The man he was supposed to meet was standing on the street corner, exactly where they’d agreed to meet yesterday. The instant Juan caught sight of the man, he quickened his pace and almost half-jogged the rest of the way to the street corner. By the time he caught up with the man, Juan was out-of-breath and the back of his neck prickled with sweat, despite the cold outside.
“Hello, Juan,” said the man, the faintest ghost of a smile crossing his face. He was a tall man, his tousled brown hair hidden by the hood of his hideous dark green duffel coat. His eyes shone a brilliant shade of green, with flecks of gold within, and a rough layer of several days’ worth of stubble coated his chin. “Making up for your lateness by running?”
“Shut up, Stephen,” said Juan, slipping his gloved hands in his pockets and shooting a heavy glare at his companion, Stephen Winter. “I missed my train, but that has nothing to do with anything. You said you had a job for me?”
“Why of course,” said Stephen, the faint smile still twitching at the corner of his lips. “Funny how the great Juan de León would disturb his holiday rest to take on a job, now of all times.”
Juan had to concede that Stephen had a point. “That may be so, Stephen. But from what you’ve told me this is no ordinary job. And there’s never rest for a curseworker.”
“Of course, of course.” Stephen rolled his eyes at the sky. “Let me guess—another one of old Aguila’s lessons?”
“That would be Señor Aguila to you,” said Juan, giving Stephen a dark glare. “The job, Stephen.”
“Such impatience, Juan. Seems the inverse of our usual relationship, doesn’t it?” said Stephen with a little laugh, but before he could give Juan a chance to reply, he reached into his duffel coat and began fumbling around in his inside pockets, presumably for the request he’d received through the mail last evening. “But I digress, I digress. Here it is, Señor de León –your latest request. There’s just something charming about it when it’s kids, isn’t there?”
Juan accepted the request Stephen handed him without saying anything. He raised his eyebrows when he saw it was a postcard—very few requests came in by paper anymore, what with the advent of email and text messaging, and most of the few mailed ones came in on airmail paper, in envelopes. This request, however, had been written on a simple postcard with an image of a city skyline on the front, the likes of which could be bought for a dime in any store in the city. When Juan flipped it over, he saw the address—one of the city’s new suburban subdivisions—and request were written in a painfully-scripted, lopsided, childlike print.
He’d been expecting this, though. This was the reason Juan had disturbed his holiday break to accept a request in the first place…just because it was unusual.
“Dear Curseworker Juan,” read Juan out loud. “My name is Ethan. I am 9 years old. I want you to curse my mom and dad. Please meet me in the old cabin in the forest. Sincerly—I presume that would be sincerely—Ethan Phillips.”
The curseworker lowered the postcard without saying a word, and looked up at Stephen, his dark eyes meeting Stephen’s own green ones. Stephen smirked in response.
“They just keep getting younger and younger, don’t they?”
Juan turned away from Stephen and raised the postcard in the air, frowning at the forlorn message printed in such neat and painstaking handwriting on the back. “Well, this is certainly an unusual request. How did this kid hear about me in the first place?”
“It could be a joke,” suggested Stephen.
“If you thought it was a joke, Stephen, you wouldn’t have called me in the first place.” Juan lowered the card again, turning back to his employer, his expression serious. Stephen shrugged and sighed.
“You’re right. Of course, Juan. I’d never waste your time on a joke.”
“So this is real. This kid wants to curse his parents, hmm?” Juan glanced down at the penciled writing on the postcard again, as if it’d unveil some hitherto-unknown secret about the writer—but of course it didn’t. “Sounds like a typical parent-child conflict gone awry.”
“Aww, is Dr. Juan gonna swoop in and get everyone to hug and make up and ride off in the sunset happily ever after?” said Stephen, his tone mocking. Juan threw a disapproving glare at Stephen.
“You can shut up, Winter. What do you think--? I’m going to do my job, nothing more, nothing less. That’s what the kid requested, so that’s what the kid will get.”
