Magic Lessons Read Online Free PDF

the frying pan into the fire.
She’d spent a lot of her first two days in Sydney on the phone to Danny talking about it all and catching up on his life. He’d gotten into Georgetown on a basketball scholarship, like he’d always wanted, though he wasn’t taking it up for another year because of Dad dying—plus, he’d been searching for her. He was playing ball whenever and wherever he could. Same old. He’d given Jay-Tee a majorly sketchy answer when she’d asked about girlfriends, which meant he was messing with more than one. Nothing changed there. Playing ball came first, girls a long way after.
Talking to Danny, hanging out with Reason and Tom, being in Sydney such a long, long way from him , Jay-Tee had started to believe things would get better.
But here he was, up to his usual tricks. Jay-Tee had forgotten that lucky was not her middle name, that no matter what happened she had, at best, only a few more years to live. Right now she felt every second of that short time piled on top of her, weighing her down. She was tired, worn thin like an old rag.
He ’d done something to the house. It didn’t feel right anymore. The three of them—Jay-Tee+Reason+Tom—had a distinctive feel together, but it was off kilter now. The thing had upset the balance. Jay-Tee could always feel the dynamic between living things. It was part of how she could tell when someone was lying or not. Or, rather, whether they believed they were telling the truth or not.
Since she’d laid out the matches, there hadn’t been any more weird thumping or scraping at the door. Had the thing really disappeared back to New York? Was what she was feeling now just its nasty residue? Like shock waves long after an earthquake has stopped?
The thing had been the exact same brown as the door, complete with wood grains. Maybe it was part of the door. Did that mean the door was alive?
She’d seen that happen sometimes with dance floors, especially old ones that had been danced on by thousands and thousands of people over the years. The dance floor absorbed all that crowd magic, began to dance a little itself. Once, in a shoe store in the city, Jay-Tee had taken one step on the old wooden floor and felt it reaching toward her, accommodating itself to the movement of her feet, ready, eager for her to dance. Instantly she’d known it had been a dance floor— people had waltzed, fox-trotted, Charlestoned, jitterbugged, boogied, and twisted across its surface for many, many years. She’d spun, feeling the floor push back, giving her extra spring and lift. She’d grinned. One of the guys who worked there had grinned back, danced toward her. “Isn’t this song great? Just makes you dance.”
He’d lifted her up, twirled her around, and danced her toward all the best shoes. The song changed, but he kept dancing. As they moved together she saw everyone else in the store swaying, dipping, shifting. Jay-Tee had felt the floor throughout her body, flowing in from her feet, through the fingertips of the guy twirling her around. She could have sworn, somehow, that the floor was smiling.
Maybe something similar had happened to the door. Maybe it was angry at all those generations of magic-wielders stretching it across two continents. Was that possible? Maybe it was furious at everyone who had ever stepped through it. And he was using the door’s anger against them.
Jay-Tee knew with every part of her body that he was behind this. Sending that creepy thing through to terrorize them, trying to figure out a way through the door to steal all their magic—that would be just his speed.
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    The two of them joined Reason on the front steps, where Jay-Tee still felt her back tingling with fear.
“Esmeralda will know what to do,” Jay-Tee said, trying to convince herself as much as Reason. “She’ll get rid of the smell, make the door even stronger.” She’ll keep him out, Jay-Tee thought.
A trickle of sweat ran down Jay-Tee’s spine. She’d love to go for a