A Question of Magic by E. D. Baker Read Free Book Online Page A

answer was so much better than I expected. I was worried that I’d have to endure a long illness and upset my family with my suffering. Now I know that I should get my affairs in order and I don’t have to worry that I will die in pain. Thank you, my dear. You’ve helped me more than you can know.” There were tears in the old woman’s eyes when she shuffled from the cottage, but Serafina noticed that a gentle smile curved her lips.
    When Serafina stood to close the door, her dress felt uncomfortably tight again and her hem was inches above her ankles. “I need a mirror,” she murmured, and let her gaze travel around the room.
    In the far corner just past the bed stood a cupboardso old that the wood was almost black. When Serafina opened the door, she was surprised to find that the cupboard was stocked with food and other essentials. One shelf held cups, plates, some old worn pots, and a handful of silverware. Another held a small sack of sugar, a larger sack of flour, a crust of stale bread, and a bag of potatoes that smelled as if they’d just been dug out of the earth. There were other food items on the next shelf, but it was a glimmer of light reflecting off something shiny that caught her eye. It was a small mirror, half-wrapped in a soft cloth. When she picked it up, she expected the mirror to be as old and serviceable as everything else in the cottage. Instead the frame was gold encrusted with finely wrought flowers made from amethysts and sapphires.
    Normally Serafina might have enjoyed examining the craftsmanship of the frame, but the moment she caught sight of her reflection she couldn’t look at anything else. She’d had the face and body of a girl when she came to get her inheritance, but now her cheeks were thinner and her hair was more lustrous. Glancing down, she saw that her body was as curvy and well-rounded as her older sisters’.
    Serafina’s heart pounded in her chest and she began to breathe too fast. Although she looked older, her mindwas still the same as it had been before. What was happening to her?
    Serafina was fighting off increasing panic when another voice called “Hello!” from outside the gate.

Chapter 7
    Serafina missed Alek and her family fiercely and thought about them often. It had been more than two weeks since she’d seen them, and although she had started writing to her parents and sisters more than once to tell them that she was alive and well, she never got beyond the first few sentences. She wanted to tell them that she’d be home soon, but she had no idea how long she’d be gone. And how could she tell them about what had happened to her, when a fairy’s magic had caused it and they didn’t believe in either fairies or magic? She couldn’t even tell them about her day-today life when that was so beyond anything they could understand.
    She had also tried writing to Alek. He was morelikely to believe what had happened to her, and there was so much she wanted to tell him. The problem was that she was sure he would want to rescue her, but how could he rescue her from a curse that would follow her everywhere? Although she yearned to see him, she didn’t want to entangle him in the mess that her life had become. Serafina had thrown out every letter to him that she’d started.
    Fortunately for her, she was beginning to get used to her unusual life. She no longer hurried to look in the mirror after she answered each question, as she had for the first two weeks. There was no point; she knew that she looked like a mature woman now and she didn’t want to see herself age. It helped that she had stopped growing after a few days and no longer had to look for new clothes in the trunk. It also helped that she knew what to expect. People came to her throughout the day, asking her questions about themselves or the ones they loved. Others came to her at night, stealing through the dark so that neither friends