Read Awakening (Book One of The Geis) for Free Online Page B

sense.
    “You weren’t feeling your own emotions, McKayla. You were feeling the emotions of that woman in the house.” Before I could respond, Aunt Avril jumped out of the car, running back to the castle. She paused on the now-empty porch where Mrs. Saddlebury had watched us, then walked in the open door.
    I clutched at my door handle with a shaking hand, unsure of what to do. I wanted to make sure Aunt Avril was safe, but every nerve ending in my body screamed for me to get away. I was certain the car keys were in Aunt Avril’s purse. A heavy feeling settled in my stomach. I couldn’t leave Aunt Avril here.
    Seconds later, Aunt Avril appeared in the overly-tall doorway, her phone to her ear. Her free arm punctuated her conversation as she paced on the expansive porch. I forced myself to relax my clenched jaw muscles.
    “What are you doing?” My voice came out in a screech when Aunt Avril finally climbed back into the car.
    “I needed to check on something.” Aunt Avril put her hand on my arm, as if noticing for the first time that I was freaked out about her going back into the house of someone who hated her so much. She patted my arm, and then fished her keys out of her purse. “Mrs. Saddlebury is gone.”
    I took a shaky breath. Gone? I hadn’t seen anyone leave through the front door. “Where would she go?”
    “She told the police that she needed to take a walk to clear her head, but something tells me she won’t be back for a while. That’s enough investigating for today. Let’s go get some lunch.” She pointed the car down the canyon, glancing at me as she drove. “Are you still angry at me?’
    I searched my feelings. I was confused and upset, but not angry. I looked at Aunt Avril’s poufy hair that was even wilder from her run through the castle. The intense loathing was gone. I shook my head.
    Trees rushed past the window and I tried to wrap my mind around what she had told me. “I experienced those feelings because that’s what Mrs. Saddlebury felt?” Exhaustion overwhelmed me and I blinked back tears.
    Aunt Avril took her eyes off the road to look at me. She bit her lip and focused ahead. “Ever since you were a little girl, I wondered if you might have a gift. I used to watch you dance, and wondered at the emotion you could evoke.”
    “Hang on, I don’t have any psychic power or anything.”
    Aunt Avril’s laughter filled the car like the jangle of a wind chime. “Psychic power, or whatever you want to call it. It’s not like that though, really.”
    “No offense, Aunt Avril, but I don’t really believe in stuff like that.”
    She sighed. “I know. Your mother wants you to be normal. She wants it so badly that she blocks out what is right in front of her.”
    The emotions I’d felt in Mrs. Saddlebury’s presence had been overwhelming, and real. Was it possible that I could have some heightened sense of empathy, some ability to sense others’ feelings in the same way that Aunt Avril could see what happened at the scene of a crime? I thought of her coaxing impressions from the air.
    “What did you find when you were outside the house?”
    “Nothing pleasant.” Aunt Avril slowed the car as she pulled into Afton. I waited for her to continue. “Unfortunately, it will take a few days before the police have the results of the autopsy and learn the cause of death. But if I’m right, they won’t find anything out of the ordinary in the meantime. Until then, the police won’t suspect what I can see.”
    “What do you mean, what you can see? Do you know how her husband was killed?”
    Aunt Avril kept her eyes on the road, but her words sent a chill right through me. “Mrs. Saddlebury killed him.”

“She actually said you have psychic powers?” Christa yanked through my hair with a brush. “You are so lucky.”
    I rolled my eyes, and then realized that Christa couldn’t see my face. I swiveled on the kitchen stool. “I’m not psychic. I just had an anxiety attack, or