Breaking the Curse

By Ally Campanozzi

Three troubled teenagers struggle against abuse and trauma to find their own way in life in this heartrending series debut.

For as long as she can remember, Runo has felt different from everyone else. In foster care since the age of three, she’s struggled with years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Closing herself off to the world, she seeks comfort between the lines of great poetry—and the reassuring sting of a razor.

Johnny left his pill-popping mother behind for a new town. But it’s hard to fit in, especially when he finds himself drawn to a mysterious girl who can quote his favorite lines of poetry. And things don’t get easier when she disappears without a trace.

At the age of fourteen, Sylvia is committed to the psych ward for attempting suicide. For solace, she turns to alcohol and the attention of older men. Still growing up, all three face a life of misery . . . but is there truly no escape from fate?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781612547992

Book preview

Prologue

Love doesn’t exactly plan to arrive. It enjoys surprising its patients. It brings about the utmost surprise to the unexpecting. Some may say it boils down to trust, but it runs deeper than that. It is about unity and devotion, an innate connection linked between two different souls, creating a single unity. Love doesn’t lie. Recipients of true love know when they feel it that it is within their grasp. And once they meet that person, there is no going back.

Everyone has that soul mate, their other half, a partner that is bound by outside forces. Love is omnipotent and divine. It never dies. It is never-ending.

Runo never thought she would even begin to know what the first taste of love was. All she had ever known was heartache. Her life had been an anomaly, a chain of events that had unfortunately left her in shambles. Sometimes she had to ask herself if her pulse was still ticking. Her pain was so great that she didn’t know if she could survive the tribulations and the sorrows that continued to come her way.

But I am getting ahead of myself. You know nothing right now—nothing except the fact that her name is Runo and she has had many hardships. But what you need to know is how it all began … and so begins our story.

Introduction

Runo

Ever since she could remember Runo felt different from everyone else. She was not like the other girls who were interested in discussing the boys, applying their makeup, and strolling around the malls. She never felt herself fall to the fancies of the interests of girls her age. Instead, Runo enjoyed the simpler things, the things that meant more to her than anything else in the world: the crows, art, poetry. It was merely a coincidence that her name—Runo—was Finnish for poem. She hadn’t learned that until a couple of years before when she’d gotten curious and Googled it. She knew her parents were from Finland, but they weren’t around any longer so she didn’t get to ask them why they named her after something as great as poetry. She had many things left unanswered. No one bothered to tell her anything.

In elementary school, when Runo was six years old, she would watch the other children frolic on the playground as the gravel stirred and the laughter rang throughout the hilltops. She had no desire to join their games of freeze tag or red rover. Runo sat gazing at those hilltops, imagining what lay beyond them as she scribbled furiously in her notebooks, writing of the dreams and pictures that entered her precious mind. Oh, the beautifully networked mind she had! Truly it was glorious, that mind of hers.

It was around that same time in elementary school that Runo learned her last name—Soikkeli. Even as a young child she had wondered about her last name, which neither her case worker nor foster family had bothered to tell her. When her teacher taught it to her, even at six years old, she felt a stronger connection to her family and the comfort of knowing one more piece of her identity.

Her parents left no trace after she was three years old. Runo had lived her life in foster care and she hated it. She’d had to move around for various reasons, some of which she tried to forget or just not give much thought to. In fact, she more appropriately referred to her current foster home as Foster Hell.

But none of that mattered as long as she could see the crows. Maybe it sounds silly to have such a passion for a flock of birds, but she loved to watch them when she could. She would sit on the back porch when the atrocious authority figures weren’t around, and Runo knew she had a connection to those birds, someway, somehow. They seemed to gaze back at her with those perfectly cut onyx eyes. And as they cackled in their poetic manner, she longed to join them in their flight on wings of ebony.

Sometimes when sitting on their back porch, not hers—on which she must never track dirt—the desire rose so greatly that she felt she had sprouted charcoal wings herself and joined her brothers and sisters in the blanket of heaven’s gemstones, set free from this palace of intoxication.

Silly girl, she would whisper to herself once she snapped back to reality. She was always stuck in this dungeon. From the outside appearance, it was the typical American dream house. There was a white picket fence and a garden, as quaint and perfect as possible. But inside was Foster Hell. Runo was given a cedar closet under the stairs for a bedroom and they never fed her proper meals. There was a lock on both the pantry and the refrigerator. Runo knew there was so much more to life than this.

A tear began to trickle down Runo’s face as she dwelled on the painful memories of abandonment. That was, until she saw the crows outside the window. She smiled as she gazed at those ebony creatures. They were so good to her. Nothing captivated her like them. Not the sparrows, or the crimson cardinals, or even the glittering hummingbirds. All birds were beautiful to Runo, but none could compare to the crows.

