A Curse for the Homesick

by Laura Brooke Robson

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Coming of Age; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

On Stenland, there comes a time known as skeld season: when a woman can wake with three black lines on her forehead, the mark of a skeld, and turn anyone she sees to stone. Skeld season comes around without warning, and while each only lasts three months, the people skelds turn to stone are very much dead.

That’s how Tess’s mother killed Soren’s parents. Maybe for this reason alone, Tess and Soren should not have fallen in love. Since the time her mother was a skeld, Tess has wanted to leave Stenland, to run from the windswept island, from her family and friends. She is unwilling to bear the responsibility of one day killing anyone, let alone someone she loves. Soren, though, has always been determined to stay, to live out his life in the only place he’s ever known as home, even if that life could be cut short. They cannot see eye to eye—and yet, they cannot stay apart. She tries to come back for him. He tries to leave for her. But can your love for one person outweigh everything else? And how do you decide how much you’re willing to risk, if it might mean destroying someone else in the process?

Laura Brooke Robson has crafted a fascinating story about the choices we make, the responsibilities we carry, and the ambiguities of regret.

Release date: February 18, 2025

Publisher: MIRA Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

PRELUDE

Where the earth gives way, there is a man made of stone. The snow catches on his eyelashes and in the fine grooves of his lips, which are parted slightly—like he was about to say something. Behind him, frozen fog rolls relentlessly off the ocean.

Three women stand facing the edge of the cliffs with their shoulders touching.

The first says: “I don’t understand.”

The second says: “Fucking hell.”

The third doesn’t say anything at all.

 

THE RETURN

2022

I returned to Stenland the day I turned twenty-six. I didn’t mean to get in on my birthday. Originally I’d planned to get in the day before, but there was too much wind to land at the airport, so I ended up taking the overnight ferry from Aberdeen. I woke alone in the small, rocking bedroom and could not move the air from my throat into my lungs.

I got dressed and went outside. From a mile out, I saw the hazy shape of the island. The black sand; the turf-roofed houses; the craggy mountains. The only other passenger on the ferry was a twenty-something backpacker who was throwing up over the railing. The captain watched me, like he wanted me to be ill too, like this would be proof I’d been made soft in my absence. He didn’t greet me by name, but I knew he knew me. Everyone knew everyone in Stenland.

I wasn’t going to come, but it was all Linnea asked for. I tried to buy her things instead: a vacation, a dress, a collection of ceramic dishes. No, she said, no to all of it. The only thing she’d asked was that Kitty and I come home to be her bridesmaids.

When I climbed down the ramp to the concrete dock, I could see a banner hanging from Hedda’s. Congratulations, Henrik and Linnea! Behind it, in the basin of fog, the old brutalist church was a solemn slab of gray. Red woolen clothes flapped on the bodies of stone statues.

I could not bring myself to look directly at them.

* * *

I opened the door to Hedda’s with my boot, and a bell jingled. From behind the register, the painting of the Virgin Mary looked scandalized. As always, it smelled like fermented fish.

Had I missed it?

No.

I had not let myself.

I could hear Hedda rummaging around in the back room, and no one else seemed to be there, so I shoved my hands into my pockets and examined the counter. Hedda had finally bought a credit-card reader. So that was nice. According to the menu, this was the island’s best capachino. I imagined tourists seeing that and tittering—those poor stupid Stenns who couldn’t even spell the food they served. I felt embarrassed, then resentful.

Hedda emerged from the back room with her hands on her aproned hips. She looked older.

I lifted my shoulder to keep the strap of my duffel bag in place.

“You may as well sit down,” Hedda said and set to work crabbily pouring me a cup of coffee.

I sat. The chair squeaked.

Hedda added a liberal amount of cream and sugar to my mug before handing it over. “You look like a corpse microwaved back to life,” she said.

