by Sue Clifton
Something about her is familiar to me, but there’s no way I’ve ever met her. This is my first time in this area.
Piper quickly looked away so Janie wouldn’t notice her stares and moved her attention back to Zach and the transactions going on.
“Nope. It’ll be fine just like this.” Zach picked up the rod and the wrapped reel. “I’m glad you made me stop, Piper. I’ve been wanting a Hardy rod for years.”
Janie followed them out to the porch.
“Thank you for your purchases, and tell your mom, or your aunt, I hope she enjoys the dough bowl.” Janie hesitated. “And I’m really sorry for the way I acted. I hope you’ll come back.”
“I’m sure we will. Thank you, Janie.” Piper gave a quick wave to Janie from the Jeep as they drove away.
“Very odd. I wonder who she thought I was. And I know I’ve never met her, but she did look familiar.”
“Yep. She was a little strange. Didn’t seem like she ever was totally comfortable.” Zach turned his attention back to Piper. “Okay. Get your GPS on your phone while we’ve still got a signal, and get us some directions to Bar None.”
Chapter Sixteen
In the far corner of the room, bubbles swirled in a thin blue mist as if they were trying to move undetected. Inside the mass of blue, a smaller white circle of motion spun faster than the blue bubbles. Cayce looked at Harri and pointed. Then she moved to the piano bench and sat beside Hank.
“I think Bach’s ‘Minuet in G’ is working, Hank,” she whispered, tipping her head toward the corner. Hank took a quick glance and continued playing with his right hand. With the other, he patted the left side of the bench, reminding Cayce she was sitting in Sara’s spot.
Harri picked up her camcorder, aimed it at the blue swirl, and pressed record. The blue bubbles became more visible, moving toward the piano. As Hank played with light, playful strokes, the mist moved closer until only a foot or two away from the piano.
Cayce could do nothing but stare in amazement as the blue engulfed her and Hank. She hoped Harri was capturing this fantasy. If so, it would be the most dazzling piece of paranormal footage she and her sister had ever recorded. Without thinking, she put her arm through Hank’s left arm. He tightened on her arm to signal he was there for her. Turning her head in every direction, she could not help but smile. In the midst of a swirling sea of aqua, they were surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of spherical fish with slanted eyes and tiny mouths, each bubble fish keeping time to Hank’s playful notes. In the middle of the sea, a tiny ripple of white twirled like the ballerinas that once stood on top of the music boxes she and Harri had as children, special gifts their dad had given each girl.
Harri looked at Teesh and saw tender, pleasant joy in her wrinkled face. Teesh had her hands over her open mouth, her eyes twinkling behind the moistness that was testament to her experiencing a childhood friend. Sara was trapped between memory and reality, a replay few people experience.
Then it happened.
First, the bubbles began moving about erratically as if disturbed. The slants of their tiny eyes darted in every direction, and Harri was sure the eyes were circling around their little heads, or was it the bubbles completely circling in an effort to see behind, in front, and to each side? They encompassed the little white mist, keeping her in the center so tightly she could no longer twirl, even as they spun out of control. Their swirling became more violent, like a severe tornado. The whole room shook; the chandelier swung so hard a few crystal prisms popped off and landed on the floor. One fell in Teesh’s lap, making her jump.
The blades on the two oversized fans hanging on either end of the ceiling stopped abruptly and then turned the opposite direction, whirring louder and louder, threatening to chop up whatever or whoever was beneath them if they fell. Charlie covered his eyes and rocked forward and backward. Harri and Teesh hugged him, putting their bodies tight against him to shelter him from the terrifying happenings. The camcorder flew off Harri’s lap and landed at her feet, but she made no attempt to retrieve it.
Hank stopped playing and grabbed Cayce in a bear hug to prevent her from being cast off the bench as it vibrated and then levitated, rising at least five feet off the floor.
What happened next proved to be the shocking conclusion to the horrific scene. A large, dark fog appeared on the walkway that looked down from the second story. It moved stealthily toward the stairs, making its own whirring sound like a mass of huge, nasty, black flies beating their wings in rapid succession. Then the beating turned to deep bass, drumming more like a cave full of bats than tiny flies as the black mass moved down the stairs and approached the dazed onlookers.
