Sleep Stalker (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 1) (9 page)

     Although I wasn’t in the mood to sing, by the second verse I found it impossible not to join in.  Once the song was over, I finally felt calm enough to tell him what happened.  This time he caught every word I said.

     “Wow.  That’s messed up, Ruby.  I know we ruled it out as a possibility before but I think you should ask your dad to run some drug tests on him while he’s at it.”

     So which was worse—thinking Zach was crazy or that he was hopped up on who knows what?  Neither choice was something I thought I would ever have to face.  For now, all I needed was a plan to keep him under control long enough to keep anything tragic from happening.  But how?  He was a landslide of insanity gaining momentum at an exponential rate.  And I was the poor little straw hut caught in its path, determined to remain standing.

     “Tie him up like the dom that you are!” Clay joked.  “Just kidding, of course.” 

     “Of course,” I replied sarcastically.  “Seriously, though.  What am I going to do with him?  I’m afraid that he’ll have another episode and do some real damage.  I have to find a way to keep him sedate until the weekend.”

     “Well, I don’t know what ‘sedate’ means but I do have an idea.  You said he’s tired all the time, why don’t you get him some sleeping pills and help him out a little?  Keep him asleep as much as you can.”

     I grinned at his suggestion and the fact that subconsciously, I suspected that he
did
know the meaning of that word.  He wasn’t as stupid as he sometimes pretended to be.  “That isn’t a bad idea.  It will have to be something over the counter, though.  If I offer him something like that, he may see that I’m trying to help him out—that I’m not the enemy by any means.  Thanks, Clay.”

     “No problem, Ruby.  Are you going to head home now then?”

     “Yeah, as soon as I find a pharmacy.  You’re one hundred percent correct—the more he sleeps, the better off we’ll both be.  At least until I can get my dad involved.”

     “Okay.  If you’re good, I’ll head back to Sophie and Clayton then.  My little man is growing up so fast—he’ll be older than me before I know it.  But if you need me, give me a holler and I’ll be right there.  Scout’s honor.”

     I smiled and nodded in acknowledgement.  Thirty minutes later, I was back in our apartment with a bottle of melatonin in hand.  When I asked for help at the counter, the pharmacist told me that melatonin was good for jet lag and would help re-regulate Zach’s much disturbed sleep schedule.  But he certainly didn’t need it tonight.  When I peeked in on him, Zach was sound asleep.  I cleaned up the bathroom then crashed on the futon for the night.  As bad as I wanted to sleep in that bed, I didn’t want to risk waking him up.  At least he was calm when he was asleep and not turning things—our lives included—upside down for no apparent reason.

     A few hours later, I woke up to something dreadfully strange.  My first instinct was to give him one of the melatonin tablets and hope that it would knock him out until morning.  But I soon discovered that my plan wasn’t going to work at all.  Zach wasn’t awake—he was sleepwalking.  Or shall I say, sleep hallucinating.  Just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, he managed to find a way to crank the crazy meter up a few more notches.

13.  Any Way the Wind Blows

     Not finding that dress tonight depressed me.  And the best cure for depression was sleep.  I didn’t want to be disturbed until morning.  Ruby seemed to have taken the hint that I wanted nothing to do with her for the rest of the night.  Thank God.  If she wasn’t going to be the way she was in my dreams, I didn’t want to hear her whining about the way the apartment looked.  Maybe I could find a way to make do without that stupid dress.  Sleep.

     My eyes had barely closed when there she was.  Walking along the edge of the lake, the moonlight accentuating her flawless skin giving the illusion that she was glowing.  And that dress was nowhere to be found.  Instead, she was wearing white satin.  Okay, “wearing” wasn’t exactly the right word to describe it.  Right in front of me was the most beautiful girl in the world—
my
girlfriend—draped in nothing but a white satin scarf.  As the breeze blew, the delicate fabric fluttered gently, only allowing me brief glimpses of what she kept hidden from the world.  No matter what direction the wind blew, I was treated to fleeting peeks at paradise.  And that smell!  The air was thick with the aroma of cinnamon intertwined with sweet, sweet vanilla.  I had to have her.  Now.

