Read Online Haven [1] A Stranger Magic by D.C. Akers - Free Book Online

adjust from the sudden flash of light. Was it the stranger from before? He couldn’t be sure.
    Suddenly, lightning flashed again and Sam saw him. The dark figure stood next to the street light in his long coat and holding his staff, looking up at Sam.
    Thunder roared and it was dark once more. Sam quickly rubbed his eyes, trying hard to focus as the lightning struck again, blinding him momentarily. He searched frantically through the spots of green and blue floating in front of him, but the stranger was gone, vanished into thin air.
    Then a small click echoed from behind him, and the light in his bedroom switched on. Sam whirled around to see his mother standing in his doorway.
    She had her long brown hair pulled in a tight pony tail that draped across her right shoulder. Her light blue eyes were trapped behind a pair of thin reading glasses. She was wearing a light pink robe and house-shoes.
    “Mom, turn off the light!” Sam whispered, worried that the stranger could see him now. Alisa Dalcome turned off the light and stood there in the doorway. Her silhouette stretched across the wooden floor.
    “Shut the door, something’s out there!” Sam whispered.
    “What? What on earth are you talking about?” Mrs. Dalcome asked as she closed the door to his room. The lightning flickered again. Mrs. Dalcome scuffled across the cluttered floor, trying to reach Sam.
    “Mom, I swear there’s someone out there!”
    “Don’t swear. You know I hate that! Now see there, you made me say hate! I don’t like that word either!” His mother could be a bit old-fashioned at times, Sam thought. Words such as swear, hate, and liar were off-limits in the Dalcome household. Mrs. Dalcome thought there were better ways, nicer ways, to get your point across.
    “Why are you whispering?” she asked.
    “Mom, shhhhhhh!” Sam said, trying desperately to see any sign of the man outside.
    “Sam, you need to clean this room. You can’t even walk in here!” she said, not bothering at all to whisper.
    Sam wasn’t listening to a word she said; the stranger was out there, he was sure of it. He may have vanished from sight but that didn’t mean he was gone.
    Mrs. Dalcome finally made it to the window; she grasped one corner of the window sill and placed her other hand on Sam, trying to keep her footing amidst the piles of clothes. She reluctantly leaned toward the window, scanning the front yard and the street below.
    “Oh, Sam, I don’t see a thing.”
    “I’m telling you. I saw something!”
    “Well, if you did, it’s gone now.”
    Sam was starting to get frustrated with her. “It wasn’t an it, it was a man!” he said in a bitter voice.
    “Don’t talk to me that way, Samuel!” she snapped back.
    Sam didn’t say anything for a moment. He continued to stare out the bedroom window. It wasn’t worth it, he thought to himself. The stranger was gone, again.
    The whole day had gone horribly wrong, as far as he was concerned, and now he had no patience left to tell his mother the entire story, even if he wanted to. He was mad, frustrated, and too tired to argue.
    “I’m sorry,” Sam said, defeated. He hadn’t meant to take it out on her; she was the only one in the room.
    Mrs. Dalcome looked down at Sam. His eyebrows furrowed as he stared solemnly at a star in the distance. There was clearly something bothering him. Something more than whatever he had, or hadn’t, seen outside. She reached over to his desk, pushing aside the magazines that covered the switch on the base of the lamp, and turned it on.
    The light was dim, but it seemed bright after the two of them had stood in the dark for so long. Mrs. Dalcome grabbed Sam’s hand and sat on his bed, pulling him down with her. Sam sat next to her, holding her hand and staring at the floor.
    “What is it Sam, what’s wrong with you?”
    Sam didn’t say anything at first. How could he make her understand that there was nothing she could do? He couldn’t say anything more about the