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T ender is the night. Or so the saying goes. But had the author ever been stalked by Death? Heard his heavy footsteps trailing behind her, or the haunting melody that preceded him wherever he led?

Some sins are not so easily lost in the dark. In my case, one caught up with every step I took—reminding me of what I’d gained, and what I had so willingly lost.

The Reaper grew desperate. Yet, I continued to persist.

Because what is life, if not a fight?

Still, I thought I’d have more time.

When it became inexorably clear I would not age past my twenty-second birthday, my gut reaction was elation. Who wouldn’t want to remain young and beautiful forever? But I was thirty then, and youth still mattered to me.

When I turned forty-three and my mother remarked on my unnerving appearance, my husband sneered. James was a proud man. One who believed nothing bad could befall him, or me by extension. The truth we would come to face was far more grim.

You see, all the women in my family had been cursed.

My great-grandmother lost her senses. I never met her, but the way my grandmother spoke of it, with wet eyes and a trembling voice, I knew it hadn’t been kind.

My grandmother was cursed to forget her name. And my mother? She could only speak bitter, unkind thoughts, slowly tearing apart every relationship in her life until she died.

As a child, I couldn’t be convinced the Tempest women died alone because of a curse. I blamed their personalities instead—harsh, distant, unyielding. And in my na?veté and arrogance, I believed I could outrun their morose legacy simply by being different.

I was wrong.

At nineteen, I ran away. Right into the arms of the first man I met. He had quick wit, eloquent words, and wealth. I was barefoot and malleable. Wild . A perfect match, if breeding complacency and tragedy had been the goal.

But I thought I was in love.

After we married, I soon fell pregnant. Blinded by my husband’s lavish lifestyle, his doting mother, their status—I gave no thought to the curse.

Curses are funny that way; they lull you into a false sense of security while tragedy stalks you from the shadows.

When the curse finally claimed me on my twenty-second birthday, there were no fireworks. No revelations. No clues. For years, I lived unaware of the malevolence at my door—and the omen I’d become.

It wasn’t until my children were older that we realized something was wrong. My features were too preserved. Too untouched . Guileless, I believed my youth would only elevate my life. I had a rich husband. Smart, well-rounded children. Status.

For a time, I truly believed the curse had ended with me. I had two sons, something unheard of in my bloodline. And when my daughter finally came, she was all softness and light: blonde hair, blue eyes. No red. No green.

Nothing of me in her, at all.

For a time, I thought that had meant she’d been spared. A sign that whatever haunted the women in my family had finally passed us by. And so, I truly wanted for nothing.

Until 1925—the year my daughter’s curse revealed itself. Beatrice was twenty-two, the age we all were when it began. Her curse? She could never lie.

She told me about her father’s affair just hours before we left for yet another business dinner. James insisted on driving.

Looking back, I should have kept quiet.

But I couldn’t.

Clutching the seat around a sharp bend in the road, I brought up the lover he’d been keeping. He didn’t deny it, in fact, he told me to let it go. Just as he let go of the fact he was married to a “witch.”

We argued, as we often did, and in the heat of it all, we missed the fallen tree on the road. That’s where everything went wrong—where I learned Death would be my constant companion.

The sound of metal collapsing in on itself will never leave me.

Nor will the sight of Beatrice, who was flung through the windshield, and swallowed by the night.

While James fought to free himself, I ran to our daughter.

I gathered her limp body into my arms, and the sound that tore from me was not human.

It was guttural. Animal. Grief given voice.

Even now, when I close my eyes, I am there again. Blood-soaked. Rocking her in my arms.Smoothing blonde curls from her face. Touching skin gone waxy and cold.

Then, my hands began to glow. My fingers, slick with blood, started to tingle, then numb. And in the most harrowing moment of my life, I watched her body knit itself back together. Beatrice’s blue eyes blinked open.

I screamed for James, and then turned.Only to find him dead—hanging halfway out of the motor car, his body twisted and torn.

I didn’t know it then, but the price of life is death, and I had traded his soul for hers.

Even now, I cannot regret it.

If I had known, I would have made the same choice again.

And that’s the sin.

One day, I woke up and decided to play God.