The Ashford Orphanage smelled of boiled cabbage and despair.
Amelia had been there for three years, and in that time, she'd learned to make herself small. Small enough to avoid notice. Small enough to avoid blame. Small enough, she hoped, to avoid bringing death to anyone else.
It never worked.
At four years old, she was a silent, watchful child with too-old eyes and a habit of flinching from sudden movements. The other children avoided her—the older ones remembering the whispers that came with her, the younger ones sensing something different about the grey-eyed girl who never smiled.
"That's the calamity child," they'd whisper when they thought she couldn't hear. "Stay away from her, or bad things happen."
Amelia didn't argue. Bad things DID happen around her. She'd seen it too many times.
The kitten that had wandered into the orphanage yard, that she'd petted gently, stroking its soft fur while it purred—found dead the next morning, no marks on it, just… gone.
The nun who'd shown her a moment of kindness, giving her an extra piece of bread—tripped on the stairs two days later, broke her leg so badly she had to leave the orphanage.
The boy who'd shared his toy with her once—developed a fever that night, delirious and burning up, calling for his dead mother.
It was her. She knew it was her. Everyone said so.
So she made herself small, and she tried not to care about anyone, and she especially tried not to let anyone care about her.
Then the Harpers came.
-----
Gerald and Marta Harper were a prosperous couple from the town of Millfield, a day's ride from Ashford. They'd been married ten years with no children, and Marta's biological clock was ticking loudly in her ears. When prayers and physicians failed to grant them a child, they'd decided to adopt.
"We want a young one," Gerald told the orphanage matron, a stern woman named Sister Agnes. "Moldable. Someone we can shape into a proper daughter."
Sister Agnes had immediately thought of Amelia. The girl was quiet, obedient, and—most importantly—no one else would take her. The "calamity" reputation had followed her from Millbrook. But the Harpers were from a different town. They wouldn't know.
"I have just the child," Sister Agnes said, and went to fetch Amelia.
Amelia had been in the kitchen garden, pulling weeds. It was one of her chores, and she didn't mind it. Plants didn't fear her. Plants didn't die when she touched them—most of the time.
"Amelia," Sister Agnes called. "Come here, child. And try to look presentable."
Amelia brushed dirt from her faded dress and followed. In the matron's office stood a well-dressed couple. The woman had kind eyes and a soft smile. The man looked stern but not cruel.
"This is Amelia," Sister Agnes said. "She's four years old, very quiet, very obedient. She'll give you no trouble at all."
Marta Harper knelt down to Amelia's level. "Hello, sweetheart. Would you like to come live with us? We have a big house with a garden, and your own room, and—"
"Does she speak?" Gerald interrupted.
"Of course she speaks," Sister Agnes said quickly, though Amelia had been largely silent for months. "She's just shy. Aren't you, dear?"
Amelia looked at Marta Harper's kind face and felt something dangerous bloom in her chest. Hope. The woman looked so warm, so safe. Like maybe, just maybe, she could have a mother again.
"Yes," Amelia whispered. "I'd like that."
Marta's face lit up. "Oh, Gerald, she's perfect!"
Gerald nodded, more reserved. "We'll take her."
The arrangements were made quickly. By evening, Amelia was in a carriage heading to Millfield, wearing a new dress that Marta had bought her, clutching a cloth doll the woman had pressed into her hands.
"You're going to love it with us," Marta promised, squeezing Amelia's small hand. "You'll have everything you need. You'll be our little girl."
Amelia wanted to believe her. Gods, how she wanted to believe.
But a small voice in the back of her mind whispered: *They'll die too. Everyone who loves you dies.*
-----
The Harper house was grand by Amelia's standards. Two stories, painted white, with glass windows and a garden that sprawled behind it. Her room had a real bed with pillows, not the straw mat she'd slept on at the orphanage. There were curtains on the windows. A wooden chest for clothes.
"Do you like it?" Marta asked, hovering in the doorway.
Amelia nodded, afraid to speak in case her voice broke the spell.
The first week was like a dream. Marta dressed her in pretty clothes, brushed her hair gently, taught her proper table manners. Gerald was more distant but not unkind. He'd pat her head when he passed, call her "girl," occasionally ask if she was being good.
Amelia tried to be so, so good. She did every chore without complaint. She ate everything on her plate. She went to bed when told and woke early to help with breakfast.
"You're such a sweet child," Marta would say, and Amelia would glow with the praise.
But at night, alone in her room, she'd hear them. The whispers.
Spirits gathered around her like moths to flame. Some were gentle—echoes of people long dead, curious about the strange child who could see them. Others were darker, twisted by their deaths, feeding on her fear.
"Little girl can see us," they'd hiss.
"Little girl is special."
"Little girl brings death."
Amelia would pull her blanket over her head and try to block them out. But they always found her. They always knew.
The strange things started small.
