Under Witch Aura (Moon Shadow Series) Read Online Free Page B

while I
retreated across the broken sidewalks of Santa Fe. No doubt she was
daydreaming over whether she could make more money by waiting to sell
the spell or by selling it now because it might come with a ghostly
visit.
    I rubbed at sudden
goosebumps. No one
deserved to run into Sarah's miserable ghost.
    I drove home, eagerly
anticipating the
next couple of hours with White Feather, even if it meant
investigating Sarah's musty old cabin.
    My mood took an instant
nosedive when I
pulled in my driveway. The scrawny brown cat from the night before
waited on the porch railing. Its tail twitched as it watched me watch
it from the car. There was no howl this time, and it was broad
daylight, but I surveyed the area very carefully before edging out of
the car.
    The cat was even smaller
without
nighttime shadows dancing across it. Hunched down, it was barely
bigger than a kitten.
    My heart beat faster. I
listened so
intently it was impossible to actually hear anything.
    We stood, facing off, for
at least
thirty seconds. When the blood stopped rushing around my head and
nothing suspicious appeared, I finally asked, “Well? What are
you here for?”
    It regarded me unblinking
and
soundless.
    My yard wasn’t overgrown,
but it
was outside the city limits with no close neighbors so it was in its
natural desert state. It could hide a careful live person and
certainly a determined ghost.
    I approached the house
sideways to
prevent anything from sneaking up behind me.
    The cat tired of the game
and sauntered
off the left side of the porch. A delicate pattern of ribs warred
with the stripes of brown and rust. “Do you want food?”
The cat, most certainly a small female now that her tail end was
clearly visible, did not deem me important enough to answer. She
seemed uninterested, but I knew better.
    Whoever had abandoned her
hadn’t
given her much of a chance. If the coyotes didn’t make a meal
of her, an owl or hawk would. If she managed to escape those fates,
the desert would claim her by refusing to provide enough water.
    Once inside, I filled a
bowl with water
and emptied a can of tuna in another. I left both bowls on the
porch. The cat had saved me, whether it meant to or not.
    White Feather drove up just
as I
finished my self-appointed task. Unless he wanted to wait, we'd have
to hunt for Sarah without a witching fork. Setting the willow to
Sarah's essence would be more complicated than usual because I needed
a way to extract bits of her remaining spell without using it up
entirely.
    Ah well. How hard could it
be to find
a dead body if one really looked?

Chapter 4
    White Feather brought
lunch. It was
almost a date since we ate the takeout burritos in the car on the
way up the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Neither of us said
much because our mouths were full.
    I was not a slow eater
during the best
of times, and since I wasn't driving, my fingers were licked clean
before we reached Hyde Park, not even halfway to the Upper Tesuque
Trail. I rolled the window down and inhaled pine-scented fall air.
    Mountains had so much
magic, how could
anyone, mundane or witch, not feel the sheer weight of their power?
As we climbed Artist Road toward Hyde Park, Mother Earth drummed a
steady beat all around us. The wind carried her scent, brushing magic
along my skin. The auras were so intermingled, it was impossible to
separate one bit of magic from the other.
    “I should have brought my
herb
basket as long as we were coming up here.”
    White Feather's green eyes
lingered on
me for a few seconds. The winding curves of the road couldn't be
ignored for longer than that. “Let’s hope it stays
peaceful.”
    It was an opening, at least
of sorts.
“Something in the wind still bothering you?”
    He flexed his shoulders and
then his
fingers. “Doesn’t get worse, doesn’t get better.”
    We reached the turnoff.
White Feather
parked in the small space afforded for hikers. “The cabin isn’t
that far.”
    It was probably no more
than a