Read Online The Awakening by Heather Graham - Free Book Online

turned to him, studying him with grave eyes. “You’re my next reading?” she queried. She was a small woman, no more than five-foot one or two, with deep, dark, soulful eyes and long brown hair. Though small, she was shapely, like a compact dynamo, except that she didn’t seem to move a lot, just to exude some kind of air that spoke of a leashed energy.
    â€œSara, this is Finn Douglas, my cousin Megan’s husband,” Morwenna said, in way of introduction. “And, of course, this is Megan. You two haven’t met yet.”
    Sara turned to Megan first, smiling. “Hi. Morwenna talks about you all the time. Nice to meet you.”
    â€œA pleasure,” Megan murmured.
    â€œAnd Finn! Hm. Interesting. I must admit, I’ll find this an intriguing reading,” Sara said.
    Finn looked at Megan, trying to control a rueful grimace. “Well, what the heck? I’m all for a reading.”
    Megan didn’t reply with words. He could see the laughter and gratitude in her eyes.
    â€œWe’re this way,” Morwenna told Megan.
    Megan wiggled a brow to Finn and followed her cousin through a beaded separator to the back, where, behind the wafting beads, he could see worktables, chairs, and to each side, doors to small little square rooms within the large rectangle of the shop’s layout.
    â€œThat means we’re behind the door to the right,” Sara told Finn.
    He had a strange feeling of being manipulated and overwhelmed again, but without being completely churlish, he couldn’t back out now. And he was angry with himself; it was all ridiculous, and he wasn’t going to take any of it seriously. They were in Salem for a week. He could be decent to Megan’s relatives for that amount of time. He could listen to people extol the virtues of incense and gemstones. He could let a woman stare at his palm and pretend to see his past, future, and present.
    â€œShe’s the best,” Joseph said lightly, moving back toward the register to help Jamie, since the line of customers eager to pay for their wares was growing larger.
    Finn followed Sara. The door to the left was already shut. Sara preceded him through the right doorway. The tiny room was what he had expected. Dark. There was a table, and a chair on either side of it. There was a crystal ball on the table, Tarot cards to the right of it, and a lamp. Sara turned on the lamp. It emitted a small pool of blue light.
    â€œI’ll need your palm,” she told him.
    â€œOh. Sure.” He extended his palm.
    â€œIntriguing lifeline,” she said immediately. He felt a featherlight touch as she ran her forefinger down the length of what must have been his “life” line. He was surely supposed to ask if he could expect a nice long life, but stubbornly, he refused to rise to any such bait.
    â€œVery strange.”
    â€œReally? Does that mean long or short?”
    â€œDisrupted,” she said distractedly.
    â€œThat means I’m dying and coming back?” he queried skeptically.
    â€œNot necessarily. It just means . . . that the regular tenor of what we call life may be disrupted.”
    â€œSorry, I’m not really up on any of this. Now, I’m alive. One day, I’ll be dead. There is no in between.”
    For a moment, she glanced up at him. The strange blue lamplight seemed to put an unearthly glow in her eyes.
    â€œReally?” she said simply.
    She shook her head, bending to study his palm again. “There’s a strange jag . . . and then lesser lines. Looks like children . . . but the lines are faded, as if they might just be dreams. There’s . . . violence ahead for you. Danger.”
    â€œI’m in danger?”
    â€œMaybe . . . or maybe you’re the cause of the danger.”
    It was her words, the blue light, the darkness of the tiny space surrounding them, but he suddenly felt as if the temperature dropped by thirty degrees. He was icy cold. And the