The Curse of Briar Michaels, Pt. II
Once Aislinn had stopped sobbing, the four of them sat down in the small apartment living room. She tucked a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear, looked at Briar and said, “You know how cartoons and novels and movies all claim that there is a quote, unquote, ‘person of death?’ Well, there is and he’s not exactly a person and I know this because I can see him. I saw him today. I watched you touch him.”
She proceeded to tell him about how it had all started with her grandfather’s death when she was 11 years old. She told him about every time she had seen Death — there had been five sightings — but she did not tell him what the creature looked like.
After Aislinn, Asuka told Briar that she could smell Death’s approach. She was holding her camera in her lap, its aquamarine strap laid across her knees.
“I take a photo for every person I smell him on,” she whispered. “He must visit a person for a while before he takes their life. Usually I start smelling it about two months before the person dies. He leaves some sort of trace on them and it only smells more rotten as their end draws near.”
Finally, Dushan tried to explain the sound of Death. His stoic expression didn’t falter as he spoke.
“I first heard it when I was in seventh grade. We moved in across the street from a hospital. Must have been some cruel joke fate was playing on me. When I first heard it, I didn’t know how to describe it. It’s like screaming and crying and sometimes there’s a sense of designated understanding. There’s tiptoeing and stomping all at once as Death approaches and then this blaring moment of finality and then it’s over. Every time it’s a little bit different; every person’s soul reacts a little bit differently. But those steps are always the same.”
Briar had not moved once since Aislinn had begun the conversation. He was staring at the ground. He didn’t know how to react to all of this. How does one properly react when it turns out the girl you’ve just met (and really like) is part of some strange supernatural family?
When Briar finally looked up, Dushan said, “That’s why we stick together. Because if we didn’t have each other, if we didn’t have people who understood, we’d all go insane.”
Briar thought about that comment a lot. He thought about it later that night in his apartment. He thought about it over the next few months and he thought about it a lot after everything fell apart.
Up until everything fell apart, he thought he was now a part of this strange family. He thought perhaps he could find a home with them.
But things fell apart. Six months later, after time’s gravitational pull had pushed Aislinn and Briar deeper into love, a piece of their happiness died. It was a beautiful day, the kind of day that begs to be photographed and used as a backdrop. The sun was shining, the sidewalks were filled with people and everyone seemed happy to be alive. Dushan and Asuka had opened all the windows in the apartment and were playing music from a speaker. Perched in the kitchen window, Asuka was taking photo after photo, thankful that no one in them smelled like Death. Everything reeked of life.
Aislinn and Briar were in the park across the street. They were on a park bench; they often went there to talk and watch people walking by. It was a beautifully normal day. And then it wasn’t.
A woman screamed as a thief ran off with her purse.
Then there was a gunshot.
The screaming died.
Before it stopped, though, everyone in the park looked in the direction of the sound. They saw a middle-aged woman slumped on a park bench. Her sky-blue blouse had a red stain in the center. The stain was growing.
Everyone else saw a woman and blood. Then they saw flashing lights and cop cars. Then they saw cops and then people with stretchers. And then it was over.
But Aislinn saw a ghastly and crooked creature. Its slow, heavy steps were taking it away from the park bench. No one else noticed the shadowy creature carrying a transparent version of the woman away from the scene.
Except Briar.
To Aislinn’s horror, Briar stepped in front of her, his arm reached out. She could only see half of his face, but she could not miss how pale he became as Death brushed past them and his body briefly came into contact with Briar’s fingertips. Suddenly, Aislinn knew what Dushan and Asuka saw every time they watched her see Death. She knew how Briar must have felt that day on the sidewalk months ago.
It was the worst thing she had ever experienced. Briar had frozen and she felt a piece of her heart rip apart from the core. Here was the man she loved and here was the most awful thing he could feel and she had caused it. She was the only reason he had been exposed.
The park emptied quickly. More sirens came. Briar snapped out of his daze. He reached for Aislinn’s hand, told her they should get out of there. He didn’t understand why there was guilt mixed into the horror in her blue eyes.
When they got back to the apartment, Dushan had his hands over his ears. Aislinn silently walked up to him, took his hands in hers and said, “It’s over. He’s gone.”
Asuka was still in the kitchen window. She was staring at her photos of happiness. She was wondering how she had missed the scent. She was trying to find the woman who had died.
Briar hung back from the others, just inside the doorway. He wasn’t sure how he fit into this ritual. He hadn’t been dealing with all of this nearly as long as they had. Honestly, he didn’t have to deal with it. He didn’t have to reach out to the creature. He didn’t know why he had. While the others would never fully escape their curses, Briar could.
He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t wanted to.
On the other hand, Aislinn knew Briar could be removed from the horrors. Aislinn was cursed. Dushan and Asuka were cursed. They had all known this for a long time; they had made their peace. But Aislinn also knew something else: Briar didn’t have to be.
She held onto Dushan’s hands a little longer than she would have normally. Tears were welling up in her eyes and she needed strength. She needed to center herself. Because she knew what she had to do. And she knew, if given the option, she would have rather stared at Death for a solid 15 minutes than have the conversation she was about to have.
Briar may have wanted a home with all of them. He may have wanted to be a part of their world. But Aislinn believed she knew better; Aislinn knew she was cursed. She was cursed and Briar didn’t have to be and as long as they all stayed together, he would be. So things needed to fall apart. And she had to be the one to tear everything they had built to shreds.
She supposed that was what love was.
Originally published in The Index, Mar. 2019
Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash
