First, disappointment. Her mother was exaggerating. The shawl is dark and lacy, and if anything glistens about it, of course it does. It’s wet.

But then her mother fishes it from the water by the tips of two fingers, delicately, precisely, the rest kept as far away as possible while belonging to the same hand.

And then Valyn sees the shawl is not dark: it’s a pale, faded yellow. She only knows this from a patch around her mother’s fingers, which holds firm against the viscous slime inundating the rest of the fabric. The curse coats each individual fiber, rendering it indistinguishable from normal fabric except where it gives itself away with that bare patch. It even clots up like pilled lint.

So maybe Valyn has seen curses before? The texture's weird, but it wouldn’t stand out from a distance.

“It’s not so gross."

“Only because it’s dark in here,” her mother says, careful not to flap the shawl against herself or Valyn as she signs. She scoots backward, angling the shawl toward a lamp.

A dozen bright colors leap from their dark, gelatinous backdrop. They undulate nauseatingly across the curse’s surface; the sight calls forth the same primal disgust as when Valyn was peeling potatoes and one collapsed into putrid, mold-speckled rot in her hand. It’s just wrong. The wrongness has nothing to do with the color, or the slime, or the wetness. It just is. The curse might be beautiful if it wasn’t so abhorrent. But it's the worst thing she's ever seen.

She heaves.

Her mother did warn her.

When the shawl returns to the water, Valyn forces herself to keep looking. She’s too old to be upset by the sight of some ruined cloth. It goes dark again once it leaves the lamplight, anyway. Becomes a limp, unimposing rag.

But the curse can’t lie to her anymore; her gut knows what it is. If she had eaten, this awful thing would undo that.

She forces herself to squint at it until she can discern those unnatural colors through the dimness. To justify her queasiness. And to prove her mother had lectured her for no good reason.

Her mother catches her attention. “Take it. I'll show you how to wash it.”

Now Valyn blanches. “You said I was only watching!”

“No, I said to pay attention. You need to know what to do. It won’t hurt you! It’s a curse on a shawl. Are you a shawl? Don’t wear it, and you’ll be fine. Now—no, come here—hold out your hand!”

Valyn doesn’t, but her mother takes her hand anyway and plunges it straight into the center of the curse.