The pigeons were in the church’s courtyard again. I shuffled across the stone tiles, ignoring their piercing stares, back into the rough forest at the edge of town. A couple minutes more and I was at my cabin door. One pigeon had followed me; I looked away as I closed the door behind me.

With a sigh, I set the bag down on my counter. The tarot-reader gave me salt, nutmeg, and a little pamphlet of spells to break the curse I knew I was under.

“Nobody is looking out for you,” she said, twirling her hair in her fingers. “You are right to feel cursed.”

“The pigeons,” I started, but she shook her head.

“Not looking out for you. Stalking you. They are not what they seem.” And she sent me on my way.

The crumpled, yellowed pamphlet said to draw a circle with salt, inhale the nutmeg through my left nostril, and wait. The words didn’t tell me for what.

I sat in my bedroom, shades drawn. The only light came from a sliver of moonlight near my bed. I sprinkled the salt in a circle and held the nutmeg to my nose, inhaling.

With the sharp pain came the sound of flapping wings. Stronger than a pigeon’s, it sounded as if a man landed on my roof. Shivers ran through me from head to toe, cold as the winds in Antarctica. My heart raced, I coughed, and passed out.

*

I blinked my eyes open to see a bird sitting at my bedside. Only, it had arms and legs like a human. With wings wrapped around a feathered torso, it swept the hair from my forehead.

“You’re not alone anymore,” it spoke in a gnarled voice, tiny black eyes staring emptily at my face.