I took a sip of the coffee. Hedda nodded, satisfied, then went back behind the counter to retrieve a small pie, which she dropped unceremoniously onto the table next to the coffee. The pie smelled like mutton and kohlrabi. I didn’t pick up the fork.

“Glad to see you’re still the conversational equivalent of a dead seagull,” Hedda said.

“Thanks for the coffee,” I said.

She exhaled, exasperated.

The door opened, and in like a gust of wind burst Kitty. She was wearing over-the-knee suede boots and a long woolen coat. Her lipstick was bright purple. When she saw me, she barreled through the café, knocked aside a chair, and bodily forced me onto my feet

 so we could hug.

Hedda grumbled something about the two of us acting like we never saw each other. Stenns had no sense of scale. There was only the island and everywhere else. Since Kitty and I both lived “everywhere else,” of course Hedda would assume we spent all our time together, though I hadn’t seen Kitty since Christmas. Whenever we met, it felt like the world’s smallest survivor’s group.

“You’re early!” Kitty said. “We agreed on nine, right? Okay, whatever. I’ve been at Linnea’s just now, and she was trying on her dress again, and, I don’t know, her mum thought it looked too tight on her, so that was a whole thing, and then Henrik showed up to do whatever it is Henrik does, so Linnie had to change out of her dress so she could—”

Over Kitty’s shoulder, Hedda pinched her middle and ring fingers together with her thumb, making a yap yap yap sign.

“—which made me think, sure, if I’m going into town to meet Tess anyway, I might as well offer to drop the dress at the tailor’s, so.” Kitty flourished a hand. “Here I am.”

“Hey,” I said.

She took a sip of my coffee, made a face, and hugged me again.

Hedda wouldn’t let me escape the shop without the pie and a loaf of hard, dark bread in my hands. Once the door jingled shut behind us, I said, “I have a bad feeling.”

“Well, obviously. You let Hedda put what I can only assume was six tablespoons of sugar in your coffee.”

“A bad skeld feeling,” I said.

“We’re only here for three days,” Kitty said. “Don’t be paranoid. I’m manifesting a very short and easy trip for us. Don’t out-manifest me with something awful.”

She looped her arm through mine as we walked. The September weather was colder than a California January. We zigzagged down the street between the stone fences, and I remembered how I used to love the way the air tasted on days like this—earthy and salty and sweet.

We reached the little red house by the cemetery. Linnea had added beds of wispy white flowers and a porch swing out front. In the windows, I saw lacy curtains like the ones Linnea used to have in her bedroom growing up. Back in California, I had a Polaroid of Linnea climbing out her window through those curtains; on the bottom, Kitty had Sharpied Faerie Queen emerging from flower.

We stared at the door. Eventually I said, “How’s Georgia?”

“We’re off again,” Kitty said.

“I’m sorry.”

She lifted a shoulder. “How’s Noah?”

“He’s good.”

“He didn’t want to come?”

“I didn’t think he should.”

From inside, I could hear a familiar fluty voice. Linnea was singing. Her voice was a time capsule, airy as the wind and pretty as anything. For a minute, I felt like we were all eighteen, my hair smelling of chlorine and Kitty with her books in a too small but

 very fashionable handbag and Linnea carrying a bottle of elderflower liqueur that we were going to drink down by the beach.

“How has it been?” I asked.

“Being here? Not, you know, super fun. On the list of things I would like to be doing with my time, this ranks somewhere near drinking rat poison.”

“But you’re not still in love with her,” I said.

“If only we could all forget how it felt to be in love the first time,” Kitty said.

“I never think about him.”

Kitty said, “Sure,” and opened the door.

I stepped inside after her and saw Linnea in profile. She was standing in front of the sink, looking at her reflection in the mirror as she applied mascara. Oh—no. Not Linnea. Saffi, her sister. Her blond hair was in two long braids on either side of her round face and elegant neck. When she heard the door, she turned and gave us a smile with a tiny gap between the front teeth. She looked like one of the dolls they sold in the gift shops in town—the perfect Stennish woman.

