After marrying my childhood sweetheart, Michael, I truly believed the hard part was over—that our story, which had begun in the innocence of youth, had finally come full circle. It felt like a fairytale written just for us. We'd known each other since we were kids, shared scraped knees and first kisses, and after years apart, fate had brought us back together.
It happened on a chilly spring morning in our old hometown. I was back for a brief visit, grabbing coffee from the café we used to haunt as teenagers. That’s when I saw him—Michael. Older, but still carrying that quiet warmth in his eyes. We talked like no time had passed, sharing updates and laughter in that effortless way only old friends can. One spontaneous day of reminiscing stretched into dinner, then into weeks of rekindled connection. And then, just like that, he proposed—on the very street where we shared our first kiss.
We married quickly. It felt right. We moved into his family’s old house just outside of town, a stately but timeworn place that seemed to hum with history. It had been in his family for generations, filled with old photographs, creaking floorboards, and the heavy silence of things unspoken. I was swept up in the romance of it all.
For a while, everything was perfect.
Then, that first night in the house, Michael handed me a weathered leather notebook. His expression was unreadable. “It was my mother’s,” he said, placing it gently in my hands. “She wanted me to give it to you… after we married.”
I opened it hesitantly. The pages were filled with careful cursive, brittle with age. At first, the entries seemed like a mix of family recipes, musings, and strange traditions. But soon, the tone changed—there were passages about a curse. A family curse that, according to his mother, had haunted the women who married into their bloodline for generations. Misfortunes, untimely deaths, unraveling lives. The handwriting grew frantic in places, almost desperate.
I looked up at Michael, laughing nervously. “This is a joke, right?”
He shook his head. “I used to think so too. But my uncle’s wife left suddenly. My cousin’s fiancée died in a car crash. My father’s sister... she was institutionalized. My mom believes it’s real. She says bad luck follows the women who marry into this family.”
I told myself it was just folklore. An old woman’s attempt to make sense of personal tragedies. I didn’t believe in curses. I believed in logic. In love.
But then things started to go wrong.
A few weeks into our marriage, my online business—a boutique I’d spent years building—was suddenly bombarded with fake one-star reviews. Clients disappeared overnight. Someone slashed the tires on my car. A break-in at our home left only my belongings rummaged through. Everything felt off. There were moments when I caught glimpses of Michael’s mother watching me, her eyes narrowed, her smile too polite. She never said much, but I always felt like she knew something I didn’t.
Still, I pushed forward. I tried to shake the feeling that something was stalking me—not just bad luck, but something intentional. Something... directed.
The breaking point came one evening when I returned home earlier than expected. I walked through the hallway quietly, planning to surprise Michael with dinner. That’s when I heard her voice—his mother—through the crack of the den door. She was on the phone.
“She’s not strong enough. I told you this one would crumble. Just like the rest. She’ll be gone soon.”
I froze.
Gone soon?
My blood ran cold. I waited, breath held, until the conversation ended. I stepped back into the hallway, heart pounding in my chest, and left without a sound.
That night, I confronted Michael. I told him everything—what I heard, what I suspected, what I feared. At first, he defended her, confused and torn. But as we talked, puzzle pieces began to click into place. The patterns. The ruined relationships. The endless list of “cursed” women. It wasn’t bad luck.
It was her.
Michael’s mother had crafted the story of a curse to hide her own manipulations. She had sabotaged every woman who came too close to her sons, systematically isolating them. Fear was her weapon. Control was her goal.
Michael was devastated. The woman he trusted, revered, and loved had been orchestrating his life from behind a veil of lies. That night, we confronted both of his parents. His father sat silently as the truth unraveled. He looked tired. Defeated. Like a man who had known for a long time but no longer had the will to fight.
But Michael did.
He told his mother that her control over him ended that night. That he was choosing me—choosing truth, even if it hurt. She didn’t cry. She didn’t argue. She simply nodded, as if she had been waiting for the moment all along.
The next morning, we packed our things.
We left the house, the town, and everything that had once tethered us to that poisonous legacy. We didn’t look back.
We started over in a quiet coastal town, far from the echo of old secrets and broken histories. The air is lighter here. We still carry the weight of what happened, but it no longer defines us.
There was never a curse.
There was only a woman, twisted by fear, who passed her bitterness down like an heirloom.
And now, we’re free.
---