Runo was seventeen years old. She had been in two foster homes before this one and had been molested in both, once by the father figure named Ralph and the other by an uncle named Tyler who frequently watched the kids. Understandably, Runo was terrified of men. She had never had a boyfriend—or wanted one. She figured she didn’t need a boy to make her happy. But no one really talked to her anyway. She had her resources of artwork, poetry, and the crows. Those were the things that gave her solace.

The Winters had two biological daughters, Abigail and Natasha, and they were priority number one. Abigail was fourteen and already a wild child, sneaking out on weekends and smoking pot. Of course the Winters didn’t know that. They just pretended Abigail was the golden child. Natasha was six and one of those children you would see screaming on Nanny 911. But to Brock and Marie, they were perfect and Runo was just the foster child. It was almost like Runo didn’t exist. At the time they didn’t have any other foster kids, which left all the chores and abuse to fall on Runo’s shoulders.

Abigail and Natasha each had a spacious bedroom. When Runo was taken in they emptied out the cedar closet underneath the stairs to use as her bedroom, complete with bugs and cobwebs. She had the floor to sleep on and an old ratty blanket with rips and tears in it. Runo refused to believe that this was normal. She knew there had to be more to the story of her parents. They gave her up because they loved her and wanted what was best for her, didn’t they?

As Runo was the foster child, she had to cater to all of them. It seemed that Runo was in a modern Cinderella story—only this one had more misfortune than Cinderella. Runo sometimes wished she could be Sleeping Beauty and fall into a deep slumber, never to awake again. Brock was a severe alcoholic—and an abusive one at that. Sometimes Runo would have to put makeup on the bruises. The saddest part was that Runo knew she would rather be physically abused than sexually abused.

The family’s hypocrisy disgusted Runo. They were all members of the Disciples of Christ Church, attending Sunday school and church every Wednesday and Sunday. Runo was left at home alone, which was how she liked it. A moment of tranquility away from Natasha’s fits and Abigail’s attitude, Marie’s orders and Brock’s drunken wrath.

There was only one other thing that Runo found pacification in besides the crows, and it wasn’t healthy. That would be the slice of a razor blade to her right wrist and forearm. All Runo wanted was to make sense of the life she was dealt, and self-mutilation seemed to be the only way to assure herself that she was still truly alive, enduring all of this pain. Runo was chasing away her troubles with razor blades. It seemed to be the one thing to calm her troubles. No matter how much Foster Hell put her through, this would help her when the crows were nowhere to be found. She could escape to that place of despair where she could slice away all of the emotions and let them seep out from under her skin. And she could start over and begin to feel again. The razor blade was a talisman to Runo. Nobody knew about her love affair with self-mutilation; she would tell only the crows when they would gather in the backyard.

Runo just knew that in the pools of their ink-colored eyes, they understood her. She was divinely connected to them somehow. Scars crisscrossed up and down Runo’s arms, but they were a way to wear her pain. She wore long sleeves all the time anyway, despite the Texas heat, because she wanted to cover her body. She didn’t want any men looking at her.

Runo had deep, indescribable pain dwelling inside her that could not be expressed any other way. The pain from the blade could never hurt as bad as what she felt inside. This was a private battle for her. When the gashes got too deep, Runo would sneak into the attic, find Marie’s sewing kit, and stitch up the lacerations herself. She’d had plenty of practice sewing up holes in Natasha’s jackets or T-shirts. Bleeding out the pain and stitching up the holes of heartache was her routine.

Runo didn’t see any reason to go to school, but she would go on occasion. Sometimes she wondered if she was invisible. She didn’t care about graduating high school at Lexington High. The only thing she cared about was flying with the crows away from Texas to Helsinki, Finland, to find her parents.

She pondered for a moment, trying to recollect the impossible, trying to remember what being in their arms felt like. She tried to imagine what it must have felt like to be in the hospital as an infant, so frail and feeble. Runo knew in her heart that they were still out there in Finland.

Sometimes Runo could envision herself as a small child, running barefoot along the beach. There was a tall woman with long, black hair that unraveled like a silken ribbon. Her eyes were almondlike and sensual. They looked so carefree with the natural setting of the ocean behind them. As the waves would crash and roar, so would her laughter.

And then a handsome man, with that same ribbonlike hair that fell to his shoulders—his was dirty blonde and he had jade-colored eyes—would pick her up and spin her around. She’d never felt happier—

Runo! Marie called, making her jump and erasing the memories one by one with her nasally voice. You need to alter Abigail’s dress for the eighth grade dance—it’s next Friday.

Of course, Runo was catering to Marie’s children when they could have hired help, but didn’t because Runo was Slave Girl. Natasha this. Abigail that. How much more can I take? She was zoning out and Marie slapped her across the face. This isn’t daydream time, Runo. She shoved the aqua dress into Runo’s arms.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Runo decided while she was sewing that she might as well inflict a wound upon herself. She took the razor out of the little container she kept it in and started delicately slicing on her arm. She had dozens of little scars, but she opened up one of the few sections where she didn’t have any yet. The tingle nearly brought her to her knees and she just couldn’t stop. She dug and dug until the skin was deeply split. She held her arm upright—she had done this many times. She suddenly wished she had been more careful when she dribbled a little drop of blood on Abigail’s aqua-colored dress.

