Cold Tomorrow

[38]

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

All morning I've had a sickening sense of something, once distant, now drawing inexorably closer. Since waking it's been a queasiness in my gut, a dizziness in my head, a tension in my muscles. I've felt it, like a train on rapid approach, blaring at me to move out of the way, to step off the tracks. Only my feet are glued to the ground. I am a deer in headlights, unable to do anything but stare.

Standing before the fire, stone wrapped tightly in my palm, the feeling rolls over me thicker. I know what it denotes – a nightmarish scene of blood and power and grief. The vision I fear is becoming reality. But now I know one thing that can stop it – my one last chance. I must break the curse. Today.

Now.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Harrison stands a little off to my left. I can't see him from this angle – my entire view is consumed by dancing, mesmeric flames – but I can feel his worry as it soaks the air. He barely knows this world of supernatural power and still he can sense this is a bad idea. I'm not foolish enough to believe it isn't – I just can't afford to do nothing. Breaking the curse is a necessary evil.

"Yeah," I reply, "I'm sure."

I open my palm and hold it out in front of me. The stone looks and feels as ordinary as it did when I found it Sunday morning. It would be impossible to know it holds power, let alone enough to fuel and maintain the most powerful curse known to both Anarkks and Avexyrs alike.

"Don't you have to say something?" Harrison, behind me, interrupts the quiet like a fly buzzing in my ear.

"Good one, Sherlock. I'm getting there."

"You don't know what to say, do you?"

I sigh. "Admittedly no." The book said to speak my desires, but to just start speaking? I'd assume a curse like this would require a certain level of formality to break it.

Taking a deep breath, I begin: "I wish to break the curse."

I hold my breath in the minute that follows, before eventually resigning myself to the idea that nothing's going to happen.

"Try something else," Harrison buzzes.

"I, Melissa – Sarah – hereby break the curse on all Anarkks."

The stone remains an ordinary stone.

"Nice embellishments. But I don't think it worked."

"You think?"

"Maybe it's not what you're saying."

I turn to him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're meant to speak your desires but breaking the curse isn't your desire. Your true desire is to save someone's life. I'm just saying, maybe it's not working because you don't truly mean what you're saying."

I stare at him. "That's actually a fair point."

"You look surprised."

"I'm just– You're good at this. At understanding this whole supernatural thing."

"It actually seems to follow quite logical patterns – that is, if you disregard all the obvious illogicality."

"Uh-huh. Yeah. I totally noticed that too."

He laughs. "Get on with it, then."

I turn back to the fire and close my eyes, attempting to summon up some true desire to break the curse. It's weak and hard to find but as soon as I do, I grab hold and build on it, strengthen it, focus all my attention towards it. Once again I'm struck by the bizarre sensation of the stone hot in my palm, radiating a heat it surely doesn't have. The room around me darkens and fades as I zero in on it. Then I speak.