Of Objects and Obsessions

Chapter 4

4

Fiona adjusted her sunglasses. The sun rose late this time of year, and even though she wasn’t due to arrive at the Preserve until the afternoon, she wanted to see the surrounding area before showing up for her first day of work.

“Mom, how much longer?” Ian’s voice drifted to her from the backseat.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, she saw a dinosaur and an action figure. She smiled. Ian was used to long trips, driving sometimes all day and all night. He rarely complained. Instead, he would sit quietly, contemplating whatever silent thoughts whirled through his ten-year-old mind, as the scenery outside the windows of her 2010 Honda Civic whizzed by. He was good at entertaining himself with his few toys and books he insisted he keep, along with asking endless questions that sometimes were more sophisticated than she thought they should be. Ian was curious about everything and wouldn’t be satisfied with partial or vague replies. Sometimes she didn’t know the information, and other times she thought the ideas too complex. But Ian knew what he wanted to know and wouldn’t often let her get by without honest, complete answers.

“About an hour until we reach Centennial, and another fifteen minutes or so to our new place.”

“How long will we stay there?”

She exited Interstate-80 onto Highway 130. How long? She didn’t know. The pay was good. Wyoming was a state in which she had yet to file taxes. The longest they had stayed in any one place had been twelve months. They had lived in rural towns and inner cities, wherever she could ply her skills. Ian had been to eight schools and would be late starting fifth grade in Centennial. Since Ian tested into the gifted program at a previous school, she allowed him to skip a grade. Perhaps they would stay until Spring Break at the local school, then move to a warmer locale. After spending the last couple of years in the Southeast and Midwest, she was ready for a drier climate.

“I don’t know, baby,” she finally answered.

They drove along the highway, enjoying the climb in altitude. Pine trees began to shade the road, preparing drivers for entering the Medicine Bow National Forest a few miles ahead. Slowing to the posted speed limit, her gaze took in the shops that lined both sides of Second Street, the main drag of downtown Centennial. There was a diner, bookstore, salon, dentist, and bakery. Several people were on the sidewalks going about whatever errands had them out at 10:30 on a Monday morning. The architecture was quaint, ranging from red brick to Victorian, yet it all seemed to fit.

Ian’s white-blonde head appeared in her rearview. She glanced at Ian’s questioning expression, then at the Sheriff’s Office at the edge of town as they drove slowly by the parking lot. A deputy leaving the building caught Ian’s attention.

Without comment, he rolled down the window and smelled the pine-scented air. Squinting in the sun, he blinked at the trees lining the road and decided he liked Wyoming in early November. He felt a sense of safety as they passed the Sheriff’s Office, and now in the forest, broken by an occasional dirt driveway or ranch house close to the road, he decided this place was different.

Resting his arms on top of the door, he glanced at his mother. Wisps of pale blonde hair floated above the headrest, stirred by the breeze coming through his open window. She laughed at a family of squirrels running over and around a picnic table at a park they passed on the opposite side of the highway from the Sheriff’s Office, and he wished she would smile and laugh more often. He knew she would be happy here and wondered if she would wait for it or if she would run, though she didn’t call it that. ‘Adventure’ is what she told him when she picked him up at school and said they would be leaving whatever place they had been staying in. She tried to keep it a secret so he wouldn’t be distracted at school, but when he listened to his thoughts, he would know. The last couple of times, when she dropped him off at school for his final day there, he had told her he knew they were leaving. It wasn’t that she acted differently, or that he guessed, but rather the information just appeared in his mind.

“I think we should stay. You’ll like it here. Maybe we can get a dog,” Ian said.

Fiona glanced again at the mirror. She was used to Ian’s predictions, though it took her a while to realize it was his gift. At first, she thought it was her behavior he had picked up on, or that he was guessing. But when he proposed they take another highway, even though it was a little out of the way, or they stop at one restaurant or gas station over another, she did so. They always heard later of a closure due to an accident or extreme weather. By following Ian’s suggestion and not eating at a particular diner, they avoided being there when a distraught trucker opened fire on the patrons, killing three and wounding eight others. When he began to play with the silverware at restaurants, without touching them with his hands, she warned him not to do it where other people could see. Alone in hotel rooms or rented apartments, she allowed, and even encouraged, Ian to practice his telekinetic gift.

