Crossroads Read Free Page A

turned the corner intent on heading straight for the lake when she stopped abruptly. It would take ages to walk to her house from here. Wishing she had her banged up old Camero, which she’d affectionately named Dolly, she scanned her surroundings. Her gaze finally landed on a shiny red bicycle which was propped against the side of a small shop.
    ‘That’ll do,’ she murmured as she grabbed the handles and swung her leg over the frame.
    Stuffing her coat into the embarrassingly girly basket at the front she set off towards the lake.
    She cycled down the block but as she turned the corner she skidded to a stop, her mouth hanging open in confusion. She turned back to look behind her to the street she’d just come from but the woods now stood at her back. Frowning she turned back to the sight in front of her. It was her house, it should have taken her at least an hour to cycle there yet it had taken her no more than a few moments and one turn of a corner.
    Climbing down off the bike she pushed it towards the front steps of her porch. So strange, she was beginning to feel a little like she’d fallen down a rabbit hole. Nothing seemed to make sense.
    She leaned the bike against the side of the house and trotted up the steps, already calling out to Theo as she opened the door and stepped into the familiar hallway.
    ‘Theo?’
    She headed for the dining room which had become his studio. The room was silent and still. No longer holding the devastation which had occurred when Theo’s dead wife had viciously materialized in her house, the room was once again neat and ordered. His art supplies were neatly stacked on the table with pots containing brushes and tools fastidiously lined up against the wall. Many completed canvases were stacked around the room and pencil sketches were tacked to the walls. There was not one single portrait of Mary anywhere; all of Theo’s pictures were once again as he had originally painted them.
    Wandering back out of the room she headed for the library, her favorite room. After her mother had attacked her and ransacked the room in her pursuit of Hester’s Grimoire Olivia had not bothered to put it back as it originally was, opting instead to neatly stack the books and paperwork around the room while she sorted through hundreds of years of accumulated family history and books on magic. But unlike the real word, here the room was once again as she remembered it from her childhood.
    Turning her back deliberately on the room she checked the kitchen and then headed up the stairs still calling out to Theo as she went but there was nothing. The house was empty.
    As she slowly moved back down the stairs her gaze snagged on Beau’s leash that had been dropped on the floor by the open front door. She knew Beau wouldn’t be there, she’d left him behind in the real world but the house still felt strange without him. She only hoped someone was looking after him for her while she was gone. Sinking down on the bottom tread of the stairs Olivia stared out of the front door absently.
    They would have realized by now that they were missing. Had they figured it out? she wondered or did they believe that both she and Theo were dead? She sighed as her brow folded into a frown, wishing she had some way to contact her friends.
    She stared out of the open front door, so lost in her thoughts it took her a moment to fully comprehend what her eyes were seeing. She stood abruptly and stepped closer to the open door. Directly opposite, across the grassy expanse of land in front of her house which led to the edge of the woods, a small wooden cottage had appeared. Nestled at the edge of the tree line a small curl of smoke rose from the chimney giving it a welcoming homely appeal.
    That hadn’t been there when she arrived she thought curiously, she would have noticed. She moved to step over the threshold of her house onto the porch but paused, suddenly turning back to look behind her into the house. She felt something brush