“So who was he? Where was he from? What had he come here for?”
Arthur walked across my lap and sat next to Moondance. “You tell her, Kat.”
Moondance looked at me, and Mom spoke matter-of-factly. “He was the king of the Aldebaran Sea.”
Okay, I needed a minute. “You mean like Poseidon, the Greek god, or something?”
“Yes,” Mom replied.
“No,” Granny objected. “At least not in the way you normally think about Greek gods. Tell her about the Aldebaran Sea, Kat.”
Mom sighed. “Aldebaran is a huge red star in the Taurus constellation. It’s often called the bull’s red eye. If our sun were the size of a pencil eraser, it would be the size of a basketball. Anyway, where he comes from, they call the part of the sky between Orion and the Pleiades ‘the Sea of Aldebaran’ because the star is the biggest thing there and near the middle of it.”
“What do you mean, ‘where he comes from,’ Mom?”
“Um, you know, a place up there by his star.”
“He comes from a planet called Mikos.” Granny explained. “It’s a lot bigger than earth, which is why they evolved to be bigger and stronger so they could move around with twice as much gravity.”
I guess that made sense – at least as much sense as all this talk about a swamp boy from outer space. I was still curious about so many things.
“So…he had magical powers or something?”
“No!” Granny told me. Arthur let out a yip and crossed back over to the other side of me again. “What kind of wild and crazy idea is that, Jessie? You’re a grown woman. Surely you know by now that there’s no such thing as magic.”
Okay, now I’m really confused. And wait – I’m the one with the wild and crazy ideas? “Don’t toy with me like that, Granny. I’m communicating psychically with a ghost inside a dog and another ghost inside the cat persona of a shape shifter. And what about this?” I held out my arm, and a twig on the ground leapt into my hand. Then I let go of it and it stayed there, suspended in mid air.
“Your grandmother is right, Jessie.” Mom was more comfortable now, and Moondance climbed onto my lap. “There’s no such thing as magic.”
I just looked at her, waiting for an explanation.
“It’s all physics, sweetheart. You already know that matter and energy are just different states of the same thing. They’re interchangeable. Just like radio waves and light waves, our thoughts generate a very high frequency wave. Because there is not very much energy behind it, very few people can receive the waves. Your brain has to be fine-tuned, either by learning how on your own or by being born with the genetic ability – like you.”
“That’s right,” Granny confirmed. “And that stick hanging in the air there is just being affected by your ability to direct very tiny amounts of energy for your own use, just like when you tell your arms to move or your legs to make you walk.”
“But my arms and legs have muscles to make them move, Gran.”
“Tell that to that dead muskrat over there in the bushes, Jessica. He’s got muscles too. It’s your life force, your will, and your command of energy that makes them move, or…” Arthur barked at the stick in the air, and it changed into a rubber ball and fell to the ground. “…or that makes their atoms and molecules rearrange themselves according to your desire.”
This was all getting to be too much, but Mom had more to say.
“And the reason I said he was like a Greek god is because, well…”
Granny took over as soon as Mom hesitated. “His father was Zeus, and your dad is 1,500 years old, and the gods from all of our ancient cultures are really just visitors like your dad, Derrion, with evolved sensory powers and advanced technology. So, you’re not a witch; you’re a demi-goddess. Well…and a demi-witch too.”
So his name was Derrion…and he was like a god among men, but only on this earth. And, oh yeah – I’m some kind of goddess.
“So, that’s why I was able to subdue Lucius even though Irene said it wasn’t possible, then…right?”
“That’s right. Irene is a witch. Me too.” Granny said. “We’ve learned how to tune in and tap into some aspects of nature and how to magnify and manipulate some kinds of energy. But ancient demon spirits like Lucius have become very powerful over eons of time – but not as powerful as you.”
“How about you, Mom?”
“Me? Well, I never really wanted to get involved with that sort of thing. But Derrion needed me. Well, actually he needed you. He touched my shoulder with his three fingers…”
“He only had three fingers?”