Stephen looked surprised, but only for a moment. A wide, insidious smirk soon cut across his face, and his twinkling green eyes acquired a devilish light. “You’re right, Juan. I didn’t mean to belittle you. So—this ‘cabin in the woods’. I’d assume this kid means the abandoned old hunter’s lodging, in the part of the forest that hasn’t been converted to suburbia.”
“Thank you,” said Juan, jerking his head in a brief nod in acknowledgment to Stephen. “Well—before I go, I’d better tidy up my office. I think I’ll be using it a lot more than I planned this holiday vacation.”
“Right you are,” said Stephen. “Let’s go, Juan.”
Without casting a backwards glance at the unknowing, ambling holiday crowds, Stephen and Juan turned around and swept off through the streets of the city, soon losing themselves in the massive crowd. When the light turned red and the crosswalk opened to pedestrians, there wasn’t a single sign that the curseworker and his employer had been there only seconds before.
*************
Stephen had offered to go with Juan to the meeting place, but Juan had declined—it was only a kid, after all. Juan had performed curses for powerful people, for mafia bosses and police commissioners and minor politicians and even a famous actor or two, and in those cases he had always appreciated the presence of his older, stronger employer. If the curse requester ever got out of hand, Stephen would be there to deal with them with all the grace and subtlely of an eighteen-wheeler driven by a raging drunkard.
In the case of a nine-year-old child, though…Juan felt he could handle himself. A part of him toyed with the notion of just convincing the boy to drop his curseworking ambitions, but most of Juan had decided to follow whatever request the kid might have. So long as he was being paid for it…
Juan found the cabin in the woods with ease—it was a faded, dilapidated affair, looking rather lonely amidst the tall, bare trees of the forest. The curseworker guessed that both the cabin and forest wouldn't be around next year, when the subdivision expanded, but so long as they were around, they were the favorite playing-place of children. The curseworker personally didn’t get the appeal of the outdoors, but that was just a personal gripe.
He scaled the rickety steps to the cabin doors with caution, wondering what kind of child this Ethan Phillips was. If he went so far as to ask for a curseworker…and how did he even know what a curseworker was? Maybe the request was a joke...
Juan raised his hand, halfway prepared to knock on the door—but one look at the door persuaded him otherwise. The thing would probably splinter into a million matchsticks with the slightest impact. He had to get inside, though, so he settled for pushing, with the utmost gentleness, on it, and hoped he wouldn't rip it off its hinges. The door swung open with a faint creak of a protest, and Juan prepared to take a step inside.
He didn’t though—instead, the curseworker took a step backward, surprised by the appearance of a boy at the door. A small boy, a boy who couldn’t have been older than ten, his gingery hair straight and well-combed, and his eyes huge and hazel behind round glasses. A few freckles were sprinkled with fitful imprecision on his milk-white face, but otherwise he appeared an ordinary, pale and unremarkable fourth-grader. He stared up at Juan, real surprise shining in his wide eyes.
“Hello,” said Juan, flashing the boy a brief, humorless smile. “Are you Ethan Phillips?”
“Ah—ah—” squeaked the little boy, his voice high-pitched and squeaky even for a nine-year-old. “Um—um—are you Curseworker Juan?”
“Perhaps.” Juan decided to opt for “mysterious” here, which wasn’t hard as the kid already seemed shell-shocked and bamboozled out of his wits by the curseworker's appearance. “May I come in, Ethan?”
“Um—um—okay—” stammered Ethan Phillips, jumping backwards a few feet. He never removed his wide hazel eyes from Juan, as if he thought Juan was a dream that would disappear if he removed his eyes from the curseworker for just one second. "I didn’t think you’d come—”
“I did come, Ethan,” said Juan, looking for a place to sit. He didn’t find one—the cabin was bare and unfurnished, with the faint smell of dampness and mold. The curseworker instead settled for leaning against the wall, slipping his hands in his pockets and still fixing the stricken little boy with a mysterious smile. “You sent me a request, Ethan, and I answered it. Now, I’ve got to ask—how do you even know about me in the first place?”