Saffi broke the spell by setting down her mascara and hugging Kitty and me in turn. I got the feeling she was only hugging Kitty—whom she’d surely already seen—because it was awkward to hug me. I stared at Saffi’s neck. She smelled like Linnea, like jasmine.

“You look gorgeous,” Saffi said generously. I knew what I looked like. Hedda had told me: a microwaved corpse. “I love your hair.”

I looked down at my hair. The ends were blunt and frazzled from chlorine. Kitty laughed.

“Yours too,” I said.

Apropos of nothing, Kitty said, “Tess, where did you get your boots and why don’t I have a pair? Is this how you spend your ridiculous engineer money?”

She was trying to make Saffi feel bad. It was a very Kitty thing to do—to make someone else feel worse in the hopes of making me feel better. I wished she wouldn’t.

“Noah got them for me, actually,” I said.

“Oh!” Kitty said. “So that’s how he spends his ridiculous programmer money?”

An awkward silence.

“Linnie’s so excited to have you here,” Saffi said finally. “She’s out back.”

We followed her through the house, and Kitty poked my spine. She mouthed something incomprehensible, and when I shook my head, she rolled her eyes and texted me.

Kitty: I’m being helpful!!!

Me: Please don’t be that helpful

Linnea, in a fluttery dress, crouched over a collection of potted plants. When she saw me, she hesitated. It had been years since we’d seen each other in person. She seemed unsure of herself, like I was an unknown variable, possibly dangerous, and it made me wish I wasn’t wearing the expensive rain boots.

I set down my duffel bag and the food from Hedda’s. Linnea opened her mouth, and I was afraid she was going to say something terrible and banal: How were your flights? or It’s so nice to see you.

 Instead, she said: “I had a dream last night that you turned into a Pembroke Welsh corgi, which is strange because I’ve always thought you’d be a greyhound.”

Then we were normal again and hugging—Linnea and Kitty and Tess, thank god, thank god.

“Happy birthday, Tessie,” Linnea said, which made Kitty shriek with rage.

“It’s your birthday?” she said. “You were supposed to get in the day before your birthday!”

“But then she got in a day late, remember?” Linnea said.

Kitty made her rage noise again. “Well, then I have a fucking cake to order, don’t I?”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” Kitty and Linnea both said. They looked at each other, then away again just as quickly.

The four of us got ready together, Linnea and her three bridesmaids. Linnea’s parents kept rushing in and out of the house, as did Kitty’s mum, who kissed me on the cheek without setting down the massive flower arrangement she was carting. I texted my dad asking if he wanted to drop by Linnea’s, but he said he didn’t want to interrupt and that he’d see me at the rehearsal dinner. I couldn’t figure out how to tell him how badly I wanted to see him. We were both afraid my absence had made us strangers.

At one point, I was sitting on the edge of Linnea’s old bed while Kitty did Saffi’s hair, and my stomach growled. Linnea tossed me a sleeve of chocolate biscuits, a brand not available in the States, without needing to ask. As the biscuits arced through the air, time dilated; I had lived this moment a hundred times before. Kitty, who had exactly no coordination, would try to intercept the biscuits and end up dropping them. Then she’d insist it was on purpose—Sugar is bad for one’s dental hygiene, actually, she’d say—and then I would shrug and scoop them off the floor; and Kitty would protest about germs and cavities; and I would hold the biscuits up high, out of her reach; and she would relent and ask for a biscuit; and Linnea would start laughing her irrepressible, gravitational laugh—the kind that made others laugh, the kind that went and on and on. I saw it all happening in my mind, in my memory, and then in front of me—that was how it all went. Exactly as I imagined. In this room, the particular rhoticity and lilt of the voices were precisely like my own. The pressure against the inside of my heart was a kind of longing, but I did not know how it was possible to keep missing them when they were right here.

