by James Rubart
"Banister!" Betty whacked Veronica on the arm.
"A lot of people tell me I look like her." Ann nodded toward the sandwich menu on the wall. "What do you recommend?"
"I always get the turkey melt; it's never let me down," the brunette said.
"I'll take that one," Ann said to the man behind the counter. She winked at Veronica. "Thanks."
After giving him details on how she wanted it—mayo, mustard, no pickles, olives, lettuce, and tomatoes—she felt a tap on her shoulder.
"Are you sure you're not Ann Banister?"
"I'm pretty sure. But it's difficult to be absolutely one-hundred percent positive."
"I think you're her. She's my favorite person on TV."
Ann smiled. "Okay," she whispered. "I'm me. I mean, I'm her. I'm Ann. But it's not a big deal. Really."
She paused to watch the absurdity of fame engulf the women.
"Ahh! I knew it was you!" The brunette drilled her finger into the blonde's shoulder like a woodpecker trying to get at a beetle. "See! See! I was right."
"Ouch! Stop it!"
"Can I let you in on a little secret?" Ann said.
Both women leaned in, their mouths twittering with nervous grins.
"I'm no more special than you two, just a bit better known. Really." Ann might as well have mentioned aliens just landed in town square for all the effect her words had. The ladies nodded and kept grinning.
By the time Ann paid for her sandwich, the women had calmed down. Thankfully the two workers behind the counter had obviously never seen her show.
After creating a mix of Diet Mountain Dew, Cherry Coke, and raspberry iced tea, Ann waited for her two new friends to pick up their sandwiches.
"Can I ask you a favor?"
"Hi," the blonde said. "I mean, yes, of course."
"I'm visiting in town for a few days and haven't connected yet with the person I'm meeting here. Do you mind if we eat together? I would love to find out a little bit more about your town."
After almost dropping their drinks the two women agreed, and the three found a table in the back.
"We'll introduce you to Jason Judah, absolutely for sure we will," Betty said. "He's the most spiritual man you'll ever meet and knows just about everyone in town. In fact, he's having a get-together tonight at the town hall. It's an open invitation and you'd get to meet everyone. You know what I mean? You should come."
Veronica gave her the address and time.
"Okay, I will." Ann noted them on her cell phone. "But for the moment, all I want to know is if there are any good swimming holes around here where the kids hang out during the summer."
"You came all the way from Portland to find out where the local kids go for a swim?" Betty tilted her head and frowned.
"It's pretty important to me to find out the answer." Ann reached into her purse and pulled out the picture of her mom.
"Oh my." Veronica stared at the picture, then slid it over to Betty. A few seconds later they both scooped up their sandwiches and grabbed their drinks. "We're so sorry, Ms. Banister. We just remembered something. There's somewhere we have to be right now. Gotta go."
Ann stared at them as they scampered out the door without looking back. Interesting. There were obviously some dark rabbit holes in Three Peaks. She looked forward to seeing how deep they went.
CHAPTER 10
As Cameron trudged down Main Street on his way to breakfast with Jason on Thursday morning, he stared at a sign in the window of Step on the Field Sports that reminded him of Jessie. It said, "You gotta believe! The Outlaws will take State this fall!"
Three months after they'd started dating, Jessie had stood on the top of Mount Si thirty miles east of Seattle, gazing at the miles of trees laid out in front of them like a patchwork green carpet.
"Looking at this splendor, you just gotta believe." She turned to him, eyes lit up like diamonds reflecting morning sun.
"In what?"
"Something and Someone greater than yourself."
"What do you believe in, Jess?"
"I haven't told you enough already?" She laughed. "God loves you, you know." Jessie took his hands. "What about you? What do you believe in?"
"Us."
"Me too." She snuggled into his chest as he watched an eagle canter on the winds that swirled up the side of the mountain.
"That's it? No more questions? Aren't you supposed to try to save me?"
"That isn't in my job description." Jessie poked him. "God handles that part."
"So He's slackin'? I haven't felt anything yet."
"Someday He'll reach you, Cameron. I know it." Jessie pulled back, her hazel eyes gazing into his, her countenance suddenly serious. "He's not hung up on time like we are."
"Good to know." Cameron stroked her hair. "So there's a God and a heaven, huh?"
"Oh yes." She said it without a trace of doubt.
Maybe Jessie was there now, looking down at him as he tried to believe the book wasn't on the level of the Loch Ness Monster. And hoping Jason wasn't a quack.
Cameron stepped into the Outland Café and scanned the restaurant. Dishes clattered and an intense tang of bacon crept into his nose. Growing up, he'd been given two pieces of bacon every day before school. These days the smell made him nauseous.
He shook his head and waited to be seated. Two families sat at tables along the wall to the right, underneath a large picture of the three snow-capped peaks the town was named for. To Cameron's left, two men, who looked like they stepped off the pages of Field & Stream, each downed a three-inch-high stack of pancakes doused in maple syrup.
The hostess led Cameron to a table at the back of the café. After settling in, he glanced at his watch. Another two minutes and Jason would be late.
He wasn't.
