Lenora's Grimoire

Chapter Seventeen

It must have been construction work outside or she was suffering from one killer of a hangover, Cherish thought as she pulled herself groggily into a sitting position in her bed. There was a rhythmic pounding noise coming from somewhere—loud, insistent—irritating.

Were magic hangovers even a thing? She wondered to herself as she pulled herself to her feet. She supposed it was a question she could pose to her grandma, if she absolutely needed to.

She shuffled out into the kitchen, wincing at the continued loud, rhythmic beating noise she was sure was coming from the inside of her head. She poured herself a cup of coffee and frowned.

No, the sound had definitely gotten louder.

Her eyes widened with horror at the thought that the sound had come from her cedar tree outside. She set down her coffee and hurried to the front door, throwing it open—

Raven stood on the front step. He looked frazzled, and as soon as Cherish opened the door, he brushed past her and pushed the door shut again.

"Sorry to barge in," he said, "but I think something went wrong with the spell last night."

"I . . . I don't know what you're talking about?" Cherish said. She glanced towards her coffee and wished for one long, forlorn moment that she'd been able to take at least one sip of it before the world decided to come to an end around her.

"Cherish, the sky is red."

The sentence alone pulled Cherish from the grogginess of sleep.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"The sky is red," Raven repeated. He walked over to one of her front windows and pulled the blinds up. "Take a look for yourself."

Hesitantly, Cherish shuffled over to take a look. She felt a rush of cold run through her body at the sight of the sky.

Raven wasn't wrong. The sky over the whole town had taken on an angry, vibrant red color. It looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

"Fantastic," Cherish muttered under her breath. "This is just how I wanted to start my Tuesday morning."

Bitterly she wished her Tuesday morning had started with pulling the Death card again and then dealing with some teenager's overdue book fines.

"How do we fix it?" Raven asked.

Cherish huffed. "I don't know," she replied. She paced for a moment around her living room, running through the limited knowledge she had of curses and how to break them.

Her eye momentarily caught sight of Lenora's grimoire again and she frowned. "I can make a call," she muttered. "I hate to do it, but I'm sure someone in my family knows how to break a curse like this."

"I sure hope so," Raven agreed. "If not, I'd hate to see this get much worse." He glanced out the window at the sky himself and a visible shudder shivered through him.

Cherish hunted for her cellphone for a moment. "The plant is okay, though?" she asked, as she pulled her phone out of her bag.

"Seems to be," Raven said, then stopped, turning to stare at Cherish. "We could be in the middle of the apocalypse and you're worried about a plant right now?"

Cherish pulled up the contact list on her phone, dialed home, and put the phone to her ear. She listened to it ring for a second before she said, "that spell is likely the reason we're in this mess right now, so yes, I am a little concerned about its current welfare. If it died overnight, then we would have brought on the apocalypse for nothing, now, wouldn't we?"

Raven frowned at her, and opened his mouth in an attempt to form a response.

Cherish held up a finger, hearing her mother's voice on the other end of the phone, greeting her with a tone of contempt she could only thinly veil. Cherish winced momentarily, then said, "hi mom. Quick question. How do I break a curse?"

(A/N) Final Chapter Word Count: 660