Four days later, Kai heard Kevin drive home, and only moments later, Kai's mom called him downstairs. As he stepped into the kitchen, he saw a worried look on his mom's face as she and Kevin turned toward him. "Kai... sit. Please." She said, and as he sat down in front of her, she placed a book onto the table.
"Curses and The Black Arts" was the title, and Kai felt an uneasiness build inside. He had ordered that book last week and hadn't thought of his mom's reaction to seeing it... then again, he hadn't thought she would be opening his mail.
"Uh.,. why are you opening my mail?" He asked quietly, and knew it was the wrong question when his mom frowned. 
She was quiet for a long time, but what she finally said surprised him. "Kai... are you joining a cult?"
Kai sat in silence for a moment, shocked that his mom would even ask such a thing, but then he saw movement behind his Mom's head. Glancing in that direction, he saw Taemin in the painting above the sink, laughing at the situation Kai had found himself in. Trying to hold his smile in, Kai turned his eyes back to his mom. "No, mom, no occult. I'm just curious about the house and the painting in my bedroom, that's all."
She looked a bit concerned about his play off of the situation, but handed him his book and he bounded off up the stairs back to his room. Closing the door, he turned to the painting to see Taemin grinning back at him.
"You! Making me laugh like that..." Kai shook his finger at Taemin but laughed as he did so. The whole situation was absurd! "Anyway." He plopped down onto his desk chair and cracked his new book open. "Maybe this will give me some cluse. Cross your fingers!"
* He has no idea how much I wish he can find something, but I am losing hope. I honestly don't think that he'll be able to find the key. I have been trapped in this life for the past 99 years... if the White Queen wasn't lying and it truly existed, then I am sure it is now gone. I haven't the heart to tell him so, though, and so he searches in vain. 
I wish he could, though. I would love to touch his skin. *
It was almost Christmas, and Kai had spent the last couple of weeks doing nothing but reading and researching and had still found NOTHING. At all. Not a single clue as to what the key might be, how to break the curse, or even how to possibly contact the Fae.
Well... actually, he did have a clue on that last part. He had finally found a reference in a book of the occult about The White Queen, but the only way that he had found to contact her would be to sacrifice a cat on the full moon. He had a