Dream Dancer (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 2)

by Elbel, Joy

  Rachel ducked back, ready for a total throw down. Shelly, on the other hand, smiled back at me. Then without missing a beat, she looked at the heavily tattooed man who was about to permanently etch my mother’s legacy into my skin and said, “Fire away.”

  And with that blessing, I went under the needle while they watched. Well, one of them watched anyway. Rachel had a serious issue with witnessing blood loss that I forgot all about so with the first drop, she was done and sitting in the waiting area biting her fingernails down to their nubs. Shelly, however, stayed right by my side—soaking up every gory detail for future book reference. That’s when I knew that Shelly was my “spirit animal”—she was able and willing to separate herself from my pain in the name of research. She wasn’t my real mom but by the law of attraction, she should have been. Dad made a wise choice when he picked her. I only wanted to live long enough to let him know that.

  With every jab of the needle, I felt closer to my final destination. It’s funny how facing death actually makes you feel completely alive. I wasn’t going to sulk about not finding my answers today. I was going to soak up the moments I had left and not miss out on a thing.

  When the tattoo was finished, I stared at it in awe. It was perfect and symbolic of me in so many ways. This was one of the crowning moments in my life that would be hard to top. And it became even more priceless when Shelly made an unexpected announcement.

  “I want one too! That feather reminds me of a writer’s quill and what’s not to love about the eternity symbol. Would you mind if I had the same tattoo as you, Ruby?”

  In my mind, I passed Mom’s torch to Shelly. I would never have the chance to do mother/daughter things with her but with Shelly I could. We had more in common than I ever wanted to believe we did. Plus, it would give her something monumental to remember about me once I was gone. I didn’t directly answer her question, I just looked at the artist who perfectly inked my skin and repeated her infamous line.

  “Fire away!”

  Another hour later, the three of us walked out of Death Wish, Ink with fresh tattoos. Rachel’s was only a fake one that she purchased from the vending machine in the waiting area but she was every bit as happy with it as we were with ours. We returned to our hotel room and relaxed on the balcony with a pitcher of iced tea we ordered from room service.

  I kicked back in the humid air with my newly inked foot propped up where I could admire it. I was so proud of myself—not for what I’d already done but for what I knew I was about to do. The concept of sacrifice was no longer a scary one. Sacrifice for the right reason was the best feeling in the world. I was at peace. Despite the reverie in the street, I started drifting off to sleep until Rachel and Shelly began loudly daring each other to flash the mob below us.

  “Come on, Shelly—I dare you to do it!”

  “Me? I’m too old for that kind of stuff. You do it!”

  “You aren’t too old! Look at that woman down there—she has to be at least twenty years older than you and she’s doing it. You’re just chicken.”

  “No, I think you’re the chicken. You want to do it but you’re too scared so instead you want to talk me into doing it.”

  “I’m not scared. You are. I double dog dare you!”

  “Well, I triple dog dare you!”

  I was tired, ready for bed, and not about to let either of them pull out the dreaded quadruple dog dare. I had nothing left to lose—it was time to throw caution to the wind. So I casually walked over to the edge of the balcony and nonchalantly lifted my shirt for the screaming crowd. For a full ten seconds. Then I pulled myself back together and turned around to see two shocked faces staring at me.

  “Goodnight” was all I said as I brushed past them and into the hotel room without a second thought. Settling into my bed, I set my alarm clock early so that I would be at Elva’s Armoire before the throng of tourists could beat me to it.

  I woke up refreshed without having any weird dreams. Strange things were always waiting in the wings for me but I wasn’t expecting what happened that morning. It defied the very laws of physics, in my mind. My capacity for weirdness would never cease to amaze me.

  It happened while I was in the bathroom getting ready to leave. I’d left my special blow dryer at home in an effort to pack light. Hotel blow dryers were terrible but I decided not to worry about my hair while I was Louisiana. The humidity was terrible and I knew I was going to be a frizzed out mess no matter how hard I tried to fight it. So I picked up that cheap dryer and turned it on with only one goal in mind—to have dry hair regardless of what it looked like.

