Five Pines: A Journey of the Soul

By J. Heather Cross

Imagine what your world would be like if you could see the hidden events of other peoples experiences as easily as you recall your own. Imagine being able to remember past lives with people youve just met. Imagine being able to feel their emotions, hear every unkind thought, feel every moment of deceit, know every lie Imagine being able to perceive the swirling energies of life as powerfully as a physical blow, yet be able to heal others with a focused touch.

Imagine how it could consume you. How easily this double-edged gift of sensitivity could shape you; disrupting friendships and alienating lovers; turning you inwards to seek a fragile balance.

Imagine how difficult it could be. How lonely. How dark.

Now imagine falling in love in a tumultuous chaos of wealth, poverty, Spiritual purity, magic, life, death, betrayal and corporate intrigue, nestled in the heart of a Native American family on the South Dakota prairie. Imagine hot nights of wildly transformational sex, where spirit and body seek union with a total disregard for social convention; knowing only the blinding, carnal need to reach for more

A life-altering account of love, metaphysical wisdom, transformation and loss based on the true life experiences of one such woman.

Five Pines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504329385

J. Heather Cross

J. Heather Cross was born a full-blown empathic psychic; which, she says, “sounds far more enviable than it lives.” While others sought to learn to turn their skills, “on,” she trained for years to turn hers off. A clairvoyant counselor, meditation teacher, crystal and energy healer for thirty years, in Five Pines she has finally conceded to her students’ demands that she “write some of this wacky stuff down.”

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 J. Heather Cross.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2937-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2939-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2938-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903685

Balboa Press rev. date: 05/05/2015

Preface

The book you hold is a work of fiction.

It is based on my life and my experiences as a psychic.

While the characters are fictional, the stories are all true.

The characters’ experiences are things that I have experienced.

And yet it is a work of fiction.

I speak for no Nation. I speak for no people.

I speak only for myself, and for my own vision.

I was guided to write this exactly as it stands,

often against the pressure of my own preconceptions.

I wrote it anyway, and I’ve learned much through the experience.

I hope that you will find the process of reading it as worthwhile.

Dedications

Thank you, Jean, for being there to hear the birth-steps of this story.

Thank you Jacque and Chris, my fan club,

who read the entire Trilogy from cover to cover and wanted more.

Thank you Rory, for understanding my sense of humor;

for laughing (and crying) in all the right places.

Thanks, Rob, for keeping a roof over my head while I wrote this.

And a special thank you to Tim, for firing me…

so that I would have the time to follow my bliss

and wander into the world of Five Pines.

Days of the Journey

"The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time,

rolling, rushing on, swift, silent,

like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and

all the universe swim like exhalations,

like apparitions which are, and then are not…"

~Thomas Carlyle

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Second Friday

Second Saturday

Second Sunday

Friday

Weeks later I would be thinking of this moment and wondering how it ever brought me to the point of staring down the barrel of a madman’s gun, watching his finger tightening on the trigger and praying that the two men I loved most in the world would be able to reach us in time to at least save the children, even if I’d stupidly managed to get my own head blown off.

But in this moment that wasn’t even a glimmering shadow in any possible future I’d ever considered. And let’s face it; I’m a fully-blown, out-of-the-closet practicing clairvoyant. With a mind as wildly open to the impossible as mine is, that was saying something.

No; now I just looked up with a kind of eager hope as my realtor stood and waved to someone entering the café. She then turned to me with a sweet, strawberry-blonde, bouffanted, fifty-something smile.

"Here he comes!"

It was a lovely spring morning in Jericho, South Dakota. Even as I sat in this small-town diner, with its inevitable stack of homemade pies in the counter pie case and Willie Nelson playing in the background, listening to the light-hearted chatter of the fry-cook in the kitchen and the affable banter of the waitress with the old geezer in overalls sipping coffee at the counter, in my mind I could still hear my music blasting on the van’s CD player and feel the vibration of the road under my wheels.

It had been a long, strange trail that brought me from my previous life to the current moment, and these newfound moments of transition were feeling sort of novel. Not entirely comfortable. All right, so I was alternating between excitement and sheer panic. But considering that I had just closed on a parcel of land that seemed to signal the end of my eight-month long hegira, I found it extremely amusing, in a backwards sort of way, that the song ol’ Willie was belting out from the juke box in the corner was, On the Road Again.

I popped to my feet eagerly and turned as the man we were expecting strode up over the black-and-white tiles. He gave Connie a quick hug and a peck on the cheek.

Hey, Connie! I haven’t heard from you in too long—how’s Bill been? he asked her, and I could tell that it wasn’t just a platitude. His eyes showed real concern.

She flashed him a winsome smile that held a note of happy relief that was echoed in her energy. Oh, the same, the same—if he’s not fishing, he’s golfing.

Tough life, the newcomer laughed, then turned towards me with his hand out as Connie said to him, This is the lady I’ve been telling you about. I figured that if anyone would be able to assign an architect to work with her, it would be you. We’ve got a really tight budget, but— she grinned. I think you’ll like the site. Julie, this is Jacob Red Pines; Jake, this is Julie Kendrick.

Hi, how are you?

