Curse of the Island Witch

The witch had been dead for ten years. Long gone, cursed and gone. No one had seen her since the day she cursed us all, or at least no one that was still alive after she'd done it. As far as anyone knew, her body had never been recovered from the ocean. I'd heard the stories too well; the restless sleep, the cold sweat, the chilling nightmares. All supposedly signs of her impending arrival. We were supposed to have been wary of our dreams as if they were omens of death, but I didn't believe in that kind of superstitious nonsense. Dreams were just dreams, nothing more than a subconscious mind sorting through its thoughts and emotions from the day. There was nothing supernatural about them. The witch's curse certainly hadn't affected me in any way other than to make me curious about the nature of curses and so forth.

Years passed and I got older, but the island itself never changed much. It always felt like home to me even though my parents had never lived here themselves because this was where they had met each other. My father had been a sailor and my mother a local girl who'd fallen in love with him when he'd come ashore to fix a leaky pipe on an old abandoned house that she'd inherited from her grandmother years earlier. They'd gotten married and then moved back to New York where they both worked in different offices while I stayed with my grandparents until they died within weeks of each other on the island not long after my eighteenth birthday. When I arrived for the funeral, my father's body was already cold and his will had left me everything; including his boat which needed a new engine before it could be used again. His funeral was attended by a few people from town who knew him well enough to say a few words while I sat quietly in the front row dressed in black mourning clothes bordered by black ribbons that matched those on my dress shoes and neatly pressed pants; all gifts from my mother when we said goodbye ten years prior when she moved away to take up another job opportunity in Seattle that would provide us with better financial security without having to move far away from home so that I could stay with my grandparents as well as have time together as a family after I graduated college; which is why we split up in the first place.

I went back to Seattle to keep an eye on things while she worked there during those three years so that if anything happened we could get back quickly if need be but luckily nothing did happen; it was just her getting a new job offer on another coast after her three year contract ran out instead of staying put like planned. She always thought it would be fun for us to move around once I graduated but after she left I discovered how much more peaceful life could be living alone on my father's boat than living with her fussing over things constantly when we lived under one roof; especially after she bought me a little dog that kept me up at night when he barked at every passing noise or shadow he saw walking by outside our window with his nose pressed against the glass pane looking out into the pitch black darkness beyond it at two o'clock in the morning when he woke up from his nap to pee on something - only he didn't know what it was because there wasn't anything there but shadows - only he knew exactly what those shadows really were: witches! Of course they weren't really witches; they were just shadows cast by trees at night or maybe birds flying overhead but he only saw witches every time, just like his owner who also saw witches everywhere else too...

I returned home to start over on my own and fell into a routine of sorts working odd jobs around town whenever some sort of work needed doing or whenever people needed their houses cleaned for extra money so that eventually I could afford to buy some land somewhere and build myself a house so that I wouldn't have to work so hard anymore - if ever - and so forth until one day someone came into town with news that made everyone remember why they lived here again: The witch's body had washed ashore! Even though most of us thought it couldn't possibly be true because none of us remembered seeing any sign of her all these years since she cursed us all, we couldn't help but hope anyway that it might actually be true this time; maybe this time she would return? Maybe now we could finally do something about this curse?

Everyone anticipated what was about to happen next: A witch-hunt! A witch-trial! An execution! But nothing happened quite like we expected it would because no one wanted to go near her body even though everyone seemed desperate for answers about why this happened to our island and how we could end this curse once and for all if indeed this turn of events meant anything at all...

No one wanted to touch her body because of how decayed it looked: Her rotting flesh easily peeled off her bones leaving them exposed beneath decaying clothes; clothing worn by dead people who look like filthy beggars or homeless drug addicts. Even though no one wanted anything bad to happen like what happened last time when people started dying after touching her before they put her down deep under ground where no one else would ever find out about what happened here - except maybe their ghosts who might tell others about their deaths... And so nobody did anything except leave her lying there where she'd washed ashore hoping perhaps that eventually something else would happen instead of watching this woman rot away slowly amidst sea shells while crabs scuttled over bits and pieces here and there leaving tiny trails behind them wherever they walked until finally nothing remained but bones picked clean by these creatures and then even those were gone too leaving only an empty shell behind etched into sand beneath clear blue sky surrounded by waves on all sides washing back in forth erasing any trace of what once had been there - except for memories...