One Hundred Candles [2] Read Online Free PDF Page A

knowledge about these people than I did. I knew that she’d recently gone with Mom on various “research trips,” as she’d put it. I wanted to go, too, but Dad was completely against the idea. He knew Annalise was old enough to make her own decisions and he couldn’t stop her, but he put his foot down when it came to me.
    “She’s too young and impressionable!” he yelled at Mom late one night. She had told me earlier in the day that we would be going on a research trip, but when Dad found out, he wasn’t happy. I was supposed to be asleep, but they had been fighting in the kitchen for half an hour, their voices rising in small degrees with every sentence.
    “She’s almost eighteen! And since when have you considered either one of your daughters to be impressionable? They’re more mature than some people twice their age!” I was pleased that Mom was sticking up for me, but I felt guilty about it, too. My parents wouldn’t be fighting to begin with if it wasn’t for me, which was a depressing thought.
    In the end, when it became clear that neither one was going to budge, I solved the situation by declaring that I didn’t really want to go. Dad smiled triumphantly and wrapped an arm around my shoulder while Mom simply pursed her lips together. Later, she came up to my room and sat on my bed.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    I looked up from my French homework. “For what?”
    “For understanding that your dad and I are going through a rough time right now.” She smoothed out my wrinkled pillowcase. “I want you to know that it is not your job to be the peacemaker. Your dad and I need to work on some things, and we will. I don’t want you to feel like you’re caught in the middle.” She smiled sadly. “Even so, I appreciate what you did.” She walked over to where I was sitting at my desk and kissed my forehead. “We’ll do better, I promise. No more yelling.”
    I almost broke down and sobbed in her arms. Since the incident in Charleston, things had felt so strained between my parents. They used a stiff courtesy with one another, like they were putting tremendous effort into getting along. Shane noticed it, too, but he said I had nothing to worry about.
    “They’ve been married for over twenty years,” he assured me. “And they’ve known each other even longer. Stuff like this happens in a marriage. It’ll all blow over in a few weeks, you’ll see.”
    But it didn’t blow over. Something had changed between them, something that was at once so slight that most people wouldn’t have noticed and yet so monumental that it was ripping them apart. And while the yelling did stop, I would often catch fragments of their fights as they whispered hoarsely at each other, as if they were arguing with the volume turned down.
    Annalise pulled the towel off her head. Then she went over to her windows and opened the curtains. Something about that simple act made me nervous. It triggered the not-so-distant memory of the growling voice. You have pushed back the curtain too far. I shuddered a little. Part of me needed to understand what that unearthly statement meant, but a saner, more rational part of me didn’t want to know. Whatever I’d encountered at the asylum seemed to have stayed in Ohio. I’d had no inkling of anything remotely paranormal since we’d left the building, and that had been five days ago. Maybe the Watcher was a powerless blob of extra-scary residual energy. Then again, residual energy didn’t jump inside a living guy and make him attack an innocent girl, right?
    Unless I’m not so innocent. My previous ghostly encounter in Charleston had left me with the nagging sense that I’d stepped across some invisible line. I’d set foot into another realm and shared a casual conversation with a girl who had died a hundred years earlier. It was the strangest, most intense experience I’d ever had—and one I hadn’t told anyone about.
    There was no way to explain it, really. Even if Mom and