Dream Dancer (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 2) (2 page)

     “I’m at one of the lookout points with a pair of binoculars.  I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

     Fifteen minutes?  How was I going to get through a quarter of an hour without going absolutely stir crazy?  The honest truth is, I wasn’t.  I obsessively, compulsively kept checking the time on my phone.  I mean, like, at least three times per minute.  I paced back forth; I sighed a
lot
.  And all of that was in the first five minutes alone.  The next ten minutes were spent thinking about what my next move should be once I was back in Charlotte’s Grove.

     Visiting Zach immediately was of course number one on my list.  But after that, what was I going to do?  How was I going to remove whatever it was that was torturing him when I didn’t have the first clue as to what it was?  Rita said it wasn’t any kind of ghost she’d ever dealt with, but what if she was wrong?  A visit to Something Wick-ed was the second stop I needed to make before getting back to Rosewood.

     Make that
if
I ever got back to Rosewood.  It was seriously ninety full seconds past the fifteen minute mark and Roxanne still wasn’t back yet.  What could possibly be the hold up now?  I decided to give her until the two minute mark to materialize before I called to cuss her out again.  I had important things to do.  Why couldn’t anything happen exactly when I needed it to happen?

     Roxanne showed up two seconds “early” with a concerned look on her face.  “What has you in such an all fired hurry to leave Sedona?  When I last saw you, you were happy to go on that hike.  Now, you look like your best friend just died.”

     Her words cut straight through me.  My best friend wasn’t dead but he very well could have been.  Once again, my dad was the only reason Zach was still breathing.  But I was afraid to push my luck.  I needed to get the old Zach back so that Dad didn’t have to keep saving him.  Saving Zach was
my
job now.

     “I have to get home as fast as possible.  Zach’s in the hospital.”  I had to swallow hard before uttering my next few words because they were something I never thought I would hear myself say.  “He tried to kill himself.”

     “Oh dear God.  I’m so sorry for what I just said to you—I didn’t know.  Of course you need to leave.  I’ll drive you back to your hotel.  Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”

     “Thanks,” I said quietly. 

     There was nothing else left for me to say.  Talking about it hurt almost as much as thinking about it did.  I planned for a silent four hour drive back to Tucson until Roxanne sped past Stardust Crystals.  That’s when I realized that I needed to talk to Salma one more time while I still had the chance.

     “Wait!” I shouted, pointing to the bazaar.  “I need to stop and see Salma—I told her I would!  She’s going to give me protection crystals for Zach!”

     Roxanne eased on the brakes until she found the first spot where she could turn the car around.  Salma was standing outside the shop with a worried look on her face.  Somehow, she knew that things didn’t go well for me at Bell Rock.  In her hands was a small, red pouch.  I needed whatever was inside it and I needed it now.  We hadn’t even come to a full stop when I flung my door open and jumped out. 

     “Namaste, Ruby,” she said as she gave me a hug.

     I was never much of a hugger but I especially wasn’t now.  There wasn’t time to hug.  I needed the bag and the knowledge on how to use what was in it.  Patience was simply not an option.  There were flights to book, planes to catch, curses to remove—lives to save.

     “There’s been an emergency back home.  I never had the chance to take my journey but I need something to protect Zach now more than ever.  What do you have for me?”

     A mysterious smile wasn’t what I was expecting nor was it what I needed at the moment.  Irritation set in once again.

     “I really need to get home.  If I ever have the chance, I’ll come back and take that journey you suggested.”  With Salma still silent, I repeated myself.  “What do you have for me?”

     “I can’t give you what you truly need.  You’ll have to find that on your own.  But I do have two things for you.  The first,” she said as she pulled a small vial from the velvet bag, “is patchouli oil.  Use this to help counteract his craving for the scent of cinnamon.  It should help to calm him.”

     I nodded impatiently as she instructed me on how to use it properly then asked what the second thing was.  This time, she dug out two identical items.  I was confused.  She said she only had two things for me but technically she was giving me three.  Again, I didn’t have time for mystical mind games.

     “Give me your hand, Ruby.”

     I quickly did what she asked of me and held out my open palm.  She placed two pearlescent white stones into my hand then closed my fingers around them.

     “This is a rainbow moonstone that has been cleaved into two halves.  There is a powerful connection between you and Zach.  You are a double rainbow.  As much as you say he needs protection, that’s exactly how much you need it as well.  You’ve led many complicated lives together but this one will be your last.  Even when the moon is new, there are still stars to count—remember that.  Don’t be so sure that you didn’t take the journey you were meant to take.  Go forth in peace, love, and light my little indigo.  Namaste.”

     I was still trying to take in the meaning of her words when she disappeared back inside the tent.  Zach and I lived past lives together?  And was this being our last life together a good thing or a bad one?  It was another helping of crazy that I just didn’t want to deal with.  I’d already had my daily dose of weird when she popped her head back out and gave one last cryptic comment.

     “I almost forgot—the labradorite for your friend is in that bag as well.  And when you see Nestor again, remind him to stop bringing newspapers back with him.  Tell him Cleo said to knock it off before he gets himself into trouble.  Again.”

     Automatically my mind went back to the old man at the hotel in Pittsburgh and the time travelling periodicals he presented to me.  I hadn’t had the time or inclination to look at them and almost forgot that I even had them.  If what I thought she was suggesting was true, I was going to shred those papers the minute I got home.  I already felt like I was swimming upstream no matter which way I headed.  Nothing about my life was making sense anymore—at least not by the normal definition of normal.  I needed to establish a strict “no unnecessary weirdness” policy and enforce it.  Starting now.

     Yeah, that new policy lasted a mere twenty seconds.  I got into the car and was about to close the door behind me when something caught my eye.  There was a small slip of paper near the front tire of the car.  I had no words to describe why it intrigued me so much but it did and I was compelled to see what it was. 

