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

fortune.
    “You don’t have to see something to know it is real. In fact, some of the truest things in life are intangible.”
    A tune rang from inside her purse. Michael Jackson’s voice trilled through the car, and Aunt Avril dug out her cell phone. “Hello Crew.” She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “Are you sure? Was there a cause of death?” She raised one eyebrow at me. “Tell them not to touch anything. I’m on my way.”

Aunt Avril drove past the police station and continued down the highway out of town. When we drove through the Narrows and into the town of Thayne, I realized that she wouldn’t be checking me back into school. Mom was going to be ticked.
    Aunt Avril didn’t say anything on the way, and I thought it best not to interrupt her thoughts, contenting myself with looking out the window.
    Salt River carved its way through the canyon, where the trees turned patches of the summer greenery yellow and red. I’d lived in Star Valley for only a few months, but it didn’t take me long to fall in love with a valley so large that it took forty-five minutes to drive from one scenic end to the other, yet small enough that people still waved to each other at the stoplight-free intersections.
    The Corvette cut the corners of the canyon with grace. I relaxed into the leather seat that hugged every contour of my body. When we left the pavement behind, I could barely feel the usual bounce and jolt of a washboard-graveled road. Even so, Aunt Avril slowed her car down to a crawl as we climbed the mountain, cringing every time a rock hit the undercarriage.
    From behind a grove of trees emerged a house that could only be described as a castle. Cone-roofed turrets stood sentinel at each corner of the gray-bricked manor. The walls were even scalloped to represent a medieval castle, and I spotted a few stained-glass windows peeking at us from lofty heights.
    “Wow,” I said. “I had no idea there was a castle in Star Valley.”
    Emergency vehicles were parked with their front ends to the castle door, like spokes on a wheel. Aunt Avril parked directly behind three of them. She bent her head to lift the heavy necklaces from around her neck, motioning for me to put them on. Opening the glove box, she pulled out a metal dagger. Clear crystals the size of dimes studded the length of the blade. It was an odd weapon, and I wondered what in the world Aunt Avril needed it for. She hurried to put it in her purse. “Stay here, dear.”
    I leaned over her seat as she got out. “Does this have to do with the case you’re working on?”
    “I’m counting on it.” She squared her shoulders and strode up to where the door stood open like a gaping hole. I expected her to walk in and take charge, but she hesitated at the doorway. Instead, she reached her arms out and stroked the air with her hands, as if she could coax the truth out of it. Backing down the stairs, she swept the yard in an erratic formation, following an unseen path. When she reached the door again, she dropped her hands and looked my way, winking at me before going inside. The darkness swallowed her, and I shivered.
    I fiddled with the necklaces she had burdened me with. Four or five loops of dissimilar chains were the backdrop for dozens of trinkets. Some of them I remembered from when I was a small child and she told me of distant lands and foreign places. But others were new, probably acquired in the last few years that Aunt Avril had been abroad and too busy to visit.
    A twisted knot of leather that surrounded a gleaming red gemstone caught my eye. The stone looked like the one in Aunt Avril’s snake ring. The colors swirled in a pattern that looked like tendrils of colored smoke.
    With my finger, I followed the path of the winding leather. It circled back on itself until my finger met back at the beginning. The Celtic knot reminded me of the elaborate patterns on the Irish dancers’ dresses. Anticipation fluttered like a bird in my stomach. This time