The Five Cursed Witches: Volume 1 - Zoe, the Witch of Innocence

Chapter 31 Where answers lie

Zoe

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Ever since I had parted from Felix the evening before, I had been on cloud nine. I consciously pushed every bad thought out of my mind and focused on all of the happiness of the evening. On the future that we had painted together.

It was such a wonderful picture. Me in the garden, Felix designing jewelry, children playing in the grass. So happy and peaceful. The dreams of that future made me open a book I hadn't touched in a long time as soon as I woke up.

It was a notebook. It contained all I knew about faeries and curses. I had started writing in it when I was ten, researched as much as I could to try to find something, anything, that could change how I was. I hadn't then known that it was a faerie behind it. Then the notes had been random wonderings. It hadn't been until I was seventeen that I had done the blood test, which had shown faerie magic intertwined with my own.

I had stopped researching when I turned forty. I had given up and just accepted what I was. There hadn't been a point in continuing. But now I had found a reason again. If I could break the curse, if I could just eliminate that one obstacle that kept me and Felix apart, then the other obstacles seemed as meaningless as dust.

I sat down in one of two armchairs in the hotel room. With me, I had the stuffed animal bear, and I placed it in my lap as I opened the book and started to read. After an hour or so, I had read through, or skimmed through, all that I had written, and it didn't spark any new ideas at all. If anything, it made me feel even more lost because there was one undeniable fact: Faeries don't do curses.

From all I had read, and all I knew, faeries were kind and joyful. Most of the time, at least. If angered, they would seek revenge and you would have to be a fool to break a promise made to a faerie. But they would never do anything that actually was harmful. Or well, depending on your definition of harmful. Tricksters that had a love for practical jokes were what they were. They believed in justice, but not in an eye for an eye.

Faerie magic could seem highly harmful though, because it was very unpredictable and emotional. I had read countless stories of other magical beings trying to harness faerie magic, only for chaos to be released.

I also knew that their magic could seem cruel, but that was a lot because they liked tricks. For instance, I had read one story about a man that had hunted faeries to gain their immortality. One faerie had said that she would perform a ritual to give hers in exchange for that the man would leave all remaining faeries alone. She had stayed true to her word, but not mentioned that the ritual would turn the man into a tree. It was said that the Library actually was built next to the man and harnessed the magic from him, or well, from the tree he had become.

Because of such stories, all witches were taught to be wary of faeries. We were taught that you rather wanted to make a deal with a demon, since the worst that could happen then was losing your soul. If you made a deal with a faerie, it was important to word it without loopholes and to always deliver your end of the deal, unless you wanted to never have a peaceful moment again.

That was also where my thoughts had gone before I had stopped trying to figure things out. That someone had made a deal with a faerie, but not held up their part of it, and that the faerie had done this to me as a revenge. I had never been able to find out if that was the truth or not, however.

I knew very well why I hadn't. The only person I knew that could give me answers regarding it was my father. But he had always had the attitude of that my curse was a gift and I could see the pain in his eyes every time I had tried to talk about my mother. That made it impossible for me to get any answers from him. Maybe I could have if I had been more direct, but my existence had already caused him enough pain. I couldn't get myself to add on more to it.

I flipped through the pages over and over and rapped my pen on the arm of the chair. I wasn't really reading, just flipping in lack of better things to do. Going back and forth. Looking without seeing. Until I froze.

There is no such thing as faerie curses. There might be other information that can be useful for you though. You only need to ask the right question.

I had heard that so many times, and it had always annoyed me. The Librarian's answer every time I asked about faerie curses. Since it annoyed me, I had never given it much thought. Even when I had written it down, it had been out of frustration, not because I thought it important.

But I stared at it now and a light I had never felt before was ignited in me. It wasn't like the light and hope that I had felt when I had thought the amulet would take the curse away. That light had been a roaring fire. No, it was different, more like embers that had the ability to become a fire. The amulet had been a foolish dream, but that sentence... That was a real clue.

The Library consisted of all magical knowledge. That was why that answer annoyed me. I had always known that a way to break the curse had to be somewhere in the Library, but the Librarian's refusal to give that information to me had made me give up.

"I just need to find the right question," I mumbled to myself.

"Find the right question to what?" a voice said, which made me jump out of my seat.