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 down, 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.

Piper’s head sank into the supple down pillow, and she placed her hands under it, giving her head extra support. She shook briefly, not from being chilled, but with the feeling of complete contentment and warmth that security can bring. She knew it would be the best night’s sleep she had gotten in six months, the length of time she had been dreaming these unexplainable dreams.

Piper smiled with the anticipation of her dreams tonight being replays of the tiny China doll standing on the porch of The Nugget. Her mom had convinced her it was Yu, and Piper knew she would begin painting the lovely girl tomorrow without the aid of a sketch, her own form of plein-air where she would close her eyes and see Yu in her subconscious, a mental field sketch. Yu would be a live model posing for the artist even though she had died ninety years ago.

Piper woke with a start and glanced at her travel clock. Still early, but her dream loomed in her mind. It was not the tiny Yu who had consumed her short night, and it was not a scene of pleasantry. Piper left the comfort of her bed, retrieved her sketchpad and pencil, and moved to the table by the window. When she opened the curtain, rays of sunlight poured through the wavy old salvaged and reused glass, every curvature casting distorted energy onto her page as if lending a different time to her artistic interpretation.

Slightly to the right of the page, she sketched an old, hand-hewed, black-singed cabin from another era. Then she surrounded the cabin with burned timbers, giving it a sinister appearance. Once the sketch was transformed into oil, the only semi-bright hues to be cast on the scene would be the moon casting its glow over dripping snow piles, leftovers from winter’s high mountain winter pack. The snow would disappear fast now with summer’s daily warmth, only to be frozen again into crusty ice with nightfall’s cold. The off-white berm dripped onto a dirt path, outlining it, directing the eye of the beholder to the blackened, ill-omened door.

Piper closed her eyes every few minutes, recalling even the smallest detail. When she finished, she propped the sketch on the other chair, moved several feet away from it, and stared, mesmerized. The picture, ominous and disturbing, gave the artist a sense of foreboding. For some reason, she felt an urgency to reproduce the landscape in oil as soon as possible.

Yu will have to wait. Mom told me to always trust my instincts.

Piper unpacked her canvases and set up her easel where the sun could cast its rays across the developing scene. She chose a medium-sized canvas and prepared her palette with mostly black and white with just a hint of yellow for the moon’s soft glow, an intruder on the otherwise austere scene.

Piper forced a smile—not what she was feeling—realizing she was not the picture- perfect artist. She still had on her T-shirt and short pajama bottoms and stood in bare feet. Her mop of long, blonde curls hung across one eye, forcing her to contain as much as possible in a messy loose ponytail before beginning.

She chose a long-handled brush with thick bristles to give her interpretation the depth it needed to convey the mood of the landscape. Holding her brush at the end, she gave in to long brush strokes embedding her dream’s image on canvas.

She worked with no thought of time, each stroke evoking a scene of danger and apprehension, a premonition of something yet to be experienced, at least by the artist. She continued painting when she heard a soft rap on her bedroom door.

“It’s open,” she called through locked teeth holding an extra brush, a new brush she had stuck there trying to save precious seconds, knowing she would need it soon. Not giving any thought to which visitor it might be, her mom or her aunt, she continued to paint, concentrating on her canvas.

Zach stood in the doorway, mesmerized by the scene before him. Piper stood completely entranced in her painting, her back partially to the door. She was lost in her work and never turned toward him. The sunlight completely enveloped her, giving a halo effect around her whole body. Even in her disheveled state, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Piper McCallister was pure magic! Her long, lean figure, clad in T-shirt and short pajamas and standing barefoot, needed no pose to stir every masculine desire in his body. He stood for several minutes watching her without moving or speaking, never even glancing at her painting. Finally, he could restrain himself no longer. He closed the door behind him and walked to her.

“Piper?” he spoke softly, not wanting to startle her, but loudly enough to bring her out of her pensive state.

Piper stopped her brush in mid-stroke and turned to face him, her eyes smiling at him over the brush still clenched between her teeth. He moved closer, reached down to take the brush from her teeth, and dropped it on the easel’s ledge. She watched, her gaze never leaving his face as he pushed a lock of curls from her eye and tucked it behind her ear. Zach continued to stare into her alluring green eyes.

She moved into him, requiring him to enfold her in a tight embrace. As his mouth covered her lips, they parted in an invitation for more. She put her arms around his neck, entangling his hair in her fingers, and allowed him to savor their kiss as she prolonged it.

He finally pulled back to look into her eyes again, trying to gauge whether her thoughts and desires mirrored his own; he slid her hands down from his neck.

Piper could feel his hard, muscular chest through his T-shirt. When she placed the toes of her left foot on top of his bare foot, skin against skin sent a jolt up her leg, pausing mid body. She lifted her mouth to his face, demanding another, deeper kiss. His lips locked against hers, Zach lifted Piper into his arms and carried her to the bed. Piper shivered with excitement, losing all bad memories of love gone wrong, anger, and fear. It was Zach and her, and that was all that mattered.