  I did my best without all of the fancy attachments I had on the one back home. My best produced seriously weird results. My hair was dry yet straight. Flawlessly straight. Even my expensive, salon-quality flat iron never made my hair look this good. There wasn’t a single hair that wasn’t falling in line perfectly with the rest. They were all synchronized into one sleek attempt to make me beautiful. And it worked. I looked like…Mom.

  Both Shelly and Rachel complimented me on my new hairstyle but wondered what made me decide to straighten it again. So for the umpteenth time in the last few years, I had to explain that something weird was going on with me. Again.

  “I didn’t do this myself—Fate did it for me. Lately, I’ve come to realize that I am turning into Mom. For better or worse, we were meant to take the same path in life.”

  I tried to keep the ominous tone of foreshadowing out of my voice but Shelly gave me a strange look. She knew I was hiding something from her. It wouldn’t take her long to figure it out. Hopefully by then, the wheels would all be set into motion and it would be too late for anyone to try to stop them.

  We lingered over breakfast for a bit too long discussing my stunt on the balcony the night before. I had to admit—I was surprised by my spontaneity far more than they were. Spontaneous was rapidly becoming my middle name.

  Running fifteen minutes late, we weren’t able to make it to Elva’s Armoire as the doors were opening. There were already three customers inside the store when we stepped inside. A woman wearing a Louisiana State Police ball cap was browsing alongside her daughter in the far right corner. The girl was only about ten years old yet begging her mother for a five hundred dollar designer watch.

  “Kids these days. When I was ten, I begged for Barbie dolls,” I whispered into Shelly’s ear so as not to be overheard.

  “You really are turning into your Mom, aren’t you? How old are you again? You’ve grown up so much lately. She would be proud of how you turned out.”

  I nodded my head all the while thinking that she was going to be even more proud of me once I was able to sacrifice myself to save Zach. But I was getting nervous thinking about it. My eyes flitted around the jewelry store in search of the woman who would tell me what I needed to know. Addy’s description was spot on. I now knew what cotton candy dipped in sweet Georgia honey looked like.

  On the far side of Elva’s Armoire stood Queen Elva Lafay herself. Her honey dipped hair and conservative attire were the polar opposite of what I envisioned of a voodoo queen. But once I heard her biting wit, I was entirely confident that she was every bit as powerful as Addy claimed her to be.

  Queen Elva was embroiled in a debate with a boy who looked no older than twelve yet carried himself like a fully grown, incredibly arrogant man. I drifted closer so that I could hear their conversation better. The dispute stemmed from a watch that the boy insisted was overpriced. He was smooth—I had to give him that. But it was obvious that no one gets the best of a voodoo queen. No one.

  “But there’s a tiny scratch on the face—right here. I figure that should knock at least a hundred dollars off the price,” he said bartering with nothing short of sheer cockiness in his voice.

  “Where do you see a scratch?” she replied in a sweet southern tone. “Do I need to get out my magnifying glass, sugar? Because I will, you know. I have one right here under the counter.”

  I loved the passively aggressive
tone of her voice. She knew there wasn’t a scratch. And she knew a shady haggler when she spotted one. If this kid didn’t watch out, there was going to be a voodoo doll with his name on it really quick.

  “Well,” the kid countered without missing a beat, “I saw an even better watch across the street for a hundred dollars less. And it was an authentic Tissot titanium—without any kind of surface flaws. So I guess I’ll have to give that Frenchman my business then,” he said still fishing for a discount.

  Elva’s subtle sarcasm turned abruptly to disdain. “Who Edouard? He didn’t just hop off the boat from Paris, you know. He’s from Cleveland! Don’t let that fake French accent fool you. There isn’t a single authentic thing in that store. If you don’t like my prices, I suggest you leave before I have you thrown out.”

