Dream Dancer (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 2) (11 page)

17.  Rain Must Fall

     While most of my dreams were prophetic in nature, not all of them were and I was now able to tell them apart.  But even knowing that it was unimportant, dreaming of Zach as a zombie was still incredibly disturbing.  I didn’t want to think about him shuffling around in search of brains for sustenance.  So of course, it was the only thing on my mind all day.

     It was just my luck to have a dream like that on the day of the Zombie Walk.  Any other day of the year, I could have safely maneuvered through my day without contacting a single member of the walking dead.  But not today.  Poe’s Corner was packed to capacity with a legion of the undead.  Everywhere I looked, I was reminded of that unsettling dream I had. 

     By the end of my shift, I was totally brain dead.  And possibly hallucinating.  I walked out back to throw the garbage away when I saw something weird.  Not just weird—weirdly weird.  Weirder than usual which was an accomplishment in every sense of the word with all things considered.

     In the glow of the streetlight, I spotted what I thought was one of the people from the zombie walk rooting through the dumpster.  A sudden forceful sneeze on my end caught his attention and he looked up at me.  And I nearly peed myself.

     I would have sworn on my life that the zombie standing in front of me was real.  He looked exactly like Kody Kirk who had been dead since graduation night.  Rumors flew all over town this summer because someone claimed to have seen him going through the garbage at the Chicken Shack.  First time travel—now zombies?  No, I wanted no part of this.  I dropped the bag of trash right where I stood and walked briskly back inside and locked the door behind me.  With my “no unnecessary weirdness” policy in danger of being seriously violated, I repeated my new mantra in my head.

     “Not my circus, not my dead monkeys.”  Then I ventured home and collapsed into bed. 

     I worked the rest of the weekend and it was probably a good thing.  Staying busy was the only way for me to not sit and obsess about what I could or should be doing to help Zach.  I’d already called and texted everyone who I thought might be able to assist me.  The only thing left for me to do was wait.  And I hated waiting as much as I hated suspense, because in all reality, they were kind of the same thing.

     But first thing Monday morning, I sat anxiously waiting for a call, text, or email from anyone and everyone.  When I hadn’t heard anything by mid-morning, I called Shelly in a slight panic.

     “You have to be patient, Ruby.  It’s only been a few days—you need to give people sufficient time to respond.  You need to learn how to be still for a little while.  I’m starting to think you wouldn’t know how to live without constant drama in your life.”

     I took offense to that comment but held my tongue.  I wasn’t a drama queen.  Drama always had a way of finding
me
-not the other way around.  She had no idea how badly I wanted to have a normal life.  Yet the hand I’d been dealt exhibited the polar opposite.  But I was trying—I was trying to avoid unnecessary weirdness.  I was trying to find the closest thing to normal that I could find.

     In order to do that, I needed to keep moving forward.  Why would Mom send me all of those leads only to keep me in a state of suspense for days on end?  I gave up trying to explain myself to Shelly and went for a long walk instead.  My walk led me to a part of town that I hadn’t explored yet.  And straight to Fourth Street.

     Why hadn’t I thought of this before?  Maybe the answers were right here in Liberty after all.  I walked the length of it until I found what I assumed I was looking for.  The Mao Lai Palace.  It didn’t resemble a palace at all—it was a dingy little hole in the wall lodged between an accountant’s office and a dry cleaner.  But there was no mistaking it for what it was—a Chinese restaurant.  I wasn’t all that hungry for the main meal.  I was there mainly for the dessert—a fortune cookie.  It would tell me what I needed to do next.

     The atmosphere inside the Mao Lai was dark and dreary yet typical for the size and type of restaurant that it was.  It was still quite early for lunch so I was understandably the only one there.  I stared wistfully into the fish tank alongside my table while waiting for my pepper chicken to arrive.  Inside that tank, was a paradox.

     On one hand, those fish seemed to have it all.  No problems, no worries.  They just spent their days swimming around and enjoying life.  But on the flipside, they were stuck inside a cage and unable to roam free the way nature intended.  There were no predators but there were also no freedoms.  I was just like those fish in so many ways.  I was stuck in a rut where no new problems were arising but I wasn’t finding any solutions to the ones I already had. 

