A Perfect Storm Read Online Free

swirl of dry leaves. So the matter was forgotten for the moment. But I didn’t have a good feeling about the evening.

Chapter 4
    The artichoke pasta turned out pretty well. Both my dad and Lady Azura had second helpings. My great-grandmother is a tiny woman. I often wonder where she puts it all.
    After the dishes were done, my father sat down at the table to open up his pile of mail, while Lady Azura retired to her bedroom to change out of her flowing dress into something a little more comfortable. Lily and I bustled around, collecting stuff to construct giant ice-cream sundaes for ourselves.
    â€œOh, I forgot about this,” said my dad, staring at a thick, cream-colored card he’d just pulled out of a thick, cream-colored envelope. “I’ve been invited to a wedding in two weeks. It’s a buddy of mine from college named Costi. He’s getting remarried. Sara, do you want to come as my date? It should actually be prettyfun. The bride, Lena, is an actress on some TV show, and Costi told me there are a few movie stars on the guest list.”
    â€œAwesome!” said Lily.
    I smiled. “Sure, Dad. Sounds fun. Do you know what TV show the bride is on?”
    My dad scratched his head, like he was trying to remember, and then shrugged. “I don’t remember. But it was one I’ve never heard of.” Not that surprising, actually. My dad didn’t watch a lot of TV.
    Recently I’d been a little worried about my dad. He hadn’t gone out on a date in weeks, or at least as far as I knew. He was still a handsome guy, for someone over forty at least, and I was concerned that he wasn’t having enough fun. He worked a lot, and when he wasn’t working, he was always at home, fixing up the house for Lady Azura or reading one of his mystery novels. I loved to read too, but I didn’t think he should be spending all his evenings that way.
    My dad headed upstairs early, saying he had a report to work on for Monday morning. Lily and I were just scraping the bottoms of our sundae bowls when Lady Azura emerged, wearing her “comfortable”clothes. For her that meant a lime-green cashmere pullover, harem pants, and high-heeled mule slippers. I marveled at the woman’s ability to navigate around furniture in those heels. I’d frequently heard her complain that her old bones were achy, and in fact, I had not seen her climb the stairs to the second floor in all the time I’d lived with her. Yet she walked around the house in fancy shoes with high heels. As with everything else about my great-grandmother, the woman was a bundle of contradictions.
    â€œAre we ready?” she asked us.
    Lily and I exchanged looks. Lily’s look was excited. Mine was unenthusiastic. Lily had to be perplexed by my attitude in general recently. My reluctance to do the séance. My distracted state at Scoops yesterday. My weird relationship with Mason. She had to be wondering why I couldn’t just lighten up.
    The thing was, I’d told her I didn’t like -like Mason, but that wasn’t exactly true. When I had told her that, I had been unsure of how I felt about him, so it wasn’t as if I had lied exactly. It was just hard for me to explain why I felt like I had such a connection with him, since I couldn’t tell her about his powers. Because of ourconnection, our shared secret, we talked and texted a lot. There was no way I could tell her that I’d gotten to know him really well and that now I was definitely, officially crushing on him. What I didn’t know was whether he was crushing on me too. I wished I could ask Lily for advice. She’d helped me out a lot with my first-ever crush, Jayden Mendes.
    We followed Lady Azura down the creaky hardwood floor of the hallway, through the purple velvet curtains, and into the séance room.
    I stopped in the red foyer, hesitant. Lady Azura was clearly almost as excited about this as Lily. She’d been in