Work Text:
They say that on Halloween, the veil between all things magical and all things ordinary got thin enough that it became possible to change the rules of the magic that had escaped into the normal world. Perhaps it was just a rumor, but JD was counting on there being some truth to it.
In the olden days, it was common for shitty people to be punished for shitty behavior through magic. Nowadays, there weren’t many magic users left, but the descendants of the cursed—Like JD—were still wandering the streets. Poor bastards.
It was so easy to call things an accident. Tree branches that snapped under him while he was climbing, sidewalks which hadn’t looked uneven until he was running on them, engine trouble when he was running late. Little things which had added up to the inevitable conclusion that he was cursed, like his father and grandfather, all the way up to the shitbag that had been his great-great grandfather who’d pissed off a witch.
Now, JD was cruising through the streets of too small, too boring Sherwood towards a very uncertain solution to his problem.
Veronica’s house loomed on the quiet street, staring at him through peaked-window eyes as though daring him knock on the door and start whatever mess they would get into.
Her bedroom was marked by the recognizable type of ladder a teenager might place near their room if they were trying to sneak out to take smoke breaks without telling their parents about their addictive habit. He climbed carefully, a habit learned from years of stepping in the wrong place or falling from heights after tripping over nothing, which would certainly ruin the debonair, romantic hero effect he was hoping for.
The window was already open, and Veronica was inside, scribbling furiously in a diary. A monocle, of all things, was perched in one eye, her hair threatening to escape from the scrunchie she’d hastily tied it up in.
“Dreadful etiquette, I apolo—"
Veronica, startled, tossed the book she’d been writing in, and though he doubted she was an athlete on her best days, it hit him squarely on the forehead. His foot slipped out from underneath him when he attempted—belatedly—to duck, leaving him clinging perilously to the windowsill as the ladder fell to the ground.
Veronica recovered and dashed over, gripping him under the elbows and awkwardly hauling him into her bedroom, grunting at the effort. “God, you’re heavier than you look.”
He finally fell all the way into the room, unfortunately taking her down with him. Shoving his hair out of his face, he looked up at her. “Nice to meet you too,” He said.
Ignoring him, Veronica stood and looked out the window at the fallen ladder. “Jeez, you really are unlucky.”
“That’s why I’m here,” He said. “Are you ready?”
“I guess. How’d you get here, anyway?”
“I rode. My old man and I have been in the Chicago area for a few days; It’s only a few hours away.”
Veronica didn’t ask what circumstances had caused them to run from North Dakota, which is where he’d been the last time they’d spoken. He had always liked that about her; she blamed his curse for things without ever asking, but then, she would.
Do you really think we can do this?” She asked as they climbed back out her window and walked towards his bike.
“Why not? Who else?” Though he knew there were others, Veronica was the cursed pen-pal he’d been assigned, and the only cursed person he’d ever spoken with.
“You’re bad for me,” She stated it very matter of factly, but it still stung a little. “Breaking my curse would be a good thing, so you can’t do that for me.”
Veronica’s curse—to only attract people who were bad for her—left her isolated and angry, but also untrusting. She had begun to look for the ways in which people might harm her, even before they’d gotten to an acquaintance stage. She had only let their friendship progress because she had assumed that they would never meet like this.
He couldn’t talk her out of that; he’d tried hundreds of times to convince her that he wouldn’t be bad for her in any way that he could help, though his curse wouldn’t make things easy. “It’s one night, Veronica. One night, one chance. If this fails, we go back to writing letters and complaining about it, but for one night, let’s fight back.”
He held out his hand, daring her with his eyes to take it.
A long, fragile minute passed while she stared at his outstretched hand, considering. Finally, she did. “One night,” She said. “For Heather.”
“Now,” JD said, carefully lowering himself out of Veronica’s bedroom window. “Remind me; which Heather is this?”
“The nice one,” Veronica said. “Well… Nice for them, anyways.”
“You have marvelous taste in friends,” He said, leading her towards his bike.
She glared, grabbing the spare helmet out of his hands. “You know my taste has nothing to do with it.”
“Have you… I mean do you try?” Testing his curse was his favorite pastime. He rode the most dangerous vehicle he’d been able to access, he went to school, he constantly put himself into situations that had the potential to go sideways, and somehow was still a little surprised when they always, always did.
She just shrugged. “I try. I still talk to people.”
“Assholes,” JD pointed out, “Are not people, and therefore do not count.”
“Whatever,” She muttered. “Just drive.”
“Right, about that. I’m not totally sure where to start.”
Veronica gripped his shoulder and pulled him around to look at her, putting his spine in a shockingly uncomfortable twist. “Are you serious? You did all this, and you don’t have a plan?”
“I do have a plan! We need to go somewhere old, an old house. Apparently, a witch used to live in Sherwood, and she cast some curses. There might be something at the house that can help us.”