     “Ruby!  Wait for me!” I called as she began wading into the water.  Gracefully, she waded in up to her knees then turned to face me.  One finger at a time, she released her grip on the scarf and stood smiling at me as it slowly fell to the surface of the lake.  With the moon behind her and white satin swirling around her, she looked like a goddess.  Every inch of skin, every curve of her body—sheer perfection.  And she was mine. 
All
mine.  She wasn’t going to get away from me this time.

     I walked out to where she was, hungering to taste the cinnamon on her lips.  She had me in a trance.  I wanted so badly to touch her but I needed to admire what I saw first.  I circled around her like an art connoisseur setting his eyes on a newly discovered Renaissance sculpture.  Not just her skin—her entire body was flawless.  But as I reached out to touch her, she backed away.

     “That’s no way to treat a lady,” she hissed.  Quickly yet elegantly, she strode out of the water clutching the scarf in her hand.  She made her way across the shore and disappeared into the forest.

     After what felt like hours of searching, I finally found her lying on a bed of moss.  Asleep.  Asleep and fully clothed.  She wanted to be treated like a lady.  What exactly did that
mean
?  What did she want from me?  I kneeled down beside her and contemplated what to do next.  Then I saw it.  Sitting there on a stump to my left.  I was about to make her the happiest girl in the world.

14.  The Fault is Mine

     When I woke up and found Zach painting my toenails, I freaked out.  Wtf?  Something was seriously wrong with him.  He was half awake, half asleep but completely crazy.  I was convinced of it.  I’d only been dealing with his erratic behavior for a few days but I knew that there was no way I could put up with this much longer.  Frustrated, I shouted out his name repeatedly until he fully woke up.

     “Why are you yelling at me
now
?  You
just
told me that you wanted me to start treating you like a lady!  I thought you would appreciate me doing this for you!  Stop playing your girl games and tell me what you want from me!”

     I probably should have kept my mouth shut but I didn’t.  “Zach, what I want from you is for you to start acting sane again!  Living with you is like living in a psych ward!  Why can’t you stop being crazy?”

     My words were hurtful—I knew that even as I was spewing them out.  But I’d hit a level of frustration that I never knew existed.  He needed to get help, the kind of help I couldn’t give him.

     “No,
you’re
the one who’s crazy!  You act like you want me and then you don’t.  You tease me and make me look like a fool. 
You’re
the one who needs help—not me.  If I didn’t have to deal with
you
, I’d be perfectly fine.”

     “Maybe when we go home this weekend, I should just stay there.  Is that what you want?  Would that make you happy?”  With the way I felt at the moment, I knew that it would definitely make
me
happy. 

     Zach sat down on the floor beside the futon and begged me not to leave.  “No!  Ruby, please!  I don’t want you to leave; I just want you to stop torturing me!” 

     For the next few minutes, I sat there dumbfounded, watching him rock back and forth on the floor while mumbling to himself. 

     “Okay, I’ll stop,” I finally whispered with no clue as to what I was actually agreeing to.  I opened up the bottle of melatonin and dug one of the tablets out for him.  “Here, this will help you get back to sleep.”

     He swallowed it without question.  “Will you please get me some ibuprofen, too?  My head is killing me.”

     I did as he asked then helped him back to bed.  I laid down beside him but never closed my eyes.  The sound of snores as rhythmic as the purr of a kitten told me that he was once again asleep but I was fully awake.  Whatever was wrong with Zach was growing exponentially worse.

     The next few days were sheer hell for me and for him, too, I would imagine.  His headaches became full on migraines.  He missed every single class.  He spent most of his time in bed sleeping.  And at least once a day, he had some sort of psychotic episode that could only be pacified through more sleep.  Even though I was doing everything I could possibly do to help him, he always found a way to blame me for everything.  I was quite surprised that he didn’t fight me when I told him that he had a doctor appointment with my dad on Saturday.  As soon as I got home from work on Friday, we left for Charlotte’s Grove.  Zach slept the entire ride home.

