Do Your Worst

by Rosie Danan

Good whiskey tasted like indulging in bad decisions—that

Gumption, as Gran called it, was an essential trait for curse breakers.

It was curse breaking 101: pin down the origin. In their most basic form, curses were uncontrollable energy. And power stabilized when you completed a circuit back to the source.

Riley’s first task was always uncovering specific details: who, when, why, and how.

Gran had taught Riley that curses came from people,

born out of their most extreme emotions—suffering, longing, desperation—feelings so raw, so heavy, that they poured out and drew consequences from the universe.

the artist had captured an angel suspended midfall. She’d felt the momentum of that still image within her own body. The way

anguish strained his face and form until his plunge became like ballet, like poetry.

fascinated by his body, the high contrast

of strength and vulnerability. Sharp ribs and taut thighs versus how tender the pink soles of his feet had looked. How those massive indigo wings had folded as he fell.

It wasn’t the despair in the pose that had drawn her in. It was the defiance. It was that even in the act of falling, the angel had flung up one arm, fingers curling, reaching for the only

home he’d ever known, refusing to go quietly, while the other arm remained tucked to his breast, protecting his heart.

It wasn’t unusual for people to stare at him, but it was unusual for Clark to feel seen.

suggesting they settle the matter in a thumb war, an offer he indulged purely for the chance to hold her hand. His life could do with an influx of whimsy.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, the scent of the curse hit her

nostrils. A combination of smoke and metal and earth—ozone—buried beneath other, stronger odors. Wet stone and moss, the slightly sweet odor of decay.

Because there was no mercy in this world, the hunter-green sweater he wore brought out his eyes.

“Occam’s razor,”

The simplest explanation was usually the right one. Usually, but not always.

Riley made a mental note to invest in some kind of hat so the bleached blond of her hair didn’t beckon critters the way it seemed to summon fuckboys.

he’d always lived for this—moments of discovery that helped unravel the mystery of people. Sad as it might sound, he found that distance let him understand the dead much easier than he’d ever understood the living.

“A fixed sentence by which the order of things is prescribed.”

“The parameters of a curse are similar. It can’t control how people think or feel, but it can manipulate external forces, throw obstacles into your path, obscure information it doesn’t want you to find.”

“And that curse was only around for a decade. Strength multiples with age. Arden Castle’s curse has lasted at least three hundred years.”

the stinging nettle wrapped around the dagger. She’d immediately recognized the leaves sprouting perpendicular to each other in pairs, dark green and oblong with tapering tips—and

Her grandmother instilled in her early the value of plants and herbs—to help or to hinder—and

Her mom had always said the best way to get over a crush was to picture them on roller skates.

That look. The one that had always made her ache. A fallen angel reaching, rioting against all he’d lost. All that had been stolen from him for daring to strive.

Riley preferred dogs. They were simple and devoted. You always knew where you stood with a dog.

“A particular varietal used to be native to this region, right around the castle. Usually, the

flowers are yellow

but the ones that grew here were dark blue and...

“they call it ‘the riches of the holding—the jewel

Arden’s crown’ and it went extinct overnight.”

In curses, everything came down to language. Since the dawn of civilization, language had acted as a primary conduit for magic, a way of realizing the power of intent.

She stayed in business because the human heart loved nothing so much as yearning.

“Arden’s curse smells kind of like blood in your mouth when you bite your tongue—salt and copper—mixed with the ground a second after lightning strikes. Iron. Burning. Earth.”

The Picts would have used tools made of silver, would have planned their symbols meticulously, but this is crude, done quickly, maybe even with a rock. Someone else came to this site much, much later. “Crìoch air naimhdean,”

“An end to enemies,” she read.

Born of rock and salt water, carved by the hand of the tides as a monument, that place was proof that even the unyielding could yield. Thousands of years ago, the people who had left those symbols had marked that spot as sacred, determined to use their tools and their language to bear witness

Whatever ran through the seams of those rocks had proven both ancient and enduring.

she missed Gran like a homesickness for a place she could never return to.

Gran bartering with Riley’s adolescent attention span to share what she knew of tapping into the natural world’s innate power. Looking back, Riley would give anything for more advice.

At least she’d always found spite motivating.

In the end, she planted crimson amaranth along their crop beds for protection, and hung a handwoven wreath of blackberry, ivy, and rowan as a shield above their door.

Picturing that Ina Garten meme, Riley muttered to herself, “If you can’t forage fresh herbs for a charm to repel your enemies, store-bought is fine.”

that same piercing, rebellious pain taking on new dimension in his face.

As soon as she took a step forward, the cat opened its jaws and started yowling. “You fuzzy bitch,” Riley said, not without some respect.

He’d risen at the same time as the golden age of Indiana Jones, when the world had hungered for a real-life stand-in to the action hero’s charismatic mythos, minus the cultural appropriation.

“It’s called brooding,” Clark said, standing up a little straighter, “and no one complained when Darcy did it.” “Yeah, well”—she gave him a look just shy of a leer—“that’s because Colin Firth had the decency to get his shirt wet.”