At first, the crowd is as shocked as I am.

"Lenore!" Ms. Dun exclaims, pushing her way through the crowd. "I thought you went with your mother to the River Town." She turns around, focusing a quizzical expression on me. "At least, that's what Elowen told us."

A sneer contorts Lenore's lips. "That's what she told you?"

"Is that not true?" a man asks.

"Mother hasn't planned a trip to the River Town in years," Lenore declares. "And she certainly isn't there now."

Murmurs ripple through the crowd. Cold sweat beads on the back of my neck, make the fine baby hairs there stick to my skin.

This is it. Lenore is going to tell them. I'm doomed.

My knees buckle, but I manage to stay upright, despite the world starting to spin around me, despite the rush of blood through my veins propelled by my hammering heart.

"Well then where are they?" a feminine voice demands.

Lenore's gaze focuses on me. "Do you wish to confess to them? Or shall I do it for you?"

My mouth has gone dry. Words refuse to form on my tongue, and my voice box feels like it's stuffed with cotton. I shake my head, slowly at first, then more frantically.

"No," I breathe. "I would never... I didn't... I couldn't... it wasn't me."

"Fine," Lenore says. "Then I'll say it. Merla, Clementine, and Oliver, poor baby Oliver, are all dead." Gasps ripple through the crowd.

"What?"

"How could she have done such a thing?"

"She finally snapped, that's what happened."

"I warned you all that she's a curse waiting to strike."

The crowd shifts, allowing the village doctor to pass through. "I need to examine them. Where are they now?"

"Lying in their beds," Lenore says, pointing to the cottage. "I believe they were poisoned."

"But... how?" I cry. "I certainly would never do such a thing. Never! Merla was the kindest person I've ever known. I would never hurt her, never!"

"I think that's a better question for you to answer," Lenore spits. "But I have a guess as to how it happened." She raises her closed fist into the air, opening her palm to display three slender green stalks. "Merla asked Elowen to collect herbs for the soup yesterday, some noisop. Elowen must've snuck in some extra stalks in there, ones that are poisonous to consume."

"But we all ate the soup!" I protest. "How is it that you and I are still alive?"

"I didn't drink all the soup, remember?" Lenore says. "Merla forced me to return to my room before I could finish dinner. The poison herbs must've fallen to the bottom of the bowl. And as for you... you don't tend to eat very much of your stew typically, do you? As a matter of fact, I overheard you telling Merla to save your stew for tomorrow morning."

My stomach churns, though this time not from the food. "It's because I was feeling unwell."

"Oh, right. Of course. Elowen is ill so she gets special treatment. She's the exception. She always gets special treatment. She can just ever so conveniently not finish her soup and miss out on the poison with an excuse of feeling ill to her stomach, like she always is."

"Sounds like Elowen is just making up excuses," a villager calls out.

"But I'm not!" I exclaim. "I truly couldn't stomach the food. I know there's something abnormal about me. I can accept that, even though I don't fully understand what's going on. But I am not contagious or going to spread anything to the rest of you, nor would I ever poison my family. I love my family, even you, Lenore, though you tell these vicious lies about me."

"How touching," Lenore says sarcastically.

"Lenore, even though you are still alive there's a chance that if the soup really was poisoned that it could've seeped into the hot broth liquid and infected the parts that you did eat. Once I examine Merla, Clementine, and Oliver, I will need to make sure that you don't end up with a delayed poisoning reaction."

"Of course," Lenore says.

"First check the cottage," the butcher says. "I want to know for sure what happened to Merla."

"The brat is lying," a woman says, pushing past me toward the cottage. "She lied to us all. That's for sure a start down an evil path."

"I didn't—" The words die in my throat because I did intend to mislead them, just to save my own skin. Maybe it would've been better to come clean from the start. Then again, I doubt their response would've been any different. And perhaps it was my fault that they died — maybe when I was gathering plants, I accidentally collected some with a poisonous residue, or maybe I mistook the noisop for another type of shrub. It's all too easy to mix them up when they grow wild in the forest.

