Dream Dancer (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 2) (15 page)

     That’s when time travel popped into my head again.  But I began to look at it differently.  It wasn’t a concrete thing; it was an abstract one.  People couldn’t hop into a machine, go back to watch the pyramids being built, and then pop right back to the present.  If that were possible, I might be the first one in line.  No, time travel was what was happening to me right now—right here in this very moment.  Seeing that feather gave me the courage to do something that I hadn’t done yet—save Zach.  When the right moment came, I would know exactly what to do because the feather was telling me that I would.  It was all so weird and twisty in a serendipitous, synchronized sort of way. 

     I hopped out of bed with newfound purpose.  Positivity was my new weapon of choice.  Just like I braved that pool, I was diving headfirst into this new leg of my adventure.  No one ever loved anyone with the ferocity that I loved Zach—of that I was sure.  He saved my life several times over.  It was my turn to repay that favor, regardless of what I had to sacrifice in the meantime.

     My first sacrifice was quite a doozy too—passing up a proper breakfast.  And that wasn’t an easy choice for me considering the smells wafting up from the kitchen as I made my way down the split staircase with everything I brought with me in my hands.  I didn’t even bother to shower—that could wait until I got home.  I needed to get back to Liberty so I could start preparing for the trip to Louisiana even if it meant double fisting bacon and English muffins all the way down the interstate.  Which I was fully prepared to do, by the way.

     Shelly, of course, objected.  “You have more than enough time to sit and have breakfast with me, young lady!  Your dad left early so we can talk freely over a cup of coffee—or tea since you seem to prefer that lately.  Pull up a chair.”

     “No can do, Shelly.  I need to get home so I can get ready for our trip.  And we need to figure out how we’re doing this, too.  Where are we meeting?  In Liberty?  Or in Charlotte’s Grove?  I guess it might all depend on my work schedule.”

     “I’m picking Rachel up here—she and I already worked out that part of the equation.  You’ll have to meet us at the airport in Pittsburgh.  It’s about time you conquer your fear of city driving.”

     Shut.  The.  Front.  Door.  Oh,
hell
no.  I had enough driving anxiety as it was just taking the interstate between here and Ohio and she
knew
that.  Parallel parking on a quiet street was even a call for the max dosage of Xanax.  She wanted me to meet her in Pittsburgh?  Did she lose her mind overnight?  I couldn’t dignify such insanity with a real response.

     “Umm, okay,” I replied even though it was definitely
not
okay.  I would make sure to get off work early enough to meet her at Rosewood even if I had to drive all night to get here.  Or I would hit up Derek for another ride.  ‘It’s about time you conquer your fear of city driving.’  That statement was sheer lunacy!  “Just throw some bacon in a cup or something—I need to hit the road.”

     “If you insist.  But be careful driving home—I know how distracted you get when bacon is involved.  I want you in one piece for our New Orleans trip.  The three of us are going to have such a fun time together!”

     “This isn’t actually going to be the girls-only getaway that we told Dad it was going to be, remember?  Fun isn’t on the agenda.  For real.  We’re going to be meeting a voodoo queen and trying to figure out what I need to do next to save Zach.  Watching parades and accepting beads from strangers isn’t an option.  Think of this as more of a business trip, Shelly.”

     “All work and no play make a very dull Ruby,” she said as she handed me two plastic cups—one full of bacon and the other stuffed with breakfast potatoes.  “Never say never.”

     “What-never,” I replied with a devilish smile, popping the first piece of crisp bacon into my mouth.  “I’ll talk to you later.”  I hesitated for a second then said the word that was dangling precariously from my lips.  “Mom.”

     That was such a magical word to her.  I didn’t fully understand why, though.  Maybe I was born without a maternal instinct.  I thought of myself as someone who had more of a cat-ternal instinct.  I knew more what to do with creatures that meowed than I did with those that cried and wetted themselves.  Regardless, I endured a hug and a tear or two while she fawned over me and my suddenly dangerous trip home.

     Once back on the interstate with no deathtrap log trucks in sight, I called out for Clay.  I shunned his offer to accompany me to Arizona but I felt that my trip to New Orleans was different.  I wanted him there.  Minus the spectral mile high club thing of course.

