"Alright Gina, that's enough for today. I just heard him come in!" Jasmine warned.

"Just a little longer! We have to be getting close!" Gina replied.

The other girls quickly overruled her. The glowing book moved away until Gina could no longer make out any of the words on the page. The book floated over to the night stand and closed. The glow surrounding it vanished.

A second later, the guy the room belonged to came through the door. After setting down his bag, he sat in front of his computer, unaware that anything had happened while he was gone. Gina cursed to herself. She knew that it was good that they put the book back before the guy came in, but it was still frustrating to know that hours of doing nothing awaited them.

Perhaps Gina should be used to doing nothing after three years of it. However, the possibility of a way out had snapped her out of the malaise she had settled into. It had been two weeks since Zoe had discovered how to open the book and move it. This had allowed her to communicate with Jasmine, Alex, and Amy, three other women trapped as plastic figures in that display case. Since then, they've figured out a system where two of them would focus on moving the book close to them, one of them would read it, and the other one would listen in case their captor approached. They were hoping this obviously magical book would hold the secret to changing themselves back into humans.

During that time, two other trapped victims slowly awakened from the stupor that their long inactivity had put them in. Liz, who had been trapped there for two years, had suddenly joined in their conversation four days after they started reading the book. Then there was Gina, who woke up after six days. Upon conversing with the other girls, Gina realized she had been stuck there for three years. It took the two of them a bit of time to fully wake up and understand the situation, but they were eager to help once they did.

So, for the past two weeks, they would wait for the guy to leave in the morning. Then they would focus on the book until it started glowing. From there, they could open it and move it close enough for one of them to read. The day would then be spent reading the book, hoping the way to restore their human lives was somewhere in the pages.

Unfortunately, they could only communicate with each other while the book was open. Thus, they would have to spend some time each morning getting each other up to speed and discussing what was read from the book the previous day. So far, they hadn't found anything related to people being turned into figurines or any way to reverse said transformation. It wasn't as if they hadn't learned anything though. The first section of the book they read revealed information on the existence of magic itself. The book noted that a secret society of mages existed, with various families having their own closely guarded magical secrets.

As they read on, they learned that this particular book was created as a means of assisting people with little or no magical knowledge. It could perform spells for a person or even give other objects the ability to perform a spell. Such a thing would be considered highly illegal among mages, as this book would provide those outside their secret society access to magic. The women who were now reading it had to agree. If the man who had done this to them wasn't a part of this mage society, they all would have been better off if he had never gotten access to these secrets.

Comparing each of their stories, it wasn't hard to figure out that the guy's camera was the object the book had enchanted to perform the spell that had transformed them. They just had to find out which spell it was. So far, the spells they've read about were rather useless to them in their predicament. Most of them seemed to be for cleaning or home maintenance. Basically, it just seemed to contain ways to use magic to make everyday life easier. They had yet to find any magic that would have a life altering effect such as the transformation that had been inflicted on them.

All they could do at that point was wait. The guy messed around on his computer, either not knowing or not caring about what the plastic figures in his room were going through. None of them had any idea if this monster was aware that they were still conscious in their plastic forms. They all agreed that he couldn't find out they had access to the book, though. If he knew they were still sentient and looking through the book for a way out, that would certainly be the end of their access to it. He would move it to a different room, and their one hope of escape would be out of reach.

All Gina could do was wait. In the morning, the guy would leave and they could get back to work. Gina had been quite impatient to find the reversal spell. After waking up from what felt like a long sleep, she couldn't stand not being able to do anything. After she had been transformed, she remembered being bored out of her mind and anxious to move constantly. That continued until her mind just seemed to shut off. Hearing the other girls talking and watching them move the book, slowly reawakened her mind. Finally, she was lucid enough to talk to them. Since then, she had joined their efforts to find the means to reverse the spell that had trapped them in this state.

It was a harsh realization, learning that three years had passed since she had first found herself imprisoned in her own body. Gina could only wonder what her family and friends had done during that time. She wanted to get back to them as soon as possible. That's what made waiting at night so agonizing. She needed to be doing something. Deep down, Gina feared letting her mind go dormant again. She was afraid her mind might go blank permanently. She had talked with the others about reading the book while the guy was asleep. The others shot that idea down, though. They all knew how Gina felt, but they were much more cautious. None of them wanted to risk their captor waking up to find his book floating in front of his collection.

So, Gina could only wait there. She wished she could at least talk to the others while they waited. She just needed something to pass the time. She looked at the book, thinking about how far they were in reading it. She wasn't even paying attention to how much she was focusing on it. Suddenly, the blue glow surrounded it.

"What are you doing? Stop it!" Gina heard a sharp whisper.

The sudden admonishment was enough to snap Gina out of her focus on the book. It was a good thing too. The glow disappeared from the book just a second before the guy turned around from his computer. He got up and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed, unaware that anything had happened. That close call was enough to stop any temptation to mess with the book for the rest of the night for Gina.

It was the first thing brought up as soon as the guy left the following morning.

"So, why did the book suddenly glow last night?" Zoe asked. "He almost saw it."

"That was me." Gina admitted. "I guess I was thinking too hard about the book."

"Well don't let it happen again!" Amy shouted.

"Take it easy, Amy. We have to work together if we're going to get out of this." Alex said, trying to calm her sister down.

"She's right. All we have is each other right now." Jasmine added.

"Well, you were the one reading yesterday, Gina. Did you learn anything that might help us?" Liz asked, trying to get the discussion away from anything that might cause an argument.

