Iris Kailen and the Curse of Malachi(Book 1 of the Enchanted Series)

Chapter 1: Gran is Weirder than Usual

Ring! Ring! Ring!

The sound of the alarm clock was echoing in the whole room.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

"Oh, shut it you blasted metal!" The alarm went flying across the room, the impact muffled by the lying clothes.

The perpetrator yawned loudly as she stretched her arms over head, her curly shoulder-length dark brown hair in tangles covering her freckled face. Her gray eyes still half-open, she pushed aside her feather-printed blankets, silently counted from one to ten before finally getting up. Her view still curtained by her mess of hair, she as slowly as possible walked over her carpet of dirty clothes to the bathroom.

Still half-awake, she brushed her teeth, took a 3-minute bath and dressed in jeans, sweatshirt and sneakers and quickly grabbed her bag and phone before leaving her room, messier than ever.

She walked carefully in tiptoes while heading towards the door, hastily gathering her curls into a messy bun. She saw the backside of her grandmother in front of the open television but she knew for a fact that the old woman is already asleep judging from her light snores.

However, before she could breathe relief, she noticed two yellow eyes staring at her sternly. It was Hermes. Her gran's tabby black cat. Hermes seemed to know she caught her late yet again silently escaping from the house before she could hear her gran's litany of her tardy attitude. Hermes slowly stretched and slowly purred teasing her.

"Keep silent, you lazy lynx", she silently hissed and proceeded to ignore the cat's teasing and raced for the door.

The ancient door gave a squeak as she pushed it open. She dared not look back as she heard a grumble from her gran praying to the heavens that she's still fast asleep. Alas, before passing the rusty gate, she was caught again.

"IRIS KAILEN! COME BACK THIS INSTANT!" Her gran's voice probably woke up the whole neighborhood.

"Runnin' late. Bye, mum."

With a grin, Iris sped off towards the bus stop. She checked her phone for text messages and missed calls.

"Six missed calls. Really, Shae", she murmured to herself.

Shae Collins is her one and only super best friend since time immemorial. They first met at a kindergarten school bus when Shae punched the school bully, Marcon, for teasing her about her braces. From that moment on, they became inseparable.

She texted Shae that she won't make it to History but will just meet her in Literature period. The time in her phone reads 9:28; Holler's Lit class is not until 10:15 which gives her around thirty minutes to spare after her 15-minute travel time.

Iris attends Wishmoore High where she's a freshman. Wishmoore is the second largest high school in town and the nearest to where she lives. Her gran went ballistic when she suggested going to the city for high school and live with Shae's sister so she and Shae (one gets one free promo) ended up at Wishmoore.

With still time to spare, Iris decided to use the library at the 2nd floor; her Lit class is at the 4th. Iris is far from being the top student but interestingly, she adores books as much as her gran's apple pies. Her Gran's apple pies are probably the best in the world. She finds calm and certain happiness from being surrounded with the smell of bookshelves and pages.

Skimming through the wide array of genre the school library has, she grabbed the familiar hard bound "A World With Faes" written by an anonymous. It was a book telling the stories of fairies living amongst humans; stories that are far from reality. Shae thought the author was a lunatic and that the book was complete rubbish but Iris has always been pulled by a strange invincible force of the weird and strange things. Curiously, she finds them utterly fascinating. She spent her remaining time reading through the familiar pages until the bell rang signifying the end of the first period.