Amber laughed at him.
“Good.” He smiled. “All better,” he said and kissed her nose.
“Whoa!” Eros called out as he changed into a cherub and fell down the rungs. Jonathan scrambled to catch him, hitting the floor as the little one flew through his arms, did summersaults in the air, and hovered over him with a big grin.
“It’s a good thing you’re cute,” Jonathan said.
Eros changed back into a teenaged version of himself and offered him a hand up. “You think I’m cute?”
“Adorable,” Jonathan said with a scowl. “Just, please, don’t do that again. . . .”
“That, father, is entirely up to you,” Eros said with his eyebrows raised.
“I have made up my mind,” Agnes said. “I will help you find the treasure. If I make my own mistakes right, then perhaps I, too, will find peace.”
“All right!” Jacques shouted. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Jonathan asked, looking at him as though his outburst was a bit outlandish, even for him.
“Didn’t you hear?” Jacques asked, patting his shoulder. “To get my treasure!”
“Why is it that I never hear or see the ghosts?” Jonathan groaned.
“Maybe you have to believe in them first,” Amber said. “Or at least be open to the idea that things of the supernatural exist.”
“That can’t be it,” Jonathan said. “I don’t believe in Cupid, but I have no problem seeing old men in diapers.”
Amber smiled at him, taking his hand in hers. “Let’s go find Jacques’s treasure.”
Chapter 15
Jessie met them on the stairs as they came inside. “Did I miss being able to help?” she asked. “That emergency call took a while longer than I expected.”
“Of course not,” Jacques said. “In fact, your timing is perfect. We are just now going to find my treasure.”
“Your treasure?” Jessie asked. “Agnes agreed to help?”
“Shh,” Jacques said in a whisper. “She thinks it is her idea.” An acorn from the tree overhead hit him on the shoulder.
“Where are we headed then?” Jacques asked Agnes.
The ghost cleared her throat and recited the poem from memory.
“Where the red horse meets the yellow river, and the wild wolf howls. The bear will sleep deep within the bowels as the dark storm gathers. The tskïlï' spreads its great wings as the little sparrow hides against the broken arrow.”
“Well now, there is a lovely sentiment.” Jacques sighed his disgust.
When Agnes said no more, he did a double take. “Wait, that’s it? Jacques asked.
“Yes.” She nodded.
Jessie had scribbled the poem down on the notepad she carried and handed it to Jonathan.
“I can’t believe I was shot at for that,” Jacques said. “I mean . . .” he looked at Agnes, “I’m so glad you have your little book back now.”
“What do you think it means?” Jonathan asked.
Jacques shrugged. “Not a clue.”
“My Sterling never had a problem with it,” Agnes said.
“Is Sterling the name of your beau?” Amber asked.
“Sterling Running Creek and I were going to be married,” Agnes said. “We needed the money so that we could go somewhere and build a new life. We hoped to find a place that was far enough away that my father could never reach us.”
“I’m sorry,” Amber said.
“Me too,” Jessie said. “It must have been difficult to love someone that society wouldn’t allow you to be with.”
“Ours was a forbidden love.” Agnes nodded sadly.
“Um—so do we, or don’t we know where we are going?” Jonathan asked.
“Red Horses?” Jessie said. “Didn’t the Celts use colored horses to indicate cardinal points?”
“The Indians didn’t have horses until the Spaniards brought them,” Agnes explained. “So they would not have referred to something as ancient as the cardinal points by that name.”
“That makes sense,” Jessie said.
“Instead, it was an unusual blue fish with red spots that suddenly showed up in the rivers that they called red horse,” Agnes said.
“So, red horse refers to the fish in the stream,” Jacques clarified. “See, I wouldn’t have thought that.”
“It is the dark storm that gathers that is the cardinal point,” Agnes said.
“North?” Jacques asked.
“West,” Agnes said. “To a place where the indigenous people used to call Wolf’s Bend. There is a creek with such fish. They were named red horses after the bird.”
“Again,” Jacques said, “I wouldn’t have seen that coming.”
“The bear sleeps in the cave,” Agnes said.
“Now that one I could have gotten,” Jacques said.
Jessie googled the info. “You are not going to believe this.”
“What?” Jacques asked.
“According to this, there is only one cave in Louisiana, and it’s called Wolf Rock Cave,” she said.
“It can’t be that easy,” Jacques said.
“And you would be right,” Agnes said. “The great horned owl, the tskïlï', was considered the embodiment of ghosts. From there at night we must find where the little sparrow hides against the broken arrow.”
~*~
“There you are,” Patricia said as she spun her computer monitor around. “Wolf Rock Cave, Kisatchie National Forest.”
“You are good,” Joseph said.
Patricia shrugged. “This was child’s play.”
“If what you said about their abilities is true, we are going to need some insurance.”
“Insurance?” Patricia asked.
“I need you to make a few copies of those photos you have,” Joseph said.
~*~
“You received a call from Patricia too?” Gloria asked Mavis when she arrived at the parking garage.
“She said she needed to talk with me,” Mavis said, looking at both Gloria and Katie. “She said she had information that held dire consequences for my family.”
