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Do not talk about (we don’t say his name). Do not write about (we don’t write his name). Do not refer to (we don’t say his name) using any name. The more you know about (we don’t write his name), the more (we don’t say or write his name) knows about you.
All everyone does is just ignore him and make sure not to learn anything about him, so that he learns nothing about them. Everyone is scared. But everyone still continues to tell the legend from generation to generation, keeping fear in the village. The only information we have are the few books on him that no one is allowed to read. All those authors have died tragic deaths and no one has written anything about him since the last book that was written was 143 years ago.
The village’s elementary school makes sure that every kid knows about him, teach them the basic and tell them not to learn anything else. In my opinion, it’s stupid. Why teach something to then tell the students not to learn anything about it? Why teach it when you know that the less you know about it, the better? Why teach it when you could just not teach it at all and let it die? If no one knows about him, one day he’ll be forgotten.
Some say it’s because it’s part of the culture of our village. I think it’s just a tale to scare people. It’s a legend, a story, that’s all it is.
That doesn’t stop me from being curious about it. We learn very little about him. All the books that were written are locked away at the library. My goal is to one day read them. I’ll start by asking nicely, if that doesn’t work, I’ll steal them. Anyways, no one’s gonna notice it, no one has read them or even looked at them in a really long time. Too superstitious to know too much about him.
I’ve tried to ask about him, but every time they just tell me that we do not speak of him with fear in their voices. They all think I’m crazy for wanting to know more about him and keep telling me that I’ll get myself killed if I don’t stop.
~*~
My first attempt at getting the books was to go in the library and ask very nicely for them. I know it probably won’t work, but it’s worth the shot. I tried with every single librarian and employee there, they all said no. I tried to bribe them with money and food, still no. I even asked the really nice janitor and he said no.
The only thing I got out of it, is the whole library staff thinking I’m crazy or suicidal. Nothing new here, it’s not as if the whole village already knows about my curiosity on this subject.
Well then, I guess it’s time for plan B.
~*~
So the first step is getting the keys. The problem is that you need a few keys to get to the key. They really want to make sure that no one gets them, but they’re so proud of how well they protect it, that they told everyone where it is. Idiots. The key is in a drawer locked by a key, in a office locked with, you guessed it, a key. The other key is the one to the basement and only the janitor has it.
Before they close the library, I sneaked in the back. When the janitor gets to the office where the key is, I made a distraction in the bathroom by making a huge mess and flooding it. Once he’s gone, I get into the office, pick at the lock of the drawer (it’s one of those cheap locks, a baby could figure out how to open it without a key) and find the key pretty quickly.
Luckily for me, the janitor left his keys on his cart, so I take the basement key. I put something on the door to make sure I’ll be able to enter the office later.
He walks back from the bathroom and I hide before he can see me.
I feel bad for flooding the bathroom, he’s really nice and I just made him stay longer than he needed to.
I only leave my hiding spot once he’s done and left the library.
I go to the door that leads to the basement and unlock it, open the lights and go down the stairs. I start looking around for a box with a lock that could contain the books. After a few minutes of searching, I finally find a box that could contain the books and put the key it the lock. Click. It unlocks. Inside there’s four old books. They look brand new, except for the pages yellowed with time, since only a few people actually read them.
I carefully put them in my bag, lock the box, put it exactly where I found it, go back upstairs, lock the door to the basement. I got back into the office, place the key back it the drawer, lock it, lock the door to the office from the inside before closing it and putting the basement key on the ground to make it seem like it fell. I go out through the backdoor to make sure no one notices me and start walking home.
~*~
Alone in my room, I finally get the opportunity to start reading the books. I make sure no one can get in my room, I don’t want to get caught for stealing something and reading those forbidden books.