His voice was warm and big and open—just like him. He was a big guy, maybe six-three, six-four, broad-shouldered but so well proportioned that he didn’t look overly tall the way some big men did. His energy was such that he sort of hit you all at once, of a piece; and only by concentrating could I register his impact as individual images. From the keen look he was giving me, I knew that he was scoping me out as well, but I didn’t imagine for a second that I was making anything near the impression on him that he was on me.

For about ten long seconds, the only thing I could think was, ‘Wow!’ He was First Nation—he looked to be a full blood, but definitely no less than half; the rich pigment of his skin glowed with evidence of his ties to an ancient heritage. And although I was no expert on tribal physiognomy, there was something about the cheekbones that made me think that he might be Cherokee. This seemed a little odd, because I was—obviously—in Dakota and Lakota territory.

About my age, maybe a year or three younger, he reminded me of a cross between Cherokee actor Wes Studi and Cree actor Michael Greyeyes with the easy humor of Saulteaux actor Adam Beach thrown in. He had something of Studi’s intense, imposing presence, but where Studi could carry with him a cloak of serious menace—his onscreen portrayal of Huron guide, Magua, in Michael Mann’s 1992 version of The Last of the Mohicans had given me a bad case of the willies, sneering out lines like, When the Grey Hair is dead, Magua will eat his heart. Before he dies, Magua will put his children under the knife, so the Grey Hair will know his seed is wiped out forever. —this guy just seemed open, welcoming. Absolutely no heart-eating or child-knifing on the agenda.

Bronze skin, long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a mouth with a full lower lip that was just a shade too wide to be in proportion to his face added to his easy appeal. His eyes were riveting; a rich, dark brown, but deep and clear, like stained glass. They looked like sunlight reflecting through the water of a clear stream, with fallen oak leaves lending a deep brown pigment in the streambed, or like dark citrine quartz. There was a darker ring of pigment around the outer edge of the iris; almost black.

When he focused his attention on me I could feel it, distinctly, like the touch of a hand on my skin. His eyebrows arched like twin raven’s wings above his eyes, and were one of the most expressive features on his face. In just the few seconds I’d known him, I’d seen a dozen expressions dance across his wide brow; expressions lent nuance and character by the small, sensitive movements of his eyebrows.

I thought that some of the resemblance to Studi was his complexion; there was some old acne or chicken pox pitting on the skin of his lower cheeks, but in the annoying way some men have, instead of detracting from his looks, it just made him look more rugged, yet somehow more approachable as well. His upper body tapered in from powerful shoulders to a slender waist, and he was well-muscled, but he carried himself with a sort of loose-limbed ease that bordered on lanky. He looked comfortable in his skin.

His blue plaid flannel shirt, jeans and work boots were all-over dusty, like he’d just come from a construction site, but his hands and nails were scrubbed clean. A pair of well-worn work gloves stuck out of his back pocket and a closed aluminum clipboard—the kind that covers your paperwork and doubles as a writing surface, was in his left hand, held across his body.

I hadn’t known that the architect Connie had been talking about was First Nation; I was acutely aware of the fact that I was wearing a beige T-shirt with artist David C. Behrens iconic image of Mt. Rushmore, the heads of dead presidents replaced by four historical First Nation tribal chiefs—Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and Red Cloud—over the legend, Founding Fathers. His gaze flicked down to my shirt, then back up to meet my eyes, and I saw such deep humor there that relief flooded through me, an internal Whew!

He hadn’t been insulted by my shirt the way that the Native guys in the gas station in Wyoming had been. That was good; I certainly hadn’t meant to offend anyone by wearing the thing—I just thought that it was funny, and an amusing way to share my beliefs regarding Native rights. And apparently, so did he.

I noticed that his hands were huge compared to mine, and that when he engulfed my hand in his warm, firm shake, his hands were so big that his first two fingers had no place to go and ended up resting against my wrist. They felt warm against my pulse, which I imagined was racing. Then he smiled at me, and it was such an inviting smile that a flutter of happiness coursed through me, like a burble of silent laughter. I liked him immediately.

Hi! I really appreciate your coming out—Connie thought you might just send one of your team.

Hey, when Connie springs for lunch, I drop everything. I’m not proud!

This must have been a standing joke between them, because she slapped him on the shoulder and gave him a mock-stern look. Then she gestured to the booth and said, Sit down, sit down, so I slid back in my side and he slid in opposite me. She checked her watch just as the waitress approached, making a little, habitual gesture of adjustment to the bright, flower-print scarf at her throat.

Are you ready to order? the girl asked, looked first at Connie, still standing, then at us. She was about twenty, with nondescript brown hair and an eager, friendly expression. She was wearing a pair of glittery drop-ball earrings that bounced against her cheeks as she turned her head, which she did a lot, like a chipper little bird. It crossed my mind that if the level of welcome was as widespread in the town as it had been in the folks I’d met so far, I’d moved to the right place.

You know, hon, Connie said, glancing between us so that I wasn’t certain if she was speaking to me or him, "—I so hate to do this, but I’ve got to show the Noel place out in Carter, so I should probably hit the road. Will you two be okay if I take off?"

He glanced over and met my eyes briefly, a slight smile on his lips, then shrugged as I nodded. He said Sure, as I said, Yes, of course.

Great! she continued, then put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Whatever they want, Linda, put it on my tab. Then she waved an admonishing finger at the architect and said, But no caffeine for you! She turned to the girl and tapped her order pad firmly. No caffeine for him.

