The Curse of Havenwood House, First Installment

Write It. Edit It. Publish it!

Curses are the scariest things for me. I imagine how relentlessly they entangle people and how helpless they render even the strongest of us. I’m hoping my heroine will find the strength to free herself from the curse that has destroyed her predecessors. Let’s see if she can do that.

The Curse of Havenwood House is about 5,000 words at this point. It may never be more than that. I haven’t decided. I’m test-driving the first 1,000 words of this story in the WEP’s October contest. Feedback very welcome!

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The Curse of Havenwood House

by

C. Lee McKenzie

Aurora Havenwood was not going to escape the curse. Every one of her servants at the manor house knew it. Every person within fifty kilometers of Havenwood township did as well. So when whispers of the masque ball Aurora planned to give mingled with the steam in the scullery, that gossip spread throughout Havenwood township faster than a grass fire in August. 

“A ball?”  Cook set the ladle aside and wiped her hands on her apron. 

“A masque, Miss Havenwood calls it.” Livy, the servant girl hovered at Cook’s back. 

“Saints preserve us. That one will see to all of our deaths! Livy Peterson, you have not heard right.”

“I heard it from Maid Mannerly who heard it from Mr. Webbly, and he heard the conversation straight from her Highness.” The serving girl lifted her chin in mockery. “Aurora Havenwood. She’s planning it, all right.”

“And her poor mad mother barely cold in her grave.” Cook’s face was rosy from the fire. She pulled a handkerchief from between her pillowy breasts and blotted her forehead. 

One of the call bells jingled, and Livy picked up the tray laden with a pot of tea and toast. “Her Highness wants breakfast.”

“Best not use that tone when speaking to or about Miss Havenwood, missy!”

“Yes, Cook.”

Livy climbed the wooden stairs from the scullery to the main floor, then quickly skirted the door on her right. It led to the old cellar that always remained locked and forbidden. The face carved into its thick panels, with an unblinking stare and bare-toothed grin, knotted up her innards anytime she accidentally glanced at it. 

When she reached the spiral staircase, she balanced the tray and mounted the steps to the top. Since last month, she felt compelled to pause for a look over the balustrade and down onto the entry. The chill of death slid over her skin. The image of Myra Havenwood’s blood spattered across those hard tiles was still clear as the morning her poor self discovered the broken body. 

Livy shivered, and her tray tilted slightly. She steadied it before continuing along the corridor.

When she reached the door to Miss Havenwood’s bed chamber, it swung open. Livy had been in service here six months, but the way the doors opened and closed by themselves still unnerved her. Some said it was drafts. Cook said it was the ghost of Havenwood House. Livy gripped the tray tightly and entered. “Breakfast, Miss Havenwood.”

The young woman in the middle of the room whirled to face her. Her dark hair fanned around her shoulders and to her waist like a thick, lustrous cape. “Come.” Her voice was soft but steely with authority—gentle, yet strong.

Livy hurried inside to set the tray on the small table next to the window. “Anything else, Miss?”

“A smile.”

“Sorry, Miss?”

“I want a smile. Is that not possible in this house?” Aurora’s deep violet eyes captured Livy’s attention and held it until Livy parted her lips and drew them up at the edges. “Thank you,” Aurora said.

Livy curtseyed and almost said you’re welcome. She wasn’t used to the Havenwoods thanking her. 

“You may go, Livy.”

“Yes, Miss.” Backing out, Livy waited until the door creepily closed on its own, and then she hurried to tell Cook that the mistress was behaving in an odd manner. Smiling? In this house? 

Once the maid left, Aurora sipped her tea and nibbled at the toast, but she had no appetite. She hadn’t since her mother’s plunge to her death and since the house had turned its malevolence on her. The iron key that unlocked the cellar door had appeared on her bedside table the night Myra died. It was a signal that the curse was now Aurora’s to endure. 

Too soon. I’m not yet eighteen.

The threat of the house entangled Aurora from heart to toe, and fighting its suffocating presence took all of her energy. To quickly end her suffering, she only had to unlock the cellar door, enter the depths of Havenwood House, and face whatever fate lay in wait for her there. Or she could wait, as the other women in her family had, and die at the precise moment she turned thirty-five years old. She was not willing to do either. But how could she break the curse? None of the Havenwood women in two generations had dared try.

She rose to stare out the high-arched window. With her fingertips on the glass, she enjoyed the illusion of touching the elegant stone gryphon far below. A vigilant sentinel in the lavender garden, he’d been her one childhood friend. People didn’t visit Havenwood House. There were no parties. No music. The house didn’t allow that, and any attempt to go against it always resulted in catastrophe—life-threatening illnesses, crippling falls, dreadful nightmares that didn’t allow sleep for weeks. Any attempt for a Havenwood mistress to leave for longer than a few hours had even more dire consequences. Not their death but the death of a loved one. She shuddered with the memory of the year her mother challenged the house by staying away too long. Aurora would never forget her poor drowned father being pulled from the pond—her mother racing across the lawn, collapsing next to his body. 

Stay, the house demanded, and suffer less.

The morning light spread over the lavender garden and the gryphon. When she’d been a child, Aurora had often escaped Nanny’s watchful eye to sit astride his broad back. She’d imagine his great heart beating in time to the downward thrust of his wings as he soared into the sky with her—the sound of air rushing over the outstretched feathers. If she felt ill, she sought out the gryphon, and he’d never failed to make her well. 

I long to reclaim those moments of freedom—those young days with my magical beast.

The house constricted. She clapped her hands over her ears to shut out the unnatural groan of wall joists as they bent to some unseen will. She could never hide her thoughts from Havenwood House. 

It was irked with her, the same way Nanny used to be when she’d catch sight of her astride that statue. With bristly chin thrust out, Nanny scurried across the lawn like a frantic hedgehog, her face flushed. 

“No young lady sits in that manner,” Nanny scolded before leading her away by the hand. Young Aurora always lagged, looking over her shoulder. She was certain her beast flexed his powerful claws and spread wide his wings in a farewell. 

Do not be afraid. We will be together again, Aurora.

It couldn’t have been her imagination. He spoke to her.

With that memory, she sighed, and a foggy circle of longing spread upon the window. “I didn’t care to be a well-mannered young lady,” she whispered. “I wanted to soar with you into the sky. I wanted to be happy and free from this place. If only I were a child again, and I could pretend…” Filled with resentment, she faced her room. “If I am to die young, then I am giving myself that ball. I am going to find a bit of joy in this hideous place. House be damned!”

The floor rippled under her slippered feet.

To be continued… Will you read more?