Dream Dancer (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 2) (17 page)

     Carefully, she lifted it and held it in her hand.  She spent more time analyzing it than she had the first.  Her face was like stone—no discernible emotion to give me the slightest hint at what she was thinking or feeling.  I tamed my fierce anticipation so as not to disturb her.  Madam Ruisseau was forming a battle plan for me.  I had to give her enough time to do it correctly.  When she was finished, she placed this card in front of me too. 

     “The Hanged Man,” it said beneath a picture of, you guessed it, a hanged man.  He was dangling upside down, hanging precariously by one foot yet looked oddly peaceful considering his situation. 

     “This card is about sacrifice.  Something very precious will have to be lost in order for you to achieve the balance you seek.  You need to let go graciously and move forward.  There will be periods of profound sadness for you but they will lead you to a wonderful place of enlightenment.  What’s happening to you can’t be stopped—it can only be endured until it comes to its natural ending.”

     Sacrifice.  What was I going to have to give up in order to save Zach?  There were only two possible things I could think of—one I would gladly give up, the other I was deathly afraid of losing.  Money, the first possibility, was something I had already willingly given up in my attempts to help him.  I was prepared to drain my account down to the very last penny to bring him back to me.  But the thing I was worried about losing was my own sanity.

     What if there wasn’t a way to turn back the hands of time?  What if I would never be able to release the spirit or break the curse?  Was I going to spend the rest of my life following a trail of feathers until
I
went insane too?  I wanted to spend eternity with Zach—really I did.  But if that meant being strapped to a bed next to his in the looney bin, would it be worth it to either of us in the end?

     Madame Ruisseau must have sensed my hesitation to pick the final card from the deck spread out before me.  “It’s kind of chilly in here, don’t you think?  If you don’t mind pausing for a moment, I’ll go get us both a cup of coffee.”

     She was right about there being a chill in the air but there was also one swirling around inside my heart like that five dollar bill in the wind.  Staring down at the cards that held my fate, I considered which one I should pick.  None of them were calling to me like the other two had.  This was the most important one of them all.  The last one I chose was going to tell me the final outcome of my situation.

     I was ready to hear the answer yet I wasn’t.  I was ready to make my choice yet I was afraid to see what it said about my future.  Another paradox.  I was tired of being still yet scared to go forward.  At that exact moment of my sheer indecisiveness, the tinkle of the tiny bell attached to the front door rang out.  A swift bit of wind blew into the alcove where I sat and brought with it the answer to my dilemma.

     One of the feathered decorations adorning the wall released a tiny white piece of fluff into the breeze.  I watched it float slowly down toward the table, knowing precisely what it was about to do.  It was about to land on one of the cards.  It was about to show me which path I was supposed to take.  I held my breath—afraid even the slightest bit of movement would stray it from its intended course. 

     It swayed precariously in the air, floating back and forth between two particular cards.  One of those two was the right one for me.  Even once it landed, it rolled from the edge of one card to the next and back again several times.  Anxiously, I waited for it to settle then instantly snatched that card and placed it face down beside the other two.  Madame Ruisseau reappeared seconds later and handed me a cup of coffee.  It was stronger than what I was used to.  But I needed something strong right about now.  I
was
about to learn Zach’s and my fate after all.

     Madam Ruisseau lifted the card carefully with the tips of her well-manicured nails, peeking as though she were every bit as nervous to see it as I was.  She took a long look at it then left it lying face down on the table.

     “I cannot finish this reading,” she blurted out harshly.  “Take your money back.”  She reached her hand into the small jar labeled “gypsy tips” and handed me back the same bill I’d chased down to give her.

     “But—” I protested but she refused to sway her opinion.

     “No.  I looked at the card and I am confused about what it is telling me.  I simply will not guess.  I’m sorry but you need to leave now.”

