The boy looked up, saw her, and smiled.
I’ve been waiting for you, he said, as he had before.
“I know.”
She was a car length away but couldn’t get closer.
I’m Oliver.
“I know.”
He went back to his trucks and cars and his parents remained unaware of her presence, speaking softly in words she couldn’t quite make out. The three of them were happy and content, impervious to everything outside the canopy.
Please help me.
“I’m trying. You have to tell me exactly what you want me to do. I’ve never done this before. Be specific. Tell me what to do.”
Free me.
“Oh, for God’s—”
All three of them turned to look expectantly at the house. Oliver jumped up and ran to the top of the stairs to watch an older boy, a young teen, leave the colorless house and cross the neat, dark lawn toward them—a fishing pole over his shoulder, tackle box in hand. The blatant adoration on the youngster’s face was heart-cracking.
They all smiled down on the newcomer when he stopped a few feet away. He grinned and Ivy recognized him immediately, though his face was still midtransition to the man she knew. He spoke to his family, the sound of his words coming from such a distance that she could only grasp the intent—no plan to join them at the moment, he was going fishing.
That’s when Oliver turned his head to look at her directly and fill her head with his voice.
Tell him.
Though his lips hadn’t moved and the moment was brief, his brother caught his temporary distraction and followed his gaze to her.
“Ivy?” The young Craig knew her, was shocked and confused.
“Craig?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he made the jerking gestures of several false starts: run to her, point her out to his parents, run to her, drop his gear, or return to the house.... Finally, he stood as he was, staring through the open sides of the gazebo at her. Helpless.
And as was the mystery and trickery of dreams, she would have gone to him but remained annoyingly stationary. “Are you here? I mean, are you just part of my dream or . . . what’s happening?”
“This is your dream?”
“I think so. Have you had this dream before?”
He looked at his family, the bright white gazebo, and shook his head.
“I have. This is the one I told you about. This is how I knew he called her Ginger Cookie because of the color of her hair. I can’t make out most of what they’re saying to one another but I knew that . . . like I knew the other stuff.”
No, I knew the o ther stuff.
“You knew . . .” She looked back at Oliver, who seemed completely oblivious to her.
You feel as I feel. Know as I know.
“Yeah? Then maybe now’s the time to ask how and why me?”
You let me. I let you.
“What? Is this what all dead people do? Talk in riddles? You’re driving me crazy. Think maybe this is how ghosts got a bad reputation? Because I’m sick of it.” Her attention was diverted back to the boy, the uncolored Craig, as he beat at the air with his pole and box at the bottom of the canopy steps. His parents and joyful younger brother continued to smile down on him, seeming not to notice his frantic attempt to join them.
“Craig.” She spoke softly, with a calm she was far from feeling. The fear and anger and pain in the boy’s face were unlike any she’d seen before. She longed to touch him, to ease his torment, but she didn’t know how. In her heart she stretched out to embrace him, but it was Oliver she begged to help him.
Tell him was his reply.
“Craig. Look at me.”
His thrashing slowed gradually, reluctantly, and eventually he gave up and looked her way. “Why won’t they talk to me like they’re talking to you? Why won’t they let me in?”
“Only Oliver’s talking to me . . . if you want to call it talking.”
“Then tell him to let me in. Tell him I need to talk to him. Tell him it’s important.” He let loose a defeated sigh. “Tell him I’m sorry I let him down.”
Tell him. Tell him!
“He can’t let you in. It’s not your time. You need to go ahead and go fishing. They’re fine and they’ll be waiting for you when it’s time for you to join them.” Wearily, she added, “And don’t ask me how I know that because it’s not what he said.”
“What’d he say?”
“ ‘Tell him. Tell him.’ ” She crossed her legs and sank down onto the grass. Tiny pink and white flowers sprouted and bloomed everywhere. “So I told you.”
“Why the hell doesn’t he talk to me?”
She lay back in the grass. The sky was bright blue and the clouds were tall and billowy with flat bottoms—her favorite kind. “He tried, but you wouldn’t listen to him.” Stars twinkled beside a big full moon. “Which, frankly, I find amazing, since I don’t seem to be able to ignore him at all. Do you think we’ll remember talking to each other when we wake up?” A rainbow arched through the sky repeatedly like a neon sign. “Although, considering the dreams I’ve been having lately, this one is pretty tame.”
She heard birds chirping in the woods and the sound of the waves from the bottom of the cliffs . . . but no Oliver . . . or Craig. Rolling her head slightly in the grass, she glanced at the gazebo. And there with her forearms flat on the railing and her chin on the back of her hands, Patty Ann Pettigrew stared back at her.
“Oh, hey. Hi.” She was on her feet again. “What are you doing here?” She looked around for Craig. The canopy was empty—a drab gray sketch of the structure except for Patty Ann. “Where is everyone?”
“I need a dog. Or a goldfish.” The little girl stood up straight and put her hands on her hips, determinedly. “All kids have pets.”
“I didn’t.”
“You had Jay. I want an iguana.”
“No lizards.”
“What about a bang, bang, bang?”
“A what?”
“Wake up.”
“What?”
“Answer the window.”