* * *

They had the rehearsal dinner at this restaurant, Sjö, where I had never been but according to Travel + Leisure was The Place to eat if you visited Stenland. It was set tastefully back from Lundwall, outside of the town proper, with a view of the sea from the cliffs. The whole west side of the restaurant was made of windows, and the terrace had fire pits and heat lamps and globe lights. Apparently they were getting a staggering discount because

 Saffi was the owner’s favorite waitress.

On our way to the cars, Kitty grabbed my arm. “We look like we’re dressed for a sexy gallery opening, and they look like they’re going to Mother’s Day tea.”

“What’s a sexy gallery?” I said.

Kitty gestured at our dresses. She was wearing tight nude lace. I was wearing a black sheath with a slit up the side. Ahead of us, climbing into Linnea’s parents’ car, the Sundstrom sisters were both wearing loose, flowy pastels. When I’d packed, I’d run this dress by Noah’s older sister, who was twenty-nine and had been to approximately a hundred weddings in the past six months. She’d said it was hot yet family appropriate.

“On the bright side,” Kitty said, “I’m planning to record the moment Soren sees you for posterity. I bet he’ll make that little choking noise—you know that one when he’s surprised? And then I’ll send it to you, and you can play it back whenever you forget what a catch you are.”

“I am begging you,” I said as we reached the car, “to shut up.”

We piled in. I ended up squeezed into the way-back between Saffi and the window. She hummed softly and did not look at me. The whole drive, her spidery, pale fingers plucked at the thin cotton fabric of her dress.

Sjö was everything Travel + Leisure promised. The windows. The ambience. The paralyzing panic when I saw a man in a suit with hair the color of sand adjusting a flower arrangement.

But it was just Magnus Invers, one of Henrik’s ushers. When he saw us, he grinned and waved. It hadn’t occured to me how obvious my panic had been until Saffi cleared her throat and stepped around me. I wiped my hands on my dress.

More people arrived. Kitty and I bobbed around, trying to keep busy. Soren was nowhere.

“Tess!” Henrik said.

I turned to see him weaving between tables, his arm linked with Linnea’s. Oh, god, they were just so Stennish, so red cheeked and blue eyed. He was handsome in his suit. Handsome and square. Kitty had once called him an aesthetic quadrilateral, and the laugh jumped out of me before I could stop it. He hugged me. Still very square.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come!” he said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Because he was Henrik, I believed him.

“Congratulations,” I said. “You’re marrying one of the two best people in the world.”

Linnea made a pleased little noise, almost a hiccup.

Henrik grinned and started to say something, but before he could, his father was touching his elbow and asking about forks. Henrik nodded. God, he looked grown-up. Did I look that grown-up? He had

an honest-to-god wrinkle on the outside of his eye.

“Let’s catch up at dinner,” Henrik said, squeezing my shoulder. It struck me as a very fatherly gesture, like what his own dad had just done. “I want to hear all about work and Noah and San Fran.” And again, I believed him.

Once he and Linnea had gone to deal with whatever fork catastrophe was unfurling, Kitty passed me a glass of champagne. “San Fran,” she said.

“It’s not as bad as Frisco.”

“Frisco!” she said. “The old Silicone Valley.”

I snorted, but I felt mean about it. It was too warm in the restaurant, and I stretched the fabric of my dress away from my sweaty ribs as I searched the growing crowd. I’d imagined the rehearsal dinner would be smaller; I’d imagined spending most of my time trying not to make eye contact with the best man, but I still hadn’t spotted him.

I went off in search of my dad, but no one had seen him. Eventually, in the kitchen, I found Kitty’s mum, Michelle, who was gesturing animatedly at a chef.

She acknowledged me with a squeeze of my hand while she said to the chef, “Well, I assumed you’d be making it if you’re doing the catering for tomorrow.”

“Not enough ovens,” the chef said. “And buttercream nauseates me.”

I hadn’t realized Kitty followed me until I heard her ask, “What’s all this about?”