Moondance shook his head. “He was the same as you and I, dear. He used three of his fingers to touch my shoulder, and gave me three golden stars. He said that our offspring, maybe in a future generation, would have seven stars of gold, and he or she would save our race and become the King or Queen of Aldebaran. We got married under the stars on my 17th birthday and consummated our love. The next morning he was gone, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“So, why did you go to Cuba, Mom?”
“Cuba? Oh…you mean last night. That was just a stop on the way to his father’s cave near Krakatoa in Indonesia.”
I looked at Arthur with a scowl, and Granny whimpered and turned away.
“He took me there once,” Mom continued. “He showed me a talisman – an arrowhead made of green jasper and dappled with deep red spots. He called it a bloodstone. He said it was from the arrow that Artemis used to kill Orion with her bow. She loved Orion, but Apollo – her twin brother, was jealous of the time she spent with him and tricked her into killing him. He challenged her to shoot the shadowy form floating on the horizon out in the sea, and of course she did it easily. It turned out to be Orion. Eddy has the arrowhead in his saddlebag.”
Moondance coughed a couple of times, as if he were trying to get rid of a fur ball, and a glistening arrowhead fell from his jaw onto the bench. It looked like jade with flecks of ruby in it. It had a gold fitting with an open loop on the base. It was clean and dry, and I picked it up.
“Yes, that’s it. He took a small gold lightning bolt that adorned his father’s scepter and fashioned it into a loop and attached to the stone so you could wear it as a pendant. He said I should give it to our daughter when she was grown up. He knew you would be a girl, I guess. He said it belonged to you because Artemis was his half-sister – your aunt. She was born here on earth and long before Derrion, and he was born much later after Zeus returned to Mikos. You will be able to communicate with your father with the help of this stone and possibly even call on the power of Artemis. I don’t know how, but you will figure it out.”
I held the stone up to the afternoon sun as it shone between the branches of the cottonwoods, and it was radiant. I felt a slight vibration and quickly set it down on my lap before it started some otherworldly connection that I was not yet prepared for.
I leaned back on the bench and looked straight up into the sky. I felt spent, filled with a kind of sadness and longing for the family that I never knew. A puffy white cloud shaped like a tortoise passed slowly overhead, and I was tempted to just close my eyes and sleep for a while.
“I can tell you why I died, Jessie.”
“Not now, Kat.” Arthur put his paws up on the back of the bench and licked my face. “The girl’s had enough life-changing information for one day. Let’s go back.”
I sat up straight again and petted both animals vigorously with my hands. “Good idea,” I said out loud. I held the talisman loosely in my open hand and looked at it as I got to my feet. Moondance quickly morphed into Anika, and she gave me a hug. Then she pulled a gold chain from her pocket – or maybe from thin air – and slipped it through the gold loop at the base of the arrowhead and fastened it around my neck.
Then she held out her hand like she wanted me to give her something. “I’ll take my backscratcher back now, hon. You don’t need it anyway, especially now that you’ve got the talisman.”
It took m
e a sec to figure out what she wanted, but I took the little fork she had given me from my pocket and gave it to her. She used it right away to scratch next to her shoulder blade, and she grimaced as she found and relieved the annoying itch. Then she stuffed it in her bra, gave me a wink, and walked behind the tree a few yards away.
Eddy drove back for Arthur and me, and we headed for the Inn. The trip back seemed to take no time at all, and I don’t think I was aware of anything along the way…except for my thoughts.
•
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Chapter Thirteen
My head was still reeling and afternoon was starting to fade when we got back to the Inn. Eddy dropped me off and drove behind a nearby panel truck to morph back into Anika while I followed Arthur up the steps. I noticed three familiar horses tied to the rail on the side of the porch as we went inside. Travis was here.
