The Ex Hex

At Elaine’s house, Simon is disgusted by Sir Purrcival the talking cat, who has now added “Mama” to his vocabulary alongside “Treats.” Simon now knows about the hex Vivi placed on Rhys, and he angrily declares that no curse is ever accidental. After insulting Sir Purrcival a second time, Gwyn says she “[doesn’t] care whose dad you are or how fancy a witch you are, keep talking shit about my cat, and I will personally kick you down this mountain” (245-46). Rhys steps in to mediate everyone’s rising tempers. Simon tells them that the cure for Rhys’s curse cannot be found in a book because curses have no universal solutions; the cure for a curse is “intimately wound up” in the original curse’s motivation. Simon asks if there are any ancestors in Elaine and Vivi’s lineage whose remains are buried nearby and from whom the hex could have drawn more power. Elaine knows of one, Aelwyd Jones, who emigrated to the area and died of a “random” sickness at the same time Gryffud Penhallow established the town. Simon intends to return home to Wales to consult his own sources, and he means to bring Rhys with him to monitor the hex’s effects more closely, but Rhys refuses to go.