by Becky Durfee
Jenny didn’t look at Zack as she posed, “You’re seeing this too, right?”
“Yup,” he replied, “this time I am.”
The group of hippies grew larger as more people on bicycles rounded the corner. While they didn’t look intimidating, Jenny felt uneasy, realizing full well that she and Zack were grossly outnumbered—and were trespassing on their property. She suddenly became aware that she must have looked like a deer in headlights; she plastered a smile on her face, hoping it appeared genuine.
The first person to reach them was a man who looked to be in his early-to-mid-twenties, although his ratty beard had made him look much older from far away. Despite being unkempt, his eyes appeared friendly, and, unlike Jenny’s, his smile seemed to be sincere. “Hello, visitors,” he said heartily. “What brings you here today?”
The rest of the group approached on their bikes. Some headed straight to the house, others flanked the speaker in what would have been an intimidating display had their bicycles been motorcycles. As it was, Jenny found the whole scene to be surreal to the point of almost being laughable.
She was grateful that Zack did the talking. “We’re actually here because we’re looking into what happened on this property back in the sixties.”
The stranger’s eyes quickly went from happy to genuinely sad. “Oh, the tragedy,” he replied, lowering his head. “That was a horrible day.”
Jenny found it odd that he was speaking of that fateful day as if he personally remembered it, but it had clearly happened decades before he was born. Deciding that she was being nitpicky, she simply said, “We’d like to speak to the property’s owners so we can get permission to look around.”
Some of the others lost interest in the conversation, riding their bikes closer to the house and emptying their baskets. Others remained, listening to what Jenny and Zack had to say.
The man in the front let out a laugh, gesturing his arms out in both directions. “You are looking for the person who owns this land?”
Jenny replied, “Ideally, yes.”
“My friend, no one owns this land. How can anyone own the land? Do you put a fence around it, hand someone some money and say, ‘now I own this? These trees are now my trees. This grass belongs to me. The flowers that bloom in the springtime—those are my flowers.’” He laughed again, shaking his head. “No, we don’t own this land. We use it, but it is not possible for us to own it.”
This had been much more of an answer than Jenny had bargained for. Unsure of how to reply, she simply scrunched her face and asked, “So, we can look around, then?”
“You may look around all you want,” the man replied, his smile returning. “What, exactly, is it you’re looking for? Maybe I can help you find something.”
“We don’t know for sure,” Jenny replied. “We’ll know it if we see it.”
She felt a nudge on her elbow. “Tell him the truth,” Zack said encouragingly. “I bet he’ll believe you.”
Taking a good look at the man in front of her, Jenny had to agree that he would probably be a believer. “I’m a psychic, and I’ve been contacted by the spirit of one of the people who died that day during the mass overdose.”
The man’s eyes grew wide. “You’ve been contacted by a spirit?” Awe remained in his voice. “Of someone who died that day?”
Jenny nodded, refraining from saying the usual ‘yes sir’ that would have popped out of her mouth had she been talking to anybody else. Somehow, she didn’t find sir to be appropriate in this case.
“This is fascinating.” He turned his attention to the bicyclists who remained around him. “Where’s Delilah?”
With a point, one of the people said, “She went up to the house.”
He looked back at Jenny and Zack. “You have to talk to Delilah.” He gestured his arm toward the decrepit building. “And you absolutely must stay for dinner.”
Jenny’s curiosity was getting the best of her as they walked up the back steps in pursuit of this Delilah—why would she have been more interested in this than the others? Was she the ‘resident psychic?’
A wave started to wash over her, causing her to slow her speed to a stop halfway up the stairs. She closed her eyes and hung her head, trying to tune out the noise of the large crowd bringing in groceries around her.
“Hey, Winding River.”
She knew the comment was directed at her. She turned her head to see an incredibly tall and slim young man with long, greasy red hair and an unkempt beard. His arms were wrapped around a giant basket of vegetables; he seemed to struggle with the awkwardness of it. “Get the door, would ya?”
The wave seemed to leave, and Jenny opened her eyes, scanning the crowd for a lanky red-haired man among the people scurrying in front of her. Just as she had suspected, she didn’t see one, confirming her suspicion that she had just had a flashback from the same spot decades earlier.
“Hey,” Zack began. “You okay?”
Jenny nodded. “I think I just figured out what my name was—well, what the spirit’s name was.”
“Oh yeah? What was it?”
Looking beyond her husband, she saw the friendly hippie was glued to her every word as she announced, “I was called Winding River.”
“Good to know,” Zack said with a smile.
“The extra information can’t hurt,” Jenny replied, “but I’m not sure it will help, either, under the circumstances. Who knows what this person’s name had really been?”
“At least we kind of know who we’re dealing with…somewhat.”
A strange moment of silence ensued, prompting Jenny to tell her guide, “Sorry—I’m good now. I’d love to meet Delilah, if you’re still willing to introduce us.”
He stood frozen with awe. “Did you just have a contact from the spirit?”
Jenny smiled; she had apparently just blown this man’s mind. “Yes, a very short one.”
