The Curse of the Zodiac

By

Loredana Giovanelli

Maggie woke up early that morning. It was Chinese New Year’s Eve, and she planned to decorate the house with all the ornaments for the new year. She yawned as she stretched lazily in bed. Maybe she would stay ten more minutes under the covers. It felt really cold outside them. Oh well! Ten more minutes wouldn’t make a difference, she thought to herself. And so she did. She closed her eyes again and fell back asleep under the warmth of her thick and lush bed covers.

When she woke up again, it was later than she expected, but there was still plenty of time to decorate the house. She still felt cold—and something else she couldn’t pinpoint. She felt weird. Yeah, it was a general word, but it was hard to define how she felt. She couldn’t find the right word to describe the feeling.

She got up, and that was when she started feeling even weirder. She felt as if she couldn’t stand straight. She was wobbling like a penguin. She moved past her bed with a shiver of cold.

When she opened the door of her bedroom, she heard her father scream at somebody, "Get her! Catch her before she runs away!"

Who was her dad talking to? Who was going to run away? And why did they have to capture her? Finally, who the heck was ‘her’?

She saw a woman standing near the stairs that led to the first floor of the house. This was an old Chinese woman. Her hair was gray with white streaks on the sides. She was wearing traditional Chinese clothes and traditional Chinese shoes called Hanfu. Nobody wore those shoes anymore. They were made of straw and had embroidery all around them. Nobody, not even during Chinese New Year, would wear those shoes because it was too cold.

But that wasn’t it. What was most surprising was that she was holding a long stick with a noose at the end in one hand and a sack in the other. Maggie didn’t like the look on her face.

"Don’t hurt her, please," Maggie heard her mom cry from the first floor.

She looked down and saw her mother’s terrified expression staring back at her. Her mouth was wide open in shock and… disgust. Yes, that’s what it looked like. Disgust! What was that for?

Her father had his arm around her mother’s shoulders and was holding a handkerchief to his eyes. Why was her dad crying?

"I won’t hurt her," said the voice of the old woman, who was looking more and more like a witch from a fairy tale, "but if I don’t get her now, it won’t be easy later. She’ll grow bigger and stronger and might be able to hide or run away."

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Who was going to run away or hide?

"Maggie, just go toward the woman," she heard her mother plead. "She won’t hurt you."

Why did she have to go toward her? She was scary.

Maggie felt even colder. She wanted to go back to her bed and stay warm. But the woman was already blocking her bedroom door with her body and kept coming toward her. Maggie kept moving back along the inner balcony of the second floor, which overlooked the living room below.

Then she turned her face toward the wall where her mom had hung a tall mirror—and she saw herself… or what she thought was herself, but wasn’t.

All she saw were two slanted eyes and a long body. The body of a snake. A green, scaly snake. Her eyes! But not her body. What had happened?

It was then that she felt the noose around her neck and heard the woman whisper, "Gotcha!"

She started wriggling her body in fear and panic. Why? What was happening to her? Why were her parents allowing this woman to capture her like an animal? But most frightening of all—why was she a snake?

The old woman put what was now Maggie in the sack and walked downstairs.

Maggie, or what was Maggie now, kept wriggling inside the sack.

"She’s inside and won’t get hurt," Maggie recognized the voice of the old lady.

"But why Maggie? Why is this happening to her?" Maggie heard her mother’s feeble voice and knew she was crying.

She felt as if the old lady had put the sack down. Maybe she was sitting. Yes, she felt the softness of the living room carpet. They must all be sitting down.

"Once every twelve years, one of the signs of the zodiac comes to life. Nobody knows why, but there is an old tale that says it only happens to younglings, not adults. When a youngling reaches the age of twelve, he or she is at risk of turning into the sign of the Chinese New Year if that is the sign under which they were born. Maggie was born in the Year of the Snake, and this is the year, so she’s one of those children."

"Will she suffer?" Maggie heard her father ask.

"No, she won’t suffer," was the old woman’s reply.

"I will take her with me and keep her for the duration of the Snake Year. Once the year is over, she will return to her original form, and I will bring her back to you," she said.

"Will she realize that she is no longer a child?" This time, it was her mother asking the question.

"She will. For some time," the old lady replied mysteriously.

What does she mean? thought Maggie.

"What do you mean, ‘for some time’?" her father asked.

"Well," the old woman started, "she can hear us now, understand, and still think she is a child, even though she saw herself in the mirror. But this won’t last. Her consciousness will fade soon, and she won’t know anything else. She won’t remember that she was once a child who turned into a snake."

"Will her memories come back once the year is over?" her mother asked, her voice filled with pain.

"They will," the old woman replied. "But until then, she will be safer with me."

"Can we come see her?" her dad asked.

"What’s the point? All you’ll see is a snake in a glass case. She won’t even know who you are. It will be less painful if you don’t come," she said.

She’s right, Maggie thought. If this is the life I will have for a year, I don’t want my parents to see me and suffer. A year will pass fast.

Maggie felt the sack being picked up, and she knew the conversation was over. The old lady was leaving her house, and Maggie was leaving with her.

She would come back.

In a year.