Mystic Hearts Read Online Free Page A

at her shoes. The toe of a sneaker
touched a crack in the sidewalk. “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back,”
she sang, scooting her foot backwards parallel to the other, and lowered her
arms.
    The
concrete beneath her vibrated, and she jumped, straddling the sidewalk. The
cement popped…snapped…cracked.
    She
stared down in disbelief. Lines formed, stretched in every direction, like
roots spreading at rapid speed, until reaching the end of the walkway.
    Larry’s
voice boomed.
    “Larry,”
she said, her voice not much above a whisper and shaky.
    He
didn’t reply.
    She
stepped to the right side of the walk and moved closer to call him again. At
the corner of the house, the concrete ended and a brick path began. Lines
crisscrossed, making the feat of not stepping on one impossible, worse than the
sidewalk.
    “Hmm.”
She stayed on the grass and followed the bricks toward the schoolhouse.
    The
hair on the back of her neck rose. Her skin prickled. The wind picked up,
blowing her hair across her face. She stopped, smoothed down her hair and
turned, facing the side of the house. The moon and outside light cast a glow on
the far end, highlighting two windows.
    Not
long ago at The Memory Café, during BOFs weekly get-togethers, she overheard a
few of the members discussing an old wives’ tale. At the time, she dismissed it
as a joke children devised to terrorize one another. Now, standing outside the
old house, she wondered if some verity backed the story.
    A hand without a
body would appear in a second floor window.
    Maybe,
if she called out…
    “Madison
Hand! Come out! Come out, from wherever you are.” She giggled. Somewhere in her
subconscious, she knew not to mess with the spirits. Again, she had no control.
    “What
was in that wine?”
    The
air stilled. She braced her feet a shoulder width apart and stared.
    The
windows grew wider and longer. She smacked and pinched each cheek, trying to
snap out of the haunted haze the alcohol had produced.
    She
should have stayed home, gone ‘trick or treating’ with Henry and her mother.
    Well
beyond his years, her son had understood her reasons for coming to the manor
tonight. Guilt had seeped in when she dropped him off at her mother’s house
until he excitedly said, “I get to stay up past bedtime.” At that moment, she
knew she had to go. Henry needed his mother whole again.
    Clear
as day, a hand emerged in the corner window, ripping her thoughts from her
mind.
    She
froze everything except her eyes. They stayed glued to the phantom object.
Fingers wiggled behind the glass pane before jumping to the next window in a
game of peek-a-boo.
    An
owl hooted. The hand vanished. She darted her gaze between the two windows, waiting.
“I’ve gone mad. I’ve turned into Alice in Alice
in Wonderland. Where’s the rabbit?” She twisted, scanned the ground for a
white furry creature, and caught sight of the one-room schoolhouse. A light
twinkled inside.
    Is Larry there?
Did he leave?
    Mindful
of not losing her balance, she moved at a snail’s pace toward a concrete slab
in front of the building, side-stepping a tree and its wayward branches. A
rosebush with petite, deep red blooms grazed her arm.
    The
merry-go-round ride started again.
    She
wobbled. Her legs felt like wet noodles. Colors and lights pirouetted. “Oh,
jeez.”
    A
cat screeched.
    The
ride she didn’t ask to be on intensified. She stumbled and fell to the ground.
    Flat
on her back, she stared at the sky. A witch rode a broomstick in front of the
moon.
    This can’t be
happening.
    A
light weight with numerous paws scurried over her stomach. She turned her head.
Every inch she moved, the act freeze-framed in time. A disjointed cat ran
toward two enormous monsters. She closed her lids on the tears welling.
“Someone help me.”
    “Are
you okay?” A masculine, sexy voice asked.
    No.
She wasn’t. She was tripping, a sensation she’d never experienced. “Make it
stop.” Squinting, she looked toward the