Maddy greeted me from behind the front desk with a litany of updates. “The new guests for three of the second floor rooms have all checked in, and one of the rooms is vacant. The Sheriff hasn’t released one of the rooms in front yet, so I had to move the Hendersons to a room on the back side, so you’re buying their dinner tonight. It seems like there’s something going on with the investigation, and the solarium is full of cops and deputies. They closed the doors so we can’t eavesdrop – and the Tea Room is full of reporters. There wasn’t much news at the one o’clock news conference, but it seems like they’re getting ready to arrest somebody now. Umm…Lexi and her Mom are getting ready to leave – they were just waiting to see if you would get back soon. They’re still in the courtyard. Oh – and Travis and a couple he’s taking on an afternoon riding tour are at the counter in the Nirvana.”
“And it’s nice to see you too, Maddy.” It was clear that I would have to reel my mind back in to focus on the Inn and the issues at hand.
Maddy gave me a friendly smirk. “Hey – nice pendant. Is it new?”
I nodded. It felt really…nice…empowering…uplifting…from the moment I put it on, and I didn’t ever want to take it off. My father was with me now.
Granny swooshed out of Arthur and through the closed doors to the solarium to see if there might still be some interesting conversations going on there.
Antoine was trotting merrily down the staircase with his laptop and whistling now, as his secretary, Anjolie, entered the lobby through the front door with a short and slender young man a few years younger than me. I couldn’t really tell at first if he was male or female. His movements were delicate, but I was pretty sure he was a man, or maybe still a boy. Anjolie was in a deep and somewhat argumentative conversation with him, shaking her head and gesturing as she spoke.
The young adult was wearing a tight black T-shirt with the logo of a heavy metal group, black skinny jeans, and a lot of black eyeliner. He had razor-cut shiny black hair and piercings in his eyebrow and nose. I wasn’t sure if he was a fashionable techno-pop artist or just a well-groomed Goth kid. Anjolie, as usual, was in a fancy but professional above-the-knee skirt and heels.
The doors to the solarium opened wide, and Sheriff Muldoon ducked through the doorway just as Antoine reached the landing. “Good timing, Mr. DeBonnaire. I was just coming to find you. Glad you’re still here.” Antoine diverted his path toward the front desk and went to shake hands with the Sheriff.
A lot of people were still milling around in the solarium as Lexi made her way through the crowd from the courtyard with her mother and Ginny. Cammy and Zach left the group of investigators in the solarium to join us too. Maddy came out from behind the desk and joined our circle too – she knew everyone was coming together to dish on all the hot topics.
“So – what’s new with the investigation, guys?” I said softly. “Did you figure out who the archery girl from 16 years ago was?”
Cammy answered first. “All I could get from Google was ‘A. Lansbury,’ but I’m waiting for a text from one of my connections back home.”
“But,” Zach added, “we really have no idea if she was our shooter or not.”
“Arlene found some stuff about her,” Ginny said quite excitedly, nodding toward Lexi’s mother.”
“Yes, I did. It seems the reason she was disqualified was because they discovered that she had a three-year-old daughter. She gave birth when she was 16, and the pageant found out and disqualified her at the last minute. One report said she had twins, but I can only find information about one girl, Ana Chantay. Oh! That sounds like French – enchanté.”
“Wow. Lots of developments.”
“But nothing to really connect the dots from the girl to the crime.” Lexi was right, and we all nodded.
“Anjolie!” Antoine shouted past our group to his secretary, who was still near the front door. “Come here for a moment, will you please? The Sheriff has some questions about what you may have seen last night.”
“That’s it!” Arlene looked up quickly and turned her head toward the beautiful woman in the short dress. “That was the name of the girl in the talent show 16 years ago – Anjolie Lansbury.”
It was not a common first name for a woman, and the secretary stopped in her tracks as we all looked at her with wide eyes. She had heard Lexi’s mother say her maiden name and make reference to the talent show, so she knew that were all aware of her ability with flaming arrows as well. She looked at us and remained frozen for a moment. Then she looked briefly at the young man next to her and darted into the Nirvana Tea Room.
We looked at each other, and then Ginny and I ran into the restaurant after her. The woman quickly made her way around the tables and out the side doors onto the porch. She looked over her shoulder and saw that we were in pursuit, and then she reached down to the small slit in the side of her skirt and ripped the seam all the way to the belt. She hiked the hem above her waist and put one hand on the rail of the porch, leaping skillfully over the edge and onto the biggest, strongest horse. Ginny and I were close behind her.