  I giggled to myself as the pint-sized Donald Trump haughtily attempted to conjure up a witty comeback yet came up short. I’d been browsing nothing but the jewelry cases until that moment. But when I looked up, I saw it. The thick, red curtain that most assuredly hid the real business Queen Elva was in. That curtain could only be hiding one thing—voodoo. I wandered closer to see if could catch a peek at what I was up against. I caught the edge of the velvet cloth with the tip of my fingernail and gave it a slight tug.

  “HELLO!” Elva shouted in my ear forcefully and I jumped a mile. “Nothing in there is of any concern to you, my dear. Must I throw you out as well?”

  Holy crap. The last thing I needed was to incur the wrath of a voodoo queen. I already had enough problems as it was. I didn’t need zombie bouncers to rush out of the darkness and throw me out into the gutter. Hurriedly, I flashed the business card Addy gave me before anything bad could happen.

  Elva paused for a moment, eyeing me up like a hawk scopes out a field mouse. “Ruby? I was expecting someone with curly hair.”

  “Yeah, well, when it comes to me, you have to always expect the unexpected. Addy said you could help me. I hope she was right.”

  “Are they with you?” she asked, gesturing to Shelly and Rachel who were giddily examining the Betsey Johnson display.

  “Yes,” I replied with both excitement and trepidation. The only other patrons in Elva’s Armoire were making their way to the door as we spoke. This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for was almost here.

  Elva assessed me one more time before locking the front door behind Donald Trump and his family and flipping the sign in the window to say “closed”. Once that was done, she pulled back the red curtain to voodoo land and invited us all inside.

  I have to admit, that secret room was a bit daunting at first. The wall was lined with voodoo accoutrements—jars full of mystery powders and mojo bags out the wazoo but not a single pin pricked doll in sight. Maybe Addy was right when she said that voodoo wasn’t what I expected it to be. Nevertheless, I was going to be careful not to cross Queen Elva Lafay.

  At the center of the room sat a table covered by a lavishly decorated black satin cloth. On top of that cloth lay a deck of cards. Suddenly, my mouth went dry as I thought back to that day at Madame Ruisseau’s. I knew I would have to make the ultimate sacrifice and probably make it soon. I was still fully prepared to give my life to save Zach’s. But, I was determined to continue throwing caution to the wind until that day arrived. I was going to live every day I had left to the fullest.

  Queen Elva pointed me to a seat at the table then ordered Shelly and Rachel to remain on the settee far across the room from us. I exhaled sharply, afraid yet ready to hear anything she had to say to me. She took the seat across the table from me and eyed me sharply yet again.

  “So, my lovely granddaughter tells me that you have ‘the shine’ to you?”

  She had to go and use those words, now didn’t she? The Shining was one of my favorite movies but I had to confess that I had a somewhat gross association with it. The first time I watched that movie was when I was thirteen. It was the day I got my first period. Dad was kind of awkward and didn’t really know what to say or do. So he kind of threw some tampons, a tub of ice cream, and a free pass to watch any movie I wanted to that night. I, stupidly and unknowingly, chose The Shining.

  Upset because I now knew that I was going to be practically bleeding to death for the next fifty years, I sat on that couch and stuffed my face with enough Chunky Monkey for twenty pregnant women. I was enjoying the movie as much as I possibly could given the circumstances. Until it got to that scene. If you’ve ever seen the movie you know which one I’m talking about. The scene where the elevator door opens and a tidal wave of blood rushes out into the hallway. It was the worst possible thing a newly menstruating girl could have to witness.

  Seeing that blood and thinking of my current situation made my stomach turn. The sheer mass of the ice cream in my stomach was the final factor in the equation. Saying that I threw up was a gross understatement. I barely made it to the nearest garbage can before Satan began pouring out of my mouth like I was in mid-exorcism. I hurled so forcefully that it oozed out of my nose as well. Oh how it burned! By the time all of the demons had been cast out, my stomach had undergone the toughest ab workout imaginable. And suffice it to say, it took years before I could look at a container of Chunky Monkey without getting queasy.