     When I dropped him off at his parents’ house, I drove away with a sense of relief.  For tonight, at least, he wasn’t my problem to deal with.  I was exhausted from worry that he would never be the old Zach again.  I was exhausted from fear of what might be wrong with him.  I told my dad everything—every last detail.  He agreed that a drug test was in order.  And he arranged for a psychiatrist to be present during the physical exam.

     Around 2 am, I woke up with a terrible new theory about what could be wrong with Zach.  And that’s when I realized that he might be right.  This could, in fact, be entirely my fault.  His claim that I was torturing him could be closer to the truth than I wanted it to be.  Exhausted or not, I didn’t get another moment’s worth of sleep that night.

15.  Unaired Theory

     Dad practically had to drag me out of bed for my appointment in the morning.  I was too tired to get up.  My head felt better than it had in days but the fatigue was getting worse.  It was coming to a point where I was asleep far more than I was awake.  And every second spent in slumber was spent dreaming about Ruby.

     Why couldn’t I get her out of my head?  She was sheer torture.  I vacillated between loving her and hating her; lusting after her and despising her at the same time.  She’d become nothing but a disease.  But I didn’t want there to be a cure.  It was all so damn sick. 
I
was so damn sick.  But she was every bit as messed up as I was.

     She wanted to go to my appointment with me but I told her to stay home instead.  She was with me constantly even though half of the time it was only in my dreams.  Ruby was an addiction and I needed a break from her.

     Dr. Matthews and his new assistant, Dr. Landon, ran every battery of test known to mankind.  I answered question after question.  What were my symptoms?  Where did it hurt?  When did I first notice that something was wrong? I answered them all truthfully. But the questions they failed to ask, I also failed to answer.  In my heart of hearts, I felt that my obsession—I mean love—my
love
for Ruby was the real problem here.

     I underwent blood tests, urine tests, and even a spinal tap.  During the MRI, I swear I could hear her calling my name even over the loud hum of the machine but she was nowhere to be found.  When they were done poking and prodding me, I went home and directly to bed.

     Bed.  Where I had another dream.  A dream about
her
.    When was she going to let me get a peaceful night of rest?  She was driving me…crazy.  But when I woke up briefly, checked my text messages, and found none were from her, I got unbelievably depressed.  And anxious.

     What if she
had
found someone else?  What if she left me altogether?  What if I stayed forever in this horrendous limbo of wanting her but never having her?  I popped another one of the sleeping pills she’d given me.  At least I knew I could always find her in my dreams.

16.  Down with the Sickness

     I was all ready to take him to his appointment when I got his text.

     “Mother taking me.  Stay home.  Please.”

     That confirmed my fears regarding my new theory.  Zach was sick because of me and he’d somehow figured it out, too.  After taking the bullet that was meant for
me
this past spring, he went without oxygen flow to his brain for a short period of time.  Brain damage.  Zach had brain damage and it was because of me. 

     Shelly wanted to sit and talk but I needed to be alone so I went for a walk.  I found the path in the woods that led to the Baker family mausoleum and traversed it slowly.  It had barely been a year since the day we first found this place.  Zach, Rachel, and me.  The three of us had so many fun times together.  How quickly that all fell apart!  Rachel was miles away in sunny Florida living happily ever after with Boone.  Meanwhile, I was busy methodically destroying the man I loved by just being me.

     So many times I’d contemplated separating from Zach because I knew it was what was best for him.  But I put it off for too long.  Now I was starting to think it would be best for both of us.  If Dad couldn’t fix what was wrong with him, what then?  I loved Zach dearly but things were out of control.  The hell I’d gone through in the last few days wasn’t something I could handle for the rest of my life.  It just wasn’t. 

     I sat down on the steps of the mausoleum and cried.  Everything seemed so hopeless.  I could fight ghosts but I didn’t stand a chance against brain damage.  The thought of giving him up now was heartbreaking.  But I couldn’t deal with psychotic episodes like the ones he’d been having.  I couldn’t—

     Something small landed gently in my hair.  Spider?  Spider!  Instant ninja mode.  I freaked out and began flicking my head wildly to dislodge it.  A tiny object fell out of my curls but it wasn’t an insect of any kind.  It was…a feather.  One like none I had ever seen before.