“What do you think it might be?” Katie said.
“It is probably over Amber and Eros,” Mavis said.
The sound of high-heels echoed as a figure in a trench coat came out of the shadows. “I’m so glad you came,” Patricia said. “I received these photos in the mail and was sure I needed to show you first.” She handed them each an envelope and waited while they opened them.
“I don’t understand,” Mavis said, looking at a picture of Jonathan straightening some dents out of a cop car. The next one showed him lifting one. “Are these Photoshopped?”
Gloria held a photo of her daughter with a semi-transparent version of her husband next to her while Katie held an image of herself with her husband whose reflection didn’t register.
“Where did get you these?” Gloria asked.
“She took them,” Katie said. “I remember when this one was taken and who was in the room at the time. You must have used a cell phone to take this photo.”
“What do you want?” Mavis asked.
“The truth,” Patricia said as a dark van pulled up. “Won’t you please come with me?”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Gloria said.
“I was afraid you might say that,” Patricia said as a man got out of the vehicle and held a gun on them.
“Be so good as to collect their purses,” he said.
Patricia stepped forward and took their bags.
“Now take a seat.” He waved his gun toward the van.
“You’re that fish—this is kidnapping—where are you taking us?” Mavis blurted out.
“Do exactly as I say, and no one will get hurt,” Joseph the fish Marconi said.
~*~
Jonathan turned his truck off the main road onto a dirt one. Jacques groaned from the far passenger side as they hit one and then another chuck hole. The girls who sat in the middle bounced up and down.
U
ff-off-oaf! Jacques gasped as Agnes bounced on his lap. “When are we going to get there?” he asked.
“Not long now,” Jonathan said. “According to the GPS we are almost to the end of the road, and we’ll have to walk from there.”
“I think my legs are numb,” Jacques said. “I’m not sure how much more I can take—I knew I should have sat in the back with Eros.”
“Think of the treasure,” Jonathan said. “That should help.”
“Why don’t I feel anything?” Jessie asked as she looked at him. “Agnes is on top of me as well.”
“This I don’t know,” Jacques said. “Perhaps it is my connection with the spirit world that makes this possible.”
Jonathan pulled off to the side of the road and stopped. “There is a trail over there that should lead to the cave.”
~*~
“How is the project coming along?” Harold asked René when he came home for a late lunch.
“Mmm-wa!” René kissed his fingers. “It is, how do they say. . . ? Sweet!”
“It runs?” Harold asked.
“Runs?” René asked. “Ha! It purrs like a kitten . . . and fast?” He chuckled. “The pony can run now.”
“It’s a Pinto,” Harold said.
“Ho-ho.” René held up his finger as a baton. “That is where you are wrong. . . . Now, it is a race horse!”
“How about the other upgrades?” Harold asked as he bit into a sandwich.
“I may have modified the upgrades just a little,” René said. “I was in an aircraft-hanger after all.” He shrugged. “The temptation was too great. It is truly amazing what you can have ordered and shipped same day delivery.”
“What about your experiment?” René asked. “I am very curious to know if it worked.” René watched as Harold took another bite, swallowed, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and shook his head with a sigh.
“It was a disappointment,” Harold said. “The alloy I made using the spectrographic analysis of the little arrow will only levitate a hundred thousand times its weight!”
“No!” René did a little dance. “You did it!” He laughed.
Harold was grinning from ear to ear. “It should float a boat!”
“We must tell everyone!” René chuckled. “Where are they anyway?”
“The kids stopped by and grabbed lunch, ropes, and flashlights earlier,” Harold said. “Apparently they are going after Jacques’s treasure.”
“So you pieced the clues together?” René asked.
“Not I,” Harold said. “They had the ghost at the library assisting them.”
René chuckled. “I would love to be a fly on the wall for that one,” he said as he pressed speed dial. “That is strange,” he said, handing up the phone. “Katie is not answering her cell phone. She said she was going to meet that busy bee and would be right back.”
“She must be with my wife,” Harold said. “She had a call from her asking her to meet too.”
“That is very strange,” René said.
Harold called his wife’s cell phone, waiting as it went to her messages. “Just calling to check on you, love,” he said. He called Jessie next, leaving a message for her too. He hung up the phone and looked at René. “It is probably nothing, but with everything going on, maybe we should pull up their phones on the GPS.”
~*~
“I can’t believe we don’t get reception here,” Jessie said.
“Mine is dead too,” Jonathan said. “The last signal I got was on the other side of that ridge.”
“Listen,” Jacques said. “I think I hear the sound of water. It’s interesting that the soil here is almost yellow. Wasn’t there something about yellow river meeting red horses in the clues?”
“Yeah, there was,” Jonathan said as he walked across a stream that was a foot wide. Maybe it’s just a seasonal creek. “Thanks to modern computers and satellite mapping we were able to bypass those instructions and come directly to the cave,” Jonathan said, looking over the low cliff. “It must be over this drop.”
“It looks like we can get down over here,” Eros said.
They climbed down and stood staring at the small and shallow cave that was littered with beer cans.
Jacques stood looking into the cave. “It seems we have made it to the bear’s bowels,” he said. “Now what?”
