Free A Curse Awakened: A Weird Girls Novella by Cecy Robson

have to kill it.”
    We climbed three flights of steps and cut right, into a long hall of closed doors. I continued forward, passing each one until I reached the last door. Before I knocked, I knew we were in the right place. I could sense Nieve’s presence, although I couldn’t exactly tell how. I rapped my knuckles against the splintering brown door and stepped away from the threshold, just in case someone answered with a spray of bullets. Yeah, I’d seen my share of crime shows.
    “Who’s there?” an old woman croaked in Spanish.
    I motioned to Emme, knowing her voice would sound the least threatening. “Pardon me, ma’am. Is Nieve home?” she asked in the same language.
    There was a brief pause. “You know my granddaughter?”
    Emme glanced at us before answering. “Um, yes. From, um, school.”
    The door creaked open and a woman dressed all in black answered the door. I wasn’t tall by any means, but I absolutely towered over her hunched form. Cataracts dulled her soft brown eyes. It was a wonder the poor woman could see at all. She motioned us forward. “Welcome, dear ones. I’m sure she’d like the company.”
    Taran and I exchanged stares before I took my first step forward. Roaches scurried along the battered wood floor as we slowly crossed the small alcove. A tiny kitchen was crammed against the wall on the left, and what appeared to be a small bedroom lay directly ahead.
    But I barely noticed anything past that, too stunned to move when I caught sight of Nieve.
    She lay semi-reclining in an old metal hospital bed with her long braids draped over her bony shoulders, dressed in the same stained pink shirt we’d seen her in just minutes ago. The nasal cannula taped against her sunken cheeks whistled with the oxygen futilely trying to ease her short pained breaths, and thick white fluid from an IV dripped into a vein in her left arm.
    Nieve didn’t acknowledge our presence. Then again, how could she? She was barely alive.
    The old woman gave us her back and shuffled to her kitchen, oblivious to our stupefied expressions. She poured soup into a bowl and then returned with it and sat beside Nieve. With her free hand she placed a dish towel over Nieve’s chest, as best as her arthritic and swollen fingers would allow. “I’m not very good at feeding her,” she admitted, her wrinkles etched with sadness.
    Emme closed in, taking in Nieve’s emaciated form with eyes that brimmed with impending tears. “I-I’m so sorry. We didn’t realize she was sick.” She placed her small hand over Nieve’s forehead and called forth her
touch.
Nieve’s grandmother glanced up, confused by the source of the light. She stood and went to the windows, tugging the drapes closed.
    Emme withdrew her
touch
as the woman returned to the bed. She shook her head at us. Her power failed to have an effect on Nieve’s condition. That wasn’t a big surprise. Emme could only heal injuries, not illnesses. The sudden boost in her power didn’t seem to have changed that. “How long does Nieve have?” she asked the old woman.
    Taran and Shayna gasped, surprised by Emme’s bluntness. But my little sister’s hospice training told her death wasn’t far from finding Nieve. Her grandmother didn’t answer, but her quivering lip was enough of a response. So were the tears that glazed her opaque stare.
    I didn’t argue or attempt to offer hope. I knew Emme was right. While I’d failed to pick up Nieve’s scent before, I could smell her now. Her scent of drying autumn leaves was unmistakable. So was the aroma of life leaving her body. Nieve’s lungs would soon take their last agonized breath. And there wasn’t a damn thing any of us could do about it.
    “Why?” Shayna clutched her bat tight, trying not to cry. “Why is she like this?”
    Nieve’s grandmother poured a bit of soup from a spoon into Nieve’s mouth. Most of the broth dribbled down Nieve’s slack jaw and onto her neck. The woman wiped Nieve’s skin with the