     I barely glanced at my plate while I ate—those fish had me enthralled.  Even after my food was gone, I sat dreamily watching them until my bill arrived.  While the total was correct, there was one thing missing—my fortune cookie.  Not usually one to speak up in situations like that, I immediately called the waitress back to my table so that I could voice my complaint.

     “Sorry,” she replied in a thick Mandarin accent, “All out.”

     All out?  That made zero sense.  It was like going to get my hair cut and being told they were fresh out of scissors.  Ugh.  Or was this another attempt at teaching me that I needed to be still and wait for the next sign?  Reluctantly, I paid my bill then stuffed the receipt angrily into the bottom of my bag.  That’s when I heard the familiar rustle of plastic and realized I was still going to get my fortune after all.

     I reached in and pulled out the fortune cookie that Zach refused to open the night we went to the Liberty Buffet months ago.  I’d told myself at the time that I would open it when the time was right—when I needed a bit of random guidance from the universe.  That moment was obviously now.

     Carefully, I split it open until the paper inside was visible.  I pulled the pieces apart slowly, curious yet afraid of what I might find inside.  I felt so pathetic for allowing a stupid cookie to cause me such great anxiety.  But I couldn’t help it—signs were coming at me from so many different angles that I had to take what I found inside it seriously.

     “Only move forward after you have taken time to face your greatest fear.”

     So my trepidation in reading that fortune was not unwarranted after all.  The way I interpreted it was that I could not go forth until I had conquered being still.  But the part about facing my greatest fear was frightening in and of itself.  I wasn’t in the mood to think about it so I slipped it into my wallet and walked back home. Then, I set myself up in front of my computer for what turned out to be a marathon writing session.

     When my eyes began to tire, I looked at the clock thinking it was probably no later than three o’clock and that I should be hearing back soon from Detective Bailey at least.  I was surprised to see that it was past eight instead.  Nothing.  I’d heard nothing from anyone at all today.  I became so depressed that my heart physically ached.

     And that was basically my routine for the next few weeks—work, writing, feeling sad and helpless.  Nothing was going the way I planned for it to.  My entire week was terrible but on Friday, my situation seemed even more hopeless.  That was the day I secretly dubbed “Bad Friday”. 

     It all started out with an email from Roxanne.  My hints for her to make an immediate trip to see Salma went right over her head.  She was going to Sedona, all right, but not any time soon.  Studio Tutu’s annual Christmas recital and an unexpected invite to a national dance competition grinded her free time down to practically nothing.  And the bad news continued to pour in throughout the day.

     Next up, was a call from Dad asking me to please come home for the weekend.  I knew instantly that something was terribly wrong.  Under normal circumstances, he just would have had Shelly text me to see when I was coming home again.  No, he didn’t just want me home because he missed me.  He wanted me home because there was something he didn’t want to tell me over the phone.  Still reeling from the disappointing email from Roxanne, I mumbled something about being late for work and that I would call him back later.

     As if I hadn’t already taken enough of an emotional beating so far today, I got the call I’d been looking forward to the most.  When I heard my phone ring and saw that the call was from Detective Bailey, my heart skipped a few beats.  A week’s time had passed since my last conversation with him.  Seven days was more than enough time for him to have successfully tracked down Josette.  I thought things were starting to look up.  I was wrong.

     “I went through all of the normal channels to find her,” he said apologetically, “but there’s no trace of her.  It’s like she got sucked into the Bermuda Triangle in the late ‘90’s or something.  I’ll still keep looking into it but I wanted to let you know that finding her is unlikely.  Sorry kiddo.”

     I was already running five minutes behind when I got the call but I had to sit down for a few minutes to process what he’d said to me.  Josette held the key—if I didn’t find her, I would be stuck in this limbo indefinitely.  Why would Mom have given me a clue that led nowhere?  This day couldn’t get any worse.

     Oh yes, but it could.  Addie and Derek had a huge fight at home so neither one of them was in a good mood.  I had never worked with both of them at the same time and never wanted to again.  Even after Addie left, Derek remained quiet until the end of his shift. 