“Margit just called from the bakery and said she can’t deliver the cake, and that someone needs to pick it up as soon as possible,” Michelle said.

“Oh!” Kitty said. “Tess’s birthday cake. I called earlier today.”

“I really don’t need a cake,” I said, and everyone ignored me.

“I’d go get it,” Michelle said, “but I told Linnea I’d figure out where the rest of the flowers went.”

“I can’t go,” Kitty said. “I’m getting along too well with the champagne.”

“I can do it,” I said.

“You can’t pick up your own birthday cake.”

“No, really.” I set down my glass of champagne, which was only a few sips shy of full. “Can I borrow your keys?”

Michelle handed them over and called after me that I had to be back by seven thirty for the rehearsal. I probably could’ve found someone else to go to the bakery, or at least to drive with me, but I was starting to feel like the ceiling was descending and if I didn’t get out soon, it might flatten me.

I unlocked the car and threw myself into the driver’s seat before anyone could catch up. My shoes, strappy black heels, were not conducive to driving, but I didn’t want to sit around taking them off. The tires squealed as I pulled out of the lot. Michelle had had the radio going, but I punched the power button so I could listen to the wind instead.

The world got sexier when you were driving. Low to the ground, hugging curves of black asphalt. The condensation on the windows and the

 growl of a motor. Michelle’s car was powerful and twitchy, sleek and mean. I eased around an S-bend, taking the racing line from apex to apex. In front of me, a wall of fog marched off the ocean like an approaching army.

I missed the turn for town, which was embarrassing because there was pretty much only the one turn. I had to pull into the dirt driveway of a croft, which was covered in tire tracks from tourists who’d made the same mistake. It stung to realize I was no longer a local, even though that was all I had ever wanted.

I parked by the pub. I probably could’ve found a closer spot, but I had no desire to hurry back. As I walked along the harbor, I shivered. A weathered statue, one of the oldest on the island, stood guard by the pier—a remnant of a time when Stenland had wanted to tell outsiders to keep out. I avoided her gaze. Wind whipped at my hair and my dress. My shoes rubbed at the backs of my heels. When I passed a pair of men, vaguely familiar but at least a decade older than me, they stopped on the footpath to stare at me. It felt like rubbernecking—like they were trying to make sense of a disaster.

The bakery smelled like vanilla. According to the sign, it closed at four, but the lights were on and when I pushed the door, it opened. A man in a black suit was facing the abandoned counter, his hands in his pockets and his posture so still he could’ve been made of stone. The door started to close on me; it hit my shoulder. I just stood there. Soren turned.

He hadn’t shaved that day. Not enough to look scruffy. Just—just this faint bronze shadow along the slant of his jaw, around the fine lines of his lips. His hair was short, neat, pushed away from his forehead enough that you could see the mole three finger-widths above his left eyebrow. If Kitty had been there to record his expression for posterity, I could have watched it again and again, the way his mouth flattened and his brows creased, and maybe after watching it a hundred times, I could’ve said what that expression meant. When you stop seeing someone you were in love with, you start to pretend they weren’t as attractive as you thought or that you didn’t love them as much as you thought you did. But sometimes when you see them again, you realize you were wrong. Sometimes you realize you actually did love them. Your body and your brain are on opposing teams; they don’t understand that this person is not yours anymore. It’s agony; it’s euphoria.

As it turned out, Kitty was wrong. Soren didn’t make a surprised, choking noise. He didn’t make any sound at all.

Margit, the baker, emerged from the back room, saying, “I really am sorry about this. It should have…”

Neither Soren nor I looked at her. I didn’t care that I was staring. I didn’t care that I looked so out of place here, on this island, in this dress.

Margit cleared her throat. Soren turned back to her, and I became aware of the frigid wind. I stepped inside and the door banged shut.

“My niece has been helping me,” Margit said to Soren. “She was meant to drive the cake to the restaurant, but her car broke down.” 

