You Must Fall In Love

Chapter Forty-One

"They're not working."

Christine looked up at Jen, waiting to hear her response, but the only thing that Jen did was blink.

"What do you mean, they're not working?"

If Christine had to give that reply, she would have put air-quotes around it with both fingers and possibly her tongue, but because it was Jen, the question was absolutely one-hundred-percent an actual question.

It was astounding.

Christine shifted her aching thighs, grimaced as her lower back and butt reminded her of their existence, and at last got out of the chair. She would have jumped, but she had been seated too long to do anything about it, and she was already getting a severe case of marker cramp.

"Look," said she, pointing at the table. "They're not amulets. They're... they're wadulets."

There was barely any table left. It was covered with thin sheets of yellow amulet paper, some scrunched up, others torn, very few intact. It looked like she had caught a cold and run out of tissues. The few streaks of ink that had made their way to paper didn't look like ink at all, more like mud squiggles.

None of them had done anything.

"I see," said Jen. "Did you set them on fire?"

"The warding ones don't need to burn," said Christine. "I know that much. There's like five on our door at any given time."

"I see," said Jen again, sounding like the essence of patience. "Have you tried asking..."

"Jen, if you're telling me to ask my Mum, I am going to take you by the hair and send you on a one-way-trip to Timbuktu."

"Wow! I've always wanted to go there."

Breathe. In. Out. There is no anger. There is no pain. There is no stupid amulet. There is no stupid amulet paper.

"Actually, C, I was going to suggest that you ask Lawrence."

"No way!"

"But he's so traditional," blinked Jen.

"He also has a straw effigy of me. Me. His own cousin."

"A sensible precaution, if you ask me. What if you ever got possessed by dark forces, or convinced to betray your family for the promise of eternal life? Or world peace? Or an endless supply of bagels?"

"Jen, Ming and Kang took the 'you can become a goddess' card and slapped me in the face with it. I don't think eternal life would do anything."

"Maybe," chirped Jen, "but think of the bagels."

If Christine could express the entirety of her feelings right now, she was certain that her skull would burst into flames, and she wasn't set on being the next Nic Cage.

"No family!" she whined. "They're out. Gone! Not in the picture!"

"If you say so," said Jen understandingly. "I do think you're making things a lot harder for yourself."

"You're not the first person to say that," said Christine, laying herself flat on the nearest wadulet. "I know I am."

"But then why are you doing it?"

Christine didn't want to deal with that question, mostly because she already knew the answer.

"I just need your help, Jen. You're the whiz-kid, the magical smart person. I can't do any of this. I can't even copy them properly, the strokes go everywhere. I suck. I'm so terrible."