A Debt of Love, A Family's Curse

A Debt of Love, A Family's Curse

Gavin

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We moved into a new house in August, a fresh start my dad called the American dream. Bigger house, two-car garage-everything seemed perfect, a step up for our family. Then, the shelf in the garage collapsed, crushing Grandma' s precious altar, the one she' d used for protection for years. Soon after, my uncle Bob died in a freak car accident, and then I fell violently ill with a fever no doctor could break. I was lucid enough to hear my parents whisper about something wrong, something unnatural. Lying there, burning up, I heard voices, saw things no one else could, arguing with an invisible presence that seemed to cling to me. Mom desperately sought out a strange old woman, Mrs. Albright, who claimed to understand what was happening. She told us it wasn't me that was sick; it was our new house. She said we had broken an ancient pact, angered a hungry entity by discarding Grandma's altar and a carved wooden box. My pragmatic father, who believed only in logic and reason, was forced to confront the impossible: Mrs. Albright knew everything, details we hadn' t shared, about the altar, the box, and the feeling that something was watching us. How could she know? What ancient bargain had my family made, and why was it now demanding payment? There was no denying it now; the world had shifted, and we were trapped in a nightmare of our own making. "Find the box," she rasped, her unsettling pale eyes fixed on me, "and make an offering, or it will take another one of you."

Introduction

We moved into a new house in August, a fresh start my dad called the American dream.

Bigger house, two-car garage-everything seemed perfect, a step up for our family.

Then, the shelf in the garage collapsed, crushing Grandma' s precious altar, the one she' d used for protection for years.

Soon after, my uncle Bob died in a freak car accident, and then I fell violently ill with a fever no doctor could break.

I was lucid enough to hear my parents whisper about something wrong, something unnatural.

Lying there, burning up, I heard voices, saw things no one else could, arguing with an invisible presence that seemed to cling to me.

Mom desperately sought out a strange old woman, Mrs. Albright, who claimed to understand what was happening.

She told us it wasn't me that was sick; it was our new house.

She said we had broken an ancient pact, angered a hungry entity by discarding Grandma's altar and a carved wooden box.

My pragmatic father, who believed only in logic and reason, was forced to confront the impossible: Mrs. Albright knew everything, details we hadn' t shared, about the altar, the box, and the feeling that something was watching us.

How could she know?

What ancient bargain had my family made, and why was it now demanding payment?

There was no denying it now; the world had shifted, and we were trapped in a nightmare of our own making.

"Find the box," she rasped, her unsettling pale eyes fixed on me, "and make an offering, or it will take another one of you."

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On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news. He was shielding another woman—his ruthless business partner—from a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city. The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: “Something came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.” For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets. My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me. So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts. He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line I’d marked. He didn’t know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree. He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies.

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