“Um—um—” Ethan seemed panicky to an unusual degree, or maybe he was still too startled by Juan’s appearance to say anything. “Er—Billy Trementina—he’s a fifth-grader—he told me about you. About the curseworkers. He says that they curse people who ask them.”
“And Billy Trementina is quite right.” Juan almost smirked, but managed to keep his devilish amusement to himself. Trementina—as it happened, a rival curseworking family to the de León. Apparently this Billy wasn’t too good at keeping his mouth shut. “But how did you know about me?” After all, if he is a Trementina, he should have sold the services of his own family.
“Billy told me about Occultist magazine,” said Ethan. “He—he gave me one and I—I looked in it. I saw your ad.”
“And so you decided to ask me to curse your mother and father.” Juan raised his eyebrows, conveying all the skepticism he could with that simple gesture. “Tell me, Ethan, for what reason do you want me to do that? Cursing is a drastic action, and not one I’ll take on parents who only tell their children to eat their vegetables and go to bed at eight. I’ll be the first to tell you that vegetables are good for you and so is a good night’s sleep. Sorry to disappoint, if that’s what you were hoping I’d do.”
“No—no!” Ethan flushed bright red, and he turned away and shook his head for a brief moment. “No! It’s not that. See, I have a sister. Her name’s Emily."
“Yes?” said Juan, his tone coaxing but also gentle. “What about Emily?”
“She—my mom and dad—” Ethan paused for a moment. “My mom and dad—they really like her--”
“Ah.” Juan caught on in a flash. “And they don’t like you.”
“No!” cried Ethan, his face even scrunching up in protest, but only for a moment. “No! No—they just—they like Emily more than me! Emily’s six, she just started school, and—she can sing real good. Mom and Dad like that, Mom especially. Mom wants Emily to go to acting school and be a famous singer, like on American Idol.”
“But you can’t sing.” Juan felt a faint stab of sympathy, being tune-deaf himself.
“No—I wanna—I wanna be a paranormal researcher.” A visible note of pride slipped into Ethan’s voice at the last two words, as if he was congratulating his accomplishment in pronouncing such a complicated word. “I like that stuff. The occult and stuff like that. I wanna—but Mom doesn’t. She says it’s weird and crazy stuff, that it’s not real and I should just try to be famous. Not like Dad; she says he's just a 'pathetic bum'.” He paused, and when he went on, his voice had acquired a sad, almost hardened note--a hardness that just didn't go with such a little boy. “Mom didn’t even get me what I wanted for my birthday. She got Emily a new dress and sheet music and she just got me a sweater. I wanted a paranormal research kit—like the one in the book orders—”
“Well, that’s not very kind of her,” said Juan, clucking disapprovingly. What a dysfunctional family this boy has… “You know that some aspects of the paranormal are real. Like curseworking.”
“Yeah! Yeah!” The faint bitter note that had entered Ethan’s voice became replaced by a raw, eager excitement, and his eyes turned, shining with an almost beseeching light, to Juan. “Curseworker Juan—I know you can do it—your ad said you’re the best in the city! That’s why I wrote you the card.”
Best in the city…well, wasn’t Stephen a master of spin? Juan managed to keep his chuckle to himself, though, and said, “So, Ethan. What do you want me to do to your mom and your dad?”
Ethan stared, wide-eyed and surprised, at Juan, his expression analogous to one a deer about to get run over by a Hummer might make. But only for a moment—the look of surprise faded away, to be replaced by something akin to a steely determination. Ethan drew himself up to his full height (which wasn’t much), and, meeting Juan’s dark eyes with his hazel ones, said, his squeaky voice ringing out with almost authority, “I want you to make Mom and Dad like me. I want you to make them not like Emily and singing anymore, and make them like me and paranormal research more.”
