Mythfits

12- Ella

"You did what?" I demand, anger rising, as Christine admits to telling Steve about my book, "You had no right! I was doing fine on my own!"

Christine raises an eyebrow in response, clearly referring to my dismal lack of progress made translating the old book. "Shut up." I snarl halfheartedly

"I didn't do anything!" Christine widens her eyes innocently, trying to maintain a straight face, but her mask breaks and she grins at my glower. "Come on, you need to lighten up." she tugs my hair playfully and in response I punch her in the arm.

Unfortunately, Mr. O sees and makes his way over to our table, a disapproving frown on his face. "Girls, do we have a problem?"

Christine turns her thousand-watt smile to him, saying, with enough sincerity to make me gag as the amped up her power, "No, sir. We were just talking. I don't know what you're talking about!"

And with that, Mr. O's sharp frown smooths out into a look of mild confusion, "Of course, have a nice lunch."

Watching him amble off, I frown, "Why would he even want to help in the first place? It's not like I know him, and he definitely doesn't owe me for anything, so what's in it for him?"
"Haven't you ever heard of a nice person before? And besides, I don't owe you and I hang out with you." Christine points out.

"Yeah," I scoff, "But you were asked by your mom to keep an eye on me. That's different."

"True, but even if she hadn't, I'd still want to be your friend."

I give her a skeptical look. Christine definitely falls into the same 'popular' category as Steve. If we weren't both part of the whacked-out world of whatever this is, she would probably never look twice at that weird girl dressed in black, sitting in the corner.

"Come on." she wheedles, "Just hear him out. And don't hurt him any more than necessary."

I mutter darkly under my breath before sighing, "Fine. I will hear him out, and not hurt him anymore than necessary." Christine claps happily, "Maybe." she pouts, teasing, "If he goes anywhere near Abby, I'm not making any promises." I warn, entirely serious, as the lunch bell rings, and we head off to our next class.

--------------

After school, I sit at the kitchen table with a mug of hot chocolate and insanely frustrating math homework spread out before me (It's fall in South Dakota, therefore it is absolutely appropriate to drink hot chocolate even if it is only 65 degrees out.) Christine, sitting on the chair across from me, looks up from her computer, "Hey, check this out. I got something!" She tilts the screen to show me the paper she was reading. Apparently there is a whole secret medical journal for published research on topics like The drug efficacy and reactions in a mouse model of dryad anthracnose disease treated with chlorothalonil and mancozeb. I didn't even know that dryads existed, let alone that they could catch fungal tree infections. But there's this whole community of researchers that research and publish in these journals that are only visible to the mythical society. Or whoever knows the passwords to the site.

What she shows me is a paper entitled... I'm not actually sure what that means. "In english?" I ask.

Rolling her eyes at me, she explains, "This is a review done by a shaman researcher in Missouri about ancient hereditary curses and how they correlate with modern genetic diseases. There's a section in here......." she scrolls down the page, muttering to herself about the brilliance of research, "See? It talks about how there was a shaming ritual that was conducted about the times of the Salem Witch Trials. A bunch of people of different Kinds that practiced magic got together and basically abnegated their heritage, removing their magic and rendering them almost human. The goal was to be more inconspicuous and not be caught by the inquisition, and it worked, but it also caused a bunch of serious problems. The effects were diluted as generations passes, because the people would only marry humans, not others of their Kind. But if two descendants of the original people were to have a kid, the side effects would probably be more problematic."

"What Kinds of people participated?" I wonder, the genealogy map in the attic starting to make more sense.

"It doesn't say here, but since there were a fair amount of people who were there, I'm going to assume it was the major Kinds of magic-wielders." she explains, as if it made perfect sense.

"Um, Christine, I'm still pretty new to this whole Kinds of people thing. Who are the magic-wielders again?"

"Oh, sorry. Let's see, there are the Shamans, of course, the Druids, the Faerie, Necromancers, Hedge witches, Kitsunes..."

"Kitsunes?" I interrupt, "Isn't that what my family is descended from?"
"Exactly." Christine nods, "That's why this was interesting. If your parents were both descended from these people, or even if just one was, but both were descended from kitsunes, there's a good change that's what's causing Abby's problem."

"But then why don't I have this disease?" I ask, seriously confused

Christine shrugs, "I don't know. Genetics are weird."

"Okay, so once upon a time, my Mom's great-great whatever relatives were kitsunes, and they decided to have their powers removed." I frown, "How does that even work? They one day were just like, 'Hey! I'll say some magic words and remove my powers. That'll be fun."

"Of course not. They probably spent months developing a spell that would remove the very essence of their powers." Christine sits up, obviously about to launch into a long and confusing spiel that makes no sense to anyone except herself.

"Let me stop you right there. How did that give them a genetic disease?"
"I'm not sure, but my theory is that because the spell they used was probably a two-part binding spell. The first part weakened the attachment of their aura to their soul and then the second part could then.."
"Again. English please."
"Sorry. Essentially because the spell involved removing a part of their soul, it affected their health. And since the spell was intended to be hereditary, the health issues were hereditary as well." Christine looks at me expectantly, as if that made perfect sense.

"Okay. Soul removal, hereditary spell. Got it. Was that all in the paper?" I ask, genuinely curious.

Christine blushes, "No, the paper was about the connection between the two occurrences. The rest I read about somewhere else."

"Well then, how does this help Abby?" I ask, still confused.

Christine's face falls, "I'm not quite sure."

She bites her lip, thinking, "But at least now that we know the origin of her problem, or at least have a theory, we can start looking into how to help her."

"Yeah," I grumble, "But how long will that take? The doctors say that Abby doesn't have much time left yet."

"Hey," Christine puts an arm around my shoulder, "We'll find something out in time."

I shrug her off, "We'd better."