As Jason stepped through the doors of the Outland Café, the majority of eyes turned toward him. At least six foot five and probably 260 pounds, the man was Mount Everest, or K2 at least. People acknowledged him with either admiration or thinly veiled disgust in their eyes. There didn't seem to be any middle ground. Jason's eyes seemed to say "love me or hate me, just don't ignore me."
Spying Cameron, he burst into a wide grin and sauntered toward the back of the café, stopping along the way to greet his admirers with an encouraging word. He ignored the ones who glared at him or had a sudden interest in the food on their plates.
"Good morning." Jason stuck out his frying-pan-sized paw and Cameron shook it.
"Thanks for talking to me."
"The pleasure is mine." Jason sat across from Cameron and beamed. "Cameron Vaux. How are you?" It was a statement, not a question.
"You're popular around here."
"With some." Jason smoothed back his thick hair and nodded at two women three booths down who gazed at him with dopey looks on their faces. "Others not so much."
"Why not?"
"I make people uncomfortable." He paused and a thin smile appeared on his face. "Do I make you uncomfortable?"
Cameron considered Jason Judah. He formed an impression of most people quickly. Jason was not most people. He exuded confidence, yet below the surface floated insecurity, maybe even anger. Cameron saw it in the way Jason continued to glance around the room, attempting to catch the eye of a fan, frustration rising when it didn't happen quickly.
"What's your technique for making people uncomfortable?"
Jason looked him straight in the eye. "I tell them the truth."
A waitress filled both their oversized brown mugs with coffee. Cameron ordered the Three Peaks Scramble. Jason waved her off, saying coffee was enough.
"There are people here in town and across the country who don't like what we're doing at Future Current."
An emotion flashed across Jason's face. Sorrow? Self-pity? It was gone instantly, but in that moment Cameron got an impression of what Jason had looked like as a little boy—frightened and longing for the red wagon or train set that never showed up on Christmas morning.
"Maybe they
don't like it because of the hospitality of your followers. I tried to talk to your friend Kirk Gillum, and he didn't exactly set up tea and biscuits for me."
Jason laughed. "I'm sorry about that. Kirk is a little protective. He's had a number of organizations come in and call us a cult and try to rough him up a little because he's the mayor of the town."
Cameron raised his eyebrows.
"No, not physically, but they've hassled him. Little grousing fundamentalist groups around here calling for his resignation, saying he's part of a religious order trying to take over the town and all that. But now that you've checked out, I'm hoping he'll warm up."
Jason had done a background investigation on him? This guy might be over the top and down the other side. "Checked out?"
"Of course. I had one of my people do a quick background check on you to make sure you're who you say you are and aren't part of some right-wing religious group trying to denounce us and make our work out to be a blight on Three Peaks. It's why I couldn't meet with you last night."
"Thanks for delving into my life without my permission."
"You're welcome." Jason took a drink of his coffee and smiled. "Don't you research clients before you start working with them?"
"Sure."
"Then don't begrudge me for doing the same."
"I'm not going to become a client."
"But you might become a follower."
"I doubt it."
"You never know, Cameron. This book is not for one man; it's for all of us. You, me, my followers."
"Why is it for everyone?"
"Because with this book we can change the world." Jason ripped open five sugar packets simultaneously and dumped them into his black coffee. "It tells the past, and more important, what is to come."
"You're saying your Book of Days tells the future?"
Jason leaned back. "That's exactly what it does. Once we learn to access its secrets more fully, we will change lives all over the planet. Imagine if you knew ahead of time that Hurricane Katrina would hit New Orleans. Or an earthquake was about to level Haiti. Or that a cruise ship would sink with your loved ones on it. With this book, you could shape your own destiny far beyond imagination."
Cameron poured a splash of creamer into his coffee. It sounded wonderful. Like a fairy tale. But the book didn't keep Jessie's plane from smashing into the ground and stealing her life, and didn't keep his dad's mind and days from disappearing far too early.
"We're getting better at reading it every day. And we will once again learn to read the book like those who did hundreds of years before us. We will know the past in complete detail. We will know the future with blinding clarity."
The guy was serious. It sounded ludicrous. But at the moment ludicrous had appeal. Lead me to it. "What exactly is the Book of Days?"
"Oh, you've got to be kidding." Jason laughed and slapped his palms on the table. "No one has told you yet?" He stared at Cameron, a smile growing on his face.
"What is it?"
Jason shook his finger. "Not so fast. First, I want to know why you want to find it so badly when you don't even know what it is."
"I told you already, some friends asked me to locate it."
"And if you don't mind me asking, when did these friends ask this of you?"
"Eight years ag—" Cameron stopped himself. He saw exactly where this was leading.
"Uh-huh. Thank you for your honesty, even if it was a slip of the tongue." Jason leaned in and replied in a mock whisper, "You found out about the Book of Days eight years ago. Yet you've done nothing about it till now.
"Don't you find that fascinating?" Jason addressed the table next to them, but the two teenage girls sitting at it ignored him. He turned back to Cameron. "I find that fascinating. I wonder what the answer is. Hmm?"
