Out of This World Read Online Free PDF

out.
    Nothing. Not a single sound. It was like the entire inn was holding its breath, and something cold and creepily foreboding danced down the back of my neck.
    And then, from somewhere far upstairs, a door shut with a definitive click.
    Kellan glanced at me, face unreadable. “Was that nothing, too?”
    Thank God, I thought. He’d heard it. I wasn’t losing my mind.
    At least, not completely.
    Strange how much comfort I found in that one small fact. Still, I was feeling sorry—extremely sorry—that I’d so hastily jumped on a plane and hightailed it up here without more details. Honest to God, one of these days I was going to get it together and think things through.
    â€œHello?” Kellan called out, his voice louder and surer than mine. “Anyone home?”
    â€œYo, dude. In the kitchen.”
    Kellan raised a brow so that it vanished beneath the hair falling into his eyes. That voice had come from an entirely different direction than the door closing upstairs. The voice was also Los Angeles, specifically San Fernando Valley, spoken in the slow, purposeful voice of a career slacker.
    Kellan took my hand, a gesture for which I felt very grateful as we entered the house of horror. We stepped over the threshold into a large reception room with scarred wooden floors and scattered throw rugs, none of which matched. A giant moose head hung over the stone fireplace, its glassy-eyed stare seeming to pierce right through me. The windows were covered with lace slightly yellowed with time. The huge, L-shaped, chocolate leather couch and two beat-up leather recliners looked extremely well lived-in.
    Spartan, but actually quite homey, even cozy, and somehow not nearly as bad as I’d imagined standing on the porch looking up at those two ghosts…
    â€œYou coming, or what?” asked the slacker voice.
    Kel and I looked at each other, then moved through the large room and into a kitchen that smelled like wood smoke and spicy tea. This room was painted a bright, sunny yellow and white, also far more cheerful than the outside had let on. The ceiling was light pine siding, with copper pots hanging from the slats. There were also a few huge plants, green and thriving in a way that made me want to grab a paintbrush and a canvas.
    But best yet, there was a large woodstove, lit and sending off a wave of warmth, which drew me like moth to flame.
    There was a humongous oak table in the center of the room, and on it sat a large vase filled with fresh wildflowers, which gave off a scent that I imagined I would have smelled in the woods if I hadn’t been too busy whining all the way up here to notice.
    The counters held various appliances and, most interestingly, a guy sitting Indian-style, facing away from us.
    He grabbed our attention immediately. He wore a pair of army green cargo pants, a white thermal top and a wool hat with tassels that hung down and swung beneath each ear like earrings. His hands were in front of him, out of sight, but I feared he was cradling a bong as he stared out the window. “Ohhhmmm,” he sang.
    Kellan craned his neck, and glanced at me. Nutso, his eyes said. I shot him a pacifying look.
    â€œUm, hello?” I said.
    Nutso—er, the man—slowly turned, and looked at us with eyes the color of light milk chocolate dotted with gold specks of mischief.
    He was maybe thirty, with shaggy brown hair and a silly, crooked smile that was somehow contagious. And he wasn’t holding a bong, as I’d feared, but had his hands out in front of him with the palms together, in a yoga position.
    â€œYou’re Rachel Wood,” he said, hopping down off the counter, revealing a tall, athletic form. “The new boss here at Hideaway.”
    I’d never been called a boss before—I was barely my own boss—so the greeting threw me for a loop.
    â€œAnd you are?” Kellan asked him.
    â€œOh!” He shot us an amused grin. “Sorry.