I could tell that she was joking, but there was also a serious note in her voice. Again, this must have been a private bit of business between them, because he shook his head with a mildly pained expression as though he was being mother-henned yet again. As she turned to leave she waved over her shoulder. Bye, now! She called. Heels clicked with determination down the tiles, and the bell over the café door tinkled open and closed. She was gone.

The girl was looking politely at me. I ordered a coke and a tuna sandwich and the architect ordered a triple-decker turkey sandwich and fries, telling the girl he’d just drink water. As she walked away, I raised my eyebrows and asked, playfully, in the inflection of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, No caffeine for you?

He shrugged and dropped his eyes for a second. It was amazing how many emotions I could read flickering across his expressive features. And even in the awkwardness of meeting a stranger, I was aware of feeling a pull towards him, like magnetism. Then his eyes flicked up to meet mine and he laughed.

Connie’s known me a long time—since grade school. I had a bad bout of insomnia awhile back…she won’t let me forget it. Keeps trying to get me to drink chamomile tea. His nose scrunched up and he shook his head. Nasty stuff. Never got to like it.

Too bitter for you, I agreed. "Try Linden flower tea next time. It’s soothing and uplifting."

His eyebrows rose and he looked amused. It was amazing how his expression opened and expanded when he lifted his eyebrows. Oh, no, he groaned. You, too?

I shrugged. Hey, herbs work. It’s just a matter of finding the right ones for the person who’s using them. Take me, again I shrugged. "I can’t stand lavender. It’s probably the singularly most popular fragrant herb in the world, but I can’t stand the stuff. It’s not too bad mixed in with other scents, but by itself? I stuck out my tongue and made a sound of disgust. Ugh."

He shook his head and smiled, then flicked a long finger to indicate the manila envelope by my side. So you’ve bought a piece of my land, huh? Which parcel?

Abruptly remembering my reason for being here, I beamed at him and picked up the envelope full of papers I’d gotten at the land sale closing, pulling out the map that showed my little five-acre plat in the clearing bordered by the stream and the oak trees. I moved the salt-and-pepper shakers and spread it out with a kind of possessive wonder, realizing again that this was now my land. Mine!

As soon as he saw it, his expression danced through a staggering range of emotions. Oh! You bought the fishin’ hole! He said, his tone bland. And yet shock, surprise, concern, and a kind of wary wonder whisked across his face, settling finally into curiosity. His eyes seemed to perform a kind of psychic x-ray as he looked back up at me. I could actually feel a wash of his inquisitiveness flow over me. It kinda tickled. But then he smiled widely and said, "That’s great! I love that piece of land. I knew the right person would find it if I put it on the market."

Do you still fish there? I asked as my coke arrived.

Nah, but I used to, when I was a kid, he said with a nod and a grin. Never caught much, but it was a great place to watch the deer, hunt frogs. Get away from my parents. The usual. That land used to be owned by some folks from the reservation, but they traded it for another parcel over here— He quickly sketched out the new area on the map I held, showing me boundaries, but I always had a soft spot for that place. When it came up for sale, he thought a moment, Wow—must be twenty years ago, now—I bought it. It’s bordered by my land here, here, and here, so we’ll be neighbors.

I was thrown a little off balance by his reaction. He seemed positively delighted that I’d purchased his land, but with an underlying wariness that I couldn’t understand. Maybe because it had sentimental value for him? Maybe he had to sell it, for financial reasons, but really didn’t want to? As near as I could tell from comparing land sales, my land had been on the market for a fraction of its value. Connie had crossed her heart and sworn on her mother’s soul that nothing was wrong with the property—it was just a really good deal for whoever bought it. Had he needed a quick sale? Hard to say.

And even now as he was smiling at me, his delight in my very presence seeming out of proportion to a casual business meeting like an architectural evaluation. But then, I realized, leaning back in my seat again as I fought the inexorable pull towards him, I was feeling reciprocal delight in his presence as well. I felt a flash of embarrassment that I was reacting like this to a man I’d just met and had no reason to even trust.

I tried to tone it down a bit; I mean, I didn’t want his first impression of me to be of how weird I was, and I knew from painful experience that when I let myself show too much exuberance it could overwhelm people. My logical, rigid mind tried put the unruly feelings into a box labeled hormonal backlash. But there was no way I could resist saying, Well, howdy, neighbor, with a cheerful grin and extending my hand anew.

He laughed and gripped my hand in another firm handshake. Welcome to the neighborhood! he said.

I feel like an idiot, I confessed. This is what comes of acting on intuition. I had no idea I was anywhere near reservation land. Lakota, I assume?

No, you’re not. He assured me, gesturing to the map again. Rosebud’s way over here. Pine Ridge is here. This part here is all privately held land—largely in my dad’s extended family.

You’re Lakota?

He waggled his hand in a so-so motion. Some of my grandmother’s people come from Rosebud. My mother’s half Lakota and half Cheyenne.

Shows what I know, I said ruefully, taking a sip of my coke. I would have pegged you as Cherokee.

His eyebrows rose. My dad was Cherokee from the Qualla. Huh! I’m impressed.

I waved a dismissing hand. Oh, don’t be, I don’t really know that much. I confessed, responding to the second half of his statement first. Qualla Boundary, right? That’s what—North Carolina?