Ethan continued staring up at Juan, his expression intent, his pale throat convulsing, almost as if expecting the curseworker to challenge him. Juan didn’t, however. He instead unpeeled himself from the wall (about time—any longer and his coat would bear the permanent stench of mildew), and strode over to Ethan so that the two were only about a foot apart. Ethan jumped back, surprised, but Juan was not deterred and took another two steps forward, closing the distance between the two.
“Ethan,” he said, imbuing his voice with all the quiet seriousness he could muster—the time for playing around was over. “Ethan Phillips—do you understand just what you are asking me to do? A curse is serious, Ethan. And it will last forever. You cannot take it back. Do you understand, Ethan Phillips? When you make this curse, you are writing a contract between you and I. A contract that cannot be taken back. Even if you regret it, you can never reverse it. Do you understand?”
Ethan gulped, the sound more than audible, and his eyes widened, but he then jerked his head into a brief nod. “Uh-huh. Yeah. I—I understand. But—but I really want this—”
“I can tell,” said Juan with a dry chuckle. “If you’re desperate enough to ask me…but anyhow. Tell me, Ethan, first of all—do you know anything about how curseworking actually works?”
“Um…” Ethan’s throat convulsed again. “Um…I dunno. I thought you just went to my parents and put the curse on them? That’s what Billy said. Someone asks the curseworker and they put a curse on whoever you want, right?”
Juan let out a heavy sigh, and shook his head. Of course, he should have expected this…he doubted a ten-year-old would be able to tell Ethan the true, intricate details of curseworking, even if he came from a curseworking family himself. “You’re not entirely right, Ethan. There is—is a prescribed method for doing this. You see, in the first meeting between a curseworker and his client—that’d be you—no actual curseworking is done. Now—don’t make that face; it takes time to weave together a proper curse. You cannot just say ‘I curse you to oblivion’ and let it be done; that’s not how things work. You must choose your words carefully, because remember, you are dooming them for the rest of their lives, perhaps more.”
“Ah—” Much to Juan's surprise, Ethan became even paler than he already was. “But--what’re you going to do now? Are you just gonna leave and—”
“Oh, no.” Juan shook his head, unable to keep a small chuckle from escaping his lips. “During the first meeting between the curseworker and his client—the client pays the curseworker.”
This time, Ethan most definitely blanched. The boy took several steps backwards, his eyes widening to almost impossible proportions. He seemed to be struggling to speak for a few moments, and Juan stood back in polite patience, waiting for Ethan to spit it out.
“I didn’t—I have—I have two quarters with me, I think…” Ethan started digging into the pockets of his overlarge lambskin jacket. “I dunno—and I have forty-seven dollars and fifty-two cents in my allowance, is that enough?”
Juan chuckled again, and shook his head. “Oh, no. If you’d read the ad—” or if Stephen had printed anything halfway truthful “—you’d know that my starting price is one hundred and twenty dollars down, more if the curse is especially difficult or takes a long time to work. Not a penny less.”
“One—one hundred twenty!” Ethan flinched as if he’d been struck. “But—I used t’have that much in my allowance but I spent it on a ghost book—I dunno what to do—Mom and Dad give Emily more allownace’n me—”
The little boy’s panic was amusing in a strange way, but also almost saddening. Juan felt another stirring of pity towards the child—he was only a kid trying to pursue a dream, a dream his parents didn't want him to pursue for selfish reasons of their own. The curseworker didn't understand, coming from a close-knit, loving family himself, but at the very least he could sympathize. And besides, what kind of nine-year-old boy would walk around with a hundred and twenty dollars on him, anyhow?
“It’s all right,” said Juan, raising a hand before Ethan could kill himself from a panic attack. “I’ll tell you what, Ethan—since you’re the first kid who’s asked of my services, I’ll give you a special offer. I’ll perform this curse for forty-seven dollars and fifty-two cents—keep your two quarters, buy some gum with them or something—but you must promise me one thing.”