Her grandmother had made a living reading tea leaves, cards, and palms, but her mother denied her gift by suppressing, with whatever drug was available, the communications from those who had passed over. Fiona refused to dwell on the night that, being as old as Ian, she had found her mother’s body, beaten and bloody. Her mother’s male companion for the week had been in prison. The visits from the family he had murdered in the home invasion that granted him twelve years in San Quentin wouldn’t leave her alone. In desperation, she confronted him. In a rage, he killed her. Fiona then lived with her grandmother until she graduated from high school, having earned scholarships that paid for her college education, including on-campus housing. Bridgett Casey, in the tradition of her Irish ancestors, tried to tutor Fiona in the mystic arts. For years Fiona refused, remembering how her mother had been tormented. Bridgett settled for Fiona’s acknowledgement of her psychometric gift. Fiona minimally developed the ability to learn about someone by holding an object the person had in his or her possession. This was her way to control the gift. If she didn’t want to know, she wouldn’t touch the object. Over time, she was able to utilize her talent by turning it on and off like a switch. It made her life easier to not be bombarded by images whenever she sat in a chair or picked up a used book.

Fiona recognized the moment she became pregnant with Ian. There was an inherent connection between mother and child, and she knew whatever happened to the mother was known to the fetus. The connection was stronger between her and Ian. It was as if they had full conversations while he was in utero. She realized he would have the gift but didn’t know to what extent. So when he told her, ‘You’ll like it here’, she paid attention.

Pulling over onto the shoulder of the road before the entrance to the Preserve, Fiona put the car in park, unbuckled her seatbelt, and turned to look at her son.

“Ian, these people don’t know you. You can’t say things or move things when they’re around. Promise me you’ll keep your gift to yourself, and you won’t practice until we’re alone. Agreed?” Staring into pale blue eyes, the same as her own, she searched for compliance.

Ian nodded. “Of course. Unless something really bad is going to happen.”

“Of course,” she agreed. Turning forward, she put the car in gear and rolled slowly down the drive.

Shaun set the last box on the stack in the storage room adjacent to the studio. Since the original storage shed was torched in their mother’s attempts to destroy divorce papers, it had been a reminder of the betrayal of not only Darla but also Ray, their father’s oldest and best friend. He was glad when Carli made the demolition and construction of the studio a priority. The blackened husk of the storage shed had squatted like an open, oozing wound, destroying the peace and beauty of the Medicine Bow Preserve. The photography studio and storage room that now stood in its place was larger, more open, and less of a fire hazard with its block construction and steel roof. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he joined J.J. outside.

“Anything else while I’m here?” he asked.

Locking the door, then turning to begin the trek towards the lodge, J.J. shook his head. “Fiona should be arriving soon. Zach will be gone a while on the airport run, then taking the group from Cheyenne on a hike. Alyssa has the cabins to clean, and I believe it’s her turn for KP. You’re off today. Any plans?”

Shaun tucked his fingers into the front pockets of his jeans. He glanced at the sky, nearly free of clouds, then his county vehicle in the parking lot. There were projects to complete on his house, errands he could take care of in town. “Nothing pressing,” he answered, wondering what he would do with his time.

“Once Carli and Ethan leave, it will be like a ghost town around here. We have only one reservation, and that’s at the end of the week. You have, as always, a standing invitation for dinner. With Zach spending so much time doing work on cabin nine, and Alyssa studying, it might be a bit awkward to have Fiona and me staring at each other across the dining table.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. You might want to enjoy having the place nearly to yourself. In another couple of weeks, holiday vacationers will pack the lodge. Especially with the ideas Carli has to get more families to visit.”

“Actually, I’m kind of excited about her plans. Samson has been doing well with learning how to drive. I even found a couple of sleighs for sale online. They might need some repair, but it’ll be fun to have him pull families around the Preserve.”

They entered through the back door into the kitchen. In the oven, as promised, their breakfasts were kept warm. No one else was around, and the kitchen had been cleaned, so they sat on the stools at the island. Trading stories about folks they both knew who lived in and around Centennial was a ‘sharing of information’, not gossip. Or at least that’s what they agreed to call it. Rinsing their plates and loading them in the dishwasher, J.J. walked Shaun out the front door of the lodge.