He nodded, specifying, Northeast corner, up in Swain County. What would make you guess Cherokee?

I shrugged, shaking my head. I dunno, a feeling? Something about the way your cheekbones flare—? I made a vague gesture towards my own face, indicating the sweep of bone as it joined the joint near the jaw. I laughed, a little embarrassed. Maybe it’s blood calling to blood. I’ve got some Cherokee on my dad’s side.

Really? he tilted his head to one side, doodling little patterns of hash marks on his notepad. How much?

Oh, about ten pounds. I waited for his smile, and was rewarded instead with a short laugh, which was even better. His laugh was so rich; so deep. He seemed like a guy who took big bites out of life and enjoyed every minute of it. It made my bones resonate when he laughed.

Seriously—

Seriously? Let’s see…about, what, one-sixteenth? I’m terrible with numbers. My dad’s great grandmother. I looked up to the ceiling for a second to calculate this in my head. Yeah—my grandmother’s grandmother. It’s not much—not enough to count for anything, and in any case, it came down through my father’s side, and Cherokee traditions are matrilineal, aren’t they? So it wouldn’t be recognized in any case. I shrugged, feeling a little uncomfortable about having brought it up at all. I didn’t find out about it until I was in my late twenties. We weren’t allowed to be close to my dad’s side of the family, and it was only a chance remark that his mother made to my younger sister that passed the information on to this generation at all.

He was either definitely intrigued or he could really act. Man, did he have expressive eyes. He was stunning. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table as he rolled his pen in his fingers. What did she say?

We were separated, when we were kids—split up in different foster homes. My baby sister was raised in Southern Illinois with my father’s elder sister and her husband. My grandma lived a couple of miles away. They were all in the car once, driving down to see the rest of the clan in Arkansas, and they passed a memorial stone for the Trail of Tears. My grandmother turned to my sister out of the blue and said, ‘You can never forget the Trail of Tears. Jackson can never be forgiven.’ My sister had been daydreaming, and she turned to grandma and said, Huh? and grandma said, Your kin died on that march. Never forget. Then my aunt shushed my grandmother and told her to ‘Stop talkin’ nonsense.’ I tried for my best impression of my aunt’s Razorback drawl.

I took a drink. It was weird. They’d driven down that way past that marker a dozen times, and Grandma Lily had never said a word, but that day— I shrugged. When they got to Arkansas, my sister started asking some of the older grand-aunts about it, and they confirmed it and told her a few stories. But when Christy—that’s my sister—tried to bring the subject up with my aunt, she got slapped in the face and told to drop it. Hit her hard enough to break her glasses—and her nose. Apparently it was scandalous to admit to —I made air quotes with my hands— ’Injun blood’ in the family when my aunt was growing up. Moonshiners, cattle thieves—that was fine. But not the dreaded ‘Injun blood’.

I belatedly remembered who I was talking to and scrunched up my nose. I’m terribly sorry—I have a big mouth and no tact whatsoever. Have I offended you?

There was no sign of offense in his expression. Only good-natured amusement. No, I find this fascinating. Do you know where she was from?

I shrugged. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to find that out. I admitted. I don’t even know her name—they just called her ‘Old Granny,’ and everyone who actually knew her is long dead. Too many records were destroyed in courthouse fires, too many births not recorded. I mean, my grandma popped my dad out hiking back from the lake where she’d gone fishing. She felt the labor pains, stopped at a little church in the woods, gave birth in the foyer, dropped the placenta down the hole in the outhouse, wrapped him up, and went home. And she didn’t forget the fish she’d caught, either. She was a woman who knew her priorities.

I laughed and he smiled. They said she didn’t get around to registering his birth for a month or more. I shrugged again, answering the original question. Near as we can tell, Old Granny came from Missouri, possibly the Amonsoquaths, but they’re really not an ‘official’ tribe, are they?

They’re not federally recognized, if that’s what you mean. He said. And they still claim that the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act doesn’t pertain to their tribe, since Walking Bear was in an unresolved state of war with the U.S. when it was passed. I don’t know where they stand now, honestly. I know there’s still controversy around their status; ambiguity with government grants, land rights—that sort of stuff. He glanced up and met my eyes. You’ve had no luck tracing her?

I shook my head. I thought about seeing if I could hire a researcher to find out more about her, but well, even if I had that kind of money, I felt sort of weird about it.

He seemed to find that intriguing as well. Why?

I don’t know exactly. It’s hard to put into words. I looked at him searchingly for a second, finally coming up with an emotion I could describe. "It feels sort of like begging, I told him finally. My family of origin was such a ragged band of dysfunctional misfits on both sides—with the exception of a couple of my aunts-by-marriage—that focusing in on Old Granny seems sort of like a desperate attempt on my part to find someone, anyone of value in my racial heritage. Someone who had some spiritual depth, you know? Someone who might not have been a horse thief or a moonshiner or a brainless ‘Good Old Boy’ with the I.Q. of a stump. Growing up the way I did, I have no real sense of family…no roots, no traditions. It’s like I just popped out onto the planet from the ethers, without a group to belong to. When I hear about people who plan their summers around family reunions—and are excited about it, looking forward to it—I feel so envious.