     Flabbergasted, I slowly made my way to my feet.  What did she see in that card that she wasn’t willing to tell me?  I couldn’t walk away without at least seeing it for myself.  I had no personal knowledge of what those cards meant but that’s what Google was for.  Defiantly, I flipped over both the card I chose and the card I almost chose.  The second card was nothing more than a vague image to me that I would have to remember and research when I got home.  The first card, however, made me sick to my stomach.  I shoved that money into my pocket and ran out of that shop vowing never to set eyes on that place or on Madame Ruisseau ever again.

30.  Up in Flames

     Pain.  Agony.  Not just physical but emotional as well.  I wanted to die so bad.  Why wouldn’t they just let me go in peace?  I remembered bits and pieces of what happened—the nurse rushing into my room and shoving the bed frame over on top of me to release the pressure on my neck.  It worked but it still ached like someone had it in a vice grip and wouldn’t let it go.  On top of that, a wicked migraine was brewing inside my head but my throat hurt too much to ask for medication. 

     I heard Dr. Landon ask the nurse what happened just before my suicide attempt.  When she put her hand inside her pocket and pulled out that stone, the pain began to dissipate immediately.  With my throat slightly less painful than it had been only seconds earlier, I called out passionately.

     “Please give that back to me!  It’s the only thing keeping me alive!”

     Dr. Landon inspected the stone which was still a dark murky shade of gray like the last time I saw it.  “Why do you feel so attached to this stone?  Where did it come from?”

     I answered him honestly.  “I don’t know where it came from or why I need it so bad but I do.  Can I please have it back?”

     “Here you go, Zach,” he said, placing that precious rock into my waiting hand.  “But once you’re feeling better, I want to talk to you about that stone.  Do you need me to give you anything for the pain?  Those are some nasty bruises on your neck.”

     “No,” I replied confidently now that the stone was back in my possession, “I feel much better already.”

     And once he was gone, I felt even better; for once again, the stone came to life before my very eyes.  There in the center of that swirling gray smoke lay the dark blue flame burning even brighter than it had before.  I was going to be okay.  Somehow, someway that flame was sucking the torture out of my body little by little.  As soon as I started feeling optimistic, I should have known right then that
she
would try to take that stone away from me again.

31.  Tombstoned

     The second I got home, I flipped open my laptop and Googled tarot card meanings.  I had a pretty good idea what that Death card meant but the choice I almost made but didn’t make was The Chariot which I knew nothing about.  As soon as the results came up, I clicked on the first link and scrolled down through the page until I found its meaning.

     The Chariot was all about victory over hard fought battles.  It referred to success against any enemy.  It was about the perfect balance between the positive and negative energies in life.  In short, if I had chosen this card, it would have meant perfect control over the situation at hand based on sheer will and stamina.  But the feather didn’t direct me to this card.  It directed me in the opposite direction.

     Curious to see the official meaning of the Death card, I scrolled further down until Death was staring me in the face.  I read through the information on it and became confused.  It wasn’t as ominous as I assumed it would be.  It was about rebirth, renewal, and dare I even say the words—moving forward.  The card itself was telling me that the outcome was going to be a positive one.  So what made Madame Ruisseau freak out and hand me my money back without finishing my reading?

     So I went back and Googled
her
this time instead.  She was probably some two-bit carnival hack who didn’t have a single psychic bone in her body.  If her powers were legit, she would be able to charge more for her readings, right?  But why would she give me my money back then?  I was so confused.  When I got to her webpage, I was even more baffled.  There before me were
thousands
of positive reviews from people all across the country saying that her readings were spot on.  Apparently, most of her readings were done via Skype and people paid ten times what I did for a full twelve card in depth reading.  There were even photos of her with the Ohio state police thanking her for helping them solve a seemingly unsolvable case. 

     Still mystified by her reaction, I clicked on the FAQ section of her website to see if it could shed any light on what happened.  I endured an entire page of dumb questions until I got to the gold mine at the bottom.  Her disclaimer said it all.

     “I reserve the right to stop a reading at any point if there is information in the cards that I feel it is in your best interest not to know.  At that point, your money will be refunded and I will never provide insight for you again.  There will be no exceptions to this rule.”

