Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

calmly, revealing that was the sole cause of her venom. "You shouldn't have turned Papa against me."
    "I didn't," I said, shaking my head. "I haven't seen Papa since I came home from school," I added, and sobbed harder. Emily stared at me in disgust for a few moments and then she smiled.
    "I pray," she said. "I pray every day that God will spare us the curse of Jonah. Someday, He will hear my prayers," she promised, looking up at the ceiling, her eyes closed, her arms at her side, her hands clenched in small fists, "and you will be tossed overboard and swallowed by a whale, just like Jonah in the Bible."
    She paused a moment, then lowered her head and laughed at me before pivoting quickly to exit my room and leave me shivering with fear instead of with fever.
    All that morning I thought about the things Emily had said and wondered if any of it could be true. Most of our servants, especially Louella and Henry, believed in good luck and bad luck. There were charms and there were signs of evil; there were specific things to do to avoid bad luck, too. I remembered Henry bawling out a man who, while waiting for something to do in the barn, stood there killing spiders.
    "You bringin' bad luck on all of us," Henry charged. He sent me in to Louella to fetch a fistful of salt. When I returned with it, he made the man turn around three times and cast the salt over his right shoulder. Even so, he said he didn't think it was enough because too many spiders were killed.
    If Louella dropped a knife in the kitchen, she would positively break out in tears because it means someone close was going to die. She would cross herself a dozen times and mutter all the prayers she could in a minute's time and hope the evil had been stopped.
    Henry could read the swoop of a bird or interpret the hoot of an owl and know whether someone was going to give birth to a dead baby or fall into an unexplained coma. To ward off the evil spirits, he nailed up old horse's shoes over as many doors as Papa would permit, and if a pig or cow gave birth to a deformed baby, he would spend a good part of the day shivering in anticipation of some greater disaster.
    Superstition, bad luck, curses, they were all part of the world in which we lived. Emily knew what my fears were when she told me with such hatred that I was bad luck for the whole family. Now that I knew for sure that my birth had meant the death of my real mother, I couldn't help but believe Emily was right. I only hoped Henry knew a way to counter any curses I might bring.
    Mamma found me crying when she returned later that morning. Understandably, she thought it was caused by my not being able to go to school. I didn't want to tell her about Emily's visit because it would get her angry and there would be more trouble, trouble for which Emily would blame me afterward. So instead I took my medicine and slept and waited for this illness to release its grip on me.
    When Emily returned from school that day, she stopped by and poked her head through the doorway.
    "How's the little princess?" she asked Mamma, who was sitting with me.
    "Much better," Mamma said. "Did you bring any schoolwork for her from your teacher?"
    "No. Miss Walker says she can't send anything, home. Everything has to be done in school," Emily claimed. "All the other new students learned a lot today," she added, and sauntered off.
    "Now don't you fret," Mamma said quickly. "You'll catch up quickly." Before I could protest, Mamma shifted to another topic. "Eugenia's very upset you're sick and sends her wishes for your speedy recovery."
    Instead of making me feel better, that made me feel worse. Eugenia, who was sick and in bed most of her days, was worrying about me. If I had anything to do with what had happened to my little sister, I hoped God would punish me, I thought. When Mamma left, I buried my face in my pillow and smothered my tears. For the first time, I wondered if Papa blamed me for Eugenia's illness, too. I was sure he was the one who had told Emily to read about Jonah in the Bible.
    Papa never stopped by to see me the whole time I was sick, but that was because taking care of sick children was something he considered to be solely women's work. Besides, I told myself hopefully, he was always so busy making sure the plantation was profitable. If he wasn't cloistered in his office poring over the books, he was out overseeing the farm work or visiting the markets for our tobacco. Mamma complained about his frequent trips to