Chapter 1 - Prologue

PROLOGUE



A girl sat at a table in a library, scanning the pages of a book that looked as old as the castle itself. She was wearing a black dress in a European style, the skirt filled with holes. She wore fishnets on her arms and legs and a pair of blood-red ballet shoes. She looked as though she could have been a vampire.

A cat jumped up to her table. Without even looking up from her book, the girl said, `Hey, Laura. It's been a while.'

Where the cat had been not a moment before there now sat a girl. `How did you know it as me?' Laura asked.

The girl who looked very much like a vampire turned a page in her book. `I have never seen a cat that looked quite like you before,' she replied. Silence stretched between the two as she continued reading.

It was Laura who broke the silence. `Mei-li… I need a favour.'

`Haven't I told you to call me Faye?' she muttered. Mei-li Faye Mor-Iâ shook her bright violet hair out of her eyes. `Well? What is it?'

`Huh? Oh… I need to know… I have a --- friend ---- who got cursed. What do you know …?'

`About breaking curses?' Faye finished. Laura nodded. `Well, it depends on the curse. For example, most fairy-tale curses are broken by the victim's true love's kiss.' Mei-li laughed at Laura's horrified look. `Don't worry. No real curse is broken that way. Could you describe your friend's curse?'

Laura stretched, then began: `My friend told me how it happened. The curse was created to make the afflicted one obedient. The mage cuts your arm, just deep enough to draw blood, and pours a clear potion over the cut. If you disobeyed the caster, as my friend did, you could either crawl back to the caster and beg for mercy, giving him the opportunity to put your soul into internal enslavement, or…'

` ”…or spread from the cut a horrid affliction will, slowly consuming thy servant body and soul, dooming him to a slow and painful death.” I have read about that curse, in this very library, in fact. I can't remember if it said anything about a cure, though…' Mei-li walked into the shelves, returning moments later, carrying a blood-stained volume.

She ruffled through the pages until she found it. `Here it is…”To this moste ancient curse no cure has been found-“ ` Laura let out a wail of despair, but Faye held up a finger. `Wait- “…but by the healing hands of the fair folk it was lifted long ago” `

Laura raised an eyebrow. `Er, if you don't mind my asking… what are “fair folk”?'

Faye looked as though she was trying to refrain from rolling her eyes. `Fair folk is the old name for elves.' Laura blinked her mismatched eyes. `…this is saying that the only known way of lifting the curse is to find the elves.'

The Werecat laughed, so hard that tears sprang from her extraordinary eyes. ` “Elves”? But everyone knows that elves don't exist! They are no more than an ancient legend..!'



~PROLOGUE: end~

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