Casting Curses

A November windstorm smashes through the roof of the Bewitching Bedlam, and the damage exposes a hidden room containing a dark secret. An ancient force has been unleashed, and a curse is endangering everyone who Maddy loves, and everything she’s worked for. With her loved ones in danger, Maddy must undergo an arcane ritual in order to lift the curse and exorcise the angry spirit. But, her magic is on the fritz, and without the use of her powers, will Maddy be able to face Ereshkigal, the goddess of the Underworld, and survive?
"THE WEATHER WAS raging. We were in the throes of a classic
November windstorm, with gusts predicted to clock as high as seventy miles an hour, not uncommon during autumn storms in Western Washington. Sustained winds had already reached a steady thirty miles per hour, and outside the trees swayed, lashed by the wind, as rain sleeted down sideways. A number of people didn’t believe me when I told them that it rained sideways here, but anybody who had ever lived in the Pacific Northwest could attest to the phenomenon. I was standing at the counter, staring out into the yard, hoping that all our trees would hold steady. There were several that I was suspicious of, but I hadn’t had the chance to have an arborist in to look at their root systems yet. We’d just have to cross our fingers and hope. That was another lovely product of our storms here—downed trees, power outages, and landslides. Every year several people were killed by falling timber when the ground became saturated and the shallow roots gave way. “Steaks will be ready in ten minutes.” Max was out on the back patio, grilling steaks and corn on the cob. He had waved me off when I asked if he wanted to cook them inside. “If I can’t handle a little rain, I’m not the weretiger I claim to be,” he had said. After ten minutes, he had put on a rain poncho and looked altogether miserable, but he wasn’t giving up."