     “Sure, I’ll come with you.  I was born in Charlotte’s Grove and I died in Charlotte’s Grove.  Liberty is as far away from Spring Avenue that I’ve ever ventured.  Mom was always too interested in being drunk to think about travelling.  And Dad…well…I didn’t know he was my dad until after I died.  Just give me a holler when it’s time to leave.  I don’t need much time to pack.  That’s one of the many perks to being dead.”

     Perks to being dead.  That was a weird concept to try to wrap my brain around.  I probably knew more about death than most people on this planet yet, honestly, I knew very little in the grand scheme of things.  Was I going to look at death the same way as Clay once I was dead myself?  And would I ever be able to tone down on the philosophical tangents in my head and be a “normal” person?

     Several replays of “Bohemian Rhapsody” later, I found myself back at Liberty Towers alone.  I sent Clay away so that I could have a bit of “me” time while I got started on my preliminary round of packing for New Orleans.  And I thought heavily about Zach.  If he only knew how hard I was fighting to save him, would it make him try any harder to save himself?  Or were we past the point of that being possible?  Ugh.  Once again, I needed to turn my brain off for a little while.

     I snagged my keys from the kitchen table then drove to Poe’s Corner to talk to Addie.  I needed to give her the exact dates of my trip and to see if she could sweet talk Derek into giving me another ride to the airport.  There probably wasn’t going to be another conveniently timed gaming convention to entice him with this time but I was willing to sweeten the pot any way I could.  He wouldn’t be able to resist a new dragon costume, right?  One with a much better tail this time. 

     The coffee shop was dead when I arrived—the only signs of life were resident ghost Miss Mabel and Addie herself who was quite surprised to see me.

     “You’re back already?  I thought you weren’t comin’ back ‘til Wednesday at the earliest.  Pull up a chair and have a cup of tea with me—pretty sure the customers won’t mind.”

     She waved her arm dramatically around the empty shop for ironic emphasis.  I did what she told me to do and sat down at the table closest to the counter. 

     “No fancy teas this time, please.  I’m not in the mood for anything weirder than a nice cup of blueberry green tea.  I want to enjoy what I’m drinking instead of longing to rinse my mouth out after every sip.”

     “Blueberry it is, then,” she replied as she dipped out some leaves and plopped them into a cup.  “What day is your flight?  As you can see, I won’t really be missin’ ya while you’re gone—workwise anyway.”

     “Plane leaves on the fourth—can’t remember the details of my return flight off the top of my head.  Yeah, why is it so quiet in here today?  It’s noon—most of these tables should be filled right now.”

     “Midterms week—it’s always plumb silent in here at this point in the year.  Everyone buckles down hard knowing that spring break follows right behind.  But by the time you get back, everythin’ should be back to normal.”

     “Including my personal life, too, I hope.  Your Granny better be all she’s cracked up to be.  I don’t know how much longer Zach can hold on.  Or me either, to be perfectly honest.  But I have a good feeling about this trip thanks to what I found in my teacup last night.”

     Hurriedly, I downed the sweet liquid so that I could see what symbols were waiting for me this time.  After performing the usual ritual, I passed my cup and saucer over to her eagerly.

     “Ain’t that somethin’!” Addie exclaimed as she laid eyes on the same gigantic feather heart I first saw last night.  “That’s a good sign, Ruby.  A really good sign.  Have some faith—things are gonna turn out fine.”

     I nodded my head in agreement.  Even though I was sometimes afraid to believe it, I knew deep in my heart that things
were
going to be fine in the end—better than fine.  If filling up my passport was what it took, I was willing to go anywhere I had to. 

     Addie handed me my schedule from now until my next adventure and I was thrilled to see that it was lighter than my typical workweek.  I had plenty of time to get everything in order and make arrangements for a ride to the airport.  As I was about to leave, Addie handed me one last thing.

     “Here, this is Granny’s special business card.  She’ll know who you are when you show her this.”

     On one side, the card was a lovely shade of lavender with the phrase “the miracle of the oracle” printed in flowery script.  The flipside bore an odd symbol for a voodoo queen, in my opinion.

