A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce

We had not yet replaced the fallen sign, however, and repeated efforts to rehang it ended in failure.
    "I can't explain it, Mistress," Harte said, scratching his head with his hammer. "There's no earthly reason the bolts won't take, but every time I get up there, the stone just crumbles away."
    "It's dry rot," I said. "The place is riddled with it."
     
    Harte gave me a long, even look, but finally nodded. "I'll get some paint, then, Mistress."
    At the end of the week, I found Mr. Mordant in the yard, mixing up a big batch of whitewash under a fine sky.
    "Bad day for dyeing," he said when I stopped by, indicating the weather with a nod of his head.
    "How's that, then?" I asked. "Is it too cold?"
    Mr. Mordant broke into wild, braying laughter. "Nay, missie! Friday!"
     
    I closed my eyes. Friday. Of course. Still, since he had the whitewash, there was one particular project I was eager to take on myself. I hauled bucket and brushes up to the spinning room, which was badly in need of attention. Most of the walls were exterior and stone, but a few were plaster, and I doubted they'd had fresh paint in generations -- certainly not the back wall, where someone, long ago, had put a hex sign. The wall was worn and sun-faded, the image dim with age. Its original colors and swirling designs were hard to make out, especially where the plaster had chipped away. It dated back farther than anyone at Stirwaters could remember, and I doubted anyone took much notice of the thing, or could remember why it had been painted there in the first place.
     
    Picturing the wall fresh and gleaming white, I applied brush to plaster with relish. As I painted, I imagined replacing the superstitious symbol with a painting of Stirwaters's coat of arms, the gold millwheel on a green shield, crowned by a ram. Harte could do a splendid job emblazoning our arms there. I stepped back to appraise my work -- and promptly kicked over the pail of whitewash.
     
    Cursing, I scrambled to catch the spill, mopping up my sodden boot and utterly ruining my skirt in the process. I ran for rags and water, leaving white footprints everywhere, and was on my knees scrubbing frantically when I heard a sound like crows behind me.
    Mr. Mordant was bent over the righted pail, laughing coarsely. "Told you, missie. What did I say, then?"
    "Friday," I snapped. "Fine, Friday. Here, help me get this up."
     
    When we had the floor as clean as possible, only faint white streaks seeped into the grain of the floorboards to betray my clumsiness, Mr. Mordant helped me gather up the rags and bucket. As he eased himself off the floor, supplies in hand, he stopped cold, staring at the wall.
    "Ah, lassie," he said quietly. "Ill done, I think. 'Twere ill done, indeed."
    I gripped my bundle tighter. "What are you talking about?"
    Mr. Mordant gave a long sigh. "That mark's been up there all these years, and ain't nobody painted over it before. Never wonder why? Did you not think, then, that whatever that thing were warding against, it's still out there?"
     
    I could not get the dire look in Mr. Mordant's eyes out of my mind. I kept telling myself he was nothing but a queer old man having a jest, but it was no good. The workmen's insistence that Stirwaters did not want to be repaired did little to ease my mind. New blocks set into place worked loose by the following morning, a crack patched here sprang up again a few inches away. And every time I passed the newly white wall, I thought I saw the old colors of the hex sign -- a shadowy, faint impression, but certainly more than imagination. It's the whitewash, I told myself. It always took several coats.
     
    But it didn't. No sooner than a second -- and then a third and fourth -- coat of paint had gone up over the hex sign, the colors seeped through again.
    Rosie watched me, altogether too silent for my taste.
    "What?" I finally said at the end of the fourth coat, sweaty and exasperated.
    "I just think maybe you ought to leave it alone," she said.