They both paused at the base of the steps to the veranda. J.J. searched the sheriff’s face. It was lined more than it used to be. He understood how the tragedies that befell the family over the last several months could drain even the hardiest of people. But it was more than just the trauma of first losing Bear on Wolf’s Ridge, then discovering Darla’s involvement in the plan, then Rutgers’s escape from prison, and Samantha’s second abduction by the man. He didn’t believe Darla’s death at the hands of Rutgers had much of an effect on Shaun’s current state, but J.J. guessed it was a culmination of everything. Ethan had mentioned his concern over Shaun’s drinking. To his own thinking, the man had a right to use whatever was available to him in order to attempt to make some sense out of the chaos his world had become.

“So, tonight for dinner, to see Carli and Ethan off on their trip?”

Shaun shrugged in the Tanner way. “Sure. Don’t count me in for lunch. There’s likely something just shy of turning in the fridge that needs to be eaten or tossed.”

“Alright. Tonight then,” J.J. agreed.

He waited while Shaun climbed into the Centennial Sheriff’s SUV and headed down the driveway before he turned toward the barn and the endless list of chores to be done there.

With the cool fall temperatures, Shaun left his window rolled up. He glanced at the ceiling, then back out the windshield. It took him two months before he could get in his vehicle without looking at the front driver’s side tire, rolling down the window, and staring for long moments at the upholstered ceiling. The nightmares that plagued the hours he attempted to sleep had waned. If he thought about it enough, he didn’t know how long it would be before he completely recovered from being shot at by Ray and the subsequent roll down into the Canyon. His collarbone was healed but working on his house would give him an excuse to exercise his shoulder.

Just as he approached the end of the drive, a small compact pulled off the highway. The driveway was wide enough for two vehicles, though rarely was it used by more than one at a time. He pulled towards the side to give the other vehicle more room. It was a woman driver with large sunglasses that covered half her face. Her window was partially down, and he could see the wisps of blonde hair around her face that had been tousled by the wind. Both of her hands were on the steering wheel, and when he raised one of his in greeting, she returned the gesture by lifting just her fingers from their place on the wheel. She didn’t slow the car or smile or roll down her window to ask for directions. The back window was completely down. As the car passed, he looked at the boy in the backseat. White-blonde hair, enormous blue eyes, and a slight smile caught his attention. His gaze immediately went to the side mirror. The boy craned his head out the window to stare at the back of the sheriff’s vehicle.

Shaun braked at the highway. The car turned the corner in the drive and disappeared from sight. He sighed, realizing it must have been Fiona Casey and her son, Ian. She was early. Carli would like that. Knowing his sister would have more tasks to complete than Fiona would have time for in the next month, he shifted his focus to what he would do with his day off. To the right, about six miles down the highway, was his home. The left held his office, and Ester, who would run him out of it if he showed up today. He pulled out and turned to the left. There was the market, the post office, and the hardware store. That should consume a couple of hours. By then, he could grab a late lunch at the diner, instead of pretending he had something worthwhile in his fridge, prior to heading back home to do the sanding and staining that were needed before he could hang the interior doors, and ensure his shoulder stayed loose.

Out of habit, he had his radio on, but Denny and Vince, his two deputies, reported all was quiet. Switching to the channel used by the Highway Patrol, he listened to the typical chatter about speeding vacationers, the occasional breakdown and request for a tow truck, and a minor disturbance at the rest stop along I-80, fifty miles north of Laramie. None of which would require Shaun to offer his assistance. He truly had a real day off for the first time in months.

“They have horses!” Ian said excitedly a moment later.

“Did you sense it?” she asked, always wanting to know, and him to refine, where and how he received his information.

“No. I smell them,” he answered.

Fiona laughed. The aroma came to her as well as they passed a walkway to the barn and pulled into the main parking lot in front of the lodge. They both stared at the two-story log construction. Tiny pine trees and ferns filled planters on the veranda and beside the steps. In the warmer months, she guessed colorful flowers spilled from the wooden containers. They climbed from the car, Ian leaving his toys on the back seat, Fiona pocketing her car keys. Standing in the parking lot, surrounded by forest, a horse whinnied from the barn, and Ian uttered a single word she had not considered in a very long time.

“Home.”