Cursed [Book 1] ✔

Chapter 1: The Two Rs-Rosalind and Rafe

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! For the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams

So various, so beautiful, so new

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain,

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight

Where ignorant armies clash by night

As I closed the book, I thought of how similar life was to the poem.

Matthew Arnold's prose eloquently orchestrated what I'd known for a long time: nothing existed outside of ourselves. The idea of a higher power was a fairy tale. If life hadn't already convinced me of this fact, my latest return trip home certainly did.

Had my sister Rosalind still been alive, she would've laughed at the dreary, adolescent turn my thoughts had taken. Again. She would have known my secrets without a word from me. I wasn't the only family member gifted with an otherworldly power. Except, I was the only sibling one left alive.

Juliet, Rosalind, Imogen. My mother had named all of her daughters after three of her favorite leads from Shakespeare plays. She hoped the traits from our namesakes would rub off on us. In a way, they had.

Juliet had been a quiet sweet girl, everyone's favorite. She hadn't been a star-crossed lover, but had died at a young age. Leukemia. Rosalind was the middle child, but that didn't stop her from being the center of attention. She was funny, loud, and loyal, much like her As You Like It counterpart. Her death was an additional waste of young life.

My name was from the play Cymbeline. The character Imogen was celebrated as a fighter. She overcame a shit ton: being accused of adultery, almost being raped, and even faking her own death. In the end, she awoke from her stasis to confront the lies in her life, enabling a happy ending with the man she loved. Nothing like that had happened for me. If I discounted the deaths of both my sisters, I had led a fairly normal life. If my sisters' ends were any indication, my life would turn out to have an equally tragic ending. Having famous literary names had certainly cost my sisters. I wondered what my name would cost me.

I tried remembering what had prompted me to move far away from home, but I couldn't quite put a name to it. College life back in Boston was so small compared to the tragedy of Rosalind's death. Late-night studying and cappuccino trips. Debating ethnology and zoology with my study group as it applied to modern day anthropology. The occasional boyfriend that wasn't really worth having, obviously. None of it mattered anymore, not in the large way it had before.

A huge ugly knot grew inside, taking root and twisting. I should have visited more, called more, or not moved away at all. Time was precious, life was short, and all the other stupid sayings in between. I appreciated their import, too late.

I settled on the four poster bed in Rosalind's bedroom. My mom had encouraged me to go through her things and save what mattered to me. Doing that just now seemed unthinkable to me. Rosalind's room appeared untouched, with pale pinks and blues draped throughout. She had been a girly girl, and for that reason, I could forgive the few stuffed animals staring at me from her nightstand. Pictures clustered the wall opposite the bedpost, creating a collage of happy memories. The bed was made, ready to bring the comfort of sleep to someone who would never again pull back the covers. Downstairs, murmurings of fellow mourners overlapped: