Sleep Stalker (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 1) (14 page)

     While he lay there peacefully sleeping, I lay awake wondering—worrying—about what was wrong with him.  And making plans to pick up cinnamon and vanilla
everything
at the grocery store tomorrow after work.  It wasn’t going to solve the problem but it would make life more manageable until I could come up with a better plan.

     I walked into Poe’s Corner the next morning with Zach’s teacup delicately packed inside my purse.  I was hoping to get Addie’s analysis the minute I got there but the place was overrun with patrons.   

     “Why are we so busy this morning?” I shouted over the roar of the espresso machine.  “Is something going on in town that I’m not aware of like the Olympics or something?”  Every seat in the place was occupied and a line of customers was streaming out the front door.

     “It’s homecomin’ weekend at Pendleton.  There’s a lot goin’ on at the campus.  Parents, alumni, and high school seniors checkin’ the place out.  We’ll be crazy busy—it usually doesn’t die off until late Sunday afternoon when everyone starts headin’ home.”

     “Great,” I replied sarcastically as I spilled another latte down the front of my apron.  It was the second one already and I’d only been on the clock for fifteen minutes.  Usually, I could get through my day without wearing any of the drinks I made.  Today was obviously not a good day for me.  I had a super important topic to discuss with Addie and there was no possible way it was going to happen on this shift.  Waiting until Monday was going to be sheer torture.

     “Get your head in the game, Ruby,” she said, tossing me a bar mop to dry off with.  “Consider this good practice for Halloween night.  It’s the 5
th
annual Zombie Walk and we’re a sponsored stop along the way.  Picture today’s crowd, doubled and covered in fake blood wearing raggedy clothes.  It’ll be all hands on deck that night.”

     Halloween used to be my favorite holiday.  Last year, it was a crazy, mixed up mess.  I committed my first—and hopefully last—breaking and entering that day.  There was also some unpremeditated vandalism thrown in there, too.  But that was the day that Zach and I got back together and I found out that he hadn’t actually been dating Chloe.  But then there was the fight resulting in Crimson’s kidnapping.  Ugh.  It was time to pick a new favorite holiday.

     As the day wore on and business never slowed down, I started to become depressed.  Getting that tea leaf reading meant a lot to me but Addie hadn’t mentioned it once.  At the end of my shift, I tossed my stained, wet apron into the wash bin and fought my way to the door without even saying goodbye.  Either way, I would have been going home to a possibly unhinged Zach but I was hoping to at least face him with a little more clarity.  Instead of clarity, I was wearing latte perfume.  Given his odd obsessions lately, though, that might actually work in my favor.  Halfway down the sidewalk, I heard Addie calling my name.

     “Ruby, wait!” she shouted, the sound of quick footsteps following shortly behind.  “Did ya get Zach to drink any tea last night?”

     Relieved to finally have a chance to talk about it, I turned back to meet her.  “Yes, I did.  I have his cup right here,” I said, patting my purse with my hand.  “He chose the red pot—the one with cinnamon tea in it.  I took a look at his cup but I couldn’t make out any clear symbols inside it.”

     “Okay.  Do ya want to come back to my apartment with me so I can get a good look at it?  I just live a few blocks up on West Morgan.  I love a good mystery—I’m simply dyin’ to see what I can find in that cup!”

     Her response made me smile.  Although said with a slight southern drawl, her last statement was something Rachel or Shelly would have said.  Rachel and I hadn’t talked much lately.  On her end, I assumed she was busy with school.  On my end, I knew it was because I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that her twin brother was going insane.  I needed to solve the mystery first, explain what happened second.

      “So am I—let’s go!”  I followed her down the sidewalk past a small diner then into a dingy alleyway.  The building was old, its bricks beginning to crumble in various spots along its length.  A rusty fire escape loomed in front of us and I crossed my fingers that she wouldn’t lead me up them.  So of course, that’s exactly what she did.