Patty Ann, the gazebo, the stars, the tiny flowers, and the rainbows went to black and were replaced by the rapid-fire sounds of knuckles on glass.
“Ivy, wake up!”
With a groan and a grunt she threw off the covers and staggered to the curtains covering the sliding glass door that led to the flagstone patio at the back of the house. She didn’t need to lift the curtain to know who it was, it was simply automatic while her other hand fumbled with the buttons on the security alarm.
“Finally! Open this.” His face was in shadow by the motion lights as he rattled the door by its handle. She slipped the security bar and unlocked the door, and he was on her before she could open her mouth. “Judas priest, woman, you sleep like the dead.” He scolded even as he held her so tight she could scarcely draw air. “I thought you were dead.”
Her lips tangled in his T-shirt when she tried to speak. He slackened his grip but didn’t let go. “Why? What’s happened? What made you think I was dead?”
That’s when she felt him trembling; his muscles tight as piano strings. It was too dark to see his face clearly, but his hands were shaking when she pried them from around her waist and pulled him over to the bed to sit down. He tossed his flashlight on the bed and let his knees—his whole body—go limp. Bending at the waist, she turned on the lamp on the bedside table and felt his head come to rest against her abdomen before she could right herself. He held her around the waist; she caressed his hair, then his face, and whispered, “Talk to me. What happened?”
His shoulders shuddered with a derisive chuckle and he shook his head. “ A dream. A nightmare, but it was so real . . .” He looked up at her with beleaguered eyes. “Look, I know it’s too soon. I know we barely know each other, but you need to know that it’s important to me that nothing happens to you. That you are important to me.”
“I know. And I’m fine. Nothing’s happened to me.”
In her mind she saw the furious bashing of the waves against the cliff wall and flinched. “That’s how Oliver died?”
Falling, falling, falling . . .
“We were talking, in the dream. You were dressed in a long white dress and you were . . . You are so beautiful.” She smiled, not pretending she didn’t understand that he meant in the dream and at that moment—even in her way cool oversized T-shirt and mismatched baggy boxers. “My parents were there, and Oliver. Except for you, it was a typical scene from our past, I guess. We practically lived in that old gazebo when my mother was alive. She loved it. My dad was still young and happy. We all were and—”
“You were going fishing.” It wasn’t a question.
His eyes narrowed and he tipped his head to one side as he gave her a slow nod. “Oliver wouldn’t talk to me. He hates me.”
“He adores you.”
“He only talked to you, and they wouldn’t let me be with them. They shut me out.”
“It isn’t your time,” she said, repeating it from her dream.
He pressed his lips together, looked away, and returned quickly to her eyes. “We had the same dream.”
“Weird, huh?” In truth, she was getting accustomed to weird.
“Very.”
“Does this mean we’re both possessed, or is it still just me?”
“I don’t know.” He reached out and touched her from elbows to hands, holding tight, making certain she was real, sure she was there. He wore flip-flops and flannel sleep pants—he hadn’t bothered with a jacket against the chilly mountain night—yet his palms were fire hot against her skin. “All I know is you were there and then you were gone and all I could see were the cliffs and . . . I knew. God forgive me, I wanted to follow you over. Go with you. I tried. I fought. They just stood there smiling down at me. I couldn’t make it . . . you know, go. Move.”
“You couldn’t make the dream change, couldn’t control it.”
“Yes. I woke up in a cold sweat and, well, here I am. I just needed to make sure you’re okay.”
She let her smile reflect her well-being—waited for his to do the same, weak and tentative as it was. “Do you still think the dreams mean something? What do you think they were trying to tell you?”
“That I don’t want to live without you.”
She cradled his face with her hands; he reclamped his around her wrists, unwilling to break his connection to her. They stared at each other, making wordless declarations and promises with their eyes, seeing truth in the soul of the other. Their eyes closed slowly as she bent to press her lips to his forehead. She kissed each cheek and pressed them in gently with her thumbs. The temptation his lips presented was sore and raw, but it suddenly felt too imperative to be out from under Oliver’s influence before they went any further.
His eyes opened, dreamy, awash with passion and desire. Studying her expression, it was his lopsided smile that gave away his understanding and reluctant agreement. With a light touch, he pulled her hands from his face and held them in front of him. “Okay. So what else could the dream mean?”
“Beats me.”
He was thoughtful for a moment. Reluctantly, he released her right hand when she moved to sit beside him on the bed. “Why isn’t it my time, Ivy? Why won’t Oliver talk to me, too?”
“Why won’t he just tell me what he wants you to know? Why is he making it so complicated?”
“I don’t know. All I do know . . . well, what I believe is that this happens more often than most people think. Being haunted, being possessed. Not always by demons or evil spirits and not always in this exact same way, but in similar enough ways to make it a real possibility.
“In the Bible, for instance, Jesus healed lots of demonpossessed people . . . Once He even sent a herd of demons from two men into two thousand pigs, they say. But over and over you read of people coming under the influence of the Holy Spirit, too. And they always make that sound like a good thing. For centuries Indian shamans and priests have been mediators between their people and the spirit world. Even in Islam they have angels and jinns.
