Haven Read Online Free PDF Page A

them. Even Marissa, who clearly would take a bit more effort to win over than the rest of them.
    That they were accepting me as easily as they were was a miracle in itself, and I wasn’t going to complain if Marissa was alittle standoffish at first. With a smile I watched them all chattering happily. Yeah, I’d made the right choice when I’d picked Winterhaven. Definitely.
    Suddenly the girls went entirely silent, all of them looking over my left shoulder. The hair on the nape of my neck rose, and for a moment I didn’t move. And then, as if in slow motion, I turned around and found myself looking up into the face of Aidan Gray. I swallowed hard, unable to utter a single syllable.
    “It’s Violet, right?” he asked.
    I cleared my throat before attempting to answer. “Yeah” was all I could say.
    His eyes regarded me for a moment, and I noticed a coldness there that I hadn’t noticed before. Finally, he spoke. “I thought maybe we could meet after sixth period. To go over the history material,” he added.
    “Um, okay.” Why was I tripping over my tongue?
    “What class do you have sixth period?”
    I just sat there, my mind spinning. I came up completely blank.
    “Fencing,” Sophie piped up. “Didn’t you say you had fencing sixth period?”
    I sighed my relief. “Oh, that’s right. Fencing.”
    “I’ll meet you outside the gym, then, and we’ll try to get you caught up.”
    “Okay, great. Thanks,” I added, feeling a bit woozy.
    His gaze traveled over my face, making me incredibly self-conscious. “See you then,” he said at last, and then he was gone.
    Slowly, I turned back to my tablemates, who all looked as stunned as I felt. What was with this guy?
    “The Aidan effect,” Sophie said with a sigh.

3 ~ Tea for Two
    T he afternoon sped by. Right after lunch I followed Sophie and Kate to fourth-period trig. It felt comfortable sitting there between them, chatting while we waited for class to begin. I was more at ease than I had been all day, and I was beginning to recognize several kids from my morning classes. Some even managed to smile at me rather than stare.
    Fifth period I was back on my own again. Cultural Anthropology: Folklore and Legend, which sounded much more promising than the plain old anthropology course taught at Windsor. Even more interesting, the headmaster was listed as the instructor. After double-checking the room number tomake sure I was in the right place, I hurried inside. The classroom was much smaller than any other I’d been in so far, with the desks arranged in a semicircle. Seeing no one I recognized, I found an empty seat and slid into it.
    I dug out my notebook and pen and started doodling while I waited for class to begin. After a minute or two, a strange awareness shot through me, and I looked up to see Aidan Gray slip into the seat directly across the room, facing me.
Great
. There went my concentration, especially since he sat there watching me, studying me like some interesting bug under a microscope.
    Still waiting for Dr. Blackwell, I decided to study Aidan right back. He was tall, close to six feet, I’d say. More long and lean than muscular, but not skinny. He wore dark jeans with combat boots and a black hooded sweatshirt, a multicolored striped scarf hanging around his neck. The ball cap from earlier was gone, and his hair shone like gold in the afternoon sun that streamed in through the bank of windows behind him.
    Suddenly he swung his head toward the door, and a second later Dr. Blackwell walked in. The headmaster smiled when he saw me sitting there, and I could swear he actually winked when he passed my desk.
    “Has everyone met our new student?” he asked, moving tostand in front of his desk. For perhaps, oh, the twentieth time that day, everyone turned to stare at me.
    “No?” Dr. Blackwell asked in response to the unintelligible murmurs. “Well, then, Miss McKenna, if you’ll stand up, please.”
    Stand up?
Oh, please, no
. Why did teachers