The Bundy curse

The forge in Lower Uncton had always been a place of honest work and honest sweat. In the autumn of 1653, the rhythmic clanging of hammer against anvil echoed through the narrow streets as Seamus McBundy shaped horseshoes with practiced precision. His fiery red beard caught the orange glow of the burning coals, and his massive frame moved with surprising grace around the cramped workshop.

The thick smell of burning coal and molten metal filled the air when suddenly the wooden door flew open with such force that it rattled on its hinges. An elderly woman stumbled into the forge, her long grey hair wild and unkempt, her considerable bulk barely contained by a tattered dress that had seen better decades.

"Are ye done with my horse yet, McBundy?!" she demanded, her voice sharp with impatience.

Seamus didn't bother looking up from his work, the hammer continuing its steady rhythm against the glowing iron. "Ah, ye must be the one with the horse that needs extra reinforcement. I had to send out for parts. Should've sent for a sign for this poor animal too—something like, 'I'm with fatso.'"

The woman's face flushed red as a forge coal. "Save your tongue for picking the flies off the pools that dance beneath your arms, blacksmith! I'm in a hurry!"

A wicked grin spread across Seamus's face as he finally looked up from his anvil. "Late for the Festival of Pork Pies and Pig Swallow, are we? While ye wait, I've got a plump pony out back ye can snack on."

The old woman's eyes blazed with fury that seemed to burn hotter than the forge fire itself. "Insolent wretch! Know ye not who I am? I am a great powerful witch!"

Seamus let out a hearty laugh, his shoulders shaking with amusement. "Aye, not as powerful as the seams of your dress to keep your belly off the floor."

That was the final straw. The woman raised her gnarled hands high above her head, her fingers twisted into claws as she began to chant in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of the earth itself.

"I curse ye, Seamus McBundy, and all your male descendants! Henceforth, ye shall only shoe the large and ungrateful!"

Seamus rolled his eyes dramatically. "Yikes! Someone saveth me!"

But the witch wasn't finished. Her voice grew louder, more menacing. "And so that ye and all your male descendants will be hated in this place forever, Lower Uncton shall always be in darkness though other towns nearby stand in sun!"

The blacksmith couldn't resist one more jab. "Will ye be floating above us blocking the sun yourself?"

The woman's eyes narrowed to slits, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "Just for that, throughout eternity your feet will sweat... And verily smell!"

With an evil cackle that seemed to shake the very walls of the forge, the old woman swept out of the shop, leaving Seamus shaking his head in amusement.

"Curses and witches. Bah!" he muttered to himself, returning to his work. "How could she curse me? I hurled the unpo and stone in the big game. If I hadn't married, I would've turned pro."

But as he raised his hammer for another strike, something extraordinary happened. The sky above Lower Uncton began to darken rapidly, as if night were falling in mere seconds. Seamus looked up through the small window of his forge, bewildered by the sudden change.

"Why is it so dark so early?" he wondered aloud.

Then, as if carried on the wind itself, the old woman's voice echoed through the darkness from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"And so it begins!"

Her sardonic laughter filled the air, bouncing off the walls of every building in Lower Uncton. Seamus stood in his doorway, watching as an unnatural darkness settled over his town like a heavy blanket, while in the distance, other villages remained bathed in afternoon sunlight.

For a moment, he felt a chill run down his spine. Then, with characteristic stubbornness, he shrugged his massive shoulders.

"Just another day in Lower Uncton," he said to no one in particular.

Without giving the supernatural darkness another thought, Seamus McBundy returned to his anvil. The rhythmic hammering resumed, echoing through the now-perpetually dark streets of Lower Uncton, where the curse of the witch would endure for generations to come, affecting not just Seamus, but every McBundy man who would follow in his footsteps.

The darkness had indeed begun.