A generation ago, back in the late 1950s sometime, proud couple Sam and Scarlett Beauregarde of Miles City, Montana were expecting their first child. The husband and wife had tried for several years to have a baby, having wanted one in the most desperate way. Finally, Scarlett conceived, and the two went all out in preparing for the new arrival: a baby room was furnished, baby clothes and chew-proof toys were bought, and a baby shower was held with family and friends a few weeks before the due date. After nine months of excited patience, Scarlett finally went into labor. It happened suddenly one humid morning (after a rainstorm the day before), leading Sam to drive her directly to the hospital.
Miles City, being the small town that it is, has hardly a drive at all to the hospital, but one still needs to take a few public roads. For the most part, the drive went off without a hitch, but when you have a passenger sitting next to you who keeps urging you to go faster, being in obvious discomfort besides, it is very easy to lose track of what you're doing.
"Oh, can't you go any faster, honey?!" Scarlett moaned, clutching the baby bump. "I feel like the baby is going to pop out any second!"
"Scarlett, I'm going the speed limit!" Sam snapped in response.
Neither of them noticed a public pie stand being set up near the road.
A middle-aged woman had decided to take advantage of the fresh grass and warm outdoor temperature by setting up a pie stand in the public area by the street. (In a small town such as this, such sightings are common with a permit.) She had finished setting up the stand and its advertising sign and was going back and forth from her car to the stand, carrying pies one by one. Unfortunately, the path she took between the parking lot and her designated spot on the grass happened to pass by a street puddle that had been left from the rain the day before.
Naturally, from going the fastest legal speed in a hurry (which, in this case, was a measly 35 miles per hour), Sam accidentally drove right over the puddle…and the subsequent stream of water nailed the poor lady as she was carrying a blueberry pie.
Scarlett, being on the closer side to the incident, saw it. Despite the fact that she was experiencing labor pains, she managed to alert it to her husband.
"Sam, could we pull over for a bit? I think you just soaked someone!"
"What? How?" Just then, he saw the woman looking down and moaning distally in the rearview mirror, leading him to slow down and pull over anyway.
"You wait in here. I'll see what happened," Sam ordered Scarlett. He got out of the car and rushed the all the way back to the pie lady.
...
"It's ruined! Totally ruined!" Sam heard the woman with the blueberry pie moan tearfully on approach. He also saw that she herself was soaked, but to make matters worse, the miniature wave had totally waterlogged the pie that she had been carrying. The crust (which had been arranged in a scoring pattern) was starting to crumble, and the blueberries and dye on the inside looked like they were caked in colored soup. Some of the water was also dripping out of the top.
"Oh, ma'am, I'm so sorry!" Sam apologized rapidly. "I was rushing my wife to the delivery room of the hospital, and I totally didn't see that puddle in time!"
The woman looked up from her sobbing. "It took me several hours to bake all of these pies for sale! How could you?!" She practically shoved the soppy mess under Sam's face.
Sam just sighed. "It was an accident!"
"Well, I don't know what I'm going to do! I had made several pies—peach, blueberry, pecan, cherry, apple—just after renting my open space! What am I supposed to do now, open the stand with one fewer blueberry pie than I baked?"
"Well, it was only one pie, right? That's not a problem. It'll dry. I run a used car lot around here whose own vehicles run really well after minor fixes."
"There's no need for that, sir," the woman replied testily. "I put lots of effort into these things. I am a witch, by the way; I use magically enhanced sugar and fruits to make them tastier. You have the gall to tell me that this is no big deal?!"
Sam thought that this woman was going mad. Witch? Enhanced? Surely, she couldn't be serious. Maybe she just wanted to unburden him because of using a homemade recipe or something.
The woman suddenly made a face as if she came to a realization. "Wait a moment…did you say 'delivery room'?" Her voice was still quite bitter.
"Yes. My wife is in labor. We were heading to the hospital for the birth. Now, if you'll excuse me, we really need to head there quickly!"
"Could I see her for just a moment?"
Sam was unsure, but he lead the pie lady, still carrying the ruined pie in both hands, to the pulled-over car anyway. He figured that maybe this would allow Scarlett to see that she had been right. It was only fair. Luckily, Scarlett still had not yet delivered.
"Honey, it turned out that I DID nail someone when I hit that puddle! She was carrying a pie for a selling stand."
Scarlett winced from a massive contraction before turning to see the woman. Upon doing so, Scarlett's eyes widened in surprise and her jaw dropped. "Sam!" she scolded.
The lady cut in. "I heard everything from your husband. I'm sorry, but I am supposed to open for temporary business today and today only! I'll have you know that I am quite cross about this."
Scarlett began to huff again, cradling the baby bump instinctively. At this, the woman gave a malicious grin. Oh, they will pay for their mess-up!, she thought evilly. I'll show them who REALLY will be sorry! They surely are going to pay. While obviously an unfair burden to the victim, she figured that a child brought up by incompetent parents who paid little attention to the impacts of other people surely would grow up to have similarly bad manners anyway.
