Out of This World Read Online Free PDF Page A

not showing any of the inn’s distinguishing features, nor anything of its surroundings. The winter shot revealed snow up to the windows, and had been taken at night.
    Snow.
    Up to the windows.
    During a night so dark, it gave a whole new meaning to the color black.
    Boggling.
    The site did boast that Hideaway was a hundred years old, and as we turned a corner and suddenly came to the clearing in which the inn sat, I could believe it. It looked just like the pictures, though I don’t know why that surprised me. The place was bigger than I’d expected, and it looked a bit like an old Victorian, but without the warmth and charm. Four stories high, it had a sharply slanted roof, myriad dark windows and eaves that made it look…foreboding. No, that had to be my imagination, because not only was the sun out but, despite it being early afternoon, smoke was coming from the chimney. Those should both be calming, right? So why did I suddenly have goose bumps?
    My mom had warned me many times that Great-Great-Aunt Gertrude had been somewhat of a loony toons, and that no doubt her staff would be just as crazy. But coming from my mother, that had been, like, Hello, Mrs. Pot, I’m Black…
    â€œAt least someone’s here,” Kellan murmured, and nudged me up the walk with the big load in his arms, reminding me of the weight we were carrying. Or that he mostly carried. “Hopefully they’re expecting us. You did call ahead, right?”
    â€œI called,” I said, the front porch creaking ominously beneath our feet. I looked at the hanging sign that read HIDEAWAY B & B . “But no one answered, not even an answering machine.”
    â€œIs that code for ‘I didn’t really call because I forgot to think ahead’?”
    â€œNo,” I said a bit defensively. “My inability to organize or make plans and keep them has nothing to do with this. I really did try.”
    It’d been frustrating and a little unnerving. This was a business, right? My business. “I e-mailed the contact from the Web site, too. Nothing.” We set down our boxes and bags on the front porch, and knocked.
    No one answered.
    I stepped off the porch, and looked up.
    And up.
    Wow, the place was tall. The chimney still had smoke coming out, so someone had to be here. Then I blinked because I thought I saw something. There, on the top floor, one of the windows… glowed, as if someone had walked past it with a flashlight or candle. But it was gone so quickly, I couldn’t be sure. “That’s odd,” I said in a normal voice that belied the way my heart had skipped a beat.
    It got odder, when, in that same high-up window, I suddenly saw two faces, a young blond woman and a guy who looked like a twenty-something Harry Potter, their foreheads pressed to the glass as they stared down at me the same way I stared up at them.
    And yet, in the very next blink, they were gone.
    Vanished.
    â€œDid you see them?” I asked Kellan hoarsely, because my voice had nearly gone, along with all the air in my lungs. I tugged on his sleeve. “There, in the window.”
    â€œWhat did I miss?” He craned his neck and looked up in pretend horror. “Another squirrel tea party?”
    â€œHa ha, you’re a laugh a minute.”
    But I couldn’t take my gaze off the window. Real or Memorex? Hard to tell. “Kellan.”
    At the serious tone in my voice, he looked at me, amusement fading. “So what did you see?”
    I shook my head. It sounded kind of crazy. “Never mind. It was nothing.”
    Kellan knocked again, but we still got no answer.
    Which meant I’d definitely imagined the couple. Oh boy. And they said losing touch with reality was the first symptom…
    Kellan tried the doorknob. We stared at each other, both jumping a little when the door creaked as he pushed it open.
    From inside came nothing but a big yawning silence.
    â€œHello?” I called