The blue tornado moved in front of the piano as if seeking Hank’s protection, but Hank and Cayce remained afloat on the bench. Harri saw Hank look behind him, and she caught a glimpse of Sara’s face in the midst of the slanted dark eyes surrounding her. Her eyes, her only feature showing, were crystal blue, surrounded by flopping dark curls and an aqua blue bow; the little girl was being tossed about in the protective funnel like a rag doll caught in a hurricane.
Charlie peeked through his fingers and then covered his eyes again. He tried to escape from his protectors, but Harri and Teesh held him tight.
“Charlie not like black fog!” he shrieked. “Charlie not like black fog!” The little man continued to yell, getting louder and louder as if building up his immunity and his bravery.
The black mass gave off a deep, sadistic laugh, the laugh of a devil, as it drew closer and closer to the piano. But it wasn’t Hank and Cayce it was after. It headed for the blue bubbles and Sara. The bubbles darted away from the piano toward the door.
“Charlie not like black fog!” Charlie bellowed, a deep-throated bellow of a person highly agitated. He was easily heard over the roar of the devil twister, causing Harri to shake and lose her grip.
Charlie broke free and darted for the door ahead of the bubbles. He threw open the door, but did not run through. Instead, he allowed Sara and her protectors to rush through the door. Charlie slammed the door shut behind them and stood in front of it, arms folded, blocking the demon’s path.
Hank jumped from the elevated bench, clutching Cayce, letting go only after she stood securely on the floor. He ran toward Charlie to help him, both to protect Charlie and to keep the fog from going after Sara. But just before Hank reached Charlie, the little man pulled a small bag from his pocket, opened it, and slung the contents into the black mass hovering near him. The drumming stopped, and a deep, booming voice howled and faded away, gradually slipping into nothingness and ending as a whisper of mist like the breath of a man who steps into freezing night air. Then it disappeared.
The fan blades slowed, the chandelier steadied, the room stopped shaking, and the piano bench fell to the floor, breaking a leg off as it landed with a thud. The floor in front of the door was covered with a fine mist of glitter.
“Gold dust!” Cayce blurted out.
No one spoke for what seemed an eternity. Teesh hugged her purse for comfort and stared at Charlie, the hero of the hour. Hank walked over to Cayce and put his arm around her even though she no longer appeared frightened. Charlie walked slowly, as if nothing had happened, back to the sofa and took his place between Teesh and Harri, giving his protectors a reassuring smile. Everything was calm until…
Rap! Rap! Rap! Rap! Rap!
Chapter Seventeen
Teesh gasped, Harri jumped, and Charlie shrieked, putting his hands over his eyes again.
“I’ll get it. All of you stay put.” Hank moved toward the door but hesitated to open it. He looked back at the others in the room and was reaching to open it when…
Creeeeeeeeak! The door slowly opened.
“Anybody home?” A female voice called cheerily from the cracked opening.
“Piper?” Cayce rushed to the door and embraced her daughter.
Cayce’s first thought when Piper introduced them to Zach a few minutes later was that she had been right. She
immediately looked at her daughter’s left hand to see if Piper wore a big diamond on her finger, but Cayce only saw her own old wedding band and diamond. Piper saw her mom looking and immediately pulled Cayce into the kitchen, where Harri was heating up leftovers.
“Mom, I just met Zach today. We sat together on the plane from Salt Lake,” she whispered, eyeing her mother and frowning. “And yes, I know I got in a car with an almost stranger, but I checked his credentials, and I called Harri to tell her I was coming with Zach.”
Cayce looked at her sister and frowned. Harri, overhearing the conversation, just smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and walked back to the refrigerator to fix iced tea for her niece and her very handsome friend.
When the second meal—complete with more reheated chocolate gravy and biscuits for Charlie—was finished, the group went back into the front parlor.
