STAIN (My Soul To Wake Book 1) Read Online Free

seventeen dollars. I gladly hand over a twenty dollar bill from my pocket and accept my change from the rough-palmed, long, painted-nailed woman and thank her for her help.
    “No problem, hon. You have a safe trip and don’t go gettin’ all spell crazy up there. We see a lot of weirdoes headin’ that way.”
    I smile.
    Right….
    If Peg Bundy tells me to watch out for the weirdoes then I’m going to watch out for the weirdoes.
     
    ~*~
     
    I carefully pick out the blue M&M’s from my palm, using my pointer finger to navigate through the small pile of colored candy. Once I have the four pieces of chocolate covered peanuts separated from their companions, I toss them into my mouth.
    “According to this,” Nina studies the small booklet in hand, “there’s a candlelight midnight ghost tour. We have to do that!”
    I crunch on my mouthful of sugared confection.
    “No,” I reply to her suggestion, moving quickly to finish my food. “You guys promised. No cheesy, corny, touristy stuff.”
    “Oh come on, Leah. We have plenty of time to do all the stuff you wanted to do. Let’s do some of the fun stuff, too,” she pleads.
    This whole trip was her idea. She and Courtney had concocted the getaway themselves and then approached me. I’m not one for heavily-commercialized tourist attractions, but it was a case of the right delivery at the right time.
    I was beyond stressed-out at work, having had to change over some staff and arrange for new equipment to be delivered and installed. Mom and dad rely on me to handle the daily operations of our family’s coffee shop, The Coffee Bean. I don’t usually get to take much time off and the girls swooped in just in time to prey on my moment of weakness.
    The trip was sold as a historical getaway. We were going to visit one of the oldest candy shops in the country, the restored marina, and the Peabody-Essex Museum, where they have an actual ancestral Chinese house on display. Not to mention the craft beers and Boston Hot Dog Company. What goes better with craft beer than authentic Boston wieners?
    Nowhere in the sales pitch were we supposed to go on spooky ghost tours.
    “You two have fun. I’ll check out some of the old historical houses while you’re both trying to find Casper.”
    I now work on separating the brown M&M’s.
    Call it neurotic, but I can’t mix the colors. Never could. The candies are starting to warm and border on melting in my heated hand. I’m running out of time. Less talking, more eating.
    Courtney glances over at the passenger seat, and Nina’s book. Well, actually, I guess it’s my book, but I don’t think Peg Bundy would mind my sharing.
    “See if there are any listings for psychics in there. Jen Mahoney told me there were some great psychics in town. She had a reading last summer when her boyfriend took her on a romantic trip,” she tells her co-pilot.
    I nearly choke on my brown M&M’s.
    “Oh really? Well, did the psychic tell her that her boyfriend was a cheating douchebag? Because I could have saved her the fifty bucks and told her that myself. That creep practically tried to molest me at his Labor Day barbecue. Still took her months to wise up and kick him to the curb, though.”
    Court glances in her rearview mirror, eyeing me as I munch on my junk food breakfast. “I’m serious, Leah. They were bonafide gypsy’s. Three generations of psychics.”
    Next up, orange. I exhale my disappointment at the lone orange candy within my palm. Oh well, I pop it in my mouth anyway.
    “They can’t tell me anything I don’t already know. I’m destined to be a slave to all things caffeine related and be the queen of first dates. I don’t need to pay someone fifty bucks to tell me that.”
    Court moves her eyes back to the road before us.
    “Leah, you practically begged your parents to let you run that coffee shop after graduation. And, as for the first dates, you have no one to blame for that but yourself. I know for a fact that almost every