A Debt of Love, A Family's Curse

“We moved into a new house in August, a fresh start my dad called the American dream. Bigger house, two-car garage-everything seemed perfect, a step up for our family. Then, the shelf in the garage collapsed, crushing Grandma' s precious altar, the one she' d used for protection for years. Soon after, my uncle Bob died in a freak car accident, and then I fell violently ill with a fever no doctor could break. I was lucid enough to hear my parents whisper about something wrong, something unnatural. Lying there, burning up, I heard voices, saw things no one else could, arguing with an invisible presence that seemed to cling to me. Mom desperately sought out a strange old woman, Mrs. Albright, who claimed to understand what was happening. She told us it wasn't me that was sick; it was our new house. She said we had broken an ancient pact, angered a hungry entity by discarding Grandma's altar and a carved wooden box. My pragmatic father, who believed only in logic and reason, was forced to confront the impossible: Mrs. Albright knew everything, details we hadn' t shared, about the altar, the box, and the feeling that something was watching us. How could she know? What ancient bargain had my family made, and why was it now demanding payment? There was no denying it now; the world had shifted, and we were trapped in a nightmare of our own making. "Find the box," she rasped, her unsettling pale eyes fixed on me, "and make an offering, or it will take another one of you."”