Veronica looked horror-struck. “No. Please no. Not… Fuck, I think you’re talking about Heather’s house.”
“A little more specific, please?” He begged. No matter how often he’d heard her talk about them, he didn’t possess her preternatural ability to always know which Heather was which.
“The best Heather, my Heather. Not that she’s mine,” She finished bitterly.
“Yeah, I get it,” He said, ignoring some bitterness of his own. “She has a suitably old house?”
“Old family,” Veronica said. “And an old house. If there’s anyone related to sorceresses in this town; it’s Heather Duke. I can’t JD.”
“Not even to break the curse?” He asked. “That’s what’s keeping you apart! When the spell breaks and you still like her, you’ll know she’s not bad for you, you can be together without destroying each other or whatever it is you’re so worried about.”
“It’s not like I don’t have a reason to be worried!” She retorted.
“But not for long,” He reminded her. “Not if we do this.”
For several minutes, they just stood there, staring at each other in the dust and the moonlight and the very empty library before she finally nodded. “Alright. Let’s do this.”
The house was a huge old place that looked appropriately spooky for the situation. “This is it?” he asked, though he knew the answer. He could feel the magic around this place, thick in the air and he could tell Veronica could too, just by the tentative way she approached the old stone mansion.
Veronica tossed a pebble at one of the windows and they waited until a small, pale figure in a white nightgown emerged, her hair drifting around in the wind like a heroine in a gothic novel. “What the fuck?”
“Heather,” Veronica called. “Hi, we… need to get into your house.”
“Veronica? What… Who is that?”
“He’s a friend of mine. I know this sounds crazy, but I need your help.”
Heather nodded and climbed delicately out of her window and onto the branches of a nearby tree, her white nightgown almost glowing in the full moonlight.
Explaining everything to Heather took a while, as it turned out; Veronica hadn’t told her anything.
“You’re cursed?” Heather said quietly, when Veronica had finally finished. “That’s why…” She trailed off, but JD was sure Veronica knew what she meant.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“You should have said something. Come with me; it’s almost midnight.”
The itchy, prickling feeling of magic got even stronger when they stepped inside the old house, which creaked and shifted threateningly when they crossed the threshold.
“My great grandmother was an enchantress,” Heather said. “I’ve been trying to break her old curses, because the only ones that would be left are—"
“Genetic,” JD finished for her. “No one she cursed would still be alive.”
“Exactly. But she didn’t really keep a good record. I haven’t managed to find anyone like you. It’s possible that one or both of you is related to someone she cursed… I mean, there’s no way to tell, exactly. I can do the breaking spell and if it works, we know she was involved in the casting.”
“I thought all the magic users were dead?” JD asked, struck by just one of several impossible things she’d said.
“I can’t cast new spells; I can only break the ones my grandmother cast.” She looked away, suddenly strangely guilty. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
“Have you ever broken a curse before?” Veronica asked, cutting JD off before he could ask what kind of magic Heather had attempted.
“No,” Heather admitted. “But the steps are quite clear.” She smiled with false confidence that was as transparent as glass.
“I’m so relieved,” JD deadpanned, masking the fact that his heart had accelerated. This could finally do it. He might finally experience that thing called luck, or at the very least, he could stop looking ahead and seeing only a string of broken mirrors and bad omens.
“I’m in,” Veronica said. She was looking at Heather with the kind of wide-eyed admiration he’d always envied in other people.
Heather led them deeper into the house, up a spiral staircase into a tower-like glass room that was—in JD’s mind—exactly the kind of place where a curse should be broken.
“This is where she cast all her cursed. Stand in the middle of the room.” Heather took a deep breath, her shoulders square. She looked like someone who was trying very hard to look like they knew what they were doing. “Help me with this.”
She handed them candles and pointed to the corners of the room where they should go while she drew something that looked complicated with chalk on the floor.
After a few minutes of careful study, and the occasional edit, she looked up.
JD met her eyes. “What now?”
“I’ll say the words and we’ll see what happens.”
“Is that really—”
“JD, shut up.” Veronica swallowed visibly and nodded at Heather. “We’re ready. Go.”
Closing her eyes, Heather took another long breath and the room felt deadly quiet.
"With the final stroke of all Hallows night
What was wrong will be made right
With the light of the rising sun
What was once cursed will now be undone"
He wanted there to be a breath of wind, a subtle shake in the ground, some kind of sign, but the unnatural stillness remained after Heather had finished her chant. Across town, a church rang out the time: midnight on Halloween.
“How will we know if it worked?” Veronica asked, her voice barely a breath and yet booming in the silence between them.
Heather shrugged. “We’ll know when the sunlight touches you.”
Nodding, Veronica sat down on the dusty floor. JD and Heather joined her and sat on either side. Carefully, he felt Veronica’s hand slip into his, and knew instinctively that she’d taken hold of Heather’s as well.
Together, they settled in to wait for dawn.