Without either Sam or Scarlett realizing what was happening, the woman looked directly at Scarlett's pregnant belly, fixing eye contact with complete focus. Grinning further, she chanted, as if reading a poem, "By light of day, your form will stay, until the sunset at dusk is settled. New form take hold by night, until a kiss from your soulmate breaks the meddle." The two of them could have sworn that they saw a brief light flashing with a zapping sound, but they quickly dismissed it as their imagination.
Without another word, the woman made a gesture as if to tell them to drive off, walked all the way over to the mounted trash can near her pie stand, and threw the waterlogged blueberry pie into the trash. Seeing as she apparently didn't want to hear anything further from them, Sam quickly got back in the car, turned the ignition back on, and drove away.
"What was THAT about?!" Scarlett asked Sam in bewilderment, referring to the chanting incident. "Was she trying to talk to the baby?"
Sam shrugged and groaned. "I don't know. She told me earlier that she was a witch, but she sounded totally full of it to me. I wouldn't worry; we'll never see her again. Sheesh, talk about getting worked up over a little water! It'll dry!"
In minutes, with Scarlett still holding together (albeit with contractions happening every two minutes and therefore just barely making it), the couple arrived at the hospital.
...
The birth at the hospital delivery room was a success. The baby was out with no complications, weighed, and dried off. The eight-pound, seven-ounce baby immediately captured the hearts of her new parents at first sight. Most notable to the parents was her cute smile, but she also had wavy, brown hair and very, very faint freckles. Upon learning from the hospital staff that it was a girl, Sam and Scarlett immediately declared a name. It was a name on which they had decided months prior in the event that they were having a girl: Violet Jessica Beauregarde. Scarlett, who liked to garden, loved the scent and texture of violets, so she knew that a sweet, soft baby girl (if they were having a girl) would be named to live up to the flowers' expectations. As for the middle name, Sam's deceased mother's name was Jessica. Sam had originally considered "Jessica Violet Beauregarde" in order to put the honorary namesake first, but they had mutually agreed that the inverse sounded better and more poetically fluid. The birth certificate was filled out soon afterwards.
The family of now three drove home a few hours later in complete excitement. Upon getting home, both parents did not hesitate to call all of their family members household by household to break the good news. A sister of Scarlett's who happened to live in a neighborhood on the other side of Miles City even stopped by to have a picture taken with the new baby.
Soon, early evening started to fall. After a bout of nursing and a changing following dinner, Sam put baby Violet in a romper and set her in her crib. The romper in question had pink and white stripes running horizontally, with a little cartoon giraffe on the upper left side of the baby's chest.
Sam and Scarlett headed to bed somewhat early, the birthing ordeal having taken a lot out of them, Scarlett especially. For that moment, they were the happiest that they had ever been. Nothing in the world could have dampened their mood.
Little did they know that the cheerful air in the household would soon come to an end. The eight-pound, seven-ounce status of baby Violet wouldn't last long, either.
...
Neither parent had been asleep for more than about two hours before they were woken up by a faint crying noise. Sam woke up first. Shaking Scarlett very gently, he urged, "Honey, I think that the baby needs you." Scarlett, only half-awake, listened for a bit. The crying appeared to be somewhat steady, nothing too unusual.
"Do you think she wet herself?"
"I doubt it; I changed her right before I put her to bed. She hasn't nursed since."
"Well, how about feeding? Do you think she might be hungry?"
"Possibly. It's been a few hours."
"I'll go check on that." Scarlett got up very slowly and groggily made her way to the baby's room. Before she took five steps into the hallway, however, the pitch suddenly changed.
The baby's faint crying got louder. Soon, it broke into wailing. Not long afterwards (and this really made Scarlett stop in her tracks to listen before she even got to the room), the sound changed to a baby wail that sounded like bona fide screaming.
Nervously, Scarlett stepped into the room and turned on the dimmer switch to a low setting. The baby's crying-screaming hybrid failing to cease, Scarlett took a quick, nervous glimpse at the crib, a finger plugging her left ear from the noise. Were her eyes deceiving her, or was there a big lump of something resembling meatloaf in there? She had to be sure, so she slowly raised up the dimmer switch enough to get adequate light into the room.
What a horrible surprise! Her beautiful little baby Violet was now this…this…big, blue mass lying down under the blanket! Worried, Scarlett pulled off the blanket to check Violet's whole body. Her head and hands, the only body parts not covered by the pink and white romper, were cobalt blue, her brown hair being the only part unchanged. Additionally, the entirety of her tiny little body was now an oblong sphere, her arms and legs completely absorbed into it, with only her blue head, hands, and feet sticking out. Oddly, the baby romper still fit perfectly, as if it had been tailored for such a body. After pinching herself on the cheek to make sure that this wasn't just a nightmare, Scarlett followed suit from her newborn and screamed, but even more loudly than the baby.