  Which was exactly how I felt at the moment. Confident that I was about to learn exactly how and when I would have to die for Zach, made me almost taste that foul regurgitated ice cream in my mouth again. It wasn’t that I was rethinking my decision to make that sacrifice, I was imagining my own blood rushing forth from a metaphorical elevator. How much pain was I going to have to endure before the end finally came?

  Queen Elva sat down across the table from me and placed a completely foreign deck in front of me. Gone were the peacock feathers from Madame Ruisseau’s. Instead, I found the face of a brightly colored fairy. Remembering what Addy said about her grandmother, I looked up to see what kind of necklace she was wearing. Yep, just what I expected—a crucifix. Jesus on her neck and fairies on her deck. A voodoo queen who loved both Jesus and fairies was more of a paradox than I knew what to do with.

  She had me shuffle the cards the same way as Madame Ruisseau did. But that was where the similarities ended. She instructed me to hand her three cards at once instead of only one. I easily picked the ones that would represent my past and present. My hand trembled as I chose the one that would reveal my future. She flipped the first card over and without hesitation, began telling me what I already knew about myself.

  “You’ve received Geo the Slow. In your past, there was a great need for patience. You were on the right path but you needed to move at a slower pace than you were used to. You were kind of forced to go with the flow against your better instincts. You were unhappy about it but realized you had no other choice.”

  Dead on. When she told me that I could ask questions about anything she said, I nodded my head in the affirmative but there were no questions to ask. Already this reading was off to an impeccable start.

  The next card brought little confusion as to what it meant, either. “Tobaira of the Waters. Change is happening. You can either flow with it or fight it. You need to relinquish control. Don’t fight the river, so to speak. Don’t churn the waters. Change will happen regardless of whether you want it or not. Facing it with positivity will bring about a better ending.”

  Well that right there said it all. The change referred to me sacrificing myself on Zach’s behalf. I’d already relinquished control, thrown caution to the wind. I was facing everything with a completely open heart and mind now. My death would be his saving grace as long as I didn’t fight the inevitable. I was still afraid of what lay in store for me—don’t get me wrong on that one. But I’d made peace with it. If I hadn’t, I never would have flashed the crowd from the balcony last night. A girl who was living like she was dying was liable to make a sudden, crazy move at any possible moment.

  Oh, but my future sat ominously there in front of me. I squeezed my eyelids shut tight as she flipped that card
over. I was expecting another episode like what I endured in Ohio. Whatever the equivalent of the Death card was in this fairy-laden deck. Whatever it was I ready to face it.

  With the flip of the card, I expected to see a huge change in her expression the way I had at Madame Ruisseau’s. I began to relax when she didn’t flinch at what she saw before her. I should have realized that a voodoo queen could deliver the death blow without batting an eyelash.

  “Lady of the Harvest,” she announced without emotion. “She signals that a natural ending to something is coming in your near future. Something is dying. You’re about to embark on a new beginning. Whatever you are losing, you have to be ready to let it go. Rejoice for what it gave you but don’t try to drag it into your new life.”

  My heart sank. I was still holding onto the slight chance that Madame Ruisseau was wrong about what was in store for me. This card shattered that hope. I truly was going to have to die to save Zach’s life or I was going to have to find a way to live without him. Either way, it was game over for me. In that moment, I wished that I had never met him. If I could go back in time and change things, I would avoid him like the plague. Was it possible? No, it wasn’t. I had to let go of the foolish notion that it was even an option.

  I picked out three new cards with zero enthusiasm. Queen Elva explained that this next layer would shed more light on the forces at work in my life. Honestly, I already felt like I knew too much as it was. If I had been seated across from any other fortune teller, I would have gotten up and walked out before hearing another word. But let’s face it, my juju was already in the toilet. I didn’t need to add crossing a voodoo queen to the list of strikes the universe currently had against me.