     It was a brilliant shade of teal with accents of gray along the side.  I wasn’t a birdwatcher but if birds that color were common in this area, I definitely would have noticed them by now.  I looked around to see if I could spot where it came from but all I saw was a chipmunk clambering up a tree.  This feather was strange enough on its own but combined with everything else lately, it was downright mysterious.

     First, there was the white feather on my pillow that resurfaced the night Zach trashed the apartment.  Then, the feather clearly visible in my cup when Addie read my tea leaves.  Now, this exotic looking feather in the middle of backwoods Pennsylvania.  I remembered the teomancy interpretation of feathers and was even more in awe. 

     According to Addie, feathers were a sign of someone close to me going through a rough time—someone who needed me to help them stay grounded.  Zach.  It applied to my relationship with Zach.  But how could I help him stay grounded when most of the time I appeared to be the source of his anguish?  Was it all just coincidence?  Or was Fate playing yet another cruel joke on me?

     My walk in the woods was supposed to help take my mind off of things—not pose
more
unanswerable questions.  I walked back to the mansion, desperately clutching that feather in my clenched fist.  There was still plenty of time for me to fill while Zach was at the hospital.  I was going to look that feather up on the internet and see what kind of bird it belonged to.

     When I walked in the house, the first thing I noticed was the strong scent of cinnamon.  That meant only one thing—or at least I hoped it meant what I thought it did.  I was gone long enough for Shelly to complete a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls.  It was time for a little girl talk.

     “You have perfect timing, Ruby!  The cinnamon rolls just came out of the oven.  Diane gave me her mom’s secret recipe for cinnamon and vanilla icing and I decided to give it a whirl today.  She said it’s Zach’s favorite food in the whole world—you should make some one day and surprise him.  I hope they taste as good as they smell!” Shelly said, gesturing to a small dish on the counter. 

     I lifted the bowl to my nose and took a good whiff of its contents.  Heaven.  Sheer heaven.  I grew up on fast food, take out, and all things microwaveable—I could only imagine the sweet aromas Zach and Rachel grew up with in the Mason house.  They probably never dreamed that everyone didn’t live like they did.  My favorite food smell growing up was the instant potatoes found in every frozen entrée imaginable. 

     “Oh, and I hope you’re right,” I replied, dipping my finger in for a quick taste.  A few seconds later, my tongue was the happiest tongue in the world.  “Perfection!” I declared triumphantly. 

     “I was hoping you would say that!  Why don’t you make us a pot of coffee while I do the drizzling.  By the time the coffee is done, they should be cool enough to eat.”  She paused awkwardly before adding, “And then we can talk.”

     Random feathers and tea leaf readings were odd topics I wouldn’t have shared with her in the past.  But those days were gone and I was ready for an outside opinion on the weird happenings as of late. 

     “Sounds good.  But I’m kind of more in the mood for tea.  Do we have any?”

     “There should be a box of blueberry green tea in the back of that cupboard.  I didn’t like it very much but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t throw it out.  Since when are you interested in tea?  You’ve only been gone a week and you’re already starting to change!”

     I pulled out the coffee and the coffee filters and, lo and behold, discovered a slightly dusty box of tea in the far corner of the cabinet.  “My newfound fascination with tea is a long story.  I’ll wait until we’re sitting down with some cinnamon rolls before I launch into that tale.”

     “I see,” she said, noticeably increasing her icing speed to get to the conversation faster.

     When the coffee pot was almost finished, I heated up some water for my tea.  The leaves were bagged but I figured that obstacle could be easily overcome.  I wanted to try an experiment.  I wanted to see what symbols I found in my cup this time.  Whatever I saw, I would jot it down and then ask Addie for an interpretation on Monday.

     Once Shelly and I were both comfortably seated at the kitchen table, I posed a question.

     “Do you believe in signs?  As in signs from the universe pointing you in the direction you’re supposed to go?”

     She thought about it for a moment before answering carefully.  “I do.  I do believe in signs.  I’ve never actually experienced it myself but I think it exists.  But I think it happens more to people who are spiritually aware, so to speak.  And now you have me
really
wanting to hear what comes next.”      