"So I guess I’m looking for something of cultural value from that connection to the Cherokee Nation. But after all that’s been taken from the Native peoples of this continent—I mean, I was horrified when I found out that the physical remains that had been raided from Native burial grounds and stored in the Smithsonian as artifacts, are still being returned to their families for re-interment, now, today—it feels sort of shameful to me to go crawling back looking for more. What more can white America take from a nation, once they’ve stolen their lives, their land, their pride, and the very bodies of their dead?"

I shrugged, feeling disgusted with the historical white expansionist policies—and a bit with myself. I have nothing to offer those people. I mean, what would any kin from that far back be? Cousins fourteen times removed? Why would they be even remotely interested in meeting me? I probably have the same genetic relationship with them as I do with half of the state of Arkansas. My lips twisted off to one side. And the few Cherokee or part-Cherokee people I’ve mentioned it to have been so derisive—like, ‘Oh, yeah, now that it’s popular to be an Indian, everyone has an ancestor in their family tree.’

I gave a little snort. "But guess what? When it goes that far back? It’s true! I recently read a research paper on genetic origin that estimated that there are five to seven million living descendents of the Cherokee nation in America today. Probably three-quarters of the ‘white’ folk in Missouri and Arkansas do have Cherokee or Osage blood; Wichita, Caddo, Creek, Quapaw—there are dozens of tribes whose blood flowed into white veins. What did white men think would happen when they had sex with Native women? Those babies were the seeds of a new racial blend. For God’s sake, ‘Missouri’ is the name of a native people, not a place! The ‘Illini’ were a people. Kansas is named after the Kansa people who lived there; it doesn’t mean ‘flat stretch of farmland’!"

He was beginning to give me a very serious look, his eyebrows drawing in to center, and I realized than my voice had been rising along with my indignation. I took a breath and quickly modulated my tone. Sorry…blind stupidity makes me a bit crazy.

I took another, deeper breath and twirled my straw around in my glass. He was watching me like a hawk, but said nothing. Maybe I’d been cooped up alone too long with no one to talk to but my dog, but the words just wouldn’t stop coming. I found that I had a lot to say when I thought about this woman far back on my family tree, but the words came more slowly now.

"I do wonder about her though, sometimes. What she looked like. How old she was when she left her family. Why she married my great-great-grandfather—whoever the devil he was; I don’t know anything about him, either. Even whether she was married to him, legally—I have no idea; they might have just had kids together—that may have been part of the scandal that made her a forbidden topic. But I wonder whether she was with him because she loved him, or whether it was an arranged marriage…or a trade of some sort…or one of a hundred different reasons."

I grinned up at him. It’s one of the bad parts of having as much imagination as I have—I can think up dozens of scenarios for their relationship. I tried to make it light, but this was something I thought about a lot, almost as though I was reaching for the ‘Good Mother’ that I’d never had, hoping that if I went far enough back there would be someone who could be a shadow of that to me, even if it was just symbolically.

Pensiveness won out. But still, I wonder how she felt about her life. Whether she was happy. How many kids she had. How she died. You know; the day-to-day stuff. I looked out the window for a second and said softly, And I wonder what she would think of me, sometimes…whether she’d be proud of me, whether she’d be happy to claim a kinship with me…or just relieved that we’d never met.

He looked at me for a second as though he had a hundred questions to ask me, but oddly, still said nothing.

I shook myself, then smiled and said, I’m sorry; I should wear a sign on my chest that says, ‘Do you really want to know? If not—don’t ask.’ You’re very easy to talk to.

You’re kind of interesting, he replied with a grin. "We don’t get a lot of new blood around here. Mostly folks want to move away from places like Jericho."

Do you mind if I ask you a really personal question? I asked abruptly.

His eyebrows went up, but his expression was transparent, with no guardedness. In fact, he almost looked pleased. "Well, you can ask, he said with an amused laugh. I reserve the right not to answer, of course."

I smiled at that. I don’t think it’s that bad, I qualified. I was just wondering what term you preferred to be called.

Well, ‘Jacob,’ works pretty well, he gave me a sly grin.

Okay, that got a chuckle from me. You know what I mean. American Indian? Native American? First Nation? ‘Indi’ as short for ‘Indigenous’? ‘Aboriginal’? I scrunched my nose up. "I used to use ‘Native American,’ trying to be respectful, until Russell Means pointed out that anyone born in the Western hemisphere is a Native American, and of course, he had a point. I read an article where he said that he preferred ‘Indian,’ because he knew where it originated; that it was just a corruption of the two words the Spanish used to refer to the Native peoples they met; ‘En Dio,’ which just means ‘in with God.’ I was always taught that the name stuck because Chris Columbus was looking for the Indies, so I don’t know who’s right on that one…"

I didn’t know who was right, but I suspected it was Means. In fourteen-ninety-two, when ‘Columbus sailed the ocean blue,’ India was known throughout the world as Hindustan. The term ‘India’ didn’t come into colloquial parlance until the seventeenth century, and the ‘Indian Ocean,’ in antiquity, was called the Erythrean Sea. But I didn’t want to come off sounding pompous, so I continued with the real crux of my question.

But now ‘First Nation,’ seems to be preferred. But it’s pretty much impossible not to offend someone, no matter what term I use.

