Blackthorn: In the Tween Read online

  ~~~

  That night, she had a hard time getting to sleep. The events at the warehouse kept replaying in her mind.

  Lin wondered if she should tell Deputy Dennison.

  No, he’d probably think she was crazy. A dark figure in a cloak and ghostly girl who saved her? Who would believe it?

  She rolled over onto her belly. After a while, her mind settled and she started to drift off to sleep. But then, a cool draft blew across her body.

  She opened her eyes, rolled over and sat up.

  Frightened, her throat locked in a scream. What came out was a high pitched shriek. There, in the corner of the room, was a tall stranger in a long dark robe. The figure had pale white hands, and judging by their size, Lin knew it was a man.

  He stood there and said nothing.

  Though her heart pounded, she showed no fear. She said, “Leave, now, or I’ll kill you.”

  The figure didn’t move.

  “Get out!” she shouted.

  The figure stood there a moment longer, and then disappeared.

  Lin looked around the room but couldn’t tell if the figure had truly left. People had been fooled before, about this sort of thing, in the magical community.

  She pulled back the covers and went to the trunk at the foot of her bed. Reaching into the bottom, she found the pink crystals her grandmother gave her, before she died, for protection.

  In each corner of her room, she set one crystal before climbing back into bed. If bad energies try to cross the circle of stones, they’d be repelled like opposing polarities of a magnet.

  Effects of Fear