     “A pixie?  Your grandmother likes pixies?” I said in a definite tone of confusion.  “Shouldn’t this have skulls or goat hooves on it instead?”

     “Quit yer stereotypin’, missy!  And besides, that’s a fairy not a pixie—there’s a big difference.  Granny loves fairies.  And Jesus.  Voodoo ain’t what you think it is, Ruby.  It ain’t all sheep’s blood and rooster beaks like you see in the movies!”

     “I sure hope not!” I said, sliding the fairy card into my wallet for safekeeping.  “So Queen Elva will know who I am when she sees this card—how will
I
know who to show it to?”

     “Aw, that won’t be any problem, girl.  Look for the lady with hair like cotton candy dipped in sweet Georgia honey—you can’t miss her.”

     Umm, okay?  I couldn’t begin to imagine what
that
was going to look like though I could kind of sort of taste it.  But my mind was restless and I didn’t have the patience to probe for a less southern description of her grandmother.  I mumbled something random about needing to go do something somewhere else then quickly made my exit, stage left. 

     Not ready to go home yet, I drove around for a little while with my radio blasting until that, too, led to unrest.  Shopping.  I hadn’t gone shopping in a long time.  I was going to get lost in that mall for hours—or so I thought.  Fifteen minutes in the bookstore searching for something interesting that I hadn’t read yet left me disappointed and empty handed.  I harshly judged every book by its cover before walking down a few stores to my favorite clothing store.

     Not being able to find a book I wanted to read was unusual for me.  But not as unusual as what happened next.  There wasn’t a single stitch of clothing hanging on those racks that I would consider putting on my body.  I found something wrong with everything there—too long, too short, unflattering colors, etc.  Depressed, I wandered back into the shoes confident that I would find the perfect pair to cheer me up.  And I did.  Sort of.

     There they sat—the perfect pair of sandals, all sparkly and begging to be worn.  It was still winter here in Ohio but I was soon going to be in warm New Orleans.  Those shoes screamed Mardi Gras—the straps were flower printed satin and embellished with beads and small trinkets.  I
had
to have them.

     I picked out the only pair in my size and sat down to try them on.  A brief glimpse of myself in the mirror reflected back the only real smile I’d flashed all day.  The rest were all forced and faked to hide the unrest I was feeling.  But with sandals like those on my feet, I was starting to feel less crappy.  They fit like they were custom made for me by happy little cobbling elves.  All was right with the world.

     Until I turned over the price tag.  They were a full twenty dollars more than what I’d paid for the best pair of boots I owned.  Sadly, I stripped them from my unhappy feet and placed them back on the shelf.  I was trying to be more responsible with money in case I needed to take any more excursions on Zach’s behalf.  Responsibility sucked.  But I walked away knowing once again that my love for Zach
had
to be real.  No girl would pick just any man over
those
sandals.

     I returned to my car still feeling like I needed to keep moving but I had nowhere else to go.  While I sat there trying to think of where to go next, something caught my eye.  A cardboard box caught in the wind was scooting back and forth on the street, barely dodging oncoming traffic as it went.  Either I was super bored or it actually was fascinating to watch.  Regardless of which it was, I pulled my car closer so that I could observe its travails.

     As the wind blew it one way and then back the other, I realized why I found it so interesting.  Metaphorically speaking, that box was me.  I was being yanked from one extreme to the other—being still then violently being forced to go forth.  Just like that scrap of cardboard, I was dangling at the end of Destiny’s yoyo string.  That box was a kindred spirit.  And that must have been why I felt a sense of personal failure when it finally got squashed by an old lady in a blue Cadillac.

     The whole scene played out in such a surreal way.  I felt like I was behind the camera on the set of a snuff film.  I’d always had a tendency to feel bad for inanimate objects that other people discarded without emotion.  Lee was the only person I ever told that to and boy did he take advantage of that knowledge.  I used to have a whole collection of random useless items that he would give me knowing that I wouldn’t throw them away.  A few days after his funeral, I tossed every last one of them because I couldn’t bear to keep them anymore.