“What? What is it? What what what what?” cried Ethan, almost hopping up and down in his joy. He stared up at Juan with such admiration that Juan, for some reason, felt his pity intensify. To think that this boy was admiring a curseworker, of all people… “What is it? What promise? What?"
“You must promise me this, Ethan—” began Juan, and then he knelt down so he and Ethan were eye-to-eye. The little boy stared into Juan’s eyes, eagerness, excitement, a tiny bit of fear, apprehension, admiration, shining in his hazel eyes. “You must never tell anyone. Do you understand? Do not tell anyone. Not your friends, not your parents, not your sister, not even Billy Trementina. Do you understand, Ethan Phillips?”
“Ah—uh—um—” For a moment, it seemed something was stuck in Ethan’s throat, but then he coughed with an audible wet sound, and when he spoke again, his words were still hesitant but rang with a renewed confidence. “Um. Okay. I do understand. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Good.” Juan sighed deeply, and placed his hands on Ethan’s shoulders—only for a moment. The boy tensed, surprised for a moment, but didn’t have a chance to recover before Juan had removed his hands and slipped them, with a theatrical elegance, back in his pockets. The curseworker pulled himself up to his full height again, and gave Ethan his best mysterious smile. “That’s very good, Ethan. Now—I will write your curse. And we will meet again, in seven days, in this same location, at the same time. Remember that, Ethan. And be there.”
“Yes! Yeah, I’ll remember—I will—” said Ethan, eagerness ringing in his voice and undisguised hope shining in his eyes. The smile Juan gave him was a little sad and a little mysterious and a little patronizing as well. The curseworker waved goodbye to the boy as he headed to the door, and before Ethan could blink, Juan had slipped out of the door and disappeared in the forest beyond.
“Where did he--?” cried Ethan, his voice echoing through the forest, as he dashed over to the door and stared out—at a pristine, snow-blanketed forest. There was no sign of Juan de León anywhere.
*************
“Hard at work, Juan?” said Stephen, leaning over Juan’s desk and casting a large shadow over the curseworker hard at work on his computer. Stephen’s stubble had grown into a full-on beard by now, and he was carrying a mug of coffee in one hand.
“Good morning to you too, Stephen,” said Juan, his inflection flat and distracte, ignoring his employer and training all of his attention on the computer screen. He continued clacking out lines at a steady pace, at times hitting the delete key to replace words or even entire phrases.
“Writing a curse?” said Stephen, scooting around Juan’s desk so that he was standing by the curseworker’s side. “Well, I’m surprised the little brat could even pay.”
“In that, a little bit of the fault goes to you,” said Juan, though most of him was still focused on the computer screen. “You didn’t bother putting any prices in my Occultist ad, did you?”
“Sure I did. It was probably just too small for the kid to notice.” Stephen leaned over Juan’s shoulder to examine the computer screen, much to the curseworker’s annoyance. “Is that his curse you’re working on?”
“Who else’s could it be?” said Juan, twitching in slight irritation. “Stop leaning over me, you’re making it hard for me to concentrate.”
“Sorry,” said Stephen, and much to Juan’s relief he straightened up—only to take a perch on Juan’s desk, scooting loose papers off the desk to accommodate his own rear end. “It’s hard work, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Juan leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh, slumping his head against the chair back and bringing his arms down to his side. “It's very hard work. All the politicians tugging on me one way and the actors tugging on me the other way and the mob bosses and police commisioners waving their guns and threatening me. Not to mention all the bored heiresses who just want me to jinx their parents or whatever. Everyone wants different things; and they all turn to me to make it happen. I'm surprised I even have time to sleep."
“Ha ha ha.” Stephen let out a short and dry laugh. “Well, you know. Politicians and actors and rich prima donnas. All in a day’s work for you."
