This open paragraph is a sheer pleasure to read, as your work always is, but this, a fantastic treat!

The way you build on the old man, delightfully creepy with that smile, her understandable fear. I love how you keep her rooted in the normality the reader knows, so her reactions seem to relatable and realistic for a somewhat crazed old man holding her hostage in conversation, with his creepy bone box, but then his uses the magic word, the one she already knows, hooking her curiosity - and it just unravels so perfectly from there.

The first half did very much feel like he had come for her, and adore how you turn this over to take the potential damsel and play her as a powerful huntress ready to come into her own. The moment of her finding out who she is, and having what she might have thought as fairy-tales verified like that really hits. Then the ending, the way you contrast of the reality of her life and studies against the dreamy moment where she finds a charm she never had before really puts weight on the reality of her experience, the mentioned of her nana keeping this supernatural story well rooted in the relatable. <3