Charon Doesn't Give Change

"Cool."

Clara whirled around, hands half raised, ready to turn somebody into a toad. But all she seen was a little girl in a hospital bed, the bed-cover pulled up to her chin, hooked up to a ventilator that Clara instantly cowered away from. Witches were afraid of technology, and none more so than Clara. Only water could eclipse that particular terror. But even as Clara was scared, she was also hungry, ravenous in fact. Yet the little girl would be nothing more than a mouthful, making Clara wonder if it would really be worth the effort.

"Did you really fly through that window," the little girl croaked, "or are you some divine deathbed vision?"

"I'm no hallucination," Clara spat, insulted.

"I hoped you weren't," the little girl said fervently. "I've always wanted to see a witch."

"It'll be the last thing you'll ever see," Clara said, advancing on her.

"I know," the little girl said, coughing into her hand, "I'm dying by inches, and I think I'm down to the last few."

"Well, I prefer my food fresh," Clara said nastily, swiping the air with her claws. "You're almost past your sell-by date."

"Tell me about it," the girl said, coughing again.

At this, Clara hesitated, not quite sure what to do next. This wasn't how the hunt usually went. She didn't really converse with the first course.

"So you're really a witch?" the little girl asked, trying and failing to sit up.

Clara nodded, clutching her broomstick for support.

"Can you do magic?" the little girl pressed.

Clara flicked her fingers, making the curtains come to life, launching into 'Ave Maria'.

"Awesome," the little girl breathed as Clara then silenced the curtains. "I love fairytales," she continued, eyes wistful, "magic and things like that. I think they're amazing."

"So what... what's wrong with you?" Clara asked with some difficulty, struggling between being starving and sorry for the little girl.

"I collapsed during story-time in the library," the little girl said, wincing a little, "and I woke up in here. This is my home now."

"And you're really dying?" Clara pressed this time.

The little girl nodded.

"Well... you need something to pay the fare then," Clara said, fumbling in her pocket, "Charon doesn't give change." At this, she pulled out the dime she and Ezekiel had been fighting over what seemed like a life-time ago, handing it to the little girl, who took it, becoming wide-eyed with wonder as she studied the coin from all angles. And with that, Clara was gone, the curtains fluttering in her wake.

~*~

And now people talk to me I'm slipping out of reach now
People talk to me, and all their faces blur
But I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison
And I'm locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me...

Clara strode through the hospital doors, hunger drawing her back, forcing her to stop mid-flight and return. The smell was too much to resist, overcoming all reason. The children were like chocolates in a box, Clara not sure which one to pick first. But as she headed for the lifts, oblivious to the stares and screams following in her wake, her attention was caught by Jenkins standing in front of a vending machine, brow furrowing as he contemplated which button to select first.

At the click of her spindly heels, Jenkins turned around, raising an eyebrow at her altered appearance. During his absence, her nose had grown, now resembling a twisted tree branch, several more warts springing up over her pockmarked face. She was more hunched over than ever, her fingers gnarled, her long nails as sharp as knives. There was nothing left of the old Clara, an omen for the future, the magic of the Libris Fabula spreading until the world was no more.

"I adore vending machines," Jenkins said lightly, tapping the glass, "they're like... miniature apartment buildings. If you hit the right numbers, the occupant of your choice leaps to his death!"

"You don't get out much, do you?" Clara spat, advancing on him.

"Looking as you do," Jenkins retorted. "I'd be virtually housebound."

"I'm starving," Clara growled, whirling round as a teenage boy loped past, Jenkins hastily grabbing the back of her cloak.

"I need your help," he said abruptly, catching her attention, "Ezekiel's gone AWOL, and the others are in La-La Land. You are the only Librarian left."

"I'm a witch, not a Librarian," Clara snarled, brandishing her broomstick at him.

"Why are you still hungry?" Jenkins snapped. "If you were really half the witch you pretend to be, the children of this town would be dead by now! Underneath all the warts and wickedness, you're still Clara Hartley, that stuck up little snob who is the bane of my very existence."

Clara shifted from one foot to the next, unsure now.

"Cassandra might be the smartest, but you're the strongest," Jenkins pressed, grabbing her shoulders, resisting the urge to rattle her back into being, "stronger than Jacob and Eve even. Sometimes... sometimes I think the Library might have made a mistake. You're more Guardian material than anything else. But it was the Library's choice, not mine. Yet that is neither here or now. We need to find the Libris Fabula, or this world will be nothing but a myth."

~*~

"In here," Jenkins hissed, dragging Clara behind some dumpsters.

"I'm ravenous," Clara almost wept, the smell almost driving her insane.

"Here," Jenkins said, hurriedly handing her a wooden clothes-peg.

Clara just stared at it, looking at Jenkins as though he'd sprung another head.

"Wait, it's too small," Jenkins said, brow furrowing. As he thought, the clothes-peg trebled in size. "Here," he said, shoving it into her twisted hands.

Clara pulled a grotesque face that only served to make her even more grotesque. But she donned the clothes-peg, gaining some instant relief from the smell. "Whaths our nexth movthe?" she asked, making Jenkins glance sharply at her.

"First we have to find the Libris Fabula," he said briskly, taking heart he had Hartley back, "as long as that book is being read, stories will keep coming to life. In the beginning, it's only the stories in the book that come alive, then later as the book gains power, these stories can be changed, with new ones added, rewriting reality as we know it" -

- "Reality being a shared narrative we choose to believe," Flynn said, making Jenkins's head jerk up.

"You!" Jenkins exclaimed.

"And who is this charming maiden?" Flynn said silkily, raising a seductive eyebrow at Clara.

"You really don't want to know," Jenkins said hastily.

"I think I do," Flynn drawled, pressing his lips to the back of Clara's hairy hand.

Before Jenkins could frame an answer to this, a loud harrumph in his ear made him jump violently. "What in the name of all that is holy is" - Jenkins began, only for words to fail him as he was confronted by the sight of a giant electric blue elephant. "First cross-dressing wolves, now this," he muttered, smoothing back his silver hair, "what is the world coming to?"

"To an end?" Flynn suggested helpfully.