Paranormal Summer (Indigo Moon Rising) (7 page)

As she watched him walking towards her, it was all in slow motion. His beautiful sandy hair, showing slight streaks of blonde, natural highlights from working on the farm. He had smooth tan skin, over a kind and gentle, friendly face. His long wispy lashes framed his shiny black eyes. He was wearing a pale charcoal grey button down shirt and soft worn blue jeans on his long legs. Again, like the other night he was wearing a bunch of wristlets. As he got closer, he looked up and their eyes met. She honestly did not know him well enough to know what to expect from him yet. Was this wave of heat she felt from the sun, or him?

"Sorry I missed the party. I had things to do." He said brushing his bangs away so she could see all of his features. His long lashes blinked slowly. He set his backpack on the ground and leaned back against the giant tree. "Well then, I didn't know if it was okay since Sonya invited me."

"Hmm, she didn't show up either. It was just my little boy cousins and the bigger girl cousins, cake and ice cream, no big deal. Kinda lame." She said not letting on that maybe she wished he would have been there, but she did not want to come right out and say that.

"Lame? At least they had a party for you. That shows that they care, cared enough to celebrate, celebrate
you
," he said shaking his head.

Awkward
moment. He was jealous and she was acting like a spoiled brat.

"So what do you think happened the other night?" Jillian jumped in trying to break the embarrassment she was now feeling. Maybe they could both get on the same page here because they both seemed to have experienced something inside the cabin.

"I know I'm different. I like movies, music, video games, horses, reading, four wheeling, and girls. Those are what other boys like right? Just like you, from the outside you seem like a normal girl. That is why I asked you to accept my friend request. You seemed normal, but I could
feel
that there was something different about you. There are the kids that write about their big paranormal adventures that are just adding too much made-up drama to the mix. Nothing happens when they go ghost hunting at an abandoned bridge for example. So they let their imaginations run away with something that was already a 'story' created by someone else. Not an event that actually happened. Sometimes the fear freaks them out so badly that they don't know the difference between the truth and what they 'think' happened. And, when two or more are gathered, it becomes an episode.

Sometimes I think what happens to me is a curse. There are always so many things going on in us and around us that we cannot take it all in. It's impossible. That is where the focus comes in. It is our focus on specific things that keeps us in sync with what we are looking at or for that helps tune out the other things that aren't so important at the moment.

Like, at school there are times when there is so much damn drama going on around me that my head throbs and I can't get any peace and quiet. Kid’s thoughts are always shooting out of them. I just want to walk up to them and tell them to mind their own business and to get a life. They just need to stop messing with other people’s feelings. You know, that there are those kids that can't or don't or won't stand up for themselves, they can't handle the confrontations from those that are bullying them, and they are always being mowed down, and probably will be for the rest of their lives.

Then there are those kids that are in the 'popular circles’. Those are the kids that live on pure ego...They make me sick. Literally. How they can imagine that they are better than anyone else when they are certainly nothing but shallow and self-centered? Seriously, they have no connection to their own hearts. They don't care about what kind of irreparable damage they do to the other kids. They put everyone else down because they think they look better, dress better, they live in the nicest houses, they have lots of money and their parents are more prominent. Sorry, but that don't mean diddily.

Jillian, I know that you are sincere. I think that's why the spirit at the cabin gravitated towards you. Because you two are a lot alike. I know what I saw. I do not understand what you said though, except I believe she was saying it through you. I only saw her happy, not in pain or crying." Ryan looked at Jillian waiting to see how she was going to respond to him spilling his guts.

"It was as if I had lost everything and nothing mattered," Jillian said shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head, trying to remember what she had said. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried to recount the night in the cabin after she lit the candle. "I introduced the three of us... I asked for a sign... It was silent... Then I was thinking that we were all gonna have a good laugh... It got so cold, to the point that I started shivering...Then I felt overwhelming sadness...In my heart...," Jillian was focusing. Her breathing became erratic, very fast, and her chin fell to her chest, her head was shaking as if she were saying no.

"
No, this isn't happening, this is all wrong what have I done? My baby. How could she have disappeared? I didn't do anything to her. Maybe he did. Does he have her? Did he take my baby? Please help me, please."
The voice cried as Jillian covered her eyes.

"I see her." Ryan said as he had been intently watching her the whole time. He looked as if he were in a trace, the way he stared at her. "It's the woman I saw in the garden. But there is a little girl playing in the garden. She had a little girl... Had. She's gone. Now she is searching frantically for her. Calling for her, 'Elizabeth.' And there's a bunch of people coming to the cabin. But she's scared. They’re not there to help. They don't understand, they think she did something to her baby. Their yelling and screaming at her, and she's running, chasing her through the woods. Someone threw a lantern on the roof. There is a fire." Ryan was shaking his head in disbelief as he watched all of this in Jillian, who sat before him. He closed his eyes for a long second, and opened them to see Jillian, sobbing harder and harder as he had unraveled the story.

