Et Sequitur Magazine

Et Sequitur Magazine, Issue 15

Issue 15 (Autumn 2025)

A Lesser Curse

By Julia LaFond

From the outside, the cursebroker’s shop looked identical to all the others: a soot-stained, graffitied brick building precariously perched on the bank of a parking-meter-studded concrete river. On the inside, it was green, from the spider plants that dangled from the ceiling, tickling the shoulders of the newest customer, to the potted trees and shrubs that marked a path to the desk. Behind that desk sat the cursebroker, whose forest green cloak blended in with the foliage.

Without rising from her chair, the cursebroker called out, “May I help you?”

The customer cautiously paced down the central aisle, doing her best to keep her hands wrapped tight around her gold coins, the better to ignore the fragrant fruits and flowers dangling from the branches – the greater the temptation, the more dangerous the power that lurked within. Though it was as warm inside as it was outside, the customer pulled her heavy wool jacket tighter as she hunched her shoulders, like she was trying to disappear into the royal blue fabric.

Once she at last came within an arm’s length of the cursebroker, the customer murmured, “I hope so. My curse is too heavy to bear.”

“Then you’ve come to the wrong place,” the shopkeeper replied mildly, reaching for her phone. “Shall I refer you to a curse breaker?”

“No.” Though she barely turned her head aside, the motion was enough to free one forlorn, reddish curl of hair from beneath the edge of her wool cap. “It was a figure of speech.”

The cursebroker silently offered a cup of tea. The customer refused just as wordlessly, instead asking, “Do you know who I am?”

“Elaine,” the cursebroker replied, her tone just as matter-of-fact as before.

Between her celebrity and the many ancillary powers that rumors attributed to cursebrokers, Elaine wasn’t surprised to be recognized. Yet her voice shook more than she would have liked when she replied, “If my father heard you address me so familiarly, he’d have your head.”

“Then it’s good the King isn’t here.”

Elaine instinctively looked over her shoulder, the ever-present fear of retribution rising to the surface. But even if her father’s spies were hiding among the leaves and branches, there was little she could say that would worsen the rebellion of seeking out a cursebroker. The only two reasons he ever visited one was for power or revenge, so no matter what she said or did, he’d assume she was after the same. In fairness, the possibility still lurked at the edge of her thoughts, whispering that she should ask the cursebroker to transform him into an ornery mule, or perhaps into one of the stags that he and his courtiers so loved to hunt.

“I’m here because… I wanted to be a dancer,” she admitted hesitantly, bracing herself for scorn for such pedestrian dreams.

The cursebroker said nothing, but something about the silence held an inviting warmth.

“My sisters liked to dance, too,” Elaine continued, the words rushing out faster and faster, “but for them those enchanted balls were just a way to escape. We could leave our palace behind and have fun without our father’s rules and judgments hanging over our heads. But for me it was the only time I felt alive, it’s what I was, and now—” Her voice cracked beneath the memory of her partner’s screams. Her father had withheld even the mercy of a quick death.

“Now?” prompted the cursebroker, drowning out the echoes.

Elaine took a deep breath of air, and though it was sweet with the scent of flowers, it could never match the perfume she used to wear to the enchanted balls. “It’s over,” she muttered, balling up her hands and shoving them into her pockets. “Instead of being a dancer, I’ll be married.” She all but spat, “To the General.”

The cursebroker flinched. “A heavy curse indeed.”

It was such a small kindness, yet Elaine nearly broke beneath it. She had to turn away, avoiding the shopkeeper’s gaze, before she could finally voice the wish that brought her here. “Would you be willing to provide me with a lesser curse to ward off a greater one?”

“That service,” the cursebroker replied, “I provide gladly.”

Even so, Elaine hesitated. “You have no idea the danger,” she muttered. “If he finds out…”

“Whether he does or not,” the cursebroker replied with an enigmatic smile, “I have my own protections.”

“And why risk it for me?” The words came out with unaccustomed force as the embers of her hope warred with the long shadow of suspicion. “For some silly girl who only ever danced and partied and never once knew hardship?”

The cursebroker’s face softened, but when she met her customer’s eyes, there was steel in them. “To live with fear in one’s own home is a great hardship indeed.”

Words, Elaine knew, meant little, regardless of their sincerity or conviction. Such empty platitudes ought not to have moved her, yet comfort nonetheless got its hooks into her. Unable to contain herself, she wept.

The cursebroker led her to a chair and gave her a fresh cup of tea, waiting patiently for her to regain her composure.

Wiping away her tears, Elaine forced her feelings down with practiced ease, turning her mind to business. “How much will it cost?”

“That depends on what you purchase. Curses come in many forms—none without suffering.” The cursebroker’s eyes narrowed. “What are you willing to live without?”

“What am I not?” Elaine wondered aloud, clutching her cup of tea tight as she dared.

The cursebroker continued staring in silence. A shiver ran down her customer’s spine as Elaine realized the question was far from idle.

“My memories,” Elaine began cautiously. “I can’t forget…” But retaining her memories and speaking of them were entirely different things, so she swallowed the rest of her sentence in a sip of tea.

“What else?” the cursebroker prompted gently.

“Myself and my freedom,” she concluded, though she wasn’t entirely sure that second one was something she ever truly had. “Beyond that…” With a shuddering breath, she began stacking her gold coins atop the desk. “I can think of nothing else I need.”

The cursebroker placed her hand in the way of the growing stack of coins. “My fee is one thing; your curse will be another. When you say yourself, what do you mean?”

Elaine leaned back in her chair, flustered. “I’m... myself. My thoughts, my memories, my emotions.”

“What of your body?” the cursebroker asked, tilting her head inquisitively.

That was something she hadn’t considered, despite all the tales and warnings she’d grown up hearing. Yet faced with the reality, she nearly laughed. “That is of little consequence. I can bear pain, discomfort, even disfigurement. Perhaps especially disfigurement.” After all, hadn’t she been told her whole life that no suitor would pursue her if she lacked grace and beauty?

“Perhaps,” the cursebroker said slowly, “a transformation. You would be yourself, and you would never be forced to marry. But you would never again be able to dance.”

Elaine ought to have agreed easily, but memories weighed on her like chains. The crystal halls, the heady perfumes, her partner’s hands in hers—

These feelings couldn’t be swallowed down, but she already knew the truth: any joy to be found in dancing died with her partner.

Lowering her head, she admitted, “I can accept that.”

 “Then all that is left,” the cursebroker replied, refilling her customer’s cup of tea, “is to decide exactly what you will become.”

The cursebroker laid out her options in painstaking detail. None were perfect, for as the cursebroker warned, no curse was without suffering. But once Elaine settled on the shape her future would take, her heart was lighter than it had been in a long time.

Soon enough, it was done.

Elaine burst out the door, leaving it all behind: the shop, her gold, her title, and all the rest of the hollow remnants of a life that had never been hers to live. She even left her wool jacket draped over the cursebroker’s chair, for even if she could, she no longer had any reason to hide beneath it.

The people of the city marveled at the shimmering sparks she left in her wake. Openmouthed, they stared unabashedly at the golden falcon shooting up above the skyscrapers,  red-hot embers trailing from her wings as she soared higher and higher into the clouds, far beyond any jailer’s reach.

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