I still prefer ‘Jacob.’ His lovely lips quirked up as he continued, It seems to me sometimes that the hostility that arises when people of any racial origin start demanding ‘respectful’ classification from people outside of their group is because they’re constructing a box around themselves—and then they start chafing at the restriction imposed by that box, because they feel limited by it. Think about it. Do you walk up to people, hold out your hand, and say, ‘Hi, I’m European Teutonic?’ Would it even occur to you to do that?

Point taken, I nodded wryly and ducked my head. "Of course, I’m such a mutt that I’d have to spend half-an-hour just listing my ethnicity."

He laughed. I don’t like wasting time arguing in defense of a limitation, no matter how wronged or how righteous. He shrugged offhandedly. I’m Jacob. I’m an architect. I’m someone’s son, and someone’s brother. I know how to hammer a nail in straight in one blow, and I make a mean pot of chili. He met my eyes and smiled. And I do like to think I’m ‘in with God,’ but I’m a bit of an optimist in that area—I like to think that everyone has that option available to them.

I realized that that was all the answer I was going to get from him. And I had to say, I really liked it. I’d always been puzzled by minority groups who went out of their way to cut themselves off from mainstream communication, like street gangs who developed language that was so vehemently colloquial that no one outside of their clique had the faintest idea what they were saying, then complained because they were misunderstood. A part of me had always thought, "Well, duh!"

It was like the kid I’d run into at a mall, his face bristling with piercings, who’d snarled, Whaddya lookin’ at? when I’d stopped to gaze at his hair—a stiff, eight-inch tall Mohawk cresting out of his otherwise bald skull like the dorsal fin of a swordfish, in vibrant shades of red, orange and green. I’d laughed and said, "Dude! Your hair’s orange, man! What—did you think people wouldn’t notice?" He’d been startled—but he did have the grace to give a snorting laugh before he swaggered away.

Thanks—Jacob, I said. And suddenly that elephant was off of the table, and we were just two people, having an interesting conversation over lunch.

He had such a great smile. Then he glanced down at the plat map on the table, and I recalled the reason we were here. So—Connie said you want to build a house—?

Well, actually what I told her was that I’ve got a minuscule budget and I may have to settle for a pre-fab or a trailer. Possibly even a used trailer. I mean, I don’t have a job so I’d never get a mortgage, so whatever I put up I have to be able to buy outright. But she insisted that I talk to you first. I believe she called you, ‘The man with the plan.’

He nodded with an amused finality. That’s me, he agreed, then gave me a searching look. So, if you could build any house you wanted, what would it be?

Our sandwiches came, and we reshuffled the space on the tabletop. He pulled up his clipboard and opened to a fresh page, writing with his left hand, as we talked, and eating with his right.

I’d noticed that he’d used his left hand as he was doodling, but now I commented on it, making my usual, Hey, you’re in your right mind, too! joke. His eyebrows went up a notch.

Southpaw? he asked. I nodded. All the best people are southpaws. It was a flat declaration, said with humorous certainty.

As we ate, we talked about the pros and cons of log cabins, which I visually love but are pretty high maintenance, versus the bland design of traditional styles like ranches and bi-level homes. My sandwich was pretty good, with big slices of home-made dill pickles, and I let myself enjoy the treat of eating something resembling real food. The financial constraints of my life had been leaning my diet towards the sardine-and-corn-chip side of the equation for the past year, and even something as simple as the fresh lettuce on my sandwich tasted terrific. I tried to sound enthusiastic about trailers as we spoke, but I don’t think I fooled him. Pretty much I was stressing, cheap, cheap, cheap. In my head I thought I sounded like a relentless canary.

He looked down at his notes for a few minutes, and then looked up at me shrewdly. But none of this is what I asked for, he said. I asked, if you could build ANY house you wanted, what would it be?

I laughed, again feeling a little embarrassed. I shrugged. "Well, I know I could never afford the house I’d like to build—but I’m torn because this land is so special that it deserves a magical house. Price really matters, though. Frankly, if it weren’t for the fact that you let that parcel go so cheaply, I’d be living out of my Roadtrek for another few years."

His eyebrows went up again. They were so expressive. Man, he was good-looking. Every time he moved I felt an answering twitch in my own body. Your what?

I pointed out the window at my little camper van, white at the front with metallic raspberry swirls emerging in the factory paint job halfway back. "The Gypsy, I indicated the spare tire cover on the rear door of the van, where the name I’d given my camper was painted. That’s my house at the moment."

You’re living in a van? Really? His expression was incredulous, and he laughed. Hang on—I’m having a Sixties flashback.

Hey, that’s not just ANY van! I remonstrated firmly, feeling real pride in my little home-on-wheels. That is one expensive, seriously cool, tricked out monster van with a stove, fridge, shower, A/C, furnace, AND a queen-sized bed. I laughed at the expression on his face. No, really—I’ll show you when we leave. It’s great! It’s like a turtle shell—everything’s miniature and you can take it with you anywhere. Kind of like a toy house for grownups. That’s where I’m living right now. I’ve even got a dog in there waiting for me to come home.

He looked at me humorously for a second, and then shook his head. I’m sorry; you just took me by surprise. How did you end up a—gypsy?

