The Curse of Once Upon a Time

Chapter VI: Afraid

Serenity knew that she was going to have to figure out what her family had been up to, but she had bigger priorities. As far as she was concerned, whatever their meeting had been had excluded her on purpose. But since their meeting, they hadn't talked to her. She was guessing that it might have been something about her, but it hadn't impacted her yet. There was no point in angering the bull.

For the time being, she wanted to be around Eryx. He was like her first friend. Her first real one. Somebody that didn't feel bad for her because of her lungs. Somebody that didn't make fun of her. She wanted to make sure that Temaye didn't spill the beans about her lungs.

She had thought for a while that everybody in Aoiski knew about her lungs. If they knew about her family, they knew about her lungs. It was too small to ignore news like that, especially if it was news about the Wioax family.

Eryx seemed to know at least a little about her family, but she was sure that he didn't care that much about it either. He knew where the boundaries were. He knew that the Wioax family consisted of cowards that had never left Virginia. But he knew they were cowards with money and power.

Serenity thought that was to her advantage. He was somebody that didn't know everything about her lungs, or her disease at all. He knew that her family was good at acting. That they were just as crippled as the rest of the families in town. They just pretended they weren't ripping at the seams.

She had school before she could see Eryx, no matter how much she might have wanted to skip. Mr. Ellicott would have had a major problem with her skipping. He would notice that she was missing right away and then he would tell her parents because she wasn't excused. Ellicott would never let her skip unless she was really sick, but her parents didn't believe much in sick days. They said that as long as she was breathing, she could be working. Serenity was positive they had said forgetting about her lungs.

So, she suffered through the school day. It seemed that the day had started off on the right foot without Salvadore bothering her too much. She knew that something had to be up about what her family had been talking about. Salvadore never would have let her get away with leaving the house and not saying where she was going unless he was asked not to.

After school had ended and she had made it through the day without a detention or a visit with the teacher after class, she was in a rush to get to the bakery before Salvadore could catch her and stop her. She was in such a rush she was hardly paying attention to where she was going and bumped right into another girl as she was walking.

"Sorry." Serenity said. She didn't even care who she had bumped into. She just wanted to get going.

"Serenity?"

She stopped walking when they had said her name. It wasn't a voice she recognized. Not somebody in her family, not Salvadore or Temaye or even Eryx. Who was this and why did they know her name? "Huh?"

"Sorry, I should introduce myself." The girl that Serenity had bumped into stuck her hand out to Serenity with a huge grin. Serenity stared at her for a while before the girl had dropped her hand and cleared her throat. "I'm Lani"

"And how do you know my name?"

"Everybody knows your name."

"I believe that's a bit the contrary."

Lani frowned. "Lani Ellicot. My dad is your teacher. He talks about you a lot."

Serenity rolled her eyes. She bet that Mr. Ellicot talked about how much she pissed him off all the time. Lani didn't look anything like him. Mr. Ellicot's hair was a dark black. Lani's hair must have been dyed to its red and her skin was darker than his was. Serenity was guessing that could have been from her mother.