“Yeah, all in a day’s work,” said Juan, and then leaned forward in his chair, rested his chin on his hands, and let out a heavy sigh. “Politicians—musicians—mob bosses—I can understand them. They’re all people living in rough, dog-eat-dog worlds where the law matters little, and where an eye-for-an-eye is the way of the world. It makes sense for them to employ curseworkers…”
“But it doesn’t for a kid,” said Stephen, his voice quiet.
“No.” Juan shook his head, a few strands of his dark hair falling into his eyes. “Children are—I mean—what sort of child is out to get everlasting revenge against anyone? Kids’ arguments are brief and capricious; they don’t ever mean to hurt anyone. At least not permanently. But…”
“Sibling rivalry’s a pretty major issue,” said Stephen.
“Yes, you’d know that more than anyone, you of the twenty siblings—” snapped Juan in irritation.
“Nine, actually,” cut in Stephen, his voice cheerful and blithe. “And we actually never fought much—Edward ruled us with an iron fist, you know.”
“Yes, well,” said Juan, waving his hand dismissively in Stephen’s direction. “I know it’s normal for siblings to fight…but like this? For the kid to ask for a curseworker…”
“Juan,” said Stephen, all the teasing gone now, his voice having acquired a deep and quiet seriousness—and concern. He stood up, and held his hands out, with something akin to a gentle caution. “Juan—”
“Stephen.” Juan spun in his seat, turning away from the computer screen to meet Stephen’s startled gaze. The words of the curse burned like a mocking paean on the computer screen, but he ignored them, instead shaking his head, over and over again. “Stephen—what the hell am I doing? This kid shouldn’t be talking to a curseworker in the first place. He—and his family—should be talking to a damn psychologist. Not to me. This is—this is wrong. All wrong. I won’t be helping him a single ounce, will I?”
“That…that may be true,” said Stephen, his words slow and hesitant. “But Juan—you took this job. You know you have to finish this.”
“I know,” said Juan, shaking his head in impatience. “Of course I’ll finish it; it’s what I was paid to do. But still, Stephen, I have to wonder…is this really all right?”
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” said Stephen, not bothering to hide the dryness pervading his voice. “Could it be--? The curseworker is growing a conscience?”
“Not a conscience, per se,” said Juan, casting Stephen a sidelong, sardonic glance. “I know I can’t have one, being what I am. But still—I start thinking about what I’m doing. I am bending the laws of nature, the fickle currents of magic and mystery, all for the damn sake of a kid who’s jealous of his little sister. Sometimes I wonder—I must be violating at least a hundred different codes doing this, I know I am.”
“Yeah, codes that were all laid down in the Medieval Ages, by old guys with beards and staffs,” said Stephen, giving Juan an ironic smirk. “You’re a modern, active, liberated, wage-earning curseworker. You don’t need to abide by those quaint old rules made by a bunch of stuffy patriarchs.”
“A ha ha ha, very funny, Señor Winter. But what about the higher rules I’m violating, doing this…?” said Juan, casting a bitter smirk at the shining words on the computer screen. “The rules of nature and magic itself…this is going to come back to me, Stephen, and not in a good way.”
“If you say so,” said Stephen, his tone skeptical. “It hasn’t come back to you yet, though, so I’d advise you to get cracking on it if you want your paycheck.”
“Oh, spare me from my most cruel and vicious master,” sighed Juan with the theatrical pathos of a stage actor, clutching his heart and staring with exaggerated despair, at the ceiling. Stephen laughed, and then smacked hard on Juan’s keyboard, causing a string of disjointed symbols and letters to pop up on Juan’s screen. Juan let out a load series of oaths in both languages he knew, causing Stephen to laugh, and then go saunter off—his coffee cup was empty, after all. Not to mention he didn’t want to incur the wrath of an angered curseworker.
*************
Outside, the air was frigid and the clouds hung thick and dark and gray in the sky, threatening hail at the very least, sleet and maybe a full-on snowstorm at the most. Juan de León, however, paid little attention to the weather, as he was snug and comfortable in his little climate-controlled apartment.