Oh, fuck, she whispered very softly. There was no way she could get it out. She just decided she would ignore it until Abigail started to whine about it and she would say she had a bloody nose or something. Runo had more important things to worry about, like the gaping wound on her forearm. She wiped the blood with paper towels and shoved them to the bottom of the trash can in the attic. She took the needle and thread and stitched up the laceration like it was nothing. It was really no big deal to Runo. She snipped the last thread with the scissors and pulled her sleeve down on over it. No one would ever know—or so she thought.

After she altered Abigail’s dress she walked back downstairs into the kitchen.

Poor Runo. Nobody wants you! Nobody wants you! Natasha sneered.

No wonder you’ve been in three foster homes. If it wasn’t for us you’d be on the streets! Abigail laughed an evil laugh.

I’d rather be on the streets, Runo whispered under her breath and walked to her cedar closet.

Later, the crows were busy rummaging through sticks and stones on the ground. But more than the streets, I’d rather fly with you, she whispered to them. Runo didn’t care if it seemed crazy to talk to crows. She had always done it, ever since she could remember. Nothing had been normal about her childhood anyway.

She remembered other girls’ concerns being a new Barbie doll that said nine different phrases, while she had to worry about being molested in her foster homes. She had certainly had a roller-coaster life. But fourteen years later, somehow things didn’t add up and Runo was just left in the dark. It just seemed like no one wanted to answer the questions pulsing in her mind.

This was how the razor blades came into the picture. Since she had to become silent, the blood was the only way to know she was still alive. It was ever so necessary to trace lines down each aquatic vein, trying to unlock the mystery that was her life—numbing the pain of two parents who mysteriously disconnected from her life and vanished without a trace and a foster family whose dysfunction was slowly killing her.

The very first time she used the razor, it took Runo away to an intoxicating palace for a few seconds while she watched the blood ooze from an open gap. For once she owned a moment. It wasn’t Marie and her orders. It wasn’t the butcher slicing and chopping the membranes into pieces. It wasn’t the baker burning the chip to a crisp at one hundred degrees or the candlestick maker dipping the wick into a canister of wax to create another scent and sculpture. This was Runo’s one moment to herself. This is my ecstasy, she decided, digging deeper into the skin she had opened up herself. This was her own chore, not assigned by Marie.

She felt a high that was almost unexplainable to the sane. She was traveling back to a palace rather than this horrid dungeon. It was a place she knew only in implicit memories past the cobwebs of the recent, painful ones locked up inside her head. She could see rays of sunlight shining down on creatures like tame fawns and rabbits playing in a nearby forest. And of course, a corner for the crows to harbor, for they are always welcome.

She was spinning out of control, in a whirlwind of memories and her dreamlike state. This lovely palace is complete with stained glass windows. The stained glass looks freshly done with pictures of faces she knows she’s seen in her dreams. Was she dreaming now as she spotted one of herself but in completely different form?

It looks like Runo, only her physical traits are full, healthy, and enhanced. There are no lines down her arms, no pink scars from the razor’s glory. No trails of black down her face. There are no black ringlets around her eyes. Her hair is long and luxuriously falling to her shoulders. There are no tangles or matted knots in her hair and it’s not breaking off from malnutrition. And her body … it is no longer famished. It is voluptuous, as she is no longer starved.

Her arms are round, unlike the marrow of a bone. Her breasts are full and her body is curvy like a woman is supposed to look. In her eyes, the sorrow and sadness are gone and she is glowing. Her cheeks are pink rather than pale and sunken. She is a healthy young woman, not a deprived, sullen child. Runo notices all of these things, but the one thing that catches her attention more than anything is the most dazzling smile—that upward curve in her lips, exposing a set of pearly white teeth. Runo touches the picture of this version of herself that doesn’t really exist—yet this is the person dwelling inside her. This is who she is supposed to be. Had youth really been stolen from her? This was unbelievable.

She lay against the portrait sobbing for a minute. This was a dream and she wanted to wake up now. She wished more than anything she could become the beautiful woman in this picture. But she wasn’t going to, and she knew it. Her body was so sickly thin, her ribs showed, she had no breasts, her hair was tattered and broken-off. Could she have been that beautiful if she had lived with her parents?

She jumped awake as she heard the caw of a crow from outside the window. She knew he was trying to help her. He was telling her that somewhere in this abyss of despair there was still hope. Maybe one day everything would make sense. Maybe she could still connect to her parents. Someway. Somehow.

Runo

Sitting in her US history class was as mundane as ever. Runo hated school. Everyone avoided her and gawked at her all the time. She walked with her long, tousled hair in her face into the cafeteria and sat at a table alone, engulfed in her books of T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and E. E. Cummings. The kids laughed and called her anorexic due to her brittle frame and bony arms and legs. People stared in confusion as she