Lucy comes to a screeching halt before the basement door, stopping so abruptly that I almost smack face-first into it. Thankfully, I trip and manage to plow shoulder-first into it instead, with all the grace of a horror-movie zombie.
“Ow . . .” I groan, slipping the rest of the way out of my dangling coat.
“You’re cursed,” Lucy squeaks before going rigid, her frozen stare searching my face for a reaction.
I pause the rubbing of my now-sore shoulder to mull over her words.Cursed. The very thought of it feels ludicrous, but Lucy looks so serious, I can’t stop the laugh that escapes my throat.
“Yeah, okay. Good one.” My laugh dries on my tongue when Lucy’s wide-eyed alarm doesn’t waver.
“Why are you laughing? It’s not funny.”
I shrug sheepishly, starting to stutter. “I . . . I don’t know, but you can’t be serious. Don’t you think I’d know if I was cursed?”
Lucy huffs, a shadow of her usual self returning as she props her hands on her hips. “How?”
I throw my hands in the air. “I don’t know! That just seems like something a person would notice.”
Lucy takes a deep breath, composing herself before the words rush out of her at the speed of a triple-time audiobook. “Look. I know it sounds absurd, but I’m right, so I need you to stand there and listen for a second because you’re cursed. C.U.R.S.E.D. Cursed! Well . . . not just you. You and Oliver. Well . . . not necessarilyyou and Oliver, but your families, and?—”
“Whoa! Slow down.” I hold up a hand to stop her ranting, and her mouth shuts with a clack. “What does Oliver have to do with this?”
Lucy rolls her green eyes. “I just told you. It’s not really Oliver, but his family. And your family. Really, it’s the two of you together. You’re both mentioned.”
“What do you mean his family was mentioned? How would you even know that?”
“Same last name.” She states it so matter-of-factly that I actually start to question my sanity.
“How do you know his last name? I’m the one who’s been getting to know him, and even I don’t know his last name.”
“Don told me.”
“What?” The question comes out more like a cry, my brain starting to reel at how much new information I’m getting in such a short time.
“I texted him.” Lucy pulls her phone out of her back pocket and holds the conversation up for me to read.
What’s the new guy’s last name?
Miss Lucy, this isn’t the time. I’m busy.
Blackwood
Thanks!
I cradle my head in my palms to keep it from falling right off my shoulders. This conversation as a whole is making my temples throb, and I want to curl up in bed.
“That is way inappropriate! Where did you even get Don’s number?”
She scowls. “Like that’s the important thing right now. You’re cursed!”
“Okay!” I shout back at her, my voice rising with frustration because she’s right. Wasn’t I just telling Oliver how he’d be the weird one in town if he didn’t have a relationship with Don? If what Lucy is saying is true, then trying to figure out how she got a hold of the mayor’s personal number is the least of my problems. I take a deep breath.
“Okay,” I repeat at a normal volume, trying my best to compose myself. “Okay, slow down and explain everything.”
“I was downstairs going through Grandma’s records. You know, as I wascondemnedto do.” I give her a flat, unamused stare, but she continues, “Anyway, as I was going through them,I found some old pictures of the town, as well as an article from forever ago about the bakery. It used to belong to a long-standing family when the son who had inherited it a few years prior sold it and moved away, which was when Miss Laura took it over.”
“So?”
“Sooo, there was a picture of him from the day he took it over, and I noticed there was astrikingresemblance to our mystery man across the street. That’s when I texted Don to confirm, and sure enough, same last name.”
