Where they start their own adventure
5. More Questions Than Answers
“Bree gave the witch amulet to Emmy right?” Ben guessed.
“Yep,” Sara confirmed.
“And Emmy put it on,” Ben continued.
“She put it on and she aged ungracefully in the span of a week and left to hide her shame,” Alex said.
“She left behind the amulet and Bree buried it,” Conner added.
“And a cross between a petunia and a clover grew where the amulet had grown,” Conner said.
“Which would explain the confusion about the flower,” Ben said.
“So your Great Aunt Clover wrote about something she went through, just exaggerated I’m guessing,” Alex said.
“I don’t think so,” Sara said.
Conner threw a hand in the air. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that my great aunt and grandmother got along well. And Great Aunt Clover was always too busy going on adventures to find a husband and settle down,” Sara rested her elbows on the table.
“How would she know about it then?” Ben asked.
“Great Aunt Clover must have learned about it on one of her trips.”
“Then how do you explain your grandma having the plant? Or the amulet getting here?” Alex asked.
“She must have dug up a bush and brought it here,” Sara said.
“She would have found the amulet digging,” Ben guessed.
“And it got into the shed how exactly?” Alex asked.
“My great aunt had a friend in town who stored stuff for her.”
“So that solves that question,” Ben said.
“We’re forgetting something,” Conner said. The other three looked at him.
“Well we still need to do something about it,” Sara muttered.
“Actually the wings and the pointed ears.” Conner gestured at Sara. “The poem said enchanting beauty, not whatever that is.” Ben and Alex debated the question without words. Sara buried her face in her hands.
“It could be that the spell mutated while it was buried. The beauty’s still enchanting, just a different kind,” Ben suggested.
“I was gonna suggest that Sara has something less than human in the family history and the amulet just brought it out,” Alex said.
Sara didn’t lift her face out of her hands when she replied. “There’s nothing non-human in my family history.”
“You never know,” Conner said
Alex tipped his head back. “It’s magic man.”
“I can’t believe we’re discussing the logic of magic,” Ben muttered to himself.
“I do it all the time, normally it’s fictional though,” Conner said.
“What now?” Sara ran her hands through her hair and brought her face up.
“More research,” Ben said. Conner and Alex half heartedly objected. “And to start we should create a list, just like for a research paper.”
“There should be some paper around here.” Sara pulled herself from her chair. She went over to a side table holding a lamp. After some digging in the drawers she pulled out a yellow pad. On her way back to her set she put it in front of Ben.
“Do you have a pen?” he asked. Alex handed him a pen that the others had no idea where he got it from. “Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.”
“Right so first point,” Ben prompted. He brought the pencil down to the page.
“First question: what is Sara,” Conner said.
“I’m human.” The teen was getting really tired of insisting that.
“Probably a fairy of some sort, with the ears and the wings,” Alex said.
“Guys.” Sara crossed her arms. She glared at her friends for a second before throwing out her own point. “We should probably figure out where Great Aunt Clover was when she heard the story, you know use geographical information.”
“You have a way to do that?” Alex asked.
“She kept a travel journal. My cousin has it right now, so I’ll have to talk to him.” Sara shrugged.
“Okay, so Sara will ask her cousin then we can look at the local legends. Anything else?” Ben asked.
“We should try to see if there’s anyone who’s had something like this happen to them,” Conner said.
“I don’t think anyone’s going to be advertising this kind of thing,” Sara said.
“Come on, there’s all sorts of communities online,” Conner said.
“You’re probably just going to come across role-players,” Alex said.
“Role-players tend to be well researched at the very least,” Conner said.
Ben set down the pen. “Okay, so here’s what we got: What does Sara turn into? Where does the story come from? Are there any relevant local legends? And are there other people similarly affected?”
“If it’s anything like the papers professor Grey assigns, more questions will come up,” Alex said.
“Sounds about right.” Sara sighed. “I’ll go call my cousin.”
This is a chapter in a story that originated with a post on Tumblr. I wrote a post about how this story began and how it developed into a ongoing adventure, where Writerdragon4 and myself take turns in writing the story. If you want to stay updated on more stories, subscribe to my blog.
Een gedachte over “The keys in the bookcase – Chapter 5”