     So over the course of the next fifteen minutes I explained the weirdness I’d been experiencing in the few days since she and I last spoke.  The rational half of me wanted to hear her say that I was reaching for stardust—that I was on a fool’s errand.  The other half of me wanted her to validate my experiences and expand on them.  The other half of me was the one that walked away placated.

     “Holy crap!  You need to hurry up and Google that feather!” she said, running to grab her laptop from her study.

     This.  This was why Shelly was the best stepmom
ever
. Ever.  She was back and loading her computer before I had a chance to grab my second cinnamon roll.

     “Okay,” she said, slightly breathless from her sprint across the mansion.  “I found a site that will tell us what kind of bird that thing is from.  All we need to do is match it to one of their feather templates.  Let me get a good look at that thing.”

     I scooted the feather across the table to her, somehow knowing that she was going to find something that made no logical sense.  I was right.

     “Well, all I can say is this—brace yourself.  The only match to that feather is the Gray-headed Lovebird.  Indigenous to Madagascar.  People
do
keep them as pets here in the States but…come on, it’s from a
Love
bird!  This is a sign of some sort—it
has
to be!”

     So a bird from
Africa
flew over my head while I was thinking about the possibility of leaving Zach and just
happened
to drop a feather in the process.  In Charlotte’s Grove, Pennsylvania.  Wtf.  I made her run the feather identification test once more with my watchful supervision this time.  Same result.  It made zero sense.  Zero. 

     Now that my cup of tea was almost empty, I tore the teabag open and dumped a clump of well-moistened leaves into my cup.  I swirled it the way Addie showed me to do—counterclockwise.  Then I flipped it onto a saucer, anxious to see what new symbols might arise.  I took one look inside that cup then held it out for Shelly’s waiting eyes.  I knew what
I
saw.  But I needed a second opinion.

     “You’ve got to be kidding me!” she said with excitement.  “That one clearly looks like a feather and the other one is definitely a foot!  Oh, the plot thickens but what does it all mean?  Even
I
couldn’t write a mystery as fascinating as this one!”

     “Well, the feather applies to Zach, I assume.  As for the foot, your guess is as good as mine.  I have no plans to travel unless it’s just referring to our recent move to Ohio.”

     “It’s all so inexplicable!  You know how much I love a good mystery but it’s even more fun when I’m not the one writing it.  So your new boss Addie does tea leaf readings in her spare time?”

     “Apparently so.  Being the granddaughter of a voodoo queen, I suppose picking up weird hobbies like that is inevitable.”

     Shelly’s initial reaction to hearing those words was the same as mine was the first time.  “Voodoo queen.  Voodoo queen?  I didn’t know that kind of stuff still existed.”

     “Evidently it does.  Let’s face it; it isn’t any weirder than African bird feathers dropping out of the Central Pennsylvania sky.”

     “True.  But we’ll figure this out—trust me.  And someday I would like to meet Addie and get
my
leaves read, too.”

     Time flew by while Shelly and I talked about everything from voodoo to the latest fashion trends.  Before we knew it, Dad was home with the preliminary results of Zach’s exam. 

     “Looks like you’re going back to Ohio alone, kiddo.  Zach has a severe case of mono.  He’s on absolute bed rest for the next two weeks, maybe longer.”

     Mono.  “Mono?  That’s it?  That’s all you found?  There
has
to be something else wrong with him.”

     “Full test results won’t be back for a few days but so far that’s it.  His brain scan looked perfectly normal to me but I’m having a neurologist take a look at it tomorrow to be on the safe side.  He passed the drug test with flying colors.  Dr. Landon spoke with him a bit but found no red flags as far as his mental health goes.  Mono explains his headaches and fatigue.  I suspect that he may not be going into a deep enough sleep.  So even though it looks like he’s sleeping too much, he’s actually in a state of sleep deprivation.  That would explain his erratic behavior.  He needs something stronger than that over the counter melatonin you’ve been giving him.  I wrote him a prescription for a sleeping pill—that should take care of it.”