Living with Your Past Selves (Spell Weaver) Read Online Free PDF

for some well-hidden tension, Dan was stereotype incarnate: varsity football quarterback, and looking pretty much like the all-American boy from Central Casting, with blond hair, blue eyes, deep tan, and well-muscled body. He stood about a head taller than I did and infinitely higher in the high school social hierarchy, so naturally he made little attempt to conceal his general contempt for me. Our relationship hadn’t always been like that, though. There was a time when we had been friends—close friends actually, almost as close as Stan and me—but that seemed very long ago now, like in another lifetime, though ironically that particular memory came from this one.
    “Yeah, I’ll try to remember that next time,” I quipped. Dan looked as if he might have wanted to get another dig in, but Eva probably wouldn’t have liked that, so he pressed his lips together and said nothing.
    “Anyway,” I said, turning back to Eva, “thanks for asking.”
    “Well, I’m just glad you’re okay. I’ll see you later.”
    I smiled my best fake smile and nodded as she walked off with one arm around Dan. Women are so superficial.
    Suddenly I realized what should have occurred to me a while ago: I had my backpack, but not my guitar or fencing equipment. Since the nurse’s office was closer than the front of the school, that’s the way I headed.
    “Nurse Florence, I was carrying my guitar and fencing stuff this morning. Do you have any idea what happened to them?”
    She pondered for just a second.
    “I think your friend Stan picked them up.” I thanked her and headed out into the hall. The students still milling around meant passing period wasn’t quite over. Stan and I didn’t have the same period two, and I wasn’t sure exactly where he was, so I pulled out my cell phone and gave him a quick call.
    He took a longer time to answer than I expected, and when he did, he sounded half dead.
    “Stan? Where are you?”
    “Still at home sick,” he responded, almost in a whisper. “I admire your faith, but sorry, no miracle cures this morning.”
    “When did you get sick? You seemed fine this morning.”
    “You didn’t see me this morning. I texted you not to come.”
    “Sorry to bother you, Stan. I’ll call you later, to see how you are.” He mumbled a goodbye, and then I started sorting through my texts. Sure enough, there was one from Stan telling me he was sick, and that I didn’t need to come by his house. I had been so frazzled getting out of the house that I hadn’t noticed it.
    However, a missed text was the least of my worries. The fog hadn’t been so bad this morning that I couldn’t recognize my best friend standing right behind me.
    Ever since my past selves had awakened within me, I had remembered many encounters with supernatural beings, but all of those had been many centuries ago. Except for my own abilities, I had never experienced anything out of the ordinary in this life, and I had pretty well decided that such encounters with the supernatural no longer occurred. Then, less than a day ago, the Gwrach y Rhibyn had shown up, and I now apparently faced another, much more immediate supernatural visitor.
    There was a shape-shifter on campus, and he had stolen my stuff!
    Perhaps more than just a shifter. He—or it—not only looked like Stan, but acted like Stan. Either the thing had observed him quite a bit, and that thought chilled me more than I can say, or the thing had some kind of telepathy, which wasn’t a much more comforting thought. I didn’t remember any telepathic creatures, though. Then another thought struck me.
    I had counted very carefully. I knew I was at the right door this morning, though I now realized that “Stan” had actually popped out before I had a chance to knock.
    The thing had come out of Stan’s house.
    Obviously, Stan was still alive. I was half tempted to call his parents to make sure they were still alive, but I couldn’t think of any particularly plausible reason to