First Magic by Raven Steele (ebook reader screen txt) 📖

When the day finally ended I couldn’t wait to get home, but when I walked through the front door of our house, I almost turned back. Everything was a wreck—the same as it had been that morning. I marched back to Jake’s bedroom and cracked open the door. Jake was asleep, lying diagonal across the bed, wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday and maybe even the day before.

White static from the television projected ghostly images into the cluttered room. Jake’s clothes carpeted the floor, probably both clean and dirty ones. I closed the door hard and walked back to my bedroom.

Jake’s spirit had died the day we buried my dad. In a way, my dad, his older brother by ten years, had been like a father to him. From what I’d been told, their mother (and my grand-mother, whom I’d never met) had worked as a waitress in a Vegas casino. She worked hard but played hard, too. She played men as often as she played slot machines. My dad and Jake didn’t share the same father, but you’d never have known it, as close as they were.

My father and mother married when they were both twenty, and they had me shortly after. I was five when Jake moved in with us on his fourteenth birthday. To me, Jake had always been an older brother, not an uncle.

When my mother died shortly after, it was Jake who was there for me. He practically raised me while my father was off trying to avenge her death. So when my dad died, it only seemed right to choose Jake to be my guardian.

The only other option was my aunt Sophie, my mom’s sister. She had offered, but she also wanted me to move back east to attend Lucent Academy, where she served on the board. I wasn’t ready for that. Attending Lucent would’ve been like an announcement to the world, and maybe myself, that I was different. No, I chose to stay with Jake. Jake was safe, depressed, but still safe.

I closed my bedroom door and cranked the music. Because I hadn’t heard a thing in trig class, I opened my book and began to read over the lesson, which looked like it was written in hieroglyphics. I hated math, but I had to get a good grade. I’d been left with plenty of money, but I didn’t want to spend a dime of it on college. I figured if there were people out there who’d give me money for an education, then I was going to try and get it.

I rolled onto my stomach thinking a different position would help me retain more information. My gaze moved to the inexplicable hair rising on my arm. Weird. My heart began to pound. I tried to swallow, but it got stuck in my throat as if I was trying to jam an orange down my trachea.

Instinctively, I looked toward my window. I couldn’t see anything beyond the darkness, but all my Auran senses told me I was being watched. Stop it! I closed my eyes and shook my head. No one is out there. But to be sure, I stood and peered outside.

There was just enough light from the half-moon that I could see the previous owner’s metal swing set. One of the three swings swayed back and forth as if someone had just jumped from it. I gripped the windowsill, my pulse racing wildly out of control, as I scanned my backyard.

I focused on the line of trees where the grass ended. Darkness smothered the forest there so completely the world appeared to end. I tried to tear my gaze away from the never-ending black, but something drew my attention to it, forced me to look, wanted me to see. I could feel its desire building creating a pressure change in the air.

My skin cooled, and I stopped breathing.

Open your window.

I didn’t hear the words, but I felt them all around me. Soothing me. Whispering past my skin. Warming my flesh. The room began to spin slowly, rhythmically, and I licked my lips as I moved to obey the seductive command.

My window slid open with ease. A gentle wind blew past me, lifting my hair.

From within the darkness, a pair of eyes appeared glowing a sickly yellow. Cold fear replaced the warmth. The emotion was so sudden, Light appeared beneath my palms and sprayed out the window with such force I stumbled back.

In the next erratic beat of my heart, a bobcat leapt from the darkness and bounded across my lawn. I placed my hand to my stomach and gasped for breath. What the hell just happened?

My mind replayed the events of the last two minutes. A bobcat could’ve made the swing move. The glowing eyes had to have belonged to the animal too. But what about the strange feeling? The words I’d heard… but I hadn’t heard them. I’d more like thought them in some weird sort of trance.

I paced and shook out my hands. My hands! I stopped and stared at my open palms. I’d gotten so scared, they’d produced light. Shot it outward even.

Maybe this was another change that happened to Auras as they got older. I mean, I knew Auras could produce Light but at what age did that happen? Maybe the strange sensation I’d just experienced was part of that too.

When a cool breeze blew through the open window, I slammed it