“Oliver told me that for years after Mom died he’d feel her—touching his hair as he drifted off to sleep. Or sometimes, when he was looking for some way to get back at Dad for something, he’d feel her disapproval or disappointment and back off. He said he knew how weird it sounded but when he was younger, right after she died, when he cried, he could smell her perfume and feel her arms come around him and hold him. He said eventually she just went away, like everyone else, and he stopped caring—about anything.”
He sighed. “I’ve had time to think about that, though, and I think it happened the other way around, you know? The older and angrier he got, the harder he tried not to care, and the easier it became to ignore any comfort she might have been able to give him.”
“So you think he was possessed, too?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” He gave her a gentle smile. “I don’t know.” He looked down at their hands, knotted together. “When we moved out here, after he left rehab, I worried about him spending so much time alone down in the gazebo. At first I just talked about moving it back where it belonged—keeping to myself that it would be easier to keep an eye on him if it was closer to the house. He was all for it. Eventually, I finally asked him why he enjoyed it so much. Was it all the memories or the view or whatever? He said it made him feel quiet inside.” He looked at her. “That’s what you said. Before you fainted, you said it made you feel quiet inside, like when you hear my voice.”
“It does.” She nodded. “You do.”
Moved and pleased, he smiled. After a moment he looked away to retrieve his thoughts. “Oliver asked if I thought it was possible that Mom might be reaching out to him there. He said sometimes he had that feeling—not in a creepy, scary way, just sort of a caring, watching-over-him way—but trusting his own emotions wasn’t something he was real good at yet, not with any certainty. Like I’d know anything about things like that,” he said, glancing at her again. “But I’d vowed I’d never blow him off again, so I suggested we both look into it, together. It was . . .” He broke off, searching for the right word. “Great. On so many levels. We went together and talked to priests and rabbis and ministers, a Buddhist monk and a couple of philosophy professors. A psychic. Anyone we thought of, we talked to. But best of all, we talked to each other. All the time. And not just about this. Everything. Girls. Cars. The company. Going back to school eventually. Video games. You name it. I loved it. I—” He stopped abruptly and glanced away, frowning.
“What?”
“I thought I was getting to know him again. He was getting to know me. Trust me.” He looked back at her. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what went wrong. And I know . . . I know I shouldn’t wish this on someone I care about, but there’s a part of me that hopes you are possessed, that it’s Oliver, and . . .” He blew out a breath. “Why won’t he talk to me? Why won’t he let me in?”
She didn’t know any more than he did. Not for sure. But this kettle of fish had been brewing on her front burner for a long time, and it was finally showing signs of a boil....
“I think I might have a theory on that.”
NINE
“What if . . .” She couldn’t believe she was going to say it out loud; couldn’t even look him in the eye as if she were serious. “What if the gazebo is their heaven?”
She held her breath, and when he didn’t speak, she peeked at him—he was patiently waiting for more.
“What if those few minutes, there in the gazebo with a small Oliver and you at thirteen, on your way fishing, is their perfect, heavenlike moment, the one they wouldn’t mind spending eternity in?” He was still listening. “What if they won’t let you join them because it isn’t your time, you’re not dead yet? And Oliver can’t talk to you directly because . . . well, it isn’t part of that scene? I mean, he can talk to me because I’m not
a part of it. I’m looking in from the other side.” Now he was thinking about it and she got bolder. “What if you couldn’t hear what Oliver was saying to me in the dream because you were on the wrong side of the gazebo? What if you were on my side with me?”
That was one step too far, he looked up frowning and confused—she’d lost him.
“I tried to get to you. I wanted to. But I couldn’t even drop my fishing gear. I had no control.”
“No, I know. In a dream you don’t, you can’t control it. Not in ordinary dreams.”
“Ordinary dreams.”
She nodded. “The kind we generate on our own, from our own subconscious, that neither one of us has had in several months.” She watched dawn break in his eyes. “Oliver’s been controlling our dreams. Mine certainly, and yours, too, I suspect, since you saw me before I even got here.”
“Okay. So how do I get back into the dream on your side of their heaven?”
She looked at him, shook her head, and passed her free hand through her hair in disbelief. “I feel like we’re already there, in the same bizarre dream I’ve been having for weeks. You were right before, about it being a good thing no one’s recording us. We sound completely nuts.”
“What’s your point?” he asked, deadpan . . . and then they both laughed with as much relief as humor.
Taking a deep breath, she jumped in with both feet. “Let’s go with it, then. Completely nuts, I think we should start our dream in the same place, together.”
He looked askance, and her gaze drifted over his shoulder to the head of the bed, where one pillow lay indented, the other not. When her eyes came back to his, he was asking something else.
“Knock it off. First we help Oliver. Focus.”
He made a minor production of it. “We sleep together. Literally. Then what?”
She shrugged. “We let Oliver take over.” She stood and started padding toward the bathroom. “If it works, we get firm with him.” She went through the doorway. “We’re a united front. Okay? We finish this here and now and no more riddles or talking in circles. He tells us what he needs us to do to free him, tells you whatever it is he needs to tell you . . . and you say what you need to say, and then it’s over. All right?”
The Unquiet Page 39