"Are you sure that those were the pages?"

"I am a hundred per cent sure, Lilly, trust me!" Stella said.

We were sitting in my room with the book that Stella took from the library. She claimed that she saw the missing papers of the book in Hermes home. She also called me a fool for not recognizing the book's name when he mentioned it.

 Stella said that she noticed blood stained lip marks on the papers. Rihanna had this weird habit of peeling her lips and when they bled, she would kiss a tissue, handkerchief or a paper, whichever was the nearest to her. Stella said that if Hermes took the book from the library he must have his name only after Stella so we had a chance of knowing his real name from the slip in the book. Stella said that knowing his name was an advantage since he knew my name and if he ever felt like disclosing my identity, I could use the same tool for prevention.

We opened the book eagerly. I felt defeated when I saw only a name in the slip, it was that of 'Rihanna'. She had returned it on the same day as Stella stole it. I closed the book and looked at a pale Stella, her eyes were wide and teary.

Stella closed the books and sucked her lips in. She exhaled deeply and said, "Do you think that Rihanna would turn on us?" 

"We do fight a lot but no. I know that she would not turn on us"

"If Hermes was not lying about not stealing the book from the library someone must have given it to him. He got it after Rihanna had it. Maybe Rihanna gave it to him but why did she not say it to us, why did she act like 'I too read the same book' ?" Stella interlocked her fingers and looked at the floor. Her voice was weak.

"I do not know and when did she act like that?"

"Today, when you were talking with Hermes, she piped in to say that 'she too read the same book', why don't you observe, Stella?"

"I do not know" at this point, the stone was getting on my nerves.

"Anyway, she did not say that it was she who gave the book to him or keep quiet which means she did not want us to know that she gave the book to him. She wanted to prevent any suspicion, in case, we decided to check the library slip."

"What is so wrong in her not wanting us to know it, Stella? It is her private matter. I mean, I did not want you guys to know about my interest in Raymond, maybe she is interested in him" I pulled my legs onto the bed and flipped my hand backwards.

"Everything is wrong Lilly. If it was a mere crush it would have been okay but did you forget the fact that she did not inform us about the curse?" She took my hand in hers.

"No,"

"She was aware of the curse and she did not want to take it herself and neither did Hermes, both of them are keeping some big secret from us. If she informed us we too would have hesitated or at least you would have decided to have someone else than Hermes to have eye contact with as soon as you opened the eyes, but no..."

"Maybe they are in love or something?" I said.

"What about Eric?"

Eric was Rihanna's three-year boyfriend and we, me and Stella, had already started to plan their wedding because of the intensity they had even after being together for three years. They used to go for an outing every weekend. He is the only guy who could make our tough Rihanna blush. They looked perfect together.

"Maybe she is cheating on him," I knew that I was stating the impossible. They went for outing the previous week too and their lovey-dovey was sickeningly visible to everyone around. The way they wore matching clothes, the way they walked beside each other, the way they kept physical distance but their eyes kept exchanging words...do I sound like a hopeless romantic?

"I do not really think so, I think she is hiding something really big from us. I think she is hiding a secret which involves Hermes and which could harm us."

Stella was my best friend but at times even I could not understand her. She seemed way too tensed about the situation. I knew the importance of keeping secrets due to the stone in my hand and I wanted to tell it to Stella but I knew that it would only push her further. She was seriously suspicious about Rihanna. She herself connected the dots and felt like Rihanna was turning on us with Hermes. But then again, I could not blame her, something definitely smelled fishy and it was a smell of some hideous rotten fish.

"Ok, let's not jump to any conclusions we can ask her tomorrow," I said.

"No, no, no...we need to clarify the situation with Hermes first, there is a possibility that he could have stolen the book from Stella and returned it without her knowing about it"

"How could he know that the book was with her?"

"He could have hacked the librarian's computer" She shrugged.

"He could also have stolen it from the library, took few pages and left it back "

"The possibility is nearly zero because she returned the book at 8 pm, and I was there from about 10 pm which gives him just about two hours for the whole operation and trust me, it was not an easy job to find the section which included books about this topic, so it is nearly impossible for him to have it done by in such a short time" Sherlie Holmes said.

"Not if he is a regular visitor at the library," I said and finally felt like a useful person. There is just one thing I hated about Stella's acrobatic skills and intelligence, it was the fact that she made me feel like a useless being.

"Maybe so,"

Stella left the room. I spent that night trying to connect all the dots that Stella had pointed out. It did seem like what Rihanna and Hermes had was a little more than a love affair, it seemed like they were trapping us, together.