I take the oldest book (1812) and start reading. For the first time, I learn the name of the one no one dares to speak of and honestly, it’s a pretty normal name. His name is Larry Brown. In the book, it says that his wife was supposedly a witch. Mr. Brown was different than most people, he was odd and people made fun of him for it. One day, he was brutally murdered. When the funeral came, the very few people who actually cared were there. The one that would always make the most fun of him and who most of the village suspected as the murderers also came (there wasn’t enough evidence to track down the murderer), but not to show their respect or apologize, they came to say that he deserved it and how it was good that a freak like him died. The widow got furious. That night, she cursed the village, she made sure that no one would ever make fun of him again and anyone who dared would die a death as horrible as his. She wanted them to fear him like he had feared them.
I close the book. I put it away and open the next one. This one was written 20 years after the first book. It talks about a theory saying that Mr. and Mrs. Brown were insane, sick and had the devil in them and that it was probably a good thing that one of them died, because when the priest of the village had tried to exorcise them, before they got married, it hadn’t seem to work, so that at least they had only one devil instead of two. He went on with some bible quotes and more religious stuff that I don’t really care about.
The third book, written 15 years later, explained theories that could maybe explain how the town wasn’t cursed and that the Browns were just crazy and made the village believe in a witch or that the whole village just made it up for the sake of a scary story to tell. Yes, there was evidence that Mr. Brown was murdered, but the curse was probably fake.
The fourth book was the last time the name Larry Brown was ever written, 143 years ago. It was also then that the mayor banned writing anything about him after the author died a horrible death. He banned it for the safety of the person writing it and for the safety of others. No one ever read this book, I’m the first person to ever read it, except if someone else read it in secret like me.
The book is the opinion of an alienist on the whole situation, making a psychological analysis on the Browns based off the three first books, or at least the best psychological analysis you can make based off biased books and what they knew on psychology at the end of the 19th century. The author stayed as neutral as possible using only science to contradict what others said about the Browns. He doesn’t say anything bad, I wonder why he got killed by the curse if the curse only affects those who said something wrong against Larry, he’s the only one who defended him in some way. That’s probably just because the curse isn’t real, it’s probably just the village that thought that Mrs. Brown was a witch and cursed them based off some bad luck and coincidences that happened after Mr. Brown’s death.
I put the last book away. It’s passed 2 AM. I get ready for bed and fall into a dreamless sleep.
~*~
I take a bunch of notes from the books into a notebook, every important information. In a week I’ll return the books the same way I stole them, but not immediately, I don’t want it to seem suspicious or get caught.
On a swing at the park, I go through my notes. Stealing those books was so worth it! My curiosity is satisfied and it’ll keep me occupied for a while during the summer.
I sympathize with Mr. Brown and I understand him. I’m the odd one of the village right now, with me having a weird fascination in his story, everyone saw me as crazy. I’m the weird tomboy of the village, I’m the one who barely has friends. People look at me with disgust, fear or both. The disgust because that’s just how people are when faces with something that’s different, that doesn’t conform to what society excepts of you. The fear because they’re scared that I’ll learn more about the legend (which I did) and that I’ll bring them bad luck because of it (which I probably won’t).
At least Mr. Brown had someone to stand up for him, even once he was dead. No one would stand up for me like that, even if one of them was a witch.
I gather my stuff and start to head home.
Sometimes I wish I would live in a place less isolated, somewhere bigger than this small village where everyone knows everyone. I want to walk the streets without everyone recognizing me as the weird girl of the village and just see me as a stranger. But my family has lived here for generations and there’s no way any of them would break the family tradition. Well bad news for them, the second I’m old enough, I’m getting out of here, I’m gonna go study in the city and start a life there.
Diverging from the road, there’s a smaller road made of gravel. I’ve walked here my whole life and I swear I’ve never seen it before. Curious, I follow it. After a minute of walking, next to the lake there’s a beautiful house made of wood surrounded by gardens with a variety of plants growing, colourful flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruits. With the forest surrounding it and the lake behind it, the view is breathtaking.
I slowly approach the cottage in awe, taking in my surroundings. When I’m at a few meters from the garden surrounding the house, a black cat comes to rub itself on my legs. I crouch down to pet it. The cat purrs letting itself be pet.