Soren shifted his weight. He touched the back of his neck, like he could feel my eyes there.

Margit, sounding increasingly uncomfortable, said, “And you’re with the Holm-Sundstrom wedding too, I imagine?”

I nodded.

“Oh, right, of course,” she said. “Tess. You were the swimmer.” I felt like I was being discussed postmortem. “You must be the birthday girl in question.”

She held up a hand and disappeared into the back again, leaving Soren and me alone. He kept facing the empty register. I stayed by the door. Our eyes met in the reflection of the pastry case, then broke apart.

Margit returned a minute later with a white box, lid open. She held it out for us to see. It was a chocolate cake, glossy as satin, with Happy Birthday Tess written across it. I wondered if it bothered Soren that birthday was capitalized or that they hadn’t put a comma before my name.

“They must’ve gotten their wires crossed somewhere, sending two of you to come pick this up,” Margit said. “I promise, I’ll make sure the wedding cake gets there in time tomorrow. This doesn’t usually happen.” A pause. “I can give you a discount.”

“It’s fine,” I said. My heels were too loud on the tile floor. I didn’t look over at Soren as I raised my credit card.

“You can’t buy your own birthday cake,” Soren said. He wasn’t looking at me either. Just the cake.

I tapped my card against the reader.

“No American Express,” Margit said. “I really am sorry about all of this.”

As I flipped through the cards in my clutch—California license, Stennish license, library card, BART pass—in search of a Visa, Soren reached in front of me and held his phone to the reader. It beeped.

“Soren,” I said.

“Tess.”

Margit held out the box, first to Soren, then to me. I took it and balanced my clutch and phone on top of the box. Soren smelled like soap. Like always.

I had never been so glad to hear my phone ring. When it lit up with Noah’s name, I saw Soren notice and turn away.

“Thanks,” I said to Margit. I held the box with one hand and tucked my phone under my ear. “Hey.”

“Happy birthday, you withered crone,” Noah said.

“You’re two months younger than me,” I said, opening the door with my foot. I felt Soren’s gaze on my back. Or maybe I just wanted to. The door swung shut behind me, and I shivered.

“Stop being such a Gemini,” Noah said.

“I’m pretty sure I’m a Virgo.”

“Yeah, but you’re a Gemini Waxing Gibbous.”

“Is that a real thing?” I asked.

Noah conceded that it was not. In the background, I could hear the clacking of 

 keys. He was working, I assumed. Once I got back into the car, cake nestled in the passenger-side foot well, I put Noah on speaker.

“How’s the wedding?” he asked.

“The expected chaos.”

“Run into any exes that might harm my delicate masculinity?”

“Ha ha.”

More typing. The familiar metallic ting of a can getting set down—either LaCroix or an IPA.

“How’s work?” I said.

“Eh. Hey, did the fancy HR person ever get back to you?”

“She wasn’t fancy,” I said. “She was just English.”

“Fancy accent. Same thing.”

“Do you think my accent is fancy?”

“No,” he said, “your accent is Tess-y. I have heard your accent cry over Moana. I can’t think that’s fancy anymore. My question remains.”

The fancy HR person—who was, as I said, really only English—had called last week to interview me for a job that would require me to move north of London. I had not told Noah I was applying. I had not told anyone I was applying. Noah had only found out because he’d unexpectedly come home while I’d been on the video call. I’d told him I’d just applied on a whim, to practice my negotiation skills.

Noah had taken this news like he took everything else: calmly, with an easy shrug and a Right on—that’s cool.

“They hired someone else,” I said.

“Their loss,” Noah said. “Ah, shit, I just deleted, like, twelve lines of critical code. Talk later?”

I kept my eyes fixed on the dark road. “Sure.”

“Love you,” he said. “Bye.”

The call ended. I always thought that was interesting—that Noah never waited for me to say it back. Like he just assumed I would. Or wouldn’t mind if I didn’t. ...