So I gave him the abbreviated version of my second divorce…which somehow led to an even more abbreviated version of my first divorce, twenty-plus years prior. The fiasco with Luke between the two marriages, I didn’t mention, but I had the feeling that he would have just listened to me prattle on through that as well. Eventually, the line of conversation led to my confessing that when I hit fifty-three I had experienced such a horrible case of interpersonal claustrophobia I had to either hit the road and go walkabout or kill myself. And since I have Josie, well, I couldn’t kill myself. So I hit the road.

Josie?

My dog. She’s a Shocker. Half-Sheltie, half-Cocker.

So you couldn’t kill yourself because you have a dog. He was looking at me with surprising intensity, and I began to think that I was sounding a little…well, insane. I felt it would be a shame to let this lovely man think I was a lunatic, so I tried to explain.

Well, it’s not her fault I have such a tenuous relationship to life, I laughed. "No, really, Jacob—I’m not going to off myself over something like that, it’s just that I kept having this feeling that there was something more out there for me. Like I was looking for something to bring joy back into my life and it wasn’t going to come to me; I had to go find it. So I traded in my half of our few remaining joint assets from the divorce for the Gypsy and followed my instincts. That led me up to Gopala’s place—he’s my astrology teacher—and he led me to Connie, and she led me to this piece of—to your land."

I smiled. Could it have been just a couple of days ago? I asked her if I could camp there overnight, the day she showed me the property, and she said, ‘Sure.’ I shook my head, trying to describe the magic of it. "We sat out there, me and my pup, watching the sun go down, and I was filled with a kind of peace. Part of it is just that it’s so beautiful; there are so many trees there—compared to the rest of South Dakota, I mean."

I laughed a bit, but it was true—most of the state is a rolling prairie. My little five acres—and the land behind it, running down the stream and up the rise and into the bluffs beyond—were lined with oak, maple, willow, elm, box elder, ash, Russian-olive, Osage Orange, aspen, cottonwood, and pines. It was the most trees I’d seen in one place in the entire state east of Rapid City.

"And then I fell asleep and had a dream about being lost in a shopping mall somewhere. It was huge, and cold, and everyone was bustling around and knocking into me, and I didn’t know where I was going. Then this tiny little girl with long, brown, wavy hair and a winsome smile came skipping out of the crowd and took my hand. She said, ‘There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’ And she led me out through a little door, and on the other side of the door was—this meadow." I glanced up, pointing to the map in front of me.

He had the most intense eyes. Not small or beady or anything—they were actually large eyes, lovely, in proportion to his other features, slightly almond shaped—they were just really focused. Like lasers. I felt like he was undressing my soul, and it wasn’t entirely comfortable. I wasn’t sure that my soul was wearing clean underwear.

I woke up with the sun in my eyes—I’d fallen asleep in the open doorway of the van—that’s probably why I was so cold in the dream. But when I stepped out on that land and stretched and heard the wind in the trees, I knew I was home. I mean, being a good Jungian, when your inner dream-child leads you from chaos to peace, you don’t argue. I had to have it. I was ready to sell the van and pitch a tent if I had to—but I knew that that’s where I’m supposed to be.

Out of that whole story, he snatched out one name. Gopala? Wheeler? Out of Sandpoint?

Yeah! Why was I surprised? Do you know him?

He laughed. Yeah, I’ve known him for years. In a roundabout way, Connie put me in touch with him. He charted out all my kids’ birth charts.

"I knew I liked you! I confessed spontaneously, suppressing a surge of disappointment. Kids meant that there was a woman in the mix somewhere. Well, what was I expecting? That this compellingly gorgeous hunk of a man was unattached? You’re left-handed and you’re a friend of Gopala’s. Then I paused, frowning. It’s funny, though—you don’t strike me as the astrology type."

Why’s that? he looked honestly surprised.

I don’t know…you seem to think more linearly. Like you need facts to make decisions. You keep analyzing everything I say.

"You keep analyzing everything I say, he countered, pushing the empty plates to the side of the table. I blinked. The girl, Linda, swept by and removed the plates. She was back in a minute to refill our water glasses and ask if we’d like anything else. No, thanks." He looked over at me. I shook my head to indicate that I needed nothing else.

Her activity gave me time to cover the strange hot rush I felt in my chest. That was an interesting reaction. Had it been that long since a man had been able to read me so clearly? Or had cared enough to make the effort?

"Yeah, but I’m a little strange. I’m used to believing three impossible things before breakfast."

Well, clearly you’re not afraid to jump down the rabbit hole, he responded with a pensive look. He responded to the surprise in my expression that he’d recognized the reference and chuckled. "Alice in Wonderland was my daughter’s favorite book growing up."

Damn. And he read fiction, too.

You don’t seem all that strange, he continued.

Might as well get it out in the open. I pulled a business card from my pocket and pushed it across to him. Under my name, the line of work blazoned across the card read, Clairvoyant Counselor, Energy and Crystal Healer.

His reaction wasn’t what I expected. He slapped his hand down on the tabletop in an Ah-ha! gesture and snapped up the card. "That’s why your name sounded so familiar! You were just up in Sandpoint doing readings at Gopala’s."

Yeah, I confirmed, inordinately pleased by his response.

Damn, that’s funny! He saw my look of inquiry and continued. Yeah—I got Gopala’s e-mail on that. I was thinking of scheduling a reading with you, but I was traveling and by the time I got back to him, all of the available time slots had been filled. He chuckled. So you leave his place and drive straight out—to me. Mighty nice of you to save me the trip.