Objects would move when she walked past. A vase would shift slightly. A door would creak open though she hadn't touched it. Once, when she'd been particularly frightened by a dark spirit in her room, every candle in the house had suddenly gone out.
Marta laughed it off. "Just the wind, dear."
But Gerald had looked at Amelia with something new in his eyes. Suspicion.
-----
Two months into her stay with the Harpers, Amelia woke to screaming.
She bolted upright, heart pounding. The screams were coming from downstairs. Marta's voice, high and terrified.
Amelia crept to her door, opened it quietly. The house was dark, but she could see spirits everywhere now—dozens of them, swirling through the halls like a visible wind. They'd never been this active before.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Marta shrieked.
Amelia ran downstairs. In the kitchen, Marta stood pressed against the wall, staring at nothing. Or—not nothing. At a spirit that loomed before her, its form twisted and dark, reaching for her with elongated fingers.
"Mama!" Amelia cried without thinking.
Marta's head snapped to her. "You! You brought this! What have you done?"
"I didn't—I don't—" Amelia stammered, but the spirit turned its attention to her now. It smiled, showing too many teeth.
"Daughter of twilight," it rasped. "We've been searching for you."
Gerald thundered into the kitchen, lamp in hand. "What in the gods' names—" He saw Marta's terror, saw Amelia standing frozen, saw nothing else because he couldn't see the spirit. "What did you do to her?"
"There's something here," Amelia tried to explain. "Something bad. I can see it—"
"She's possessed!" Marta wailed. "The child is possessed! That's why these things happen!"
The spirit laughed, and Amelia felt ice crawl down her spine. It moved toward Marta again, and without thinking, Amelia threw herself between them.
"NO! Leave her alone!"
Something inside Amelia broke—or maybe opened. Power flooded through her, silver-violet light exploding from her small form. The spirit shrieked and recoiled, its dark form dissipating like smoke in wind.
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then Marta started screaming again.
"Demon! She's a demon! Gerald, get her out, get her OUT!"
Gerald grabbed Amelia roughly by the arm, his face pale with shock and fear. "What are you?"
"I'm not—I didn't mean—" Tears streamed down Amelia's face. "I was trying to help!"
"Help?" Gerald dragged her toward the door. "You're cursed! Possessed! We should have known better than to take a child from that place!"
"Please," Amelia begged, but she already knew it was useless. "Please, I'll be good. I'll make it stop. I promise—"
"You can't make it stop," Gerald said, not cruelly but with absolute certainty. "Whatever you are, you're not natural. We can't keep you here."
He pulled her outside into the cold night. Amelia's bare feet scraped against stone. She wasn't even wearing shoes.
"Gerald, no!" Marta called from the doorway, and for a moment Amelia's hope rekindled. But then Marta added, "At least give her the clothes on her back. And some food. We're not monsters."
Gerald's jaw clenched, but he nodded. He went inside, returned with a small sack. Amelia's old dress from the orphanage, a heel of bread, a thin blanket.
"Where will I go?" Amelia whispered.
"That's not my problem," Gerald said, and there was sadness in his voice beneath the fear. "I'm sorry, girl. But we can't have you here. Not after… whatever that was."
He pressed the sack into her hands and walked back inside. The door closed. The lock clicked.
Amelia stood in the dark garden, wearing only her nightgown, holding a sack of her meager possessions, and felt something in her chest shatter beyond repair.
She'd tried so hard. Been so good. And it didn't matter.
It would never matter.
She was cursed.
-----
In the spirit realm, Noctis and Aurelia watched their daughter stand alone in the dark, her small shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
"This cannot continue," Noctis said, his voice tight with barely contained rage. "She's four years old. FOUR. How much more must she endure?"
"Until she's strong enough," Aurelia whispered, though her own grief was a physical ache. "The binding is weakening. Her powers are starting to manifest. Soon someone will recognize what she is."
"And what then?" Noctis demanded. "She's a child! She needs protection, not more suffering!"
"We ARE protecting her," Aurelia said, though the words tasted like lies. "Every moment she lives, we protect her. But we cannot interfere more directly. The balance—"
"Damn the balance!" Noctis roared. "That's our DAUGHTER!"
Aurelia touched his face, her translucent hand passing through his cheek but he felt it nonetheless. "I know. Believe me, I know. But if we intervene directly, if we break the rules of death, we'll draw Solarius's attention. And he WILL find her. Is that what you want?"
Noctis closed his eyes, his rage collapsing into helplessness. "No," he breathed. "But watching this… it's agony."
"Yes," Aurelia agreed simply. "It is."
Below them, Amelia began to walk. Away from the house that had briefly been home. Away from warmth and safety. Into the dark unknown, guided only by the pale moonlight and the whispers of spirits that would never leave her alone.
She was four years old.
And she had learned her second great lesson: even when you try to be good, even when you try to help, you will be cast out.
The calamity was confirmed.
And there were still so many years of suffering ahead.