     “I know it looks a bit rickety, but it’s completely safe—trust me.  It took Derek a long time to convince me that I wasn’t gonna die a horrible death on these things but he was right.  For the first year we lived here, I actually preferred goin’ into the building two doors down, crawlin’ out the second floor window, walkin’ across the roof of the bike shop next door, then in through our livin’ room window.  I changed my mind that winter when I slipped right off of that icy roof and into a huge pile of snow below.   I was lucky I didn’t break my neck!”

     “Wow.  I never would have guessed that I was working with a first class cat burglar!”  Granted, the drop from the roof wasn’t that high up but more than high enough to cause serious bodily injury.  The fire escape now looked innocuous in comparison.

     And the apartment itself looked much better than the outside of the building did too.  The walls and carpeting were complimentary shades of beige and both appeared fairly recently redone.  One side of the room was covered in music posters, the other in video game paraphernalia.  The main room was large and it wasn’t until I approached the couch that I noticed a bed perched directly behind it.  Catching my gaze, Addie explained the odd feng shui she had going on there. 

     “I know this apartment looks totally ghetto especially to someone who lives at Liberty Towers like y’all do.  But we won’t be stuck here much longer.  Derek graduates this year and he already has a job offer from the medical lab just outside of town.  He’s a computer science major—top of his class.  He’ll be making the big bucks pretty soon.”

     It was then that I spotted a picture of them together and realized who her boyfriend was.  “Wait a second—you’re dating Derek?  Second shift Shakespeare Derek?”  I did
not
see that one coming.

     “Yeah, I’m datin’ Derek.  We don’t make it known at work with me technically being his boss and all.  But ya seem pretty cool—not at all the type to cry foul because of it.  Just keep it to yourself, okay?”

     “Don’t worry—I already have enough problems of my own.  I go to work to
escape
drama not create more of it.  But you guys always work opposite shifts.  When do you even see each other?”

     “Honestly, not often.  But I love my freedom and Derek loves his Xbox.  It all works out perfectly for both of us.  We both agree that it’s the best relationship either of us has ever been in.” 

     That’s exactly how I
used
to feel about Zach and me.  I could feel myself slipping into that dark place where only tears and bad memories existed.  But allowing my emotions to take control of me wasn’t going to get me anywhere.  I hurriedly dug Zach’s tea cup out of my bag and thrust it into her hands.

     “Here.  What do you see?  I also took some pictures of it last night in case the leaves settled as they dried.”  I opened the photo gallery in my phone and handed it to her as well.  “I couldn’t make out anything discernible in it myself.  I did, however, end up with another foot and feather ensemble in my own cup last night.  Do you see anything in his leaves that might make sense of what I keep finding in mine?” 

     Addie studied Zach’s teacup for a moment without as much as a flicker of emotion.  She turned it around in her hand several different times, giving me the impression that the jumbled up mess that I saw was the only thing to be had in there.  Her eyes darted back and forth between the cup and my phone.  Then, with one last turn of the cup, she smiled.

     “Well, I can make out two distinct patterns in here.  The first one was obvious and makes sense based on what you’ve told me about Zach so far.  The second thing eluded me until I started to look at it from a different perspective.  What I see in there may not be as important as what I
don’t
see.  Here,” she said, excitedly forcing the cup back into my hands.  “Look at it again.  Look at what you don’t see.  Look at the spaces where there aren’t any tea leaves and see what you come up with.”

     While I was fond of riddles in the general sense, I absolutely despised them when solving them was essential to me.  I stared into the cup stubbornly, wishing that she would simply tell me what she saw.  Admittedly, I wasn’t even trying to figure it out—at first.  Then magically, my eyes began to rearrange what they were seeing and there it was—clear as day.  An arrow.  A large two-headed arrow stretching the length of his cup.  It was formed not out of leaves but by the white space between clumps.

     “I see an arrow!” I exclaimed abruptly.  “But that’s all I can see.  What else is in there?  And what does it mean?”

     “An arrow could mean several different things based on its position in the cup and the direction it’s pointin’.  This one in particular denotes ambiguity in regards to a love relationship.  The two prongs show that there is confusion in that part of Zach’s life.  And his tea choice itself denotes an attraction to fire and passion of some sort.”