     When I got home, I texted Rachel who had also been uncharacteristically quiet lately.  She had asked to never be left out of my loop of weirdness, yet recently seemed to have her own exclusive loop that I wasn’t a part of.  I asked her how Zach was doing and received a cryptic reply.

     “I can’t really tell you right now—but I will when the time is right.”

     When the time is right?  What in the world was that supposed to mean?  What was going on with Zach that she felt the need to keep it a secret from me?  Ugh.  I tried several times to crack that nut but she refused to budge so I called home instead.

     Shelly was hesitant to answer my questions as well—she kept asking me to come home for the weekend instead.  But I knew that I could out-stubborn her so I kept prodding until I finally had to issue an ultimatum.

     “Look, I’m not coming home until you tell me exactly what I’m coming home
to
.  Tell me
now
.”

     “Fine.  Zach’s in a wheelchair now.  He can barely move and rarely speaks a word.  They’re doing everything they can but he isn’t responding to any of his treatments.”

     Overwhelmed, I ended the call without a word then ignored Shelly’s every attempt to reach me.  I sunk down onto the bed in a daze.  I no longer felt like I was losing him—he was already lost.  And all of the feathers in the world weren’t going to bring him back.  Or were they?

     With so many calls and messages today, my phone gave the warning signal that the battery was about to die.  I was busy erasing all of the missed call alerts from Shelly when I found that I’d received a text from Rita somewhere in the middle of all of them.  Bracing myself for more bad news, I took a deep breath before reading her message.

     “Doppelgangers only haunt the people they resemble—not others.  Their goal is to destroy souls by using their greatest fears against them.  Sorry if this isn’t the answer you were looking for.”

     Greatest fears.  That was the second time today that that particular phrase had popped up.  I was far beyond chalking anything up to coincidence anymore.  But what greatest fear was I supposed to face?  I was already facing the fear of losing Zach, what else was left for me to deal with? 

     I reached into my wallet and pulled out the fortune from earlier.  I read that phrase multiple times trying to see if there was something important that I was missing.  Then, on a whim, I turned it over to the flip side.  And my day became infinitely more confusing.

     The Chinese word to English translation inscribed on the reverse caused my jaw to drop.  It all fit together into one very weird pattern except for one thing.  How was
that
going to help me save Zach?

18.  Game, Set, Match

    
Days, weeks, even months rolled by before Rachel seemed ready to believe me but when the day came, I knew it.  I seized it.  I took advantage of it.  She wasn’t as gullible as I once thought her to be.  It wasn’t as easy to convince her that I needed out of this place as I figured it would be.  But once I had her on my side, my plan worked perfectly.

     “Rachel,” I pleaded desperately, “They’re drugging me to keep me here.  I can’t stop them from doing it.  See?” I said showing her the marks in my arm from the latest blood test they ran on me.  I couldn’t tell the difference between a tranquilizer shot and a blood draw and I was betting that she couldn’t either.

     “But Zach, I don’t understand,” she whispered so that no one would hear our conversation, “Why would they want to keep you here against your will?”

     “I don’t know for sure, Rachel.  But that’s what’s happening.  That’s why I stopped talking to anyone but you.  I thought maybe if they thought I was completely out of it, that they would ease up on the drugs.  But they haven’t.  You have to get me out of here before they destroy me.  I have a plan but the only way it will work is with your help.”

     I could sense persistent hesitance yet her resistance was wearing thin.  I was about to give up on convincing her until her next visit when she finally cracked.

     “I’m in.  What’s your plan?”

     I beckoned her to come closer so that I could whisper it directly into her ear.  If these walls could talk, they still wouldn’t be capable of repeating my words. 

     Rachel twirled her hair furiously around her finger, nervously deciding whether or not to trust me.  Finally, she nodded her head.

     “Okay.  We’ll set it into motion on my next visit.  Until then, stay strong baby brother.”

     Five minutes after she left, I found myself giggling uncontrollably.  I won.  I was going to get out of here.  I was going to get what I wanted—Ruby’s love or nothing at all.  She was going to spend eternity with me—even if I had to kill us both.