     “Just a second,” I said to Roxanne as I got back out of the car to retrieve it.  It was probably nothing more than a discarded gum wrapper yet I had to know for sure.  But something told me not to inspect it until I was back in the car and heading toward Tucson.  It’s a good thing I listened to my instincts.  If I hadn’t, I very well may have passed out right on the spot.

2.  Smoke Screen

      I woke up to a whirl of confusion—bright lights, tubes in both my nose and throat, and an unbearable urge to throw up.  As I started to heave, unknown hands began pushing me over onto my side and a familiar voice encouraged me to expel whatever I could from my stomach.  Leaning over the side of the table I was laying on, I retched until there was nothing left inside of me.  I rolled back over and through watery eyes, found the face that belonged to that familiar voice.

     “What happened to me, Dr. Matthews?” I whispered.

     “I was really hoping that
you
could answer that question for me, Zach.  You ingested nearly an entire bottle of the sleeping pills I prescribed for you.  Why did you do it?”

     Perplexed, I searched my mind for that answer but drew a complete blank.  The last thing I could remember was pretending that I was sleep walking to get Mom to stop harassing me.  I was so tired.  Did I take those pills while I was asleep?  I couldn’t trust my brain anymore. 

     Everything in my mind was so hazy—like I was standing on one side of a wall of smoke and the rest of the world stood on the other.  The only time I felt normal was while I was asleep.  Sleep solved all of my problems for me.  Sleep was where I wanted to be right now.

     Ignoring his question, I instead asked him one of my own.  “Can someone please turn off the lights?  I really need to get some sleep.”

     “We’re going to be moving you to another room, Zach.  For some evaluations.  Someone from transport is on their way up to get you now.  I’ll ask them to dim the lights for you.  You won’t be allowed to have any visitors for a while but I’ll let Ruby and your family know that you’re okay.”

     “No!” I shouted.  A sudden burst of energy shot through me at the mere mention of her name.  I couldn’t remember why but I knew that she was the reason I was here.  I wanted nothing to do with her.  I wanted to erase her from my memories and me from hers.  “Don’t tell—” I paused for a moment unable to bring myself to speak her name.  “Don’t tell
her
anything!”

     Dr. Matthews gave me an odd look like he thought I was crazy or something.  I wasn’t crazy but she was trying to drive me there.  And I wasn’t going to let her do it.  Not anymore. 

     “Okay,” he replied yet I knew in my heart that he was going to tell her everything whether I gave my consent or not.  But I was going to figure out a way around that.  I just needed a little time to sleep on it.

     Once they removed the tubes, I suddenly realized how terribly sore my throat was.  And just how terrible my stomach felt.  That’s when my memory started to de-fog.  This was all her fault.  I wasn’t trying to kill myself. 
She
convinced me that sleep was the only way for us to be together so I did what I needed to do.  I didn’t want to fall asleep ever again—dreams were where she had complete control of me. 

     Where only moments before, sleep was all I craved; now, staying awake seemed like my only hope for survival.  I had to stay alert.  I had to find a way to convince them that I wasn’t trying to harm myself.  But how?  It was going to be next to impossible considering the fact that I’d pretty much dug my own grave.  I knew what they meant by “evaluations”.  They were sending me to the nut ward for observation. 

     As they wheeled me to my new location, I plotted and schemed of a way to prove my sanity to them.  Maybe a few days locked away in a padded cell would work to my advantage.  Ruby wouldn’t be allowed in to see me.  There was no way for her to taunt and tease me now.  Except for in my dreams.  The longer I stayed awake the better off I would be.  Yes, I could go a few days without sleep.  I
had
to.  My life depended on it.  My sanity depended on it.

     So as they placed me in my new room, they dimmed the lights the way I’d asked Dr. Matthews to do earlier.  But once I was alone, I turned every light to its maximum brightness setting.  Then I turned on the television as loud as it would go.  I wasn’t going to fall into her trap again tonight.  Or any other night for that matter.  It was time for me to take back control of my own mind.  But I was oh so tired....

     My eyelids flickered slowly shut repeatedly yet every time I would jerk myself back to consciousness.  Steadily, my reaction time became slower and slower so I sat up straight in my bed and reached for the remote control.  I needed something more mentally stimulating than CNN if I was going to stay awake. 

     Music.  Music would help me concentrate on what I needed to do.  I could stay alert for hours if I found a good music station to “drum” along to.  I skipped past all of the TV stations until I got to what I was looking for.  Classic rock.  Not my first choice in music but upbeat enough to keep my mind off of sleeping. 

     And my plan worked perfectly—for a while.  Queen, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd—they all fulfilled their part in keeping me awake.  I was familiar with their songs and able to provide silent percussion without missing a beat.       

     But after the waning notes of “Another One Bites the Dust” faded into the opening beats of the next song, something changed.  The music changed.  It wasn’t classic rock anymore.  But it
was
a tune I’d heard before.  I’d never heard it on the radio but I distinctly remembered it from my dreams.

     It was the music I played the night I imagined her dancing for me.  It wasn’t a real song—what was it doing on the classic rock station?  It was hypnotic; it was drawing me back down into the land of dreams.  I couldn’t allow that to happen.  Angrily, I flicked the remote to the next station.

     While it was listed as the jazz station, it clearly wasn’t.  As the same tribal beat echoed throughout the room, I caught the faint hint of cinnamon in the air.  She was doing it to me again—invading my mind.  Again, I pushed the button to make it go away.

     Station after station, only one tune floated back to me.  And the scent of her grew stronger each time I pushed the button on the remote.  Distraught, I turned the TV off altogether but that only made things worse.  The pounding drums and overpowering odor in the room were now accompanied by one other thing.