Reading the Signs of a Crossed Condition

Folks come to the porch swearing they're just unlucky. But luck don't rot a whole house at once — that's a crossed condition, and it leaves tracks. You'll know it. Money comes in the front door and leaves out the back before the week is done. Sleep won't sit right, and you wake more tired than when you laid down. Old arguments flare up in the family for no reason a sober mind can name. Machines break, milk sours, and every road you try to walk down closes up in your face. That's not bad weather. That's work laid against you — a sour jar buried where you can't see it, a foot-track pinned by somebody who smiled at you last Sunday. Deep-soil uncrossing don't start with perfume. It starts with finding where the thing is buried and pulling it up by the root. We strip the filth off you with a herb bath of hyssop and rue, break the knot with iron and sulfur, and turn that fire back down the chimney of the one who set it. Then, and only then, do we sweeten and seal what's left behind. If this sounds like your house, don't wait for it to get worse. Crossed conditions dig deeper the longer they sit.