Anjolie expertly turned Travis’s horse, Trigger, around in an instant and galloped off toward the back of the Inn, where she turned onto the lawn between the courtyard and the tall pine trees. I jumped on the little golden palomino, Misty, and Ginny hopped in the saddle of Topaz. By now Travis was on the porch, and I just smiled and waved as we took off in hot pursuit of Anjolie Lansbury.
Anjolie had a good lead on us as she skirted the edge of the forest, up the hill toward Travis’s ranch and the ferryboat landing. It was no surprise that an archery expert was also a skilled horseman, but her speed and command of the animal was a sight to behold. She leaned forward in the saddle like a jockey, her skirt flapping in the wind behind her, and used her heels to coax the horse even faster.
I was hoping the hill ahead would slow her down a little so we could catch up, be she guided the horse up the hill and around a metal shed without breaking stride. She sped through a large puddle of water and then leapt over a four-foot fence like a steeplechase champion.
We were falling further behind as we started galloping through Travis’s ranch, and I was hoping she would have trouble navigating the small footpath through the trees down to the ferryboat landing. Her only alternative was to ride out onto the street.
As we approached the area between the ranch house and the horse stable, Ginny leaned way over to the side of her horse and reached out her hand. Travis did a roping show for the kids there, and she grabbed the loop of rope hanging on the fence post.
“She’s not getting away, Jessie,” Ginny said with fixed eyes and a resolved will.
Anjolie was almost out of room now, and Trigger was not interested in galloping down the narrow footpath or prancing onto the pavement. He reared up a little and stopped for a moment. I thought we had her now, but Anjolie wasn’t done yet. She patted Trigger’s head and whispered in his ear as she looked over her shoulder to see us only moments away. The horse changed his gait and walked carefully but quickly down the path.
In a
few seconds she was through to the ferryboat landing, and we were walking our horses down the footpath. It was only a couple hundred yards before the earth turned to swamp in front of us, with the river to our left and a huge hill to our right.
Ginny got through the path first and started twirling her lariat like a champ, to the curious stares of people from the ferryboat that was just about to dock.
“We’ve got her now, Jessie!” She galloped quickly toward the woman, but I was afraid that this was not going to end well.
“Ginny! You’ll kill her if you pull her off the horse at this speed! Please…”
But it was too late. Ginny was within range now and let the lasso fly. I tried to use my power to send the loop further ahead to catch the horse instead of the woman, but Ginny skillfully pulled it back just in time to land it perfectly around Anjolie’s slim figure.
“No!” I cried as I caught up to Ginny, who was slowing to a halt as Trigger reared up when he felt his rider disappear. I put my hand on Ginny’s shoulder as I saw Anjolie flying into the air with a large boulder protruding from the ground not far from her probable landing spot.
In the blink of an eye I saw Anika’s smiling face in my mind, and I knew what I had to do.
“Slower!” I commanded, and the wind, the woman, and her horse came to a near standstill. Ginny and I and our two horses were all still moving normally inside our little time bubble.
Ginny looked at me. “Pretty neat trick there, girl. Let’s go get her.”
We trotted over to the spot where Anjolie was hanging in mid air, very gradually still rising from the back of the horse.
“We’d better wait till she starts coming down before we grab her, or maybe her momentum will keep her flying upwards when you get things moving again,” Ginny suggested.
I hadn’t thought of that. Ginny surprised me with her knowledge sometimes. It wasn’t long before Anjolie reached the peak of her arc and starting slowly falling toward the huge boulder below her. Ginny pulled her down with the rope that was still around her body and arms, and we sat her sidesaddle on my palomino. I straightened her skirt around her as nicely as I could and used the rest of the rope to bind her arms to her body so she couldn’t move. Then I wrapped the rope around the horn of her saddle and sat on Topaz, holding onto the end of the rope.
Jesse Delacroix: Curse of the Bloodstone Arrow (The Whispering Pines Mystery Series Book 3) Page 9