"Nope." Gina sighed. "The damn thing went on for forty pages about cleaning magic to use on your bathroom, then spent another chapter on changing the color of your clothes. Honestly, you don't even need magic for half the stuff it's describing. It seems like this book was created by someone who was insanely lazy."

"At this point, I'm convinced the actually useful spells are toward the back of the book. Maybe we should start at the end of the book and work our way back." Zoe suggested.

"I would rather not lose our place in the book. We don't want to miss any pages." Jasmine replied.

"I think she's right." Alex said. "I'd hate to miss the page the reversal spell is on because we skipped around."

"Alright, just a thought." Zoe conceded. "Anyway, we should get started. It's Jasmine's turn to read. The twins, Liz and I will keep the book in place. Gina you-"

Before Zoe could finish, another voice spoke.

"What.....doing? How?"

This voice was soft and spoke slowly. Whoever was speaking didn't sound fully awake.

"Sounds like another one of these figures is waking up." Gina observed.

"I think we can safely assume every figure in this case is a person." Jasmine noted grimly.

"Can you hear us? Can you tell us your name?" Alex asked, trying to reach out to the new voice.

"Let.....go." The new voice mumbled.

"She doesn't seem to be fully awake." Amy said.

None of them could really be surprised by this. When Liz and Gina had woken up. It had taken the others talking to them for a few days to get them fully lucid and coherent. Years of doing nothing had dulled their minds to the point that it took a lot of conversation to bring them back. They could only assume the person that this new voice belonged to had been stuck like this for even longer than they had.

"Alright, change of plans." Zoe said. "Liz, can you talk to her and try to get her fully awake?"

"Yeah, no problem." Liz agreed.

With that, a new job was added to their daily rotation. One of them would read the book. Three of them would keep it in place, one of them would listen for their captor's approach, and one of them would talk to the new girl. They were all frustrated as four more days passed without finding the spell they were looking for.

They did make great progress with the most recent addition to their group, though. Slowly but surely, she started responding to the one talking to her. She still spoke slowly and quietly, but it was at least apparent that she was aware of what was happening around her. Finally, they were able to have real conversations with her. They learned that her name was Kate. From the year she remembered when asked, they figured out that it had been four years since she had
been turned into a plastic figure. She also remembered being kept in a different room, on a wooden shelf instead of the case they were in now. She remembered being moved with all the other figures. She also had vague memories of seeing Gina and Liz being placed in the display case after they were added to the collection. Her memories of the day she was transformed were hazy, though. She remembered standing on a desk, feeling scared. She felt like she knew something about the guy that had done this to them, but it was hard to remember with her mind clouded from its extended inactivity.

For their part, the others slowly got Kate up to speed on the situation they were in. Kate had been filled in about the book and how to open and move it. Like the rest of them, Kate was eager to find the reversal spell and get her life back. She finally felt ready to get into their rotation of roles during the day. As she slowly got used to thinking and conversing with others again, memories of her life before becoming trapped on display came back to her as well. Memories of the family, friends, and home she had been locked away from made her quite motivated to contribute to the effort to find the reversal spell.

On that day, Kate had started to recall her last day as a flesh and blood human. She remembered getting up and going to work. She had worked at the convention center at the reception desk. That was where she had met the man that had done this to all of them. He had actually been her coworker. It was his first day, so Kate did not know him well. Given that the convention was going on, Kate thought it would be fun to go to work in her own costume. That was what the guy had used as his justification to ask Kate for a picture. That was when that horrible blue flash doomed her to her current fate. Kate wondered how that day might have played out if she had just gone to work in normal clothes that day. It definitely would have been odd for him to ask to take a photo in that case. She likely would have declined. She had just met him after all. Costume or not, she couldn't believe she had agreed to pose for a photo right after meeting that guy....

If she could move or speak, Kate would have gasped. She did not know if this mattered, but a detail from that day emerged from her memory.

The next morning came, and as soon as the sound of the guy's car leaving could be heard, the book opened and glowed once more.

"Alright, let's get to it." Zoe said. "Find anything interesting yesterday?"

"Still no mention of a spell that can change people into plastic figures." Gina sighed. "I did find something interesting toward the end of the day though. There was a levitation spell that might allow us to move around even if we're not changed back yet. Do you think it's worth looking into?"

"We probably don't want to move too much in case that creep notices, but I could see it coming in handy in case we need to see something that's out of our usual view." Jasmine responded.

"If we use it, maybe Amy and I could contribute more to the reading if we could turn so one of us is facing the book directly." Alex suggested.

"Yeah, I think it's worth looking into." Liz agreed.

"Alright, I guess we can try it before reading on." Zoe said. "Kate, do you think you're ready to help keep the book in place?"

"Yes.....but....listen." Kate responded. She still didn't have the easiest time speaking after being quiet for four years. However, she wanted to tell them all what she had realized overnight.

"What is it?" Jasmine asked.

"The guy.....who did this...to us. I worked with...him." Kate said.

That definitely got the others' attention. The conversations they had with Kate to get her fully awake mostly focused on her family and hobbies. Work never came up. Did Kate have some information about their captor that could be useful?

"Okay Kate, do you remember anything?" Zoe asked. She wanted to hear what Kate had to say but also didn't want to overwhelm her.

"He just....started. I remember......his name." Kate stammered. The others were hanging on her every word. It seemed they would get a delayed start on reading that morning.