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“You think maybe us spending time together might be the key to breaking the curse?”
“Maybe. Who knows? But she was so clear she didn’t want it lifted that that was my conclusion.”
“Interesting…” Sybil tapped her pen against her chin.
“If I find out anything more, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks. It was a long shot, posting on the forum. This already helps me immensely.”
We said goodbye to hellsbellsncheapmotels and ended the call.
I didn’t see how it got us any closer to breaking the curse, no matter what Sybil thought. It only confirmed what I already suspected: my granddad was a womanizing asshole who got into a witch’s panties and left her with a kid, using his naga as the excuse why they couldn’t be together.
“I don’t get it. How does this help us at all?” I asked, deciding to be completely blunt.
“We know now why she cursed him, so we can narrow down possible ways to break it. Curses follow a certain pattern. There’s always some sort of poetic justice to them. For example, if I were to craft a curse for Nigel because he spilled my secrets to the EA, the solution would be something to do with his mouth, or his power of speech.
“In our case, we know now that this was the result of unrequited love rather than, say, murder. So that means the way to break it has to be related to matters of the heart rather than of the grave. A good thing too.”
“So the punishment fits the crime?”
“The perceived crime, anyway. Do you know any of the words that were spoken between them? That would help.”
I shook my head.
“That’s okay. We can try a few things.” She flipped the page of the heavy book on curses and blessings sitting on her coffee table and read a bit more. “According to this, we’ve already tried one of the possible solutions. Well, your snake did. It didn’t work.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your serpent built me a den and invited me inside. That’s like asking someone to marry them to a snake.” She pointed to the print on the page.
Crap. I’d hoped she wouldn’t know what that meant. My face heated up at the memory of the half-assed dome of twigs and leaves.
I did my fucking best, asshole. You didn’t lend a hand. Opposable thumbs, remember?
Sybil already had a great cottage in the country, as well as the condo, but when we broke this curse, I’d build something for her. She’d mentioned wanting an outdoor area for Salt and Pepper to play in, someplace protected from predators. It wasn’t quite a nest for us, but maybe I could start with that.
I’d noticed a few things at the cottage that needed fixing too. The eavestroughs were loose, and they needed cleaning out, and one of the shelves of the gorgeous curiosity cabinet was held up by a book. I could fix those.
Sybil was still reading. “Oh! Another possibility is for one of the victim’s descendants to fall in love with one of the descendants of the person who cast the curse—”
I made a face. Helen was nice, but she didn’t catch my eye the way Sybil did.
“But I don’t think that would work here anyway, considering you’d be related.” She squinted at the tiny print on the page. “Or you can also sacrifice something important to you. Or give up the one you love.”
“My dad did that, assuming he really loved my mom, that is. I don’t think it worked.”
“Maybe it did. For him. Since you are already your own person, you’d need to do it, too.”
I frowned. I didn’t love many people. I loved my mom, and I’d already stopped seeing her in person, worried I’d shift and hurt her. Now I was falling for Sybil, though my snake had jumped the gun and already done the whole mate thing. I didn’t want to give her up yet. And besides, I didn’t know if it would count. Icaredabout her, and liked her a hell of a lot, but was it love?
“Pass. What’s the next option?”
She went through the various possibilities one by one. Some of them were ridiculous, such as making an offer to every love-related deity in the history of mankind, while others, like bathing in herbs, seemed too easy and simple.
“We have to pick one. Where shall we start?”
“It’s hard to tell which one would work. We’ll have to try them one at a time. Let’s start with the easy ones. I saw some angelica root at the cottage in the kitchen.”
