Tina was quiet on the trip over there, smiling and nodding to Belle when they passed her. It took her only a few minutes to find a book she liked, and she grinned as she went to find somewhere to sit and read for a while.

Once Tina was settled in with a book, Rachel went to go look for one in particular. She'd gotten curious, now, with all of the people in town mentioning fairy tales and calling her Rapunzel, so now she wanted to see what she could find. Once she'd grabbed a collection of Hans Christian Andersen and a big book of Brothers Grimm, she sat down and started leafing through them to see what she could find.

Tina noticed her selection of books but decided against saying anything, instead letting her read in peace for a little while.

But after two hours or so, she got curious too and got up to go see what Rapunzel was looking at. She would admit her knowledge of fairy tales wasn't exactly vast.

Rachel glanced up when she heard someone approaching.

"Hey," she said, holding her place in the book with a finger. "Read through a whole series already?" She grinned teasingly.

"Nah, only half the first book." Tina grinned. "I was just curious to see what had you so absorbed."

"Andersen and Grimm," Rachel replied. "I just, I dunno, it seems weird to me that the whole town is obsessed with fairy tales. I wanted to see if maybe these were different than what we already know."

"Fair enough." Tina looked at the book for a minute before she paused, looking at the pages. A few of the stories had been dog-eared, and she flipped to the first of the stories.

"Hey. It's Rapunzel."

Rachel blinked.

"That's only slightly weird," she commented as she straightened out the corner and flipped through the story. It was the 'original' variation, the least-edited she'd ever seen, and for some reason some of it seemed vaguely familiar. She shook her head a bit. "Weird."

"Very." Tina looked at the story too. Parts of it echoed in her mind, and she shook herself briefly before going to the next story. Thumbelina. "This one looks different from the version I read however many years ago."

"It is different," Rachel replied, skimming through it. "It's mostly original, I think, it's got most of the main points that got edited out of later versions. Something's different, though..." She trailed off.

Tina looked at the story again, unable to shake the odd feeling. "Something about this feels... odd. Not quite kosher."

"Good, it's not just me," Rachel replied, flipping past the story and straight into Beauty and the Beast. "Something feels not quite right."

"Definitely not right." Tina shivered briefly and shook her head. "Maybe it's just this weird town." But the story had still hit a chord in her that she just couldn't ignore.

"Maybe," Rachel replied, although she had her doubts. Somehow, it felt like more than just the town itself. There was something else going on.

Tina didn't quite believe herself either, but she shook herself briefly and shrugged.

"Well, who knows. Maybe we'll figure it out tomorrow." But for now she just didn't want to think about it.

"Maybe," Rachel replied, setting the book of fairy tales down. She shook her head. It was too weird to think about for now.

"So do we want to hang out here until dinner time or what?" Tina perched on the arm of Rachel's chair, looking at her.

"Sure," Rachel replied with a bit of a shrug. "I don't have anything else that needs doing or anywhere I need to go. What about you?"

"Sounds fine to me." Tina shrugged. "See if I can't get those stories out of my head."

Rachel nodded in agreement and went to see what other books she could find to read for a while.

Tina settled back in with the book she'd been reading before until almost dinner time. Then she got up and went to go find Rachel again so they could figure out what they were doing.

Rachel had set down her own book right about then, and met Tina half-way.

"So, food?" she asked.

"Food sounds good. Maybe if we find someone willing to lend us a kitchen I can grab some things and make dinner for us." Tina shrugged. Diner food was great, but she wanted to make something tonight.

It was almost a week later that anything else really happened. Rachel still felt a general sense of unease around some people in town, but she didn't really know why until she saw the pawn broker in town again. All of a sudden, it was like something triggered in her mind.

"Why can't I leave the tower?"

"Because you're valuable, dearie."

"But..."

"You're staying in the tower."

Rachel blinked and glanced around. Yup, still on the sidewalk outside the library.

"That was weird..."

"What?" Tina looked over at her. Tina had been having odd dreams lately, but she hadn't told Rachel about them. After all, they were just dreams, even if they did sometimes have glimpses of a gold-skinned pawn broker.