Trace (TraceWorld Book 1) by Letitia L. Moffitt Read Free Book Online

the ready. Last I checked, the ‘trace’ entry in Wikipedia was only two paragraphs long.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what it means.”
    She studied him carefully and then looked away again, drained. She hadn’t even gotten around to asking him about the pigeon, but now she didn’t want to ask. She pushed her chair back and stood up, not sure what to do next. Just leaving right then would look rude or, since Grayson didn’t seem like the type who offended easily, maybe just awkward. It wasn’t like she particularly wanted to get away from him at that moment; it was just that he had given her too much to deal with all at once. “One more thing,” he said. “I didn’t kill Culver, in case you were wondering.”
    Of course she had been wondering.
    She stood there for what seemed like a very long time before he finally got up as well and gestured toward the door. Without quite knowing what she was doing, she found herself walking out with him and continuing down the block, two people taking a stroll on a lovely autumn afternoon, which sounded so pleasant and so utterly disconnected from the confusion in her head.
    She remembered something she hadn’t thought of in years: a day in high school, ninth grade to be exact, when Mrs. Boswell assigned Nola’s social studies class to write a report about some type of paranormal or supernatural phenomenon that interested them and then to present their reports to the class. For one whole week, students would get to bring vampires, UFOs, psychics, and Bigfoot to class. Nola chose ghosts. She had always assumed that what she’d sensed that day so many years ago had been her grandfather’s ghost, though she hadn’t given much thought to whether anyone else had the same experience with death. Obviously, people didn’t like to talk about death, so there was no reason for her to ask, especially since the moment hadn’t exactly shaken her to the core.
    Because of this, she didn’t realize what a risk she was taking when she started her presentation with a description of her own ghost encounter. A few of her classmates wore smirks. One boy in the back row actually snorted. Others looked conflicted, like they believed in ghosts themselves but didn’t want to be exposed as gullible. The smirks and snorts faded near the end of her presentation when she discussed her research. Mrs. Boswell had asked them to find an article that provided a logical or scientific explanation for the phenomenon, so Nola quoted from one of her father’s Science Digest magazines about “the measurable release of energy from the human body at the moment of expiration.”
    “Wow. That is amazing,” Mrs. Boswell said. “Do you think that’s what happened with your grandfather, Nola? Do you think somehow you sensed that energy?”
    Funny that she hadn’t thought of it that way even after reading the article, but then she supposed that was why Mrs. Boswell was a teacher. Because of her, Nola saw the connection.
    Because Mrs. Boswell was always coming up with fun assignments like this one, she was also a very popular teacher. Of course, she had been teaching for over thirty years and could afford to be a lot more flexible with her assignments than those with less seniority, but it was still a fact that this tiny silver-haired woman knew how to work a room of sullen teenagers. Seeing her genuine interest in Nola’s report, the other students became interested, too. Nola felt the threat of mockery ease as the attention of the class shifted to one student after another who claimed to have encountered ghosts as well. Listening to them, however, she realized that her experience was different. Tiffany Greenberg had seen something glowy in a dark alley, Hailey Kim had heard scary noises in the attic, and Donald Rodriguez had gotten a mysterious phone call from someone who sounded exactly like his dead uncle. None of that was at all like what she’d experienced, but none of them could understand that.
    The