Lenora's Grimoire

Chapter Eight

It was dark by the time they returned to the library, and Cherish was mentally exhausted.

"I can drive you home," Raven said.

"Sure," Cherish replied, "but first I need to make sure the library's locked up—and I need to put Lenora's grimoire back where I got it. I don't want it falling into the wrong hands."

The grimoire bit at her fingers in response as she got out of the car and walked up the steps into the library.

Cherish had never been afraid of the library at night. It was a larger, older library, and had felt similar to a kind, old man, looking out for his grandchildren. She had always felt a sense of safety and comfort inside, despite the eerie silence the building always seemed to carry.

As she crossed through the library, she thought she caught a wisp of a shadow passing between the aisles. She paused for a moment, her heart picking up in pace, and she called out, "is anyone there? The library's closed for the night. You can come back tomorrow if you're looking for books."

The eerie, familiar silence met Cherish's words. She waited for a moment, for any sort of response, but nothing else broke the silence aside from the creaking of the floorboards under her feet as she shifted her weight to peek around one of the bookshelves.

Nothing.

"Get ahold of yourself, Cherish," she whispered as she hurried back to the backroom. She stuffed Lenora's grimoire back onto the shelf she'd pulled it from. She let out a deep breath as she walked out of the room, locking the door behind her.

She did a final sweep of the library, turning off lights as she went, closing blinds, locking doors, and finding no one waiting for her at the front desk, she turned off the computer for the night and walked towards the front door.

Surely she was just feeling some of the residual tension from seeing her mother again, right? The library was safe, and nothing there could hurt her.

Well, clearly nothing but Lenora's grimoire could hurt her—and surely that was just a reflection of how she was feeling about turning to magic again.

She flipped off the lights to the library and locked the front doors behind her before turning to walk down the front steps to where Raven was waiting in his car.

"You're not bringing the book with you?" he asked.

Cherish shook her head. "No," she said. "My mother's touched it, and it clearly doesn't like me. I don't want the thing anywhere near my house."

She got back into the car, pulling the handwritten paper from on top of the dashboard, where she'd left it, and read through the instructions again. She frowned. She recognized a lot of the ingredients by their witch names—but the instructions were also incredibly detailed as to the moon phase, time of night, and location the ritual would have to be performed.

"I looked at it while you were in the library," Raven said. "I don't understand a lot of it, so I was hoping you do?"

"Most of it," Cherish replied. "But it's not going to be an easy thing that can be done tonight at my kitchen counter. When I get home, I'll have to check moon phases—we're in Taurus season, which helps, but there are a lot of other things we're going to have to look into before we can perform it."

"What if the plant dies before then?" Raven asked.

Cherish laughed. "I'm holding a spell for raising the dead and you're concerned about the plant dying before we cast it?"

"Right," Raven said. He turned onto the main street and continued driving slowly. "So, home? Which way?"

"Turn right on this next road," Cherish said.

He pulled up in front of her yard a few minutes later. Cherish couldn't help but stare at the cedar tree in her yard. It looked very, very dead now, and it hurt her to think she hadn't been able to save it.

"Well, you might as well come in," Cherish said, as she got out of the car and opened the gate to her yard. It creaked like the front door of her mother's house as she swung it open.

She froze. Something was standing in the shadows next to the cedar tree, by her front porch.

Raven's door shut loudly behind her, and she could hear him walk around the car. "Do I have to ask to come in or what?" he joked, and Cherish blinked, shaking her head in an attempt to shake the fear she'd felt for a moment there. First in the library, now at her home . . . surely she was imagining things.

"No, sorry. I got lost in my own thoughts there for a second," she said, letting out a nervous laugh. She led Raven up to the front door, unlocked it, and threw the lights on as she walked inside.

"Get the door," she said, turning to see Raven following her inside, leaving the front door wide open, like a gaping mouth, opened wide so that Cherish could stare into the darkness of the abyss that awaited her outside. "I'll grab the books I have, and we can start planning."

(A/N) Final Chapter Word Count: 880