     “I knew it!” I shouted, unable to keep my emotions in check a moment longer.  “There’s someone else, isn’t there?  Zach is confused about whether he wants to be with me or her!”   

     “Don’t be so quick to judge, Ruby!  If you notice, both prongs loop around and point straight back toward one another.  That leads me to think that there isn’t anyone else involved here.  The other symbol I found seems to point to another reason for his confusion.  Do you see what’s surroundin’ the arrow?” she asked, pointing at the leaves on either side of it.

     Honestly, I didn’t—maybe it was because I was afraid or didn’t want to.  I didn’t want to lose Zach to another woman but it seemed like the lesser of the evils in this situation.  “Okay, so if it isn’t another woman then I have no other choice but to believe that he’s stark raving mad.  Crazy.  Like, I’ll come home some day and find him eating his cereal out of the toilet bowl kind of crazy.”

     “Calm down, Ruby!  What I’m about to tell ya may not seem like good news at first but please hear me out.  The rest of the leaves form a net-like pattern.  Zach is being held captive by some
thing
—not some
one
.  My best guess is that he is under some sort of curse.”

     “A curse?  You call that
good
news?  So, what, do you consider evil spells a fun Sunday afternoon activity the whole family can enjoy?  Is that the voodoo equivalent of board game night?”  I knew how hateful and sarcastic I sounded, how childish and borderline insane I myself must have looked.  But I was hurting inside—deeply—due to Zach’s recent behavior.  How could I sit there and let her devalue the severity of my heartbreak?

     Addie heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes.  “I keep forgettin’ that I’m not in New Orleans anymore.  Folk down there have a different reaction to the word ‘curse’.  I guess I need to give ya a more in depth explanation.  I’ll get us somethin’ to snack on while we talk.” 

     She got up from the couch and made her way to the kitchen while I sat there thanking my lucky stars that I
wasn’t
in New Orleans.  If curses were as bountiful as doughnuts in a bakery down there, that was one vacation destination I was wiping off of my travel bucket list immediately.  When Addie asked me what I wanted to drink, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

     “Anything but tea!”  I would hear her out on this whole curse business, but I was skeptical.  Okay, I was
beyond
skeptical.  Teomancy, voodoo, simple curse removal—they were all brilliant distractions from the bitter truth I was trying not to face.  Zach needed physical and or psychological help.  He needed tangible intervention, not feathers and fortunetelling.  My presence seemed to make him worse.  I needed to find a reason to send him back to Charlotte’s Grove indefinitely where he could be under the watchful eye of his parents.  I had to admit to myself once and for all that this problem was not only too big for me to handle alone but also something I probably
shouldn’t
be a part of.

     As Addie busied herself in the kitchen on the opposite side of the apartment, something on the bookshelf in front of me toppled over and fell to the floor.  I was usually quick to assume ghosts were the culprit in moments like these, but this time I just chalked it up to how old the building was.  Places like this one were prone to vibrational shifts in the floor boards.  Her footsteps in the kitchen probably caused a slight movement that made whatever it was fall.  I would use any excuse I could create to stay as far away from the paranormal right now. 

     Without hesitation, I made my way to the bookshelf to replace the fallen item, hoping that it was still in one piece.  When I glanced down at the floor, I gasped.  The item on the floor was a doll—but not just any doll.  It was a Barbie-sized likeness of a Native American woman.  She lay face down on the carpeting but the feathers protruding from her headband were all I really needed to see.  It was another sign.  A sign telling me to stay my course.  A sign telling me that even though my presence seemed to be making him worse, that I was to hold my ground in regards to Zach.

     I could hear Addie in the kitchen, prattling on about something snack related but my focus was purely on the doll at my feet.  Gently, I lifted her from the floor and turned her over to get a good look at her face.  And I gasped yet again.  This couldn’t be a mere coincidence.  It just couldn’t be.  Destiny was not done with Zach and me—not by a long shot.