Giving Up the Ghost by Phoebe Rivers Read Free Book Online

ceiling. I was overcome by an awful wave of fear. Anxiety. It wasn’t normal. This cloud shouldn’t be here. I felt like I was suffocating, like I desperately needed to claw my way out of this stifling, heavy darkness.
    Instinctively, my hand flew to my collarbone. I clutched at the stones that were hanging from my necklace. My fingers searched for the crystal that Lady Azura had just given to me. I put my hand over it and held it tightly. It felt warm and solid in my hand. And it was definitely vibrating. I closed my eyes against the dark cloud. What had she told me to do?
    Her words made their way into my muddled mind. “Positive energy. Think positive thoughts.”
    I began to chant to myself. “I am protected. I am loved. I am strong enough to overcome this.” I thought about the people I loved. Who loved me.
    And then I thought about my mother. Conjured up my picture of her, the one of her sitting on the rock and laughing. Help me, Mom, I wished silently.
    I opened my eyes. The cloud was still there, but another cloud, a different cloud, had formed alongside it. The new cloud was silvery. Light. Swirling with sparkly stuff. Was it a reflection of the moonbeams? It reminded me of the way a sunbeam dances with dust motes on a lazy summer afternoon. It brought on a calming feeling. I felt my furrowed forehead slacken, as though the worries were streaming away from me.
    The light, silvery cloud moved into the dark cloud, as though the two forces were in opposition. As I watched, the dark cloud moved away from me. It swirled and churned like smoke, and then seemed to thicken and blacken, tumbling around and around. I watched as it swirled and roiled around the room and then seemed to get sucked out of the room, underneath the door.
    I wasn’t scared anymore. I was mad. I swung my legs out of bed and set out in pursuit. I felt this overwhelming urge to follow it, to keep it from harming my family.
    I opened my door. I could see it tumbling down the hall. The cloud stopped in front of my father’s closed bedroom door.
    Then, from behind me, the silver cloud zoomed out of my room and swirled past me. Was it chasing the dark cloud? It seemed to be. The dark cloud began to dissipate, like smoke from a smoke ring. It glided away and then drifted apart until it vanished.
    I had no idea what I had just seen. But the terrible thoughts I’d dreamed about were gone. I no longer felt worried. Or anxious.
    I got back into bed and fell asleep.
    A deep, dreamless sleep.
    The next morning I woke up feeling much better, even though I heard the rain before I opened my eyes.
    It was pouring outside. One of those gray, cold, drenching spring rains. But somehow my spirits weren’t dampened. I felt lighter and happier than I’d felt in days.
    I picked up the notebook next to my bed. This time I could more or less read what I’d scrawled in my dream journal: Woman with white hair. Crystal. Lady A. mad. Power.
    The dream was still vivid in my memory.
    Maybe it was because I had finally gotten a decent night’s sleep, but I realized that the dark feeling of anxiety I had been carrying around with me lately seemed to be gone. I felt like me again. I decided I would talk to Lily. Today. About my birthday. Maybe we could do something together tomorrow, just the two of us. I felt sure Lily hadn’t intentionally meant to hurt my feelings about my birthday.

Chapter 7
    Lily was late that morning. I wondered if she’d overslept because of the rain. I heard on the television once that people are more likely to oversleep on rainy days. That made sense to me. I always had a hard time getting up when it was raining.
    I stood by her front walkway, my raincoat hood pulled low down over my eyes and cinched tightly, stomping my feet and aiming my umbrella into the wind in an effort to keep the rain away. That didn’t work. It was one of those rains that seem to come from all directions, making the use of