Sam was in the baby's room in no time, having run over in worry from the scream. "Honey, what is it?! Is everything…OH, MY GOD!" He turned to see the tragedy that had overcome their baby, his eyes widening in a mix of shock and terror.
Scarlett glanced towards him. "What should we do?!"
"I don't know, but I don't like the looks of this. I'm dialing the operator!"
"Well, before you do so, could you please help me get Violet out of here? She's gotten heavier!" Scarlett had dropped the side of the crib and was now trying to lift the infant out of it. Scarlett guessed that Violet must have weighed about twenty-two pounds now, despite the relatively small size she still had. The screaming had devolved back into mild crying, giving Scarlett some hope.
"Will do." Sam tucked both hands underneath the infant to support her rear (or where it would have been) and lower half, while Scarlett did the same for the upper half and head. Soon, they hoisted her out, Scarlett backing away exhaustedly into the rocking chair immediately next to the crib. She held Violet in her lap for a moment, leaning her head down to investigate the baby further.
Scarlett started to cry. "She smells like blueberries!"
Sam kneeled down and took a whiff as well. "She does. Now, how could this…wait a minute! I've decided not to dial the operator. I think I know what's going on."
Scarlett wiped away a tear. "What?"
"Do you remember that woman who was setting up a pie stand while we were heading to the hospital? I accidentally ran a puddle over her."
"Yeah. So?"
"After she came to the car, she looked at your tummy and uttered some words. If I remember correctly, she said something about form changing between night and day until her soulmate kissed her. We thought that it was nonsense, but I think now that she actually might have meant something with that jargon!"
"So, what are you saying?" The crying, while still not turning back into those terrible screams, got slightly louder, making Scarlett think that maybe the baby was also hungry.
Sam narrowed his brow in anger. "It means that she was uttering a curse! Our poor little girl is going to turn into a blueberry every night from this!"
"What can we do?!" Scarlett wailed. She raised her nightgown, preparing to let little Violet nurse before she and Sam went back to bed.
"To be honest, I'm not sure that there is anything that we CAN do. In fact, I doubt that we will need to do anything at all yet. From the wording of that poem, I'd venture to guess that this will be only a nighttime thing. She should be back to normal in the morning. Man, do I want to throttle that lady!"
It was a bit of a struggle tipping the crying blueberry up to her nipple for a latch, but Scarlett managed. Violet immediately latched onto the nipple and suckled, confirming Scarlett's thoughts about being hungry. Being closer to her nose, the smell of blueberries was even stronger to her now. "Well, just like you, I distinctly remember that she said something about a soulmate. Babies don't date! It will be YEARS before this curse will be broken! How can we cope?!"
Sam sighed. "Well, I guess we'll have to learn to live with it. We'll manage, I'm sure. We just won't involve her in anything related to staying out late."
Scarlett couldn't think of anything to say. She just turned a sad eye towards the suckling newborn, whose eyes were now closed, all crying stopped. After a few minutes, Violet unlatched, and Sam quickly pitched in as the extra pair of hands to get her back into the crib. Luckily, she did not start crying again, giving the parents some peace of mind. Sam draped the blanket back over Violet and lifted the side of the crib up again, and he and Scarlett turned off the light and went back to their own room.
...
As Sam had suspected, when he and Scarlett came to fetch the infant out of her crib the next morning, she was back to normal, as if she never had become a blueberry at all. Even her romper was back to its normal dimensions. Sadly, the pattern repeated itself every single night, which obviously put a lot of mental stress on not only Sam and Scarlett, but on Violet as well. As everyone knows, infants have new experiences all the time, and this particular infant was having one like no other. Although not yet fully sentient in the sense of concrete memory or verbal thoughts in the slightest, she couldn't figure out what on Earth was happening every time the light went out. Thankfully, the biggest burden that the parents faced with this curse was having extra weight to carry during nighttime feedings. Childhood, as they were to find out, would come with its whole horde of new problems…
A/N: For anyone who noticed the similarity and was wondering, yes, this was indeed inspired by Princess Fiona's curse in the first "Shrek" movie. I have, however, deviated some from that, as you will see in later chapters.
Oh, and also, a period clarification: "dialing the operator" was the precursor to calling 911. 911 didn't exist yet, so people who needed help with severe emergencies back then dialed 0 on a rotary phone and were turned over to a switchboard operator, who had direct connection access to local emergency services (among other, more generic services) on the switchboard, when the caller then could explain the emergency and subsequently get the ambulance, fire truck, etc. to their location. Since this story is using the 1971 versions of the characters, I felt it appropriate to set the prologue around an approximation of when that version of Violet may have been born (Denise Nickerson herself was born in 1957). Later chapters will obviously go through the 60s and 70s from here.