Turned To Stone

Chapter 18 - Connor

Connor felt the smile sliding off of his face as his mother checked Zoe over worriedly. Neither of his parents gave him a second glance.

To his utter surprise though, Zoe slipped away from Cynthia as quickly as she could and walked over to him.

"How's your head?"

"Hurts." He grunted, not bothering to look up.

Zoe muttered something under her breath. For a moment he thought it was something derogatory, but then her fingertips touched his forehead and he felt the semi-familiar tingle of her healing magic running over the knot on his forehead. 

"Thanks." He muttered, not bothering to look up.

Zoe turned around, looking to their parents. "Mom, Connor and I think that we know how to fix the problem going on outside."

Cynthia raised her eyebrows in surprise, but nodded quickly. "Of course, what do you need us to do?"

"Do you still have that old box of spell-books in the attic?"

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Larry dragged the old cardboard box out of the attic and down to the living room. Zoe opened it and handed out a spell-book to each person. "We're looking for curse-lines, one in particular. Evan?"

Evan signed the line to Zoe again and she repeated it out loud.

"Turned the world upside down, returned mythology to its original form."

Cynthia nodded and flipped the book she was holding open, beginning to scan the contents in search of anything that could help. The others followed suit and for a few minutes the only sound was the turning of old pages.

Connor saw Evan's hands moving and looked up at him.

'I found a section on gorgons.' He flashed Connor a little smile.

"Interesting, I'm sure." Connor rolled his eyes. He didn't want to read about himself, hear someone else read about him, or just be reminded of how much of a freak he was, even in the mythological world.

Zoe glanced up, saw what was on Evan's page, and returned her attention back to her own book.

"Is anything in here helpful, Zoe?" Larry asked, showing his daughter the page he was looking at. Zoe scanned it, then shook her head, frowning.

"No, it's talking about curses themselves. Curse-lines are something different, they're ancient spells that have been kept track of as parts of them come true or are uttered to people who can remember them."

"They're very dangerous." Cynthia shook her head. "How did you kids manage to stumble across one?"

"We were exploring the old orchard." Connor said flatly. "There was a demon-fae that decided it didn't like us being there and threw the whole world into this mess."

"I found it!" Evan suddenly exclaimed.

The Murphys looked over at him quickly. He turned the book around and pointed to one of the lines. "There!"

Zoe grabbed the book and began to scan the page.

"Okay, so if these are the lines, then there should be something related to how it can be reversed, right?"

"Spellcasters always note failsafes." Connor recited flatly, remembering his semester of Early Spellcasting. Zoe nodded and buried her nose in the book, trying to find what she was looking for.

"Here: curse-line reversals are particularly tricky, because curse-lines have been woven into the universe from the time they were first spoken- okay but that doesn't tell me how to fix it."

Connor muffled a snort. Personally, he didn't think the curse-lines did have reversals, but he had to hold out hope, otherwise he'd be hunted down once the non-magical world figured out that he had reverted their lives to that of the cavemen.

Zoe flipped the page, then began to read aloud again.

"There are very few ways to break a curse-line, but the only one that is truly effective anymore is for the creature that uttered the line to reverse it."

"That's never going to happen." Connor stood, tossing the spell-book that he had been reading back onto the couch. "That demon-fae made it very clear that this was our punishment- my punishment, and it's not going to turn back just because a few teenagers who know a little magic demand that it do so."

"Well then we'll fight it." Zoe said simply, shrugging.

"Fight it? It's a demon-fae, Zoe." Connor snapped, his anger rising. "Ancient creatures versed in the most powerful forms of magic who are older than almost all of civilization itself?"

Zoe stood up to match him, opening her mouth to retort.

She froze as she made eye contact with Connor and he gritted his teeth, hating himself.

Before anyone else could say anything he ran out of the room and up the stairs.