     So my first impression of the Death card was correct.  Someone was going to die.  Of course, the logical answer to that question would be Zach.  He was the one under a vicious spiritual attack—not me.  But….  Countless times, he put his life in danger to save me when I was the one being attacked.  Easily, he could have died from that gunshot wound last year.  As a matter of fact, he kind of did but found his way back from the other side.  The key card here wasn’t actually the Death card—it was The Hanged Man.

     The Hanged Man spoke of sacrifice and surrender, of moving on to a different level of spiritual awareness.  Coupled with the Death card, I was beginning to see what Madame Ruisseau saw but was unwilling to tell me.  In order to save Zach, a sacrifice would have to be made.  A life would have to be traded in order for him to survive.  That life…was my own.

     I swallowed hard and thought about my mother and the letter she forwarded to Josette before she died.  That letter proved that Mom knew not only knew when she was going to die but how as well—sort of.  The first time I read it, I asked myself why she made the decisions she did.  But now I knew why.  When love called for sacrifice, you didn’t ask questions.  You bravely went into battle and never looked back.  It was time for me to grab my sword and shield and strap on the armor.  Shit was about to get real.

     When Derek called to confirm his availability to chauffeur me the morning of my flight, I was happy yet sad.  It felt like I was hearing the first nail being pounded into my coffin.  The hero wasn’t supposed to die.  I never wanted to be Juliet nor Zach Romeo.  Those two were nut cases who went and killed themselves after only a few dates.  No, I always pictured us to be more like Morticia and Gomez from The Addams Family.  Weird, totally off kilter, yet madly and eternally in love—doing the tango together in our own paranormal little world.  That was how this love story was supposed to end—not with the hero dying in the end.  But suddenly, it felt like it was time for me to go off script.

     Again, I was faced with a terrible paradox.  Fact and fiction were two vastly different concepts.  Sometimes they became intertwined and sometimes they branched off into opposite directions.  I knew I could never live with myself if I chose not to make the ultimate sacrifice for his benefit.  But how was he going to live knowing what I was apparently going to have to do for him in the end?

     I finished the rest of my packing then sat silently at my laptop.  There was no way that I was ever going to finish this book before I left for New Orleans and I was now afraid that I would be in a pine box for the return flight home.  So instead of writing, I took out my notebook and I began to plot out the rest of the story.  When I was finished, I sealed it in an envelope and wrote Shelly’s name on the outside.  I was lucky enough to have someone in my life who could tell mine and Zach’s story long after I was gone.  I wasn’t going to let that opportunity go to waste.  With one less burden on my weary mind, I decided to take a melatonin tablet and knock myself out for the night.

     I woke up the next day full of both dread and excitement.  It was the day before my flight and I was looking forward to the rush of take off one more time.  Yet the knowledge that Queen Elva was probably going to hand me the grim details of what I needed to do to save Zach loomed heavily over my heart.  If only I could have seen him one last time to tell him how much I loved him but I knew that was impossible.  The memory of him slamming my hand in that car door was the last one I would take with me to my grave.

     Work was insufferable.  Everyone annoyed me, even Addy.  She pelted me with last minute details of when and where to find her grandmother but I paid zero attention to her.  Eventually, she gave up trying to talk but passed me a few sticky notes full of information instead.  If she only knew why I was so preoccupied, she would have understood.  But knowing that I was going to die soon was a secret I wasn’t willing to part with.

     After work, I called home to talk to Dad one last time.  He still didn’t know the real reason for our vacation so even that conversation depressed me.  While he went on and on about how happy he was that Shelly and I had bonded like we had, I started to cry.  When it got to the point where I couldn’t hold back the floodgates any longer, I gave him a curt goodbye and ended the call.  It was too late for me to draw up any sort of real will and testament but I scrawled out a few instructions that I wanted to be carried out when the time came and placed them on my desk.

