My wife Lauren and I have recently returned from our two-month holiday in South America. We had a great time, hiking, and sightseeing to our heart’s content. However, Lauren has been complaining about a sore throat for the past two weeks. At first, I thought nothing of it; it was late October, and the northern winds often brought rain and smog upon the city. She had never been the picture of health either – with frequent headaches and bouts of dry cough, although I’d often attributed those to her smoking habits. I told her not to worry about it. A sore throat generally resolved itself within a few days and wasn’t uncommon at this time of year. That soothed her for a while, but it wasn’t long before she brought it up again.
“Henry, I’m sure there’s something wrong,” she said, as I was getting into bed, “The pain is getting worse.”
I told her to stick out her tongue and examined her inflamed tonsils but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I told her as much, but she insisted.
“Do you think it’s because of the woman?” she whispered, wide-eyed.
Her question caught me off guard and it took me several moments to realize what she meant. During our travels, we had wandered off trail and come across a small gravesite. Now, gravesite isn’t exactly the right term for it. It was really about four crosses constructed from nothing but a couple of small sticks and a few stones surrounding each one. In fact, we didn’t even notice them until my wife accidentally tripped over one and sent the pieces flying through the dirt. I’d wanted to stop and fix it, but she insisted we leave it and keep going, as it was already getting quite late, and she was afraid we wouldn’t make it down the mountain by sundown.
However, the sound of footsteps behind us had stopped us in our tracks. An elderly woman in a shawl had appeared from behind some trees and was slowly making her way towards where we were standing. We were on top of a mountain and there didn’t seem to be any inhabitants around, so the sight was honestly quite bizarre. I lifted my hand to greet her, but she didn’t look remotely interested. In fact, it was like she was looking right through us. My wife kept tugging at my sleeve to keep walking, but I stood firm. The woman was obviously headed in our direction and walking away would have been rude.
But she didn’t stop. She continued walking straight past us until she reached the sticks. She bent over, picking them up with both hands and tying them back together with a piece of brown string.
“Let’s go, Henry, this is weird,” Lauren said, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me away.
With that, the woman stood upright and stared at her, her face emotionless and her body completely still. She stood like that for a good minute, while my wife gave me not-so-subtle signs she wanted to leave. Then, the woman raised her hand and wagged her finger at us, whispering words in a language that we did not understand. She gestured to her neck, chanting what almost seemed like an incantation and that’s when we made ourselves scarce. She seemed to grow louder by the second and we could still hear her words echoing in our ears as we made our way down the mountain.
My wife was almost in tears at that point, saying that she had no idea the crosses were even there, and ‘what if she’d cursed us’. I did my best to calm her down, telling her everything was okay and that superstitions only had power over the people who believed in them, so I was surprised when she brought the subject up again almost three weeks after we’d returned from our trip.
“Could I be cursed?” Lauren repeated, her eyes brimming with tears.
I put my arm around her and promised that she wasn’t. However, the following morning she made an emergency appointment at a clinic a couple of blocks away. Our family doctor hadn’t been available on such short notice, but Lauren was adamant about seeing one immediately. The physician performed a thorough examination of my wife’s throat, getting her to say “aah” and “eeh” and taking a swab for further testing.
“You have nothing to worry about,” she said eventually, clasping her gloved hands, “It will clear itself up within a few days.”
My wife seemed to find solace in the doctor’s words and didn’t bring the subject up for a couple of days, mostly keeping to herself in her study. One morning, I walked in on her inspecting the inside of her mouth in the bathroom mirror and asked her whether her throat still hurt.
“Yes, it still hurts,” she whispered, “I can’t even look down.”
I stared at her, perplexed.
“What do you mean, you can’t look down?”
In spite of myself, I was starting to worry. More than a week had passed since she had first brought this up and as far as I could tell, her symptoms were only getting worse.
“I can’t lower my chin,” she gestured to her throat vaguely, her voice wobbly, “I have to keep my chin pointed up.”
I rushed over to her and gently cupped her face in my hands. The sides of her neck were flushed with tension and her jugular protruded slightly outwards. I could feel her shivering and wrapped my arms around her.
“It’s a curse, Henry, I’m cursed,” she whispered, “We have to find that woman.”
I seized her by the shoulders gently.
“Curses don’t exist, honey. Forget that woman, she’s nothing but a mad old hag. But we need to get you to the hospital right now to get it looked at.”
We rushed to the emergency room in a state of panic. My wife could barely open her mouth, let alone speak when asked about her symptoms, so I had to do most of the talking. The doctors ran a series of blood tests and left us waiting hours in between appointments. When the physician finally returned with the results, we were both exhausted.
“It’s a severe case of strep throat, ma’am,” he began, scanning his notes, “You’d do well to stay home and get plenty of rest.”
I stared at him, incredulously.
“That’s exactly what she has been doing and she’s only been getting worse,” there was an edge to my voice, and I knew I was on the verge of causing a scene.
“I’ll thank you not to take that tone, sir,” he looked as though he’d heard it a million times before, “Your wife needs to stay in bed and rest. Meanwhile, there is nothing more we can do.”
We drove home in a mournful silence. As soon as we were inside, I helped my wife upstairs and tucked her into bed. She looked worse now; her chin was raised at a 180 degree angle and her skin looked grey and lifeless, aside from the rouge across her neck.
“The light…” she whispered, “Can-can you draw the curtains?”
I walked over to the window and shut the blinds. I heard her tossing and turning in an attempt to find a position comfortable enough to accommodate her tilted chin. I hoped her symptoms had reached their peak and she would feel better the following day, but God, was I wrong.
I was reading the newspaper the next morning when I heard several thuds coming from upstairs.
“Lauren!” I called, praying that she was finally well enough to walk about.
But there was no answer. I got off the couch and started up the stairs, listening for any indication of my wife’s location. I had just reached the landing when a blood-curling screech came from the master bathroom. It was so hoarse and gravelly, it didn’t even sound human. My heart dropped and I raced across the hallway, blood pounding in my temples. I reached the bathroom door and flung it open with a loud bang. What I saw will remain with me for the rest of my life.
My wife was standing in front of the sink, her back arched and her neck even more angled than before. Both her arms were raised over her head, yanking at a hairbrush lodged in her tousled curls, to no avail. But there was something else. Her neck was tearing at the front, like a piece of cloth at the seams. The more she tugged at the hairbrush, the more it split, giving way to her rasping screams.
For a moment, I stood still, at a loss for what to do. Things like this didn’t happen in real life or to real people. I felt so faint I had to hold on to the door frame to steady myself. Then, I darted to the bathroom cabinet and grabbed a pair of scissors to cut the hairbrush out of my wife’s hair. It fell to the ground with a loud clang, and I sat her down on the edge of the bathtub to stop her from collapsing. Her screams had turned into quiet, crackly whimpers.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at her throat. The entire room resembled a crime scene, and I knew she was running out of time. I had the ambulance on the phone within thirty seconds.
“Yes, yes, we need immediate assistance!” I shouted into the receiver, dashing from one room to the next in a frenzy, “Please hurry!”
The call operator promised a car would arrive within ten minutes and I sat down next to my wife, holding her hand, willing her to be okay. She looked as though she was trying very hard to say something, but no sound came out.
I wanted to tell her that everything would be okay. I wanted to tell her the doctors would know what to do, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I’d been feeling a tingle in my throat since yesterday, and I didn’t want to worry her. Instead, I reached out to wipe her tears and caress her hair, but to my absolute horror, this was too much for the seams to bear.