It could also be that Hermes was lying about not stealing it. He could not have stolen it from the library since Stella had stolen it on the same day as Rihanna returned the book. The only way Rihanna could be free from our suspicions was if Hermes stole it from her.

I tossed and turned in the bed for a long time and that was when I remembered something important. Due to the 'Is Rihanna a betrayer?', Stella did not say me about what she read on those pages. I wanted to know what happened to Joshua, Eldon and Helena so I went to the balcony where I was pretty sure about finding Stella.

Stella was someone who was a little lonely in the inside. She always tried not to feel so and we always tried to make her feel comfortable but neither of us was successful. Stella had once told me about the reason why she always tried to stay away from the fights I and Rihanna had. Stella was afraid of doing a mistake and losing us.

Stella had a terrible childhood. She was torn between two guardians who loved her but could not stand each other. They had their days of love during the initial days of marriage. During those days, they visited places and did many activities together. Stella still had the pictures of her parents smiling at each other. However, she never saw them so in real life. They always fought and bickered about everything. She always believed that it was something related to her due to which her parents were mentally apart. She had this gut feeling that it was her.

One day she ran away from her broken home and her parents could not find her until midnight. That was the day when her parents decided to separate. Both her parents wanted to take her custody and she knew that both of them loved her so much. She stayed with her maternal grandparents for a while after the divorce. Her father fell in love with another lady in that short span of time and she decided to go with her mother when she came to know about her stepmother.

Stella always tried to control her anger and stay away from fights. There were times when I and Rihanna tried to make her angry. We wanted her to shout at us and be angry because both of us believed that it was normal to be angry but Stella was afraid to be angry. She would cry for hours but never raised her voice at us.

"You want to know the remaining of the story, don't you?" Stella asked me without turning back.

"Yes,"

She chuckled before sitting on the ground and patting beside her. I smiled and sat near her.

"You do know that I suck at narrating, don't you?"

"Yeah but I just want the wiki version of the novel" I drew my knees towards my chest and hugged them.

"What happened after is actually very simple, the boy opened his eyes to say that he was the one who ate the chocolates in the cupboard and it was not their cat. The author described this as 'charm on the third'. Apparently, that is something with every sparkled item had. After the third passing of a sparkled item, it gains yet another power and in case of ' The Iris of hell,' it was this. Also, at the same time, the mother started to scream in pain. The necklace dropped from the boy's hand as he ran to his mother and thus the pain ceased. In short, love, according to the curse, is not just something between only two soul mates.

However, the stone did not leave his hand until the mother took it from him. Helena was terrified to see a stone in her son's hand out of the blue. Helena was surprised when she found out that she could not take it off from her hand. After several days she understood that she would keep telling truth if the stone was in her hands so she asked one of her maids to take it from her. After several realizations, the tale of the stone was spread across the village and the final man, who had it, had to cut off his hand to get rid of it. After many years when some archaeologists found it history repeated and it was finally in a lady's hand. She cut her hand on a large rock and it was around this rock that the museum was built, the author says that the glass box from which we took it did not have a base and it also said that the bones of the lady were beneath the cloth under the stone"

"What happened to Eldon?" I tilted my head and furrowed my eyebrows

"Yeah, he was missing since then, no dead body, no proof, nothing"

"You do know that you are the worst at narrating don't you?" I asked her with steeple hands.

"I forgot to tell you about 'the wail of lover' let me say it. On that fateful day, under the obliviously blue sky and yolk-like yellowy Sun, the necklace that was made by the most talented, most famous, most dedicated witch, Kiltchy , fell on the floor with a cluttering sound. The heart of Earth was beating faster than ever as the cursed chain embraced its warmth and-"

I started shaking her vigorously and she frowned at me.

"I am pretty sure that some medieval ghost has possessed my sister's body, leave her else I shall take you to the church and cleanse the body from all evil" I could not control my laughter anymore. Stella joined me and we laughed, together, under the starry night sky. She was not alone and neither was I.

"In simple words, as time passed by, the curse of the necklace was also identified."

"Yeah that is much better"

We did not speak much after that. Both of us simply gazed at the glory of a full moon night. I leaned onto her shoulder and she leaned her head on mine. The silent wind kept passing and I kept closing my eyes, each time it passed. Many people are afraid of the nights but for me, it was the part of the day when I felt empowered and worthy.

"Stella,"

"Mmm"

"Do you trust me?"

"Mmm"

"Like your own sister?"

"Like my own heartbeat,"

I snuggled further into her and let a smile play on my lips. I did not know if I asked the question for her or for myself but I do know that it helped us both. Both of us were not ready to suspect Rihanna but I had a small part in me which kept nagging that Hermes was not lying. I shut it out and slept on my sister's shoulder.