Julia stared in awe of what the girl just said. The young girl in front of her just said her name was Sarafina and looked exactly like her from the original novel, the saintess herself just five years in the past and unaware of what her future could be.

“Helloooo, is something wrong?” Sarafina asked

Julia, once again snapping out of a trance she so often does, responded, “Oh yeah, uh no, I’m fine, just confused that there was another person in this library.”

“Yeah like I mentioned, I and the caretaker of this library, and pretty much always have been. I know about every book and where it goes,” Sarafina proudly said.

Julia giggled, “So you know about every book?” She asked with one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

Sarafina matched her curious gaze, “That depends on what you are looking for milady.”

Julia took a deep breath, “I know this might sound crazy, but, I need every book you have on the serpent twins.”

Sarafina's eyes now had a joyful twinkle in them, “Hmm, I know where all of them are.”

“That’s great can-“ Julia was cut off.

“IF! You help me put these books away I will get them out for you, deal?” Sarafina finally jumped out of her cocoon of books to wipe the dust off her apron and help out her hand.

Julia happily shook it, “Deal!”

Sarafina smiled, and the two girls got to work. Sarafina was on the ladder placing the books in their correct spots while Julia was handing and reading the title of each of them. It took much less time with two people instead of Sarafina just doing the work by herself. Once they were finished, Sarafina immediately fulfilled her side of the deal by pulling out the few books about the serpent twins and anything that was related to them. There weren’t many books about them, but it was enough to make Julia hopeful of her future.

Sarafina drops her stack of books on the table that Julia was going to use, “This is all of them… not much but I hope it helps.”

“Thank you, you have been such a great help, Sarafina,” Julia said while flipping through the books on the table.

While Julia was deep in the books, Sarafina began to rock on her feet, “So uh, this is a lot of books, would you like some help going through them?” Sarafina innocently asked, not wanting to leave her new friend.

“I think I’m good, my brother is here, and he’ll find is way over here to help me,” Julia responded.

Sarafina, dejected, “oh okay, well, best of luck,” she turned to go back to work.

Julia lifted her head up to look at Sarafina as she was leaving, “Wait!” She called to her, “I think Tobi will take a while to find me, so I think I would like the help.”

Sarafina’s face lit up, and ran over to help Julia. Even though the day was filled with reading about boring myths and sketchy recollections of the serpents and the goddess, the two girls had so much fun giggling about possible errors and tiny mistakes. Some of the texts were in a different language, but thankfully Sarafina is able to read and translate them, which impressed Julia. Eventually, Tobias rejoined his sister and met Sarafina. Before they knew it five hours had passed, and the sun began to set, meaning they had to say goodbye to their new friend and the library. 

Sarafina walked the siblings out and to their carriage, where Julia and Tobias gave their new friend a hug and said goodbye. Sarafina waved at them until the carriage went out of her view and went back inside the church and to her room.

She plopped herself on her bed, feeling exhausted. She wanted to fall asleep on the spot but remembered that she would get in trouble for not eating the food left on her desk and changing out of her day clothes. As she slipped off her dress, Sarafina noticed that the flower marks on her leg had started to crawl up her hip and begun to reach her torso.

“This thing is going to be so hard to hide; I’ll ask mom to find some bandage,” she sighed.

The marks were faint, but noticeable flowers, and its pink color was beginning to creep up into the spider lily-like design like watercolor. She slipped on her black nightgown and ate her food before going to sleep.

As she lay in bed, Sarafina wondered why Julia wanted to learn about the serpent twins before drifting off to sleep.