Hey, I’m a full-service clairvoyant, I admitted. Like pizza delivery, only with pictures. His eyes asked what the word meant as I was using it, so I said, Pictures—the energy of life events, as it’s stored in your space. I see pictures when I look at people. Sometimes like videos. And colors, too, but mostly images. That’s what ‘clairvoyance’ means—‘clear seeing.’

Are you reading me now? The look on his face was very complicated, his eyes intense, with dozens of subtle layers, and I felt a wild, unruly wave of sexual attraction for him which I tried to box up before it brought a hot rush of blood to my cheeks.

I could see a road sign over this whole line of thinking, saying, This way lies madness! Or at least serious disappointment. I told myself that this feeling must be one-sided. Why would someone as juicy as Jacob—who was probably already married, I reminded myself—want to be throwing sex pictures at a dumpy, fifty-year-old matronly clairvoyant in a crumpled T-shirt and grimy jeans?

I inhaled, realizing I’d stopped breathing. And I sat back in my seat, realizing for the tenth time that I’d leaned in towards him again. Honestly, I felt like an iron nail trying to resist a rare earth magnet.

I’m trying not to, I told him. "I’ve studied for a long time to learn how to turn it off at will. It’s a respect thing, but a sanity thing, too. I used to pick up everything from everyone, sort of at random. It was like listening to a hundred radios all tuned to different stations, all at once. The migraines almost killed me."

He nodded, an odd expression somewhere between regret and satisfaction on his face. I noticed that he, too, sat back, having leaned across the table towards me. As he tucked my card into his shirt pocket, I picked the first topic that came to mind.

So Gopala did your kid’s natal charts, eh? Did he do your wedding chart, too? Oh, subtle, Kendrick, I thought. Why not just say, ‘Hey, dude—you still married?’

He nodded. He did our wedding time and we got his future trends readings for our relationship every year after that. I thought, My God, what a lucky woman, when he finished the sentence with, —he was really accurate about everything. When I went back and listened to the tape afterwards, I realized that he’d predicted the accident within two days of the actual event. He didn’t word it that way, of course, but in retrospect it was pretty clear what it meant.

His face had closed off a little, but he had said it very matter-of-factly. What accident? I asked.

He blinked. Oh, I’m sorry—I forgot that you’re not from around here. It’s a small town, so losing locals like that was big news for years. My wife was killed in a car accident. Near as they could tell, two drunken teenagers were playing chicken with a double-box semi. Six people were killed, Emily among them. Four others were injured—one young man was paralyzed for life.

My mouth dropped open and I reached across involuntarily to touch his forearm where it rested on the tabletop. "Oh, my God—I’m so sorry! If I’d known I never would have asked about your wedding chart—I am so sorry!"

He seemed a little upset by the intensity of my reaction, and he patted my hand where it rested on his arm. No matter how inappropriate the reaction, I couldn’t help but feel a tingle run up my arm. No, it’s okay. Hey, it’s not your fault. Besides, it was a long time ago, like fifteen years.

I can’t imagine that time would mean much, I said, and then asked, How old were the kids?

Penny was sixteen. She’s my oldest. Jason was fifteen and Justin was fourteen.

Wow. That must have been tough.

Yeah, but we made it through. They’re good kids. The feeling was that we were at a conversational crossroads. If we stayed on this topic any longer, it would get really deep really fast. There was a sort of mutual hesitancy about going there, so I went with it when he threw the ball back in my court. How about you? Any kids?

He shifted his position and I let go of his arm. It was a nice arm, warm, with lots of muscle. No. My mother—well, my mother was a paranoid schizophrenic. I glanced away to give his face privacy in which to react normally, but I felt none of the emotional recoil I was expecting. Sometimes it skips generations, so you usually don’t know until you’re in your mid-twenties if it’s going to manifest, or if you’ve dodged the bullet. So when I didn’t flake out, I’ll admit I started thinking about the fact that any child of mine would have a thirty-five percent or more chance of developing full-blown schizophrenia. Luckily, my first husband came from a broken home.

I let my eyes flicker up, hearing my own words. Luckily? That was a strange way to put it. He’d been raised in an orphanage. Didn’t have a strong desire for kids. I shrugged. I found that I just couldn’t bring myself to risk it, to risk bringing a soul into the misery of a life like my mother had lived. Then I found that I had to have a hysterectomy, which decided it for me. I half-shrugged and smiled. Hence the dog.

He smiled politely at my attempt to lighten the information, but his eyes probed beneath the surface, Hey, lucky dog.

That was a great response. No one had ever said that before. Of course, I seldom told this to anyone.

Yeah, she is. Then I shook my head, somewhat perplexed. I can’t believe I just told you all of that. I mused. That’s generally not ‘first conversation’ material.

What? he prodded. You’re not usually that honest?

"Oh, hell no—I’m usually offensively honest. I laughed, remembering some of the recent readings in Idaho. You might even say ‘brutally’ honest. Ask my clients! I looked up and found his warm brown eyes regarding me thoughtfully, and glanced away with a short laugh. I’ve often thought that the only good thing about being my friend is that you’ll always know exactly where you stand with me