     Death didn’t scare me as much as it did the average person as far as I could assume.  I knew there was something beyond this life for certain.  Before I crawled into bed, I made myself a promise that I hoped I would be able to keep.  I vowed to move on and not stay behind as a ghost.  As much as I loved Zach, I needed to go to the light when it was my time without any regret.  I would simply wait for him on the other side the way it was supposed to be.

     But upon wakening, I was slapped with the reality that nothing about this trip was going to go the way it was supposed to go. 

32.  Bridges Burned

     Time seemed to stop once I had that stone in my hand.  Day after day I marveled at its endless beauty and its ability to calm the storm within my head.  I knew the thunder and lightning inside my brain would return at a moment’s notice if it was taken away from me again.  I had to protect it at all costs.

     With each meeting with Dr. Landon, I felt his desire to take the stone away from me grow.  I began to worry and obsess about what would happen when he did.  It could happen at any moment.  I could wake up in the middle of the night and find it was missing.  I began sleeping with it clenched tightly in my fist hoping that I would at least wake up when they tried to snatch it from me.  Every morning, I awoke with deep indentations in my palm from where my fingernails held tightly to my only link to sanity.

     Nevertheless, the day I feared the most eventually came.  Dr. Landon became ever so much more adamant that I at least try to give up the stone for a little while.  I did my best to fake my way through the terrible anxiety of the moment and promised him that I would think about it before our next meeting.  But I walked away about ready to hyperventilate.  There was nothing I could do.  Once he took that stone, all hope was lost.  I had to find a way to hide it where it wouldn’t be found.

     That’s when
she
showed up again.  She was so beautiful yet so terribly cruel to me—how I could I still be so deeply in love with her?  It was completely illogical yet there it was—the longing mixed with hatred, the love entwined with never wanting to see her face again.  But when she offered to help me, I couldn’t refuse her.  She made the offer so sweet that I could taste the victory I’d fought for for so long. 

     “They are coming for it.  The stone.  You have to give it to me now or you’ll never see it again.  I’ll put it somewhere where they will never find it.”

     She held out her palm, her long slender fingers so close to me that I could feel the heat emanating from them.  I wanted to trust her so bad yet still I hesitated.  Without that dancing blue flame, I would surely go mad.  But if I was going to lose it either way, what harm would there be in trusting her?  The decision danced through my head like a drunken demon begging me to release it out into the world.

     “If you give me that stone, I will give you what you crave,” she whispered softly into my ear.

     That was all I needed to push me over the edge.  Hurriedly, I shoved that chunk of rock into her hand and felt the touch of her skin.  I was a man lost in the desert who suddenly found himself plunged into an oasis.  She was soft and warm beyond all expectation.  I felt the sweet scent of her seeping into me until I could taste the vanilla-tinged cinnamon on my tongue.  This moment was worth the torturous wait I’d endured. 
Finally
, she was mine.  And that stone was useless to me.  It got me through the hard times but those were in my rearview mirror now.  Now.  Now that I had
her
.

     I leaned forward, lips at the ready.  If just a touch of her hand was this intoxicating, I couldn’t imagine what kissing her was going to feel like.  But she pulled back out of my reach before I made contact.  She stared at me with those eyes, those intoxicatingly mysterious eyes, as she tucked the stone down between her breasts and out of my sight.  Soon I realized, it wasn’t just out of my sight—it was forever out of my reach. 

     Her lip curled up slightly to the left as she backed even further away from me.  Her body began to dematerialize right before my disappointed eyes.  The last thing I saw of her was her eyes—her eyes taunting me in a way I never knew was possible.  She did it.  After all this time, she finally did it.  She defeated me.  And she knew she’d won the battle.  I needed either her or the stone to maintain my sanity.  Now both were gone. 

     I howled in psychological pain and dropped to the floor.  I kicked everything in sight; I clawed at my own skin trying to make the pain go away.  But nothing worked.  The pain grew to the point of absolute madness.  I smashed my head against the floor, begging God to make it all go away.  After what seemed an eternity, everything went black.