“So you don’t know where I might find her?”

“Hmm.”  The first woman swept off the shirt she had just ironed, hung it up, and got the next one laid out before I could blink.  “You know, when Abigail was still the last of her group, they used to sometimes hang out at her grandad’s place.  Abigail’s, you know – the hardware store.  Shop, really, hardly much of a store.  He was getting older and Abigail sometimes had to take shifts because he couldn’t handle it anymore and she was the only one left in his family.  When Marilyn and Abigail parted ways, that was a big part of it, and it wasn’t a secret – Marilyn was annoyed that Abigail wasn’t free for her 24/7 and Abigail was annoyed that Marilyn didn’t understand that she had some other responsibilities.  They had constant arguments about it, enough that everyone knew, even the hydras.  The final straw was when Abigail’s grandfather had a stroke and he couldn’t continue working, and Abigail needed to take over, and Marilyn’s response was something about ‘oh good, you can sell the place and stop dealing with it.’”  She sighed, rolling her eyes.  “Total obliviousness to Abigail’s situation, and this was supposed to be her closest friend.  Abigail straight up punched her in the middle of town, curse or not.  Marilyn tried to retaliate, but the curse didn’t let her.”

“She got hit harder by the physical aspects than most of us,” the other woman agreed.  “Her and Bill both.  We think it’s because she triggered it and both of them were there at the epicenter when the curse came down.  Somehow they got more affected.”

Or Mother had intentionally written them into her curse, knowing they were the future leaders and were the problem people in my own life, and thus they were doomed either way.  I hadn’t realized, though, that they were affected differently from the others.

“Yeah, if Marilyn attempts to hit someone,” the first woman almost winced, “it’s so awkward.  You just can’t watch it because it’s so – so embarrassing, I guess, even as an observer.  She loses strength so fast and will practically be panting before she’s moved her fist a bit.  I can’t even be happy about it because it just makes me cringe.”

Well, maybe that was why she had opted for verbal fights instead.  That was the only option she had.

“Anyway, they don’t talk anymore.  Abigail runs the shop on her own and she and, uh, who was that boy, I forget his name – the mechanic, you remember him?  He and her have been trying to combine their stuff.  You know, have a combo hardware shop and garage.  They’re dating or whatever.  I mean, they have a kid together and live in her place with her grandad, but if you ask them, they always say they’re just dating.”  She shrugged.  “Whatever.”

This felt like it was starting to devolve into less helpful info.  I was glad these women knew the gossip of town because it was giving me some helpful info, but on the other hand, I didn’t really need to know about Abigail and her boyfriend.

“Would you mind spreading the word if you run into others that I’m looking for Marilyn?  I want to talk to her while I’m here.”  Okay, I didn’t really want to, but I did need to.

While the second woman agreed readily, the first one made a disbelieving noise.

“She hates you, you know.  A lot.  She’d probably try to find a way around the curse if she could to straight-up kill you.  She blames you for things turning bad for her after graduation – well, after the curse fell.”  She gave me a warning look.  “Be careful if you talk to her, okay?  I don’t know if she really can do anything or if she’s brash enough to try given that the curse might be permanent if she succeeded, but you should be careful nonetheless.”

As I left the laundry, I was actually kind of touched by the fact that she warned me.  Maybe it was just because she didn’t want the curse to be permanent, but still.  People hadn’t cared for me much when I’d lived here as a child because I wasn’t a fan of Marilyn’s and didn’t hide it.  Now, though, even the gossip women of Terium were being cordial and warning me to be careful.

It was a weirdly nice feeling.

My search continued without any results, just more of the same – no one really knowing where Marilyn hung out all day, but they did know she showed up if any hydras ever crossed into the kapra side of town and would keep an eye on them, even if they were harmless people like Gia coming to help out the kapra nurse.  They also all promised to pass along the word that I was looking for Marilyn.

This seemed to have worked, because as I left the nurse’s office later, I nearly tripped over a rock on the sidewalk that hadn’t been there when I entered.  I looked down at it, then lifted it up and set it aside to read the note underneath.

Beach, was all it read.  Still, that was enough.  Marilyn knew I was looking for her and told me where to go.

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and reminded myself she couldn’t hurt me anymore.  Then I marched down the lake, searched the shore for a bit, and then spotted her.  She was standing under a few trees, barely visible in the glowing dusk, deliberately melting into the shadows.

I headed in her direction, my senses alert.  Marilyn was quite possibly the most dangerous person to me in this town, and while I still thought I probably needed to talk to her alone, a part of me also regretted that I didn’t at least have someone watching from a distance just in case.

But hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary.

I stopped close enough to her that I could make out her face, but far enough away that she couldn’t reach me without having to jump over a couple of logs.  Probably better to have some distance, even if I knew the curse was there.

For a long moment we just looked at each other.

