"He was looking at that old book when we came in before," Amy said, pointing to the counter. "I'll check that out."
Lina followed as best she could, given that one of Amy's strides equaled ten or twelve of hers. Amy hopped up on an old wooden chair so she could see the top of the counter. There sat a very large, wooden-bound book that looked too heavy for her to lift. It remained open at the page where the old man had left it. It appeared to be full of magical incantations and all sorts of weird information.
While Lina sniffed around the floor, presumably following the scent of food, Amy flipped through the pages. "Hey, I recognize this thing," she pointed a chubby little hand at a drawing of a gem-encrusted bracelet she had noticed earlier in the store. "I almost put it on."
"Good thing you didn't," Lina said. "Who knows what else we could have turned into?" Lina was almost completely a rat at this point. Her body had rounded out and her irises had deepened to a solid black on her pointed face.
"This looks wike a wecord for the stuff in here," Amy said. Her voice jumped another octave as she continued to get younger. She was starting to slur her words, as if her mouth wasn't quite used to speaking the syllables. Now she was having a hard time reading even the shortest words, relying on pictures to guide her to a page about her panpipes. "Come over here and help me wead this," she said.
Lina scampered up the table with her sharp claws and pawed over the book. She had a hard time focusing on the words now that her eyes were on either side of her head, but the handwriting was large enough. "It says that whoever wears the bracelet will turn into a statue."
Amy giggled at the thought, then continued turning pages. She scanned through the book, hoping there would be a picture of her pipes. "So many pictures," she whined. "I hope the part abowt my pipes isn't all words." She continued flipping pages, one at a time, looking for anything like instruments.
As time dragged on, so did their transformations. Amy lost another year, becoming a six-year-old. Her horns had grown out several inches, dark and ribbed. Her ears formed cute goat's ears with the same brown fur as her legs. She began to lose her concentration, not paying attention to the pages she was turning and thinking about new songs to play on her pipes. Lina, now fully a mouse, could hear her humming melodies to herself.
"Stop! Stop! That was it!" Lina cried as she caught a glimpse of a page full of woodwind instruments. Amy snapped back to attention and returned to the page.
Among a variety of flutes, she saw a set of panpipes that looked exactly like hers. She couldn't read much except words like "pan," "music" and ordinary words like "the."
"It says these pipes have an unknown origin," Lina read. Amy blurted a confused "huh?" and Lina shook her mousy head. "It means nobody knows who made them."
"Oh," Amy realized.
"They were cursed long ago by a mischievous wizard. Anyone who blew on them invoked the spell, and would slowly turn into a small satyr child. The only way out of the curse was to play a specific melody on the cursed pipes."
"Ooh, a song?" Amy's ears perked up. "I can pway lots of songs!" She readied her instrument and started blowing an upbeat tune.
The music was good, except with Lina's ears it was rather harsh to listen to. "Stop playing!" she cried, incredibly thankful that the curse had left her with a human voice.
Amy put down the pipes, pouting. "It's just music."
"And I'm just a stupid rat with superhearing," Lina retorted.
"A song can bwing me back," Amy explained. "That's why I was pwaying."
"Your 'pwaying' was fine, but that's not the right tune! It has to be a specific song to reverse the curse."
"So what song?" Amy asked, eager to play the sweet music again.