“Okay. Now it’s time to explain what happened here,” Piper said when she saw Hank sweeping the gold dust into a pan. “You all looked like you were expecting Frankenstein’s monster when I opened the front door.” Piper sat by Zach on a short Victorian loveseat. Charlie squeezed in between Teesh and Harri on the sofa again, clearly liking the security they offered, and Cayce helped Hank hammer the broken leg back onto the piano bench after the gold dust was back in Charlie’s bag.
“There. That seems pretty steady now.” Hank shook the bench, to make sure it would stand without wobbling, before he sat on it. Cayce took her place again by Hank and hoped this time it would not take them on a magic bench ride.
“Well, after scanning through this camcorder footage, I think it’s movie time. No explanation will be necessary after you watch this, Piper.” Harri left the sofa and set the camcorder on a small table she had set in the center of the room. She then moved a couple of chairs and directed everyone’s attention to the back wall by the kitchen door.
“My camcorder has a built-in projector, so we can watch it straight from the camera. I’ll warn you, though. You might have to turn your head upside down for some of it, or I can turn the camera, which might be easier. The camcorder flew off my lap at one point and was recording from its side.”
“Would you get the lights, Hank?” Harri glanced at Charlie, who already had his hands over his eyes.
“Oh, Charlie, you don’t have us fooled anymore. You are one brave little man, yes, you are.” Charlie slid his hands down and gave his hearty laugh to show he liked Harri calling him brave. But when he saw the scene replaying on the wall, he lost his nerve again and covered his eyes. What had seemed like hours was only ten minutes, according to the camcorder, but it was the longest ten minutes anyone in the group had experienced.
“Oh, my gosh! I cannot believe that happened! Mom, is that what you and Harri deal with all the time?”
“It isn’t all negative or this scary, Piper. Sara is the most endearing little spirit we’ve ever contacted. If you could have heard her giggling when she was playing with my makeup…” Harri smiled, remembering their first encounter with the little spirit.
“And you should see how happy she is when she dances—in person, that is. Right, Charlie?” Hank directed his remark to his new friend.
“Charlie love Sara and Jesus. Sara dance with Charlie and sing Jesus love me, dis I know.”
Piper looked at Cayce with questions written on her face.
“I’ll take you to the cemetery tomorrow, and you will meet Jesus in person, and if we’re lucky, Sara will dance for you.” Cayce saw worry written all over Piper’s face. “Is there something bothering you? Other than the worst scary movie you ever watched?” Cayce noticed Piper held tight to her new friend’s hand.
Piper dropped Zach’s hand, and went to her art bag. She pulled out her sketchbook and flipped to the page of Bar None and handed it to her mother. Harri left the sofa and looked over Cayce’s shoulder, and both sisters stared at Piper.
“I knew something was wrong with you the last few times we’ve talked on the phone. Spill it, Piper. How did you come to sketch a ghost town you’ve never seen? This looks exactly like the picture I bought in Lester’s antique shop.” Cayce paused. “And when exactly did you sketch this?”
“I sketched the one of Bar None a couple of days ago.”
“The same day I bought the picture. I bet if we figured out the times you were sketching this, or perhaps dreaming it, it’d turn out to be the same time I was looking at it on Lester’s wall. Interesting!”
Piper told about the recurring dreams of the beautiful Chinese girl and said there had been other dreams, as well, some she had not sketched.
“Oh, Piper, I know how you have fought the possibility of having the Gift, but it is really not something to be feared.” Cayce saw the disturbed look on Piper’s face and knew her daughter needed reassurance. “But we’ll talk later, before bed. You can show me your sketches and tell me about your dreams—especially the ones that have come true so far.”
Wanting to lighten up the atmosphere after the movie footage and after Piper’s disclosure, Cayce turned to Zach.
“Well, Zachary, you seem like a nice young man, and I like your connection with history. But tell me—do you wish you had not been chosen to sit by my daughter on that flight from Salt Lake City?”