He knelt down to hold her. "What the hell is going on?" Jillian cried. "How can we help her?"

"Do you remember the book I found when you fell in the cabin?" Ryan said as he pulled it from his backpack. "It must have been hers. It's full of writing, drawings and even dried plants and stuff. I don't know why it was written this way, but it's not another language. I figured some of it out; I think these are spells or something. Like this one," he said as he opened to a bookmarked page and reading his notes, "Having walked through the three leaves that burn; you must crush the flower and stem of the yellow jewel. Wrap tightly to the area of pain and it will be new again in a day."

"That's not a spell that sounds like a remedy." Jillian said looking closer to his notes. She picked up the book and slowly began turning the pages, looking at the words and drawings, touching them with her fingertips. "Oh my God! They must have thought she was a witch. She was an herbalist, like my Gramma and my aunts. They make potions and brews, perfumes and poultices, and all kinds of stuff, even ice cream." She said getting up off the ground. Now knew the woman in spirit who had been talking through her had wrongly been accused of being a witch.

"Emmy," he said sadly. "Her name is Emmy and her baby's name is Elizabeth.

"How do you know?"

"I just heard her...We can help," Ryan said grabbing Jillian's shoulders. "I can see and hear her. You can feel her. We will help her find Elizabeth." He looked in her eyes for an answer, but all he saw was fear. "What are you afraid of? She can't hurt you."

"Uh ya, I don't remember studying this in school. How to comfort a ghost that has a missing child. Oh, we THINK she has a missing child. People thought she was a witch. How do you know she didn't do something to her? She could be lying."

He sighed and stared deep into her eyes, "What you felt was that real sorrow? Didn't you say you felt like you did
not want to live, but there was no way to die either? Isn't that proof to you?" Ryan said as his argument came to an end. Jillian breathed an enormous sigh, giving into his logic.

"By the way, what did you get for your birthday? Was there something... Confusing?" He said with a small growing grin. Jillian frowned at him, looked around a minute and thought,
some perfumes, some stuff from my cousins, Tiffany Marie, and a rock.

"Uh ya, a stone. How did you know that?" She asked as she pulled the pouch out from under her shirt and handed it to him. He held the pouch in his palm and began smiling and nodding. He handed it back to her.

"Very interesting!" He said with a smile. "I think you have a gift that is very appropriate."

"You didn't even see it." She frowned.

"Well yes, I sorta did, more like I
felt
it." He said patting her on the shoulder. "I gotta get back and get some work done. "What's GG?" Jillian asked.

"That's what I call Gramps, and Lois is my step gramma. My real gramma died and a few years later GG and Lois eloped out west in a saloon! My parents aren't around...Much, well they...So I stay with them and help GG out. They're getting older and it's hard for them to get everything done. I am the only one that can, or will help them. I just know what needs to be done and do it. It's hard to believe with all of the technology we have, a day's work is never actually done, just put off till tomorrow," he said. "But, Gramps is also internet savvy! He decided years ago that it would be beneficial to live off the land as naturally as he could. It had to do with my Gramma Rose. He got online and started researching. Now he slowing weaning off of needing the utility companies, the farm is almost off the grid, so pretty much everything they need comes from the soil, the sun, wind and the rain. Kinda like modern day hippies!"

"Really, my family is a lot like that too." Jillian said remembering one family reunion where everyone wore tie-dyed t-shirts. “Like I said, they are herbalists and nature freaks.”

"Maybe y'all can come to GG's and make an afternoon of it this summer. Well, I got to take care of some fence posts on the back 40... Or is it the front 20? I don't remember. I'll get on Facebook tonight and we can put together a way to help Emmy, maybe tomorrow night?" He said as he smiled and started walking away.

Our families meeting? Does that mean anything
? She thought. "Okay." She said with excitement and then disappointment. As she watched him disappear back through the woods she felt as if as he was slipping away. Did she want more? Well, yeah, but at what cost?

Jillian got up and walked around a little bit. There wasn't much here, like when she used to visit... Celia and she would wander off here, to picnic and play, to be alone from all of the younger kids. They would pick flowers for the kitchen table, catch butterflies, and of course they have to release them. There were always lots of dragonflies, and when you walked by the stream the startled frogs would jump for cover in the water, making a 'plop' sound. She shook her head and moved to a patch of grass under the knarley cherry tree where she and Sonya had met the day before. She looked down at the bag in her hand. Ryan had just held it...How could he tell anything about it? Quickly she opened it up. Looking at the handmade card she had hastily stuffed inside, she read what the silvery blue calligraphy had scribed,

"You are a beautiful child of God. This stone is being passed on to you at this perfect time. It will change your life if you let it, and only you can find the secrets to its magic." Holding the rock she wondered what her aunt meant. It could change her life.
What is the secret of the stone?