In “The Girl Who Broke Every Omen,” Hana Xen lends new nuance to the objective correlative. Omens of folklore are reframed as their literal objects, instead of their actions or outcomes: broken mirrors, spilt salt, dead crows, and fallen ladders. Xen’s narrator invites the reader to explore the possibilities beyond the traditional conception of superstition. —Court Harler
The first omen I broke was a mirror, and I swear it screamed.
A thin, silver sound, high and startled, before the glass webbed into fractures. My reflection split into a dozen versions of me, each one staring with a different expression: warning, pity, hunger. One shard caught the light just right and made a tiny rainbow across my wrist. It felt almost deliberate.
I should have looked away.
I leaned in.
Bad luck did not come.
Something else did.
The next omen was the salt. The shaker toppled from my hand, spilling white grains in a crooked, broken circle. A boundary. A warning line.
I did not throw any over my shoulder.
I stepped through it.
Something stepped with me.
At first it was only a second set of footsteps, slightly behind mine. Then a breath on my neck when I turned off the lights. On the third night, I saw her in the corner. Girl-shaped but wrong. Spine bent. Fingers too long. Eyes reflecting moonlight like wet stone.
Not a ghost.
Not me.
Not not me.
She pointed toward the window.
A crow lay there the next morning, neck snapped clean, wings arranged like an offering. No blood. No struggle. As if it had been removed carefully from the sky.
After that, omens cracked around me like knuckles.
The ladder in the alley fell the moment I passed beneath it.
Doors sighed open before I touched them.
Streetlamps guttered when I smiled.
People began stepping away from me in public. They did not know why. Instinct, maybe. Animals sense rot before it blooms. My stomach twisted sharply the first time someone flinched from me. I told myself I was fine. I probably wasn’t.
Then the moon split itself open, rending into a thin crescent. A curved blade hanging above the rooftops. The night went still. Even the thing in my corner held her breath.
She was not haunting me.
She was studying me.
Growing clearer each time an omen broke.
Growing closer.
The holy water incident happened after a stranger saw something behind me. He flung the bottle at my feet like he was trying to snuff a fuse.
It burst.
The mist rose cold and metallic.
The girl inhaled.
The man’s face twisted. He ran without looking back.
I did not chase him.
I turned to my shadow instead.
I should have run.
She smiled with all my teeth.
I break omens now because they break first.
Because something in me is waking.
Because warnings were never meant to save girls like me.
Only to announce us.
HANA XEN writes mythic and historical fiction shaped by folklore, from eerie flash to hybrid narrative prose. Her work has been long- and short-listed in writing contests and appears in anthologies and literary e-zines. She believes folklore isn’t superstition but documentation, and lives in the Midwest with a healthy skepticism of both curses and social media.
Featured image by Jeroen van de Water, courtesy of Unsplash.
Flash the Court 