He remained in place for so long Jenny began to grow uncomfortable. Finally he asked, “What was it like?”
“The contact?” She cleared her throat. “It was like a memory, I guess, except the memory wasn’t mine.” She described what she saw, which didn’t take long considering how brief the vision had been.
Another freakishly long pause was interrupted by the man simply saying, “You have been sent here for a reason, you know. Delilah has been pleading with the universe to give her something, and you are exactly what she has been waiting for.” He smiled and shook his head with wonder. “She’s going to be so happy.” Without explaining further, he led Zack and Jenny into the house.
The door brought them immediately into the kitchen, where an overwhelming sense of familiarity hit Jenny like a cold wind in winter. She imagined the house looked largely like it had when Winding River had walked those very same halls. She didn’t have much time to think about that, however; almost immediately, she found herself being introduced to the mysterious Delilah.
“I don’t even know your names,” the guide confessed, “but this is Delilah. Delilah, this young woman is a psychic who has contact with the spirits who lived among The Family.”
Delilah was a natural looking woman with long, light brown hair and freckles covering her skin. Her face reflected awe similar to what the guide’s had shown, and her hands dropped to her sides when she heard the words. She took several steps toward Jenny, looking her square in the eye. “You have contact with The Family?
Jenny nodded modestly.
The woman looked both fascinated and confused. “But…how?”
“I have a gift,” Jenny proclaimed, shrugging her shoulders. “I was born with it. And someone who lived here in the past is communicating with me—somebody named Winding River.”
Delilah looked at the man who had introduced them and then back at Jenny. “By any chance, is he trying to tell you that Jove didn’t kill those people?”
Chapter 14
Jenny wasn’t sure what to say. “You know about Jove?” was what popped out first.
Delilah looked over her shoulder at all of the commotion resulting from a couple dozen people putting away groceries. “Can we go outside where things are a little quieter?”
Nothing would have made Jenny happier; the chaos was starting to get to her. “Absolutely.”
They followed Delilah’s lead through the house and out the front door on the other side. The sounds from inside instantly disappeared when the door closed behind them, and Jenny took a deep breath of fresh air. Feeling invigorated, she asked, “So, you are also under the impression that Jove didn’t do it?”
“I couldn’t be more positive.”
“How do you even know about it?” Jenny asked.
Delilah walked slowly down the porch stairs with Zack and Jenny following suit. She tucked her hair behind her ear as she took several steps across the lawn. “Jove was my great-uncle…my grandfather’s brother. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been told about what happened and how Jove got blamed for it. I’ve also been told that he didn’t have it in him. He was about peace and love, not mass suicide.”
“I guess if he was your great-uncle, that also means you know his real name,” Jenny hinted.
“I do. It was Roger Hillerman,” Delilah said with pride and fondness in her voice. “But he much preferred Jove.”
“While I admit I don’t know a whole lot about The Family,” Jenny began, “I do know the people who lived here got to choose their own names; do you know why he chose to go by Jove?”
Delilah displayed an easygoing smile. “He loved to star gaze. He had a fascination with the universe—the sheer magnitude of it overwhelmed him. Each of those little stars you see in the night sky is actually a massive planet or a sun. It’s humbling, if you think about it. We look like little more than a dot of light to other areas of the universe, and the beings who see that dot have no idea what life forms exist here on this wonderful planet. The trees, the birds, the people—no one would ever know about those things just from seeing our little dot in the night sky. He was convinced that there are millions of other creatures in thousands of worlds scattered all over the universe…” She twirled as she spoke, her arms outstretched to the side. “…and to us, it all just looks like sky.”
Zack spoke plainly. “I don’t get it.”
The twirling stopped; Delilah looked at him with a smile. “Jove was the God of the sky in Roman mythology.”
“Wow,” Jenny said, “I’m impressed that you know all that.”
She continued her slow-paced walk. “We talk about Jove in our family quite often. He’s so misunderstood,” Delilah said sadly. “We try to honor his spirit with light because so many other people associate him with darkness.”
Zack asked, “You mean the families of the other forty-four people who died that day?”
“Them, the community, the media…everybody is convinced Jove orchestrated a mass suicide, but in my family we know better than that. I don’t know who did do it, mind you, but I am quite certain that my Great-Uncle Jove did not.”
“Well, the spirit who contacted me—Winding River, I guess his name was—seems to think it was Sheriff Babson.” She decided against mentioning that Troy was equally convinced of Jove’s guilt.
Delilah turned her head in Jenny’s direction. “Sheriff Babson?”
“That was the impression I got, and it fits in with how this whole communication got started.” Jenny summarized Addy’s drive past Eden and her subsequent hatred of law enforcement, as well as Jenny’s own adverse reaction at the local police station. “I couldn’t help but feel like officers were somehow involved, and I was absolutely positive that I hadn’t taken any pills—me being Winding River, of course.”
Delilah stopped in her tracks. “You know that he didn’t take any pills? How do you know that?”
Jenny spoke quietly. “I can’t explain it, but somehow I just know that he didn’t. It wasn’t part of his memory. I can’t help but think that he would have remembered deliberately committing suicide.”