The blinds were drawn, the lights switched off. The only form of illumination anywhere came in the form of the single long, thin red candle, placed with a neat delicacy the center of the floor of the room Juan used to practice his curses. The curseworker paced in a circle around the candle, one arm folded across his chest, the other raised to his chin, lost in deep thought.
“On the behalf of the complainant, Ethan Maxwell Phillips…” he murmured under his breath, a slight crease of concentration appearing between his brows. “…the grievances filed are thus…”
It was essential to practice a curse. Every curseworker knew this—it had been drilled into their heads since they had first begun to learn the rudiments of the art: Practice makes perfect. A cliché if Juan ever heard one, but a true cliché. He had heard many horror stories—most from his mentor, the venerable Señor Aguila, as well as his older sister Mauricia—of what happened to curseworkers who forgot even a single word of the curse they were supposed to be casting. Rebounding curses, permanent injuries, the fires of hell itself, if Señor Aguila’s favorite story was to be believed.
It wouldn’t do to just recite a curse off a sheet of paper, either—Juan had always composed his curses on the computer beforehand, because unlike Señor Aguila he couldn’t come up with a perfectly refined curse off the top of his head. There was a specific way a curse had to be said, with power, with the firm strength and confidence of one who had practiced the words so many times they became ingrained in his head, that they came to his lips in his sleep, paraded through his mind while he dreamt…a weak recitation, or hesitation or uncertainty of any kind, was not enough to cast a curse. In fact, in some cases, weak reading engendered worse consequences than just forgetting.
It was a dangerous craft Juan had chosen, but it was one he loved, and would never give up for anything in the world.
Not even a little boy who wanted to curse his own parents just because they favored him less than his sister. Well, sure, those were messed-up parents in the first place, believing that the highest achievement their kid could aim for was being on American Idol of all things, but all the same, they didn’t deserve an eternal curse. What they deserved, Juan believed with firm conviction, was a family psychologist.
Too bad their son had hired Juan de León, proud and powerful curseworker. Now there could be no salvation for them—only eternal damnation at the hands of a young man with a dangerous understanding of the supernatural.
“...and will last forevermore.” Juan finished his memory-based recitation, confident now that he had it down, with no mistakes or omissions. The curseworker paused, glanced up to the ceiling, and squared his shoulders.
“So let the will of the mage be done.” Even as he said them, as just a component of a memorization practice, he felt the power that unconsciously entered the words, lifted them up, caused them to stir with the faintest trace of magic. The words meant nothing at all, and were more than a little archaic—no proper curseworker nowadays would call himself a “mage”. The phrase, however, was tradition, one of the oldest traditions alive in curseworking. It was unthinkable to end a curse without the final line, the confirmation of the curseworker’s power.
Once he said the words—there was no turning back. Once that final line, the will of the mage, had left his mouth, he could never recant them. Those last words, while meaning nothing, were the most powerful words on the planet to a curseworker, because they were the sign of his strength, his will, his determination to lay down a curse for all eternity on an unfortunate target.
Juan sighed heavily, and slumped his shoulders. He had said them—so he would have to carry them out. He had signed up for this and now there was no way to erase his name. Like it or not, Dr. Juan was going to fix Ethan Phillips’s family.
-------
And that's it for now; I'll post the rest soon. I'm already afraid this is a bit too long too (it's nine pages...), but oh well. The next part will actually have Juan casting the curse, so that's where the more fantasy part comes in. Honestly, I didn't expect this to be as long as it was, but...oh well. I would have posted the whole story at once, since it flows together very well, but I'm afraid that would be way too long, particularly for this site. >_>
EDIT: Went back and fixed the prose a bit, mostly removing adverbs.
(note I have no idea if you did this after reading my PM or before, so...if you haven't, the end part of the PM will be irrelevant)
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