The door to the cottage opens, startling me. The cat with it’s green eyes looks disappointed that I stopped petting it. At the door there’s a beautiful woman in her early thirties. She has long brown hair and she’s wearing a short sleeved patterned dress. She has a pretty smile and hazel eyes. What’s weird however, is that I have never seen her, maybe she moved in not long ago. Then again, I would’ve probably heard my mom gossip about a new person moving to the village, even more when she lives this close to my house, which was less than half a kilometre away when I took the path leading to this house.
“Adrianna, I have been waiting for you,” she said.
Okay, definitely not creepy at all. How does she know my name?!
I look at her warily.
“Who are you?” I ask. “And how do you know my name? How did you know I was coming here? I didn’t even know myself until a few minutes ago.”
“I’m Eileen Brown. And you know, as they say ‘the more you know about him, the more he knows about you.’ Just that it’s wrong when they say ‘him,’ it’s usually me that knows.”
“Eileen Brown? Larry Brown’s wife? B-but how are you here? You should be dead – no offence – you were alive 200 years ago!”
“Well the advantage of being a witch is that you can live a lot longer than humans.”
I stare at her in disbelief. Fuck she was gonna kill me or the curse will, I’m in so much shit! I should’ve listened to everyone and not done the research. Curiosity killed the cat. Here I am.
“Come in,” she told me with a gentle smile.
I probably have more chance at surviving if I follow her and get on her good side or at least have a less brutal death, hopefully painless.
I follow her into the cottage. There’s even more plants on the inside and if I wasn’t so fixated on my death, I might have had given them a closer look and enjoyed how homey and cozy it was on the inside.
She leads me to her kitchen and tells me to sit. She makes some tea, probably her own that she made with all the herbs she has. She pours it into two cups and sits across from me. I observe my cup, what if she poisoned it?
Well at least poison isn’t as bad as the deaths of the others that are usually bloody and most likely painful. I take a small sip and that’s probably the best tea I ever had, though to be honest, it’s also one of the only tea I’ve had.
“So, I see you’re interested in the death of my husband,” she says.
“Yeah, well at first it was more what was the legend based off and now that I do, I’m interested in the thing as a whole, not exactly his death,” I say, feeling the need to justify myself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean any disrespect, I was just curious.”
I stare into my cup, avoiding her eyes.
“It’s alright,” her voice is cheery, “I was waiting for the day I would find someone that would understand, someone that would neither laugh at him nor fear him and here you are.”
Getting more confident and more sure that she won’t kill me I blurt out: “If you only kill the ones that laugh at him and stuff like that, why kill that alienist?”
“I didn’t kill him, his death was actually accidental and I had nothing to do with it.”
“How does the more you know the more I know thing work?”
“It’s what I use to assess people, how are they reacting to Larry and if they don’t laugh, I leave them alone, if not the curse will go after them.”
“If you let them go, why am I here?”
“You are different and, honestly, you remind me of him.”
I thought of a question to ask, but I wasn’t sure if I should, but once again my curiosity took the better of me.
“They said you were sick, I don’t believe it really, but I’m still guessing they were referring to something. What was it?”
Eileen looked a bit uncomfortable.
“It’s totally okay if you don’t wanna say, I’m just curious.”
“I might have been married to Larry, but in the end we didn’t love each other that way, we were best friends. We got married because it wasn’t legal to marry who we would’ve actually wanted to.”
I nodded in understanding.
We continued to talk for a while and she offered to teach me witchcraft and obviously I said yes, because that’s really awesome. So I started going over twice a week to learn about how to channel your energy, to concentrate, do simple spells and what each plant does, as well as crystals, I also learned about the different phases of the moon and their energies and simple divination. I sometimes went there just to hang out as well, I really enjoy being around her, she has so many interesting stories to tell and we developed a good friendship. School started and even if I had less time, I still went twice a week.
The seasons changed, the year flied by and it has already been a year that I’ve met her, I’m going to the city to study, but I’ll be back when the summer comes and once I’m done with school, I’ll come back here, because in the end, this village is lovely when you’re not alone.
Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.