“Well then,” Delilah said emphatically, “isn’t that your proof that Jove didn’t kill anybody?”
If nothing else, Jenny’s experience has taught her to pursue every avenue. With an apologetic wince, she replied, “It shows that Jove didn’t convince the others to commit suicide. It also provides evidence that someone spiked their food or water, making it a murder as opposed to a suicide.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Technically, though, it still could have been Jove.” She held up her hand when she saw Delilah about to protest. “I said technically. I’m not suggesting he did it; I’m simply saying that we don’t have enough evidence to prove otherwise at this point.”
Delilah seemed pacified. “How do we get that proof?”
“Well, that’s what we’re here for. I was hoping I could spend a little time on the property so I could see if I could get any information.”
“By information you mean contacts from the spirit world?”
Jenny nodded slightly. “I do.”
Delilah’s ensuing silence caused Jenny to look her way. An awe-filled smile graced Delilah’s lips as she said, “You can spend as much time on the property as you need.”
Zack chimed in. “Can I ask you a question?”
Delilah flashed a smile at Zack. “Of course.”
“Is what you have going on here the same kind of community as Eden?”
“Yes and no,” Delilah explained as she continued her leisurely walk to nowhere. “Back then, The Family was anti-government, but that’s not how we operate. Yes, we do live communally, but we don’t necessarily separate ourselves from the outside world the way The Family tried to. We’re just trying to conserve as many resources as we can. The earth can’t go on forever if people continue to live so wastefully. We’ve become a country of such excess…one bedroom per child has become the norm, people throw away perfectly good clothes because they’ve gone out of style, and fully-functioning furniture gets replaced because the homeowners are in the mood for something different.” She shook her head as she walked. “That type of living is the path to disaster, environmentally speaking.
“Our goal here is to minimize our negative impact on this planet. We use only as much electricity as our solar panels will provide. We grow most of our own food, and when we do buy groceries, we make sure they come in recyclable containers. We also bike to the store most of the time.”
“What do you do the other times?” Zack asked.
“We have two cars—hybrids—but we try to drive them as little as possible.”
Zack seemed quite curious. “Where are they now?”
“Larry and Amanda have them. They both work outside the home; they bring in the income we need.”
“They make enough money to support all these people?” Jenny asked with surprise.
“When you live like we do, it doesn’t take a lot of money to get by. We’re mostly self-sufficient.”
Jenny thought about all of the items in her home that, when push came to shove, were truly optional. Suddenly, she felt a little bit guilty.
“Do you have, like, a TV and stuff?” Zack asked.
“A TV? No.” Delilah twisted her hair, ultimately pulling it back into a bun without any type of clip to fasten it. Jenny made a face, completely baffled as to how she had done it. “We do have a computer, though. We’re not anti-technology, like some people tend to believe. In fact, technology can be very helpful to the environment. We talk to our loved ones through email often—it’s so much better than writing letters. That not only wastes paper, but it also uses a ton of gas to drive those mail cars along same route every single day.” She shook her head. “I’m surprised that’s still legal, to tell you the truth. We get receipts emailed to us instead of printed, we get the news without newspapers, we check the weather so we can bring the animals in if we need to…a television is largely for entertainment, so we don’t have one. The computer, on the other hand, has a purpose.” A sly smile appeared on her face. “So, can I ask a few questions ab
out you, now?”
Jenny smiled. “Fire away.”
“First of all, how pregnant are you?”
“Seven months. I’m due November eighteenth.”
“Do you know if you are having a boy or a girl?”
“A boy,” Zack replied assuredly.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Jenny said. “It’s a girl.”
As did everyone else who fell victim to this display, Delilah seemed confused. “So, is it a boy or a girl?”
“Let me put it this way,” Zack said. “If it’s a girl, Jenny is going to have some explaining to do. In my family, we only make boys.”
Finally understanding, Delilah laughed. “You don’t know for sure if it’s a boy or a girl.”
Jenny said, “It’s a girl,” at the exact same time Zack proclaimed, “It’s a boy.”
After another genuine laugh, Delilah said, “Okay, I see how it is. Let me change the subject, then. I guess the next obvious question is: how did you develop the ability to communicate with spirits?”
“I was born with it, although I didn’t realize that until somewhat recently,” Jenny began. “It apparently runs in my family on my father’s side, but I didn’t learn who my father was until a few months ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Delilah said sincerely.
“Don’t be; it’s all good,” Jenny assured her. “But apparently, one of my ancestors on that side had a near-death experience, and ever since then, some members of the family have been born with the ability to receive messages from the dead, but only from spirits who linger instead of crossing over.”
“Okay, so what you are telling me is that spirits can either linger or cross over?”
“That’s right. People who are at peace cross over, but the ones who have some unresolved issue tend to linger. In this case, it seems Winding River wants to stick around so he can prove that Jove didn’t orchestrate a mass suicide.”
Delilah let out a grunting sound. “I’ve been trying to prove that for a decade.”
