The Secret Garden of Ravenwood

Chapter 13: Curse Breaker

After the failed attempt at performing the ritual with Leo, Avery knew that she needed to work with her grandmother to break the curse somehow. She had spent the past week working up the courage to ask her for help again, but every time she thought she was ready, she got scared. Instead, Leo and Avery spent the days researching and preparing, gathering the necessary ingredients, and practicing the incantation that was necessary for the ritual.

Now that everything was gathered and prepared for the second attempt, Avery felt a surge of hope. She knew deep down that she needed Eleanor's help, that the curse wouldn't be broken without her. She had been avoiding her ever since the failed ritual, but she knew that she couldn't do this alone. No more time for fear, no more hiding.

She made her way to Eleanor's room and knocked on the door, determination written all over her face. After a moment, Eleanor opened the door, looking surprised to see her.

"Avery?" she asked. "What brings you here? I haven't really seen you since... the incident. I thought you were refusing to talk to me."

Avery took in a breath, "I need your help. I know that you are scared for my safety, but you know deep down that I am the one that can break the curse. I need your help to do that, we have to do it together. I don't know why the ritual keeps failing, but maybe we can figure that out together."

Her grandmother looked at her for a long moment, as if considering what she had said. Finally, she sighed, "You are going to do this with or without me, aren't you?"

Avery simply nodded her head.

"Very well," Eleanor said finally. "But we must be careful. The curse is powerful, and the price for breaking it will be high. I know why your ritual failed, and I believe that I know why mine and the one before it did too."

Avery nodded and asked, "What did we do wrong?"

"The ritual must be performed on a full moon, which you did not do. If you read the beginning of the book, you would have seen that to break the most powerful of curses, you must cast the incantation on a full moon when the magic is the strongest."

Avery mentally kicked herself for being too stupid to read all of the details before completing the ritual.

Eleanor rubbed her arm soothingly, "Please don't be mad at yourself, there is something else that you did wrong, that we all did wrong, that caused the ritual to go wrong."

Avery was curious now, looking up at the older woman, "And what is that?"

Eleanor smiled sadly, "We must all be from Ravenwood blood."

Avery was confused now, she didn't understand. She thought that in each ritual, only members of the Ravenwood family had tried performing the ritual. Before she could even ask, Eleanor smiled softly.

"I the first ritual, the one where your Grandmother Jane lost her mother, my father was only a Ravenwood by marriage, not by blood," Eleanor explained. "As a consequence, it took the life of your great-grandmother."

Avery looked shocked, but it made sense why the ritual didn't work. But she hated the feeling that the consequence was that an innocent life was lost.

Eleanor continued, "In the second ritual, the one with your grandmother Jane and me, it turns out that she was an illegitimate child of your great-grandfather. Your soft-spoken mother couldn't handle her husband's rage and sought comfort with a man in town, resulting in your grandmother. She has no Ravenwood blood, yet she carried the Ravenwood name. As punishment, her life was taken after the failed attempt."