Read Online Tiny Glitches: A Magical Contemporary Romance by Rebecca Chastain - Free Book Online
Authors: Rebecca Chastain
Ads: Link
myself back into my seat, glowered at everything, including the van of teenage boys who had slowed down to stare at me.
“Did I flash them, too?” I asked, not meeting Hudson’s eyes.
“Only when you had your ass in the air. Since then, it’s been just me.”
“Like what you saw?” It was difficult to convey sarcasm while shouting over freeway noise.
“I was hoping for a thong.”
* * *
The Suburban was grinding and sputtering when Hudson made the final turn onto my aunt’s street. I pointed to her house, and we coasted into the private circular driveway.
The Suburban died with quiet dignity. It had lasted exactly twenty-seven minutes.
Not bad, considering my horror and acute embarrassment.
Hudson set the emergency brake. His scowl was back, along with the silver top hat and terrier, both situated on enormous Monopoly squares—Park Place and Boardwalk this time.
“What are the odds of two vehicles breaking down on us? I think this elephant is cursed. That’s why Jenny foisted it off on you.”
I let his grumblings wash over me. I had more pressing concerns. Aunt Sofie stood in her front doorway, staring at me through the windshield of the SUV, that smile on her face when she spotted Hudson in the driver’s seat. Among the collection of content and happy-to-see-me apparitions, oversize finger puppets tipped the nails of her right hand—knit wolves, with leopard spots. She was about to meddle.
Sofie had the strongest gift our family had seen in five generations. It had been Sofie, not my mother, who had taught me about my unique ability, first to keep it a secret as a toddler and later how to live with it. As Sofie had explained it, layers of divinations flowed around everyone in a kaleidoscope of images. My gift gave me access to one wavelength of apparitions: a person’s current emotional state. It was like seeing only one color in the spectrum. Sofie was privy to a modified rainbow. She had a weaker version of my gift, and she also saw critical emotional crossroads in someone’s past and images of people and places strongly tied to each person. Occasionally, she caught glimpses of what a person wanted—an area my mother specialized in. Sofie never glimpsed apparitions related to relationships, like Nana Nevie, or so she claimed. Sofie’s gift had limits, but one look at Hudson, and she probably knew more about him than I did.
I didn’t stand a chance of hiding anything from her. Sofie raised me. She knew my apparitions better than I knew hers. There wasn’t an emotion I felt that she didn’t know by sight. While this had been a blessing when I was a child, we’d set ground rules when I became a teenager. The number-one rule was if I wasn’t expressing the emotion verbally or through normal body language, she was to pretend she couldn’t tell what I was feeling and vice versa. This complicated our interactions sometimes, but it also allowed me to feel like a normal teenager—and now a normal adult—with a private life, thoughts, and emotions.
When I hopped out of the Suburban, Sofie’s eyes roved over me before meeting mine, and the finger puppets disappeared, replaced by a large wolf at her side, standing tall enough for her dangling fingers to rest in its insubstantial fur. She’d gone into protector mode. Add in some fear—a corset of ebony vines riddled with thorns piercing her flesh—and curiosity in the form of a beehive of sea shells, and I almost missed the castanet when she glanced at Hudson. Despite the apparitions she saw on me, a slice of meddling lurked in her.
A golden bundle shot through the door behind her and down the shallow steps. Salvador Dali, Sofie’s Lab, bounced around me, sniffing and licking and making soft woofing noises of delight to see me. I rubbed his head and came away with slimed fingers. Hudson walked around the hood of the dead vehicle, and Dali darted to him with toenails scrabbling on the stone driveway in his enthusiasm. If Hudson’s silver
“Did I flash them, too?” I asked, not meeting Hudson’s eyes.
“Only when you had your ass in the air. Since then, it’s been just me.”
“Like what you saw?” It was difficult to convey sarcasm while shouting over freeway noise.
“I was hoping for a thong.”
* * *
The Suburban was grinding and sputtering when Hudson made the final turn onto my aunt’s street. I pointed to her house, and we coasted into the private circular driveway.
The Suburban died with quiet dignity. It had lasted exactly twenty-seven minutes.
Not bad, considering my horror and acute embarrassment.
Hudson set the emergency brake. His scowl was back, along with the silver top hat and terrier, both situated on enormous Monopoly squares—Park Place and Boardwalk this time.
“What are the odds of two vehicles breaking down on us? I think this elephant is cursed. That’s why Jenny foisted it off on you.”
I let his grumblings wash over me. I had more pressing concerns. Aunt Sofie stood in her front doorway, staring at me through the windshield of the SUV, that smile on her face when she spotted Hudson in the driver’s seat. Among the collection of content and happy-to-see-me apparitions, oversize finger puppets tipped the nails of her right hand—knit wolves, with leopard spots. She was about to meddle.
Sofie had the strongest gift our family had seen in five generations. It had been Sofie, not my mother, who had taught me about my unique ability, first to keep it a secret as a toddler and later how to live with it. As Sofie had explained it, layers of divinations flowed around everyone in a kaleidoscope of images. My gift gave me access to one wavelength of apparitions: a person’s current emotional state. It was like seeing only one color in the spectrum. Sofie was privy to a modified rainbow. She had a weaker version of my gift, and she also saw critical emotional crossroads in someone’s past and images of people and places strongly tied to each person. Occasionally, she caught glimpses of what a person wanted—an area my mother specialized in. Sofie never glimpsed apparitions related to relationships, like Nana Nevie, or so she claimed. Sofie’s gift had limits, but one look at Hudson, and she probably knew more about him than I did.
I didn’t stand a chance of hiding anything from her. Sofie raised me. She knew my apparitions better than I knew hers. There wasn’t an emotion I felt that she didn’t know by sight. While this had been a blessing when I was a child, we’d set ground rules when I became a teenager. The number-one rule was if I wasn’t expressing the emotion verbally or through normal body language, she was to pretend she couldn’t tell what I was feeling and vice versa. This complicated our interactions sometimes, but it also allowed me to feel like a normal teenager—and now a normal adult—with a private life, thoughts, and emotions.
When I hopped out of the Suburban, Sofie’s eyes roved over me before meeting mine, and the finger puppets disappeared, replaced by a large wolf at her side, standing tall enough for her dangling fingers to rest in its insubstantial fur. She’d gone into protector mode. Add in some fear—a corset of ebony vines riddled with thorns piercing her flesh—and curiosity in the form of a beehive of sea shells, and I almost missed the castanet when she glanced at Hudson. Despite the apparitions she saw on me, a slice of meddling lurked in her.
A golden bundle shot through the door behind her and down the shallow steps. Salvador Dali, Sofie’s Lab, bounced around me, sniffing and licking and making soft woofing noises of delight to see me. I rubbed his head and came away with slimed fingers. Hudson walked around the hood of the dead vehicle, and Dali darted to him with toenails scrabbling on the stone driveway in his enthusiasm. If Hudson’s silver
Similar Books