“I like the sound of that, Ms. McCallister. Being ‘chosen’ to sit by Piper would mean there is much Piper-and-Zach ahead.” Zach squeezed Piper’s hand and smiled at her. “I don’t have any paranormal gifts that I know of, but like I told Piper, I do have Native American ancestors—a grandfather, to be more exact. So I am intrigued, to put it mildly, with the world of spirits. Experiencing them would be a real adventure, but hopefully, not the black cloud—or fog, as Charlie calls it. That is pretty terrifying. Right, Charlie?”
Zach looked at Charlie and smiled. Charlie had taken right to Zach from the first introduction. Charlie had told Zach about his hat and how it was his dad’s. He’d even taken it off and handed it to Zach so he could get a closer look at a “real forest ranger hat.” After that, Charlie pulled out a pocketknife and showed it to Zach, telling him it, too, had been his father’s. Cayce was impressed with this, feeling Charlie was a good judge of character.
After Teesh and Charlie left, Hank showed Zach to his room on the opposite end of the hall from the ladies’ and right beside his room, and then helped him put his gear inside.
“Is that a Hardy rod, Zach?” Hank reached for the rod Zach was about to put down.
“Yep. Found it in the antique shop and couldn’t resist it.” Zach handed the rod to Hank, who began putting it together. “It’s heavy, and the flex will take some getting used to, but any diehard fly fisher like myself needs at least one in his collection.”
“I see what you mean about the flex.” Hank flexed the rod a few times and then took it back apart to place in the sleeve. “I love to fly fish but haven’t had much time for it lately. Maybe we’ll get to wet a fly while you’re here.”
“Hope so, and I know Piper and her mom are hoping so, too.” Zach leaned the rod against the wall. “Guess we better check in with the ladies, huh?” Zach headed out the door behind Hank.
On the opposite end of the hall, Cayce chose the room next to hers for her daughter. This room was beautiful, and Cayce had imagined her daughter sleeping on the tall Victorian bed. Now she knew why. Cayce was always tuned in to Piper, either as a result of the Gift or having a close mother/daughter relationship. She felt at ease where her daughter was concerned for the first time in months, even in a haunted ghost town in Idaho.
Cayce listened intently as Piper told her about some of her dreams, of places she’d painted before she ever saw them, and about her very first dream nine months ago, the dream of Jonathan with another woman. The woman she had sketched and finally showed to Jonathan turned out to be his wife, and he could do nothing but confess when he saw it. Her dreaming had stopped with her despair from the breakup, but it had resurfaced a few days after she reached Europe.
As their conversation wound d
own, Cayce reassured Piper. “Your Gift is a true Gift if you use it for the good of those communicating with you, be they alive or be they dead. I know you, my daughter. You will use it to save, never to harm, and you will not ignore it.”
Piper thought about the sketch in her new sketchpad, but decided not to show her mom right now for fear of ruining the most perfect day either of them had experienced in months. Neither had she shown the sketch to Zach or anyone else. It was the scene of the most frightening nightmare of all. She had forced herself to sketch it hurriedly when she woke up in the night, hoping to make it go away forever. She wanted to show her mom and get her take on it, but it frightened her so much she could not bring herself to look at it even once after she had drawn it. Piper put the dream out of her mind for fear of conjuring it up in her sleep again.
I’ll save it for another time, if there is another time, and just hope the dream won’t reoccur. If it leaves me alone, I will continue to leave it alone. Maybe I’ll even destroy the sketch.
It had been a good day. Piper felt at peace for the first time in months, having finally accepted the Gift as a blessing and not a curse. She could now look forward to her dreams, and would sketch them as soon as she had enough vision to accomplish the task. Sometimes she would need to wait for repetition, like she had with the dreams of Yu. The sketch had to be realistic and perfect.
Despite her mother’s surprise when she’d arrived at Bar None that night, especially being accompanied by Zach, Piper somehow had a second sense her mom had expected her.
After taking a long, hot shower in the communal bathroom, Piper buried herself in the crisp sheets and soft down comforter of the beautiful Victorian bed. She loved the intricate angel carved in the tall headboard and knew now why her mother had told her this was her room. As a child, Piper’s bed always had a picture of a guardian angel over it, protecting her from bad dreams and childhood fears. Now here she was again, thirty years old but still seeking the protection only a mother and an angel could offer.