Awakening (Book One of The Geis) Read Online Free PDF

Excitement at Lucas’s attention bubbled up inside of me until I thought I would burst.
    Some of the guys complained that Lucas was holding up their game. He tossed the football in the air and caught it. “See you around.”
    “McKayla, dear, did you already eat?” Aunt Avril eyed my sack lunch. I shook my head and she shooed me into the car. “I’m taking you out for lunch.”
    “Don’t you need to check me out first?”
    “I think the boy you were talking to already did that.” Aunt Avril squinted at me, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “Who was that?”
    “Just a guy named Lucas.” I tried to act casual, but I couldn’t stop the smile that snuck onto my face.
    “Theron won’t mind if I say that ‘just a guy named Lucas’ is one fine specimen.”
    I looked at Aunt Avril in surprise. She winked.
    The dashboard and leather seats of her car matched the orange paint on the exterior. A navigation screen filled the instrument panel. I rubbed my hand along the armrest, surprised at the softness of the material.
    “Where in the world did you get this car?”
    Aunt Avril pulled out of the parking lot—revving the engine a bit more than I thought was necessary. We glided onto the main street—practically hovering over the pavement. “Let’s say it’s a little gift the FBI gave me for all of my hard work.”
    “This car is a gift from the FBI? I hope you are not trying to go undercover.”
    Aunt Avril laughed. “I picked it out myself.”
    It surprised me that Aunt Avril took me out of school for lunch, especially after the conversation I’d overheard between her and my mother.
    Aunt Avril looked so much like my mother, and yet they were so different from each other. They shared the same rounded face and dainty lips, but where my mother dressed conservatively, Aunt Avril chose to express her flamboyant personality through her wardrobe.
    Today she wore a velvet patchwork vest over a ruffled peasant blouse. Her ever-present necklaces fell in various heavy lengths down to her lap. Her thick brown hair matched my own curly mop, but she didn’t even try to control the curls. They circled her head like a poufy hat.
    She looked over and saw me watching her. This close to her I could see flecks, like glitter, in her blue eyes. “What?”
    “Why do you wear those necklaces all the time?”
    Aunt Avril looped one finger through the chains. “These charms protect me from spirits that might want to cause me harm.”
    The look on my face must have given away my disbelief.
    “You remind me so much of your mother,” Aunt Avril said. “You have a hard time believing what you can’t see.” It wasn’t a question.
    I thought about how I kept seeing a monster reptile that no one else seemed to notice. “If you can’t see something, how do you know it’s there?”
    She parked in front of the fish house on Main Street, but made no move to get out of the car. “The FBI calls me in on cases where it’s impossible for them to look at the evidence and understand what happened. They can’t discover the truth because they rely too much on their eyes. You have to figure out your own way of discerning the truth.”
    Aunt Avril may have had some strange ideas, but part of me wanted to believe she could really do what she claimed.
    “I think it’s great what you do, Aunt Avril.” I coughed.
    She smiled at me. “Do you think that I’m a fake?”
    I couldn’t really understand how she could see what simply wasn’t there. But I knew the FBI wouldn’t rely on her unless she recovered legitimate information for them.
    “I think there is some truth in what you do. But how can you know for sure about something that you can’t see?”
    “Aha!” Aunt Avril’s voice made me jump. “It’s a mistake to shun what you don’t understand. But there is hope for you yet.” She chuckled to herself, and reached out for both of my hands. I rested them in her palms. She leaned forward like she was going to read my