Maybe I really am cursed. Maybe it was inevitable that I end up killing them all.

The doctor marches toward the cottage, Lenore at his heels. Everyone, myself and all the villagers, watch the entrance with bated breath. Tension settles in the air like a bubble, with pressure increasing and increasing and pushing on its surface.

It shatters. The doctor exits after what feels like an eternity, removing his spectacles and placing them in the breast pocket of his brown button-down shirt.

"They're dead," he declares. "In the kitchen, I found several stalks of green death mixed in with the noisop."

Chatter erupts in the clearing. Villagers whirl around to face me, spitting insults, demanding to know why I would do such a thing, until finally, Ms. Hubbard yells, "silence!"

Everyone turns to face her. Her face is red with anger, and she shakes her cane at me. "It's about time we dispose of this monster once and for all. We should've sent her back to the forest years ago!"

"Yeah!" the crowd choruses. "Back to the forest!"

From the eldest to the tiniest, everyone chants the same words: back to the forest, back to where the evil came from.

"We need the curse weaver!" someone shouts.

"Bring the curse weaver!"

"Mark her for the rest of her life!"

A hunched over woman hobbles through the crowd. Her long crooked nose appears first, then her wrinkled, sun-darkened skin framed by strands of greasy gray hair. Several large moles cluster on her cheek, and another lives on the corner of her right eye. She lifts a gnarled index finger in my direction.

"Bring her here," she says faintly. Something whacks the back of my calves, and I fall on my knees in front of Genette, the curse weaver. I glance over my shoulder to see a man towering over me, wielding a shovel in his hands. Genette gets down on the ground and shoves me over, placing a long fingernail over my heart. She moves it back and forth in a looping motion while her lips move in a silent chant.

"... forever she's scarred." Those are her ending words. Cold washes through me, tiny shards of ice cutting through my veins. It's as if she froze the river of blood for a minute during her curse, and it's now trying to thaw and move freely once more. I grimace at the pain, but I bite back any sounds that rise in my throat.

This is what I deserve for my carelessness. I killed the one person who'd take pity on me, who'd fight for me, even now.

There's no one left. My fate is now sealed, stolen by the forest.

"Get her away from here!"

"Send her away!"

The crowd never dies down, only seems to get louder. I can't make out what they're saying, can only process the pain that ripples through my bony legs as the man uses the shovel to lift me upright. He then shoves me through the crowd, which hurls insults, practically spewing spit in my face up until I'm right beside them. Only then do they step aside so that I continue to the trees.

I pushed and shoved all the way over, even continuing once I'm under the green canopy. Once, the leaves seemed like a protective hedge, shielding me from prying eyes. But they can still attack if they set their mind to it. I underestimated the depths at which the villagers would stoop. I should've left long ago, but as always I was faced with the question of where to go.

The villagers come to the edge of the forest, watching as I'm pushed along, tripping over roots and the undergrowth. Branches and bark scrape my skin, and I can no longer stay silent. I cry out in pain with every scratch tracing lines of blood down my shins, every push from the hammer on the same spot on my back. One shove after another, then falling down, forced to crawl, then get up, shove after shove before I stumble, fall, and roll on my side, shove after shove after shove...

Until finally, the shovel doesn't come. I hold my breath, waiting for the delay to end, for the shovel to come and end this miserable anticipation, for it to catch me off guard. But it doesn't.

My sore neck slowly lifts itself from the ground. I scan the forest for any more sign of the villagers. My palms find a bush, and I use it to haul myself upright. It takes a long time for my blurry eyesight to come into focus, but at last, I see no more faces lurking behind the trees, ready to pop out and attack me once again. The barest relief lifts turmoil from deep inside me before a new wave of terror crashes over me.

I'm alone in the forest with a curse woven over my heart. And I have no idea what lurks behind the trees.