“Marilyn,” I said at last, kind of a delayed greeting.

She huffed, crossed her arms, and looked away.  “I heard you were looking for me,” she snapped.  “What’s it about?”

“I should think that would be obvious.”  My tone was dry.  “Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me.  To be honest, I don’t want to be here.  I didn’t want to come back at all, but I had to in order to do right by the town and by Mother when she cast that curse.”

Marilyn’s fingernails in her arms tightened, almost digging into her skin.  “Yeah, that dumb curse.”  She suddenly snapped her head back to me, looking at me again instead of the lake.  “You know how much that stupid fucking curse has messed up life here?”

“No,” I told her calmly.  “It’s fixed things.  You know it has.  You were at that meeting yesterday, you heard, and I don’t think you’re stupid enough to not notice that the quality of life of people here has improved.”  I eyed her, but she was just seething and didn’t answer.  “You hate the curse, fine, you’re entitled to.  But some of the town members appreciate it and as long as there are people happy that things are changing – changing for the better – I will not lift the curse.”

I waited, but to my surprise, she still didn’t respond.

This was not the Marilyn I was used to or expected.  Marilyn in my early years was bossy and demanded everyone follow her orders.  Marilyn as the women at the laundry described sounded like someone who was a formidable verbal opponent, yet – yet here she was, being quiet.

She was angry, that was true.  But she wasn’t saying much, either, which I didn’t expect.

I considered what to do next, whether I should ask her outright if she was going to keep challenging the curse and the new peace that people were fighting for or just wait for her to talk, and for some reason waiting felt right.

I wasn’t in a hurry, after all.  If Marilyn wanted to yell at me or talk or get down to why she supported this feud – even though I knew she’d heard the arguments yesterday about why it was bad for everyone – or whatever she wanted from this talk, I was willing to wait and see what would come of it.  I had to assume she wanted to talk with me since she’d agreed and told me where to meet her.

For several long moments, there was only the sound of the water lapping against the shoreline as Marilyn still stood there, glaring at the lake but not looking at me.

“You don’t know anything,” she finally muttered, just barely loud enough to hear.

I considered this, waiting before I responded.  Obviously she knew that wasn’t true.  She knew that I knew about the feud’s true origin, about the way the feud played out in town, about the positive effects of the curse.  Which meant she was referring to something else – to why someone would support the feud.

“Then tell me,” I suggested in as neutral a tone as I could manage.

She was quiet for a bit and I wasn’t sure if she was going to take me up on that, before the dam abruptly burst.

“Did you know I wasn’t my parents’ first child?”  She didn’t even look at me, her posture getting more tense as she started talking at a fast rate.  “I had an older brother.  He was slated to be the next leader, because my parents are strong and wealthy and all that.”

Yeah, probably the only wealthy people in all of town, due to family money, but it wasn’t like they used it to help the town.

“Well, he died,” she stated bluntly.  “In the fight.  But instead of blaming him for being weak, my parents decided to have another kid.  To ‘carry on his legacy’ as they put it.”  She looked like she was seething with old anger.  “They had me just to make sure I could be his stand-in.  They demanded I do what he would have done, becoming the next leader and all.  They demanded I work hard and do more.  And then every single victory,” she spat out those words, emphasizing each one, “it was all him.  They would say I was honoring him.  That kind of nonsense.  It was never me, it was always him.”

By now, her fingers had tightened enough so her fingernails were starting to draw traces of blood, but she didn’t even seem to notice.

“I did so much more than he did.  I actually earned the position of next pride leader.  I led.  I did more than he ever did, but it was never enough.  They never saw me.”  Then she laughed humorlessly.  “And now, now they are mad at me because I ruined everything.  Because I triggered that stupid curse and even if I was achieving more than he ever had, my failures far eclipse his.”  She finally looked at me again, her eyes burning with anger.  “That’s what your stupid curse did.  I was on my way to being the strongest kapra leader we had seen in several generations and it was all taken away.  Because of your stupid fucking curse.”

She was right, I didn’t actually know anything about this.  I’d never known she had a brother or that her parents had put that kind of pressure on her.

I considered for a moment, but only one question came to mind.  “Why me?  Why pick me as one of your followers if you were trying to prove yourself as a strong leader?”

Marilyn huffed a bit as she looked back at the lake, unwilling to meet my eyes for long.  “That was – it was my attempt to do something different from him, something he’d never have done.  My parents wouldn’t ever see my achievements, but I knew you weren’t a fan and I thought maybe having another perspective, from a family who’d been here a long time but didn’t have as much magic, well, I just figured it would be a way to be different.  To think smarter and not be so much like him.”  She said that last word with an awful lot of hatred, then laughed again, the humorless, almost crazy laugh she’d laughed earlier.  “That worked out great for me, didn’t it?  Instead I got the town cursed and everything went backwards.”