Dream Dancer (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 2)

Dream Dancer

Ghosts Beyond the Grove Part Two

by Joy Elbel

Dream Dancer, Ghosts Beyond the Grove Part Two

© 2015 by Joy Elbel

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Dedicated to the dreamers…the ones who never lose hope…the ones who follow every sign until they reach the inevitable end…

.

Acknowledgements

Tigerlily from www.selfpubbookcovers.com for the spectacular cover design that depicts the Dream Dancer exactly the way I pictured her in my mind!

Raven Moon’s Oracle—for supplying Ruby’s in depth tarot card reading.  She truly does have the gift of guidance when it comes to readings like this.  Check out her gypsy shop online at
www.ravenmoonsoracle.com
.

Karel Bailey—coworker and friend who allowed me to turn her into a male detective simply because I can!

The real “voodoo queen” who wishes to remain anonymous—your “positive curse” was so accurate it scares me.  I’m just glad you didn’t set your sights on the alligator and snakes in the basement!

Bob Brooks—for helping me see change the ending of my story.  I like this one much better than the original!

Table of Contents

Foreword

1.  Swimming Against the Current—Ruby

2.  Smoke Screen—Zach

3.  Sea of Doubt—Ruby

4.  Flaming Mad—Zach

5.  Go with the Flow—Ruby

6.  Backfire—Zach

7.  Riding out the Storm—Ruby

8.  Liar, Liar Pants on Fire—Zach

9.  Water under the Bridge—Ruby

10.  Spark of Hope—Zach

11.  Doing the Backstroke—Ruby

12.  Burning for You—Zach

13.  Wishing for a Whitewash—Ruby

14.  Blazing a New Path—Zach

15.  Treading Water—Ruby

16.  Slow Burn—Zach

17.  Rain Must Fall—Ruby

18.  Game, Set, Match—Zach

19.  The Art of Drowning—Ruby

20.  Boiling Point—Zach

21.  Sync and Swim—Ruby

22.  Ignition Switch—Zach

23.  Turning Tides—Ruby

24.  A Fire Inside—Zach

25.  I’ll Stand Bayou—Ruby

26.  Dying Ember—Zach

27.  Diving Headfirst—Ruby

28.  Wax Cat in Hell—Zach

29.  Will it All Come out in the Wash?—Ruby

30.  Up in Flames—Zach

31.  Tombstoned—Ruby

32.  Bridges Burned—Zach

33.  Waves of Panic—Ruby

34.  Torch Song—Zach

35.  Taking the Plunge—Ruby

36.  Poker Face—Zach

37.  Swamped—Ruby

38.  Burn Out—Zach

39.  Waters of Unrest—Ruby

40.  Eclipsed—Micah

41.  Letting it Soak In—Ruby  

42.  Burning Questions—Zach

43.  Pooling My Resources—Ruby

44.  Lighter than a Feather—Zach

45.  Watershed—Ruby

46.  Peace and Perigee—Ruby

Epilogue

Foreword

    
Just like Sleep Stalker, Dream Dancer is told from alternating viewpoints.  This time around, odd numbered chapters are the voice of Ruby; even numbered chapters are narrated by Zach.  In this part of their story, they hit their darkest times yet.  But as long as at least one of them can keep their eyes open, the light at the end of the tunnel will surely be found.

1.  Swimming Against the Current

     I stumbled back down Bell Rock feeling like I was no longer inside my own body.  My brain was screaming “Run!” but I was shaking so hard that I could barely even walk.  The brambles I so cautiously avoided on the way up now slashed at my shins with a vengeance.  How could I possibly maneuver my way through them when I couldn’t even maneuver around the thoughts inside my own head?

     With every jerky step forward, my mind took another step back—back to the frantically garbled message from Rachel.  “Zach.  Suicide.”  It couldn’t be true!  The Zach I knew would never harm himself no matter what.  He had reverence for life unlike anyone I’d ever encountered before.  Even in his darkest moments over the last few months, he never once seemed depressed enough to do something this heinous to himself.  Or had his strange behavior been one long, agonizing cry for help but I was too preoccupied to notice?   Maybe I’d been paying too much attention to the wrong kind of signs all along.

     That’s when the anger hit.  Pure rage, actually.  And I started screaming toward the heavens like a maniac.  I didn’t care who saw me.  I didn’t care what they would be thinking about me.  All I cared about was Zach and how I wished I’d never seen a single feather because they had blinded me to what was actually going on around me.

     “WHY, MOM?! WHY?” I shouted furiously and with deep hatred.  I
trusted
her to lead me in the right direction.  I would have trusted her with my life but I
never
should have trusted her with Zach’s.  When he needed me the most, where was I?  Arizona, that’s where—following her stupid trail instead of staying home and taking care of him like I should have.  “I HATE YOU FOR THIS!!”

     That’s when something else hit me.  As in my face meeting the dusty ground in a literal head over heels tumble down the last small bit of incline.  I wasn’t exactly sure how it happened.  One minute I was still upright and ambling toward level ground; the next, I was pitching head forward and praying that I would snap my neck in the fall.  If I died, Zach and I would still be together and we would both be okay.  We could spend eternity the same way Sophie and Clay were.  It worked well for them—it would work for me and Zach too.

     But my luck being what it was, of course I survived.  In fact, I was barely even scathed.  Still, I lay there for a moment before trying to move.  And whispered one last angry statement to my mother. 

     “Where are you and your stupid feathers now?  Huh?  Where are they?”