Cameron stared at the man across the table. He was a manipulator, someone who got what he wanted, when he wanted it. Not his kind of person.
"See what I mean, my new friend? About people not liking me because I tell the truth? And now you're wondering about my motives."
"All I want to know is what the Book of Days is. If you're not going to tell me, fine. I'm outta here."
"Cameron, please. Do you really want me to call your bluff? You're not 'outta here.' You need to know what the book is, because something stirring inside you is so great it will burst out unless you get your answers. That much is obvious. But I'm not one to pry into another's affairs without an invitation. I apologize. Your forgiveness, please?"
"Sure." Jason was a certifiable piece of work.
The waitress arrived with Cameron's meal and Jason said, "Thank you, sweetheart." She ignored him.
He smiled at Cameron. "The Book of Days is power. Ultimate power. Ultimate knowledge. A book from God's own pen."
"God? I haven't ever had much use for religion."
"Neither have I. That doesn't change the fact that a book exists that was written by the hand of God."
"I think people call that the Bible."
"This book is different. That book was written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—that's what the Christians say. God penned this book Himself in which He has recorded the past, present, and future of every life that has ever lived or ever will live. Look it up. It's right there in Psalm 139:16."
"Sounds like an urban legend."
"No, not this. This book is real. I promise you."
Real? Cameron hands tingled as if all ten fingers were tiny cell phones on vibrate. "Can you take me to it? Can I see it?"
Jason raised his eyebrows and laughed. "I think you've misunderstood me. The Book of Days isn't a physical book, just as love is not physical. Yet love's power is greater than a nuclear bomb. The Book of Days exists on a spiritual plane. If we only believe in the things we can see on a corporeal level, we are indeed blind."
"What?" Cameron closed his eyes and sighed. The wild goose died. "The book is all in your head? Are you joking?"
"Not in my mind, just as coincidence and intuition aren't in my mind, but are waiting to be acquired if we have the eyes to see and ears to hear."
"Fine. Then how do you use it?" Cameron sat back and folded his arms. "Look at the silverware, plates, glasses, salt-and-pepper shaker, and the fake rose in front of you.
"Now watch." Jason placed his massive arm on the right side of the table and slid everything he'd just mentioned to the left. "Now, don't think about what you see, but ask yourself what you feel.
"Suddenly there is an openness between us that was not there previously. We spoke, we saw, yet with those items removed we feel closer to the other, with a greater ability to communicate, wouldn't you agree? The simple act of removing those things between us made our connection stronger.
"It is the same with the book. To access it fully, we must rid ourselves of the things in the world that block us. E-mail, Facebook, TV, movies, our fears. We must get rid of the noise and free our minds."
Jason placed his hands on the table, leaned back, and took in a long breath through his nose and let it out even slower. "When we slow down, we start to receive the spiritual impressions all around us in every moment. We see pictures in our mind's eye; visions that are sent to us from the book fill our hearts. Visions of our past and future. We record them and test them against what the rest of us have seen and heard."
Jason waved his hand through the air. "The curtain is thinner here in Three Peaks than almost anywhere else, making it easier to access God's book."
Cameron felt like he'd been dropped in a glacial lake. So the Book of Days was just another made-up religious fantasy? No wonder his dad had talked about it. God was his whole life. Same with Jessie.
Cameron swallowed hard and rubbed the back of his neck with both hands. He'd wanted so badly to believe it was real.
"What's wrong?" Jason said.
The book was a figment of Jason's imagination, another eccentric chapter from the pantheon of New Age mysticism. So what had his dad seen? Jessie? What had they tho
ught they'd seen?
"I thought the book was real. Physical. Something you could see."
"It is real. It's—"
"No, not your kind of real. My kind." Cameron picked up his cup and his napkin. "Something you could get a coffee stain on."
"And what made you think it was that kind of book?"
"My dad said he'd seen it, touched it."
"Touched it?" Jason leaned forward and an eager look flashed through his eyes. "And you believe your father?"
"I believe he believed it when he told me."
"When did he say he saw it?"
"When he was nine, before his family moved away from Three Peaks."
"Fascinating." Jason steepled his hands and rubbed the bottom of his chin with the tips of his fingers. "There are some who believe as you do. I've never been able to decide one way or another.
"I've prayed for evidence that the book exists on more than just the spiritual plane. I even dug into old Native American stories from these parts, thinking I might find something there. The Paiute tribe who filled this land is full of them."
Jason leaned forward.
"But the only thing I've found on the book is a scant legend that tells of a place where stories are told of the past and the future." Jason slumped back in his seat. "I tracked down a few of the older members of the Paiute tribe still living in these parts, but they apparently don't know their own history, at least not this legend.
"The only semiverification I found was from one old-timer living in the mountains near here who said, 'Yes, I have heard of the legend, but that is all I can tell you.' Hardly substantive confirmation of a physical Book of Days."
"What was his name?"
"George or Graham or something like that. Does it matter?" Jason drummed his fingers on the table hard enough to make the silverware rattle.
"But in my wildest dreams I've always hoped the book was existent, and you have now fanned the flames of that emotion. I believe we've been brought together to explore that possibility, yes?"