“The rest of the poem says that the dark storm gathers,” Jonathan said.
“Agnes has generously reminded me that this means we are to go west,” Jacques said. “Ouch!” He spun around when an acorn hit him. “Now, I was being nice.”
“And I’m not responsible for the actions of a squirrel,” Agnes retorted.
Jessie took Jacques’s hand and walked with him to an area of trees and grass.
Jonathan looked at the sun which was getting fairly low on the horizon. “What does Agnes have to say about the rest of it?” He looked down at the paper Jessie had written the poem on. “The tskïlï' spreads its great wings as the little sparrow hides against the broken arrow.”
Amber who stood next to him spoke up. “She said that the great horned owl, the tskïlï', was considered the embodiment of ghosts. From there at night we must find where the little sparrow hides against the broken arrow.”
Jonathan looked at his watch then again at the sun. “I say we eat while we wait.” He looked at her. His expression saying he was very hungry . . . for her. “I am starved.”
She smiled bashfully and spread a blanket across the grass while the boys went back to get the basket of food.
~*~
What are they doing? Patricia asked when Joe came back to where he had parked the van. He had driven away from the main road and parked the van behind some trees. “They are having a picnic.”
“How much longer do you think this is going to take?” Patricia asked. “I wanted to make the six o’clock news.”
“How are our guests?” Joe ignored her question and asked another instead as he looked back at the dark brown van that blended perfectly into the brush.
“They are fine,” Patricia said. “I’ll be glad when this is over though.”
He opened the door and saw the three women he’d duct-taped to the separate seats in back.
“You can’t mean to keep us like this,” Mavis said.
“I need to go potty,” Katie chimed in.
He put a piece of tape on each of their mouths and opened the cooler that was in the back seat.
Gloria’s eyes became huge as she looked down at the bomb.
Joe looked away from the three and closed the door to their cries.
“Why are they upset now?” Patricia asked.
“They are upset because we will be leaving them for a minute is all,” Joe said. “Do you have your camera?”
“I’m never without it,” Patricia said.
“Good,” Joseph said. After all, he would have hated to go looking for the evidence later. “This way.”
“Hm-hu-homh,” Gloria mumbled.
“Huh?” Mavis mumbled back.
“Ha-homh.” Gloria motioned with her head to the device on the floor.
“A-homh?” Katie who was also in the middle section next to Mavis asked. She tilted her head back to see over the seat behind Mavis. “Augh,” she gasped. “A homh!”
Mavis looked frustrated in the extreme and shook her head still not understanding.
“him-ha-him-ha-him-ha.” Katie rocked sideways like a clock ticking, then, make the closest sound to an explosion she could. She looked at Mavis with big eyes.
“Augh,” Mavis gasped. “ah-homh!”
“Uh-huh,” Gloria said as she and Katie nodded.
Mavis started mumbling incoherently, and then looked expectantly at the other ladies. They shook their heads and shrugged. She started wiping her mouth against the side of the shoulder harness and the window. As soon as it stuck she ripped the tape the rest of the way off of her mouth. “I said what are we going to do?”
Both Katie and Gloria followed suit, wipi
ng the tape against any surface they could. Katie had hers off first. “We’re going to blow this joint before it blows up!”
Gloria stuck the tape to the window and pulled away. The tape pulled away from the window, leaving half of it hanging. “And then rescue the kids,” she said, talking out of half of her mouth like May West.
“I cannot believe Patricia would do this!” Mavis said. “I am so glad they didn’t have children,” she said as she bent her head to the tape that bound her wrist to her seat. “Can you just imagine? What was Jonathan thinking?”
~*~
“I really think we should follow that stratum in the ridge,” Jonathan said as he leaned back on one elbow and crossed his legs. “If there is another cave, it is most likely in the same substrate as this one.”
Jacques reached across the blanket, dug a plum out of the lunch hamper, and looked at him in surprise.
“What?” Jonathan asked. “Did you think I was all brawn with no brains?” He looked back at the cave. “I wanted to be a geologist before I went into the military. I was actually going to use my college fund to go later. Then one thing led to another, and I found I was better at other things.”
“Like what?” Jacques asked.
“Like war for one,” Jonathan said. “I was a natural.” He sighed. “Unbeatable in hand to hand combat.” He looked at Eros. “Tell me. Does the god of war have any redeeming qualities?”
“Of course!” Eros said in surprise. “Everyone knows that you are the protector of the family and community. Without you chaos would reign, and there would be no civilization.”
“What about the goddess of Love?” Amber asked. “Please tell me it’s not been all devious lies and petty jealousy.”
“There is nothing in the universe greater or stronger than love,” Eros said. “Not even the god of war is more powerful.”
Amber sighed. “I do not seek to be powerful, but empowering. . . . There is a difference I have found.
“Then this has not been all for naught, Eros smiled. “For love is the greatest nurturer. It will bear any burden, and it is love that soothes the wild beast. Love conquers all, not because it wounds us, but because it heals. What could be more inspiring?”
Cupid's Treasure - Mystery of the Golden Arrow (Paranormally Yours) Page 17