     I should have known better—really I should have.  I should have known that she hadn’t led me down the wrong path.  But sometimes when I got angry, I said things I didn’t mean.  This was definitely one of those times.  One of these days, I would figure out how to hold my tongue until my brain and heart were ready to speak.  But today wasn’t that day.

     After spitting out the small bit of dirt that found its way into my mouth during the fall, I raised my head.  And immediately began to cry.  Until that moment, I hadn’t shed a tear.  I was in too much shock for that.  But now that I saw what was in front of me, fat tears began to drop from my eyes and into the parched desert earth beneath me.  She hadn’t steered me wrong and she hadn’t left me literally in the dust.  At that moment, I knew in my heart that Zach was still with me.  Still alive and still with me.  I may be going forth but this was
his
time to be still.  And that thought made me cry even harder.

     Directly in front of my face, sat not just a feather but a whole bird-ful of them.  It was a small and unassuming little creature who seemed more interested in me than frightened by me.  I watched in sheer amazement as it plucked a small feather from under its right wing and placed it carefully onto the ground.  I sat up slowly to get a good look at it.  And yet again, I was brought to tears.

     This carefully selected feather was now actually inside a footprint in the dirt.  My very own footprint.  How did I know that it was mine?  Because the shoes I was wearing bore a unique pattern on the sole—a heart.  I cried even harder just then.  I had to know what kind of bird she sent to help guide me this time.  Quietly, I dug my phone out of my pocket and photographed the tiny little messenger who stood before me.  He chirped a cheery little song to me then flew off over the desert.

     Trembling but with renewed spirit, I picked myself up and did my best to brush the dirt away.  Then I continued moving forward.  It was really the only thing I
could
do.  I had no idea what I would be facing once I got back home to Zach, but standing there crying at the foot of Bell Rock was a waste of precious time and getting me nowhere.  Arizona wasn’t where I needed to be anymore—Charlotte’s Grove
was
.

     Once I felt calm enough to communicate, I dialed home to find out what was going on.  When Shelly picked up on the first ring and shouted, “Where are you and why haven’t you responded to the fifty plus messages we’ve all left for you?”—I knew I had some serious explaining to do.  Flying off to Arizona alone was going to sound psychotically irrational to everyone else.  This is where a good lie would have been an appropriate way to hide my crazy.  But I was tired of hiding it so I spat out the truth instead.

     “Shelly, don’t freak out but I’m in Sedona, Arizona right now.  It’s a long story—I’ll explain everything when I get home.  What happened to Zach?”

     Just like your average mother, she did the exact opposite of what I asked her not to do.  She freaked out.  Hardcore.  I let her chew me out for about a minute before I cut in and reminded her of the very important question I needed answered.

     “Shelly, please!  Not now.  You can yell at me all you want to when I get back to Charlotte’s Grove!  But I
need
to know what happened to Zach!”  I added one final, pitiful “please” to the end of my sentence and it was enough to do the trick.  Sympathy had to come first—lectures later.  Much, much later.

     “Zach swallowed almost an entire bottle of sleeping pills.  He was lucky your father was heading over there to check on him—got to him just in time.  They pumped his stomach and once he was stable, they admitted him to the psychiatric ward.  Did you two have some sort of fight?  Is that why he did this?  Is that why you’re in Arizona?  Were you trying to get away from him?”

     “It’s a very long story and those questions can’t really be answered with a simple yes or no.  Like I said, I’ll explain everything later; I just needed to know that Zach was still alive.  I’ll catch the first available flight to Pittsburgh.  Can you pick me up at the airport?”

     “Only if you promise to tell me what’s going on with you and Zach on the ride home.  And I want the
whole
story—not the ‘mom approved’ version.”

     “Yes,” I agreed, knowing that it was time to allow Shelly deeper access to my ever widening loop of weirdness.  It was going to be hard admitting to her that I’d been tracking down my real mother for the last few months but I felt she deserved to know. 

     “As soon as you know your flight itinerary, let me know.  In the meantime, be careful for heaven’s sake! Never leave your bags unattended—someone could slip weapons or something into them.  And watch what you eat and drink too.  You could get drugged and sold into sex slavery.”

     “Okay.  But I can still take candy from strangers, right?” I replied sarcastically.  If I ever had kids, I resolved right then and there to not be absurdly overprotective.  I wasn’t really sure how one got dragged into the international sex trade, but I was pretty sure it didn’t start with an airport Big Mac. 

     By the time I finished my conversation with Shelly, I was already back to where we’d parked.  I found Roxanne’s car with no problem but she herself was a different story.  She was nowhere in sight and I didn’t have the first clue of where to look for her.  Frustrated, I slumped down beside the convertible and gave her a call.

     With each unanswered ring, I grew more impatient.  I needed to keep moving forward.  I was
trying
to keep moving forward.  But the universe kept holding me back from the one thing it was telling me to do.  It was the most vexing paradox imaginable.  It was like trying to swim against an impossible current.  When Roxanne finally picked up, I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind like the weird, random dumbass that I was.

     “I need to keep moving forward!” 

     “Ruby?  Did something go wrong on your hike?  Because you really don’t look like you’re moving anywhere right now.”

     Hurriedly, I got to my feet and looked around, knowing that she was somewhere close enough that she could see me.  When ten seconds of scanning the horizon got me nowhere, I actually stamped my foot on the ground like a toddler in a full blown tantrum.

     “Where
are
you?  I need to get home ASAP!” I barked a little too loudly into the phone.  I wasn’t
trying
to be rude—really I wasn’t.  It’s just that no one seemed to understand the urgency of my situation.  I didn’t have the time or patience for lectures or impromptu games of hide and seek.  I needed to keep moving.