A Million Roads to Nowhere

Do You Believe In Magic?

Lena is gone in the morning, and Patrick finds himself panicking.

"Lena?" he calls, fighting off the sick feeling in his stomach. "Lena?"

Patrick searches frantically around, but doesn't find her. His legs are incredibly sore from literally running from a wolf, but he runs and runs until he finds Lena crouched by the Posy, by the rocks they used to cross.

"Lena?" he pants.

She doesn't turn around and he goes and sits next to her.

"Lena?"

She sits back, holding her hands out into the morning light. The tips of her fingers are gold, the same shade of gold as the pendant they found the day previous. The sunlight glints off of them.

"What's wrong with them?" she asks. "I woke up and they were like this. I can't get it off. I keep scrubbing, but it's not working."

Patrick stares. "I..."

Lena grabs his hands. "I don't know what to do."

Lena sounds scared and that isn't something Patrick's used to. She's usually the levelheaded one. Well, not exactly levelheaded. She cares too little compared to his caring too much.

"Do you think I'm sick?" she asks.

Patrick grips her hands tightly. Her fingertips are cold to the touch, like metal.

"We can go ask to see if anyone knows anything," he offers weakly.

"No! What if they burn me? People already call me a witch. Maybe the library?" she says frantically.

"Okay, okay," Patrick agrees.

The two hurry across the river and skirt around people in town. They open the doors to the library, and inch their way in. They find a section full of remedies for ailments, but they don't find anything on gold fingers.

Lena grows increasingly upset and Patrick tries his best to calm her.

"Maybe it's a curse," Patrick says tentatively.

Magic isn't something Lena believes in, but he isn't opposed to it. Besides, what have they got to lose? Lena looks at him, brown eyes searing into him, making his skin crawl.

"Do you think it was the pendant?" she whispers. "Is that why that girl kept asking if I felt all right?"

Patrick didn't think of that, but it would make sense. Maybe...

"Let's try," is all he says.

Neither of them are brave enough to ask the librarian where the books on magic are, so they search around until they find three books hidden behind some religious texts. Spell books. They're old and the pages are yellowed and torn. One of them looks like it was burned. Both of them flip through the pages, hoping, searching. The only helpful thing they find is a salt bath, but they'd never be able to gather enough salt to do that. Patrick doesn't think there's even that much salt in the whole town.

The last book is titled "Faerie Magic" so Patrick doubts that it contains anything about breaking curses, but he flips through it anyway.

Maybe I could ask one for help, he thinks.

Patrick opens the book to the table of contents. Sections are labeled by likes and dislikes, magic, or calls. Patrick flips to the section about magic, but finds nothing about breaking a curse. Lena is growing desperate- he can tell by the way she shifts in her seat and moves to bite her fingernails.