The Curse of Once Upon a Time

Chapter XXI: Atlantis the Spirit

Serenity had been tired out of her mind, but her body refused to sleep. She couldn't. Instead of sleeping, she had resorted to reading. Her mind was far too tired to be able to translate the Book of Tellers, so she turned to the only other option she had. Atlantis's box of letters had been sitting on the ground untouched.

After reading the first one, Serenity had been so shocked that she almost hadn't wanted to read the rest of them. It had always seemed weird to imagine her family members in such terrible situations. Atlantis had always been a bundle of joy. For her to be depressed seemed wrong.

But when she thought about it and connected the dots, she could understand everything that Atlantis had done. She had tried to make everything the best for Serenity because she had never wanted Serenity to have to go through the same thing that she had and she had never wanted Serenity to go through it alone. Serenity wished that they had come true for Atlantis.

Atlantis had gone through an almost identical story. She had lived in the hospital for many years, been made fun of in school, and been pressured to do well in school. Things had never gone her way and after Serenity had been cursed with the same fate, she had wanted to lighten the load.

Serenity was sure that Atlantis had done just that. She couldn't have imagined what it would have been like to do the entire thing alone. Atlantis had helped her discover her love for art. If she hadn't, Serenity never would have known what she was good at.

Atlantis had been the reason that she would laugh at night, even if she had been what had made her cry even late at night. She had been the best friend Serenity had ever had and she was guessing that she would always be the best friend Serenity would ever have.

Rather than prolonging her fear and anxiety, Serenity got straight to reading. She read letter after letter after letter. There were far more than she could have imagined. Almost all of them started with Atlantis's "dear future me" or just jumped straight into it.

Some of them were just one line, some of them were pages. There was an insane amount of the letters and all of them had a variety of differences. Serenity almost couldn't believe how many there were. She didn't think that there was time in the Teller dimension, but she was guessing it had been at least an hour or two to read them.

Not all of them were bad, which she thought at least a good thing, but she still hated reading through all the bad ones. No matter how much it made sense, it would never feel right for her to think of her grandmother being so depressed.

"Hey, good, you're up already."

Serenity jumped, glancing up at Saige. "I suppose Tellers don't know how-to knock-on doors."

"I didn't think that you really had anything to hide." Saige said. "What have you been doing?"

Serenity hit the box with her foot. "Reading all the letters from my grandma." She said. She snapped, sitting up and reaching to her bag. "You know the Book of Tellers, right? You have to. What is that thing?"

"Huh?"

Serenity pulled out the book, showing it to Saige. She went to hand it to them but stopped before she did. She didn't want Saige to take it away. She wasn't sure if they would, but she didn't want to take the risk that they wouldn't either.

"This thing."

"You have that?" Saige asked. They laughed a little. "No wonder. We were wondering where that had ended up."

"What do you mean?"

Saige smiled. "A few years ago, that book went missing." They said. "Each Teller has a copy."

"Who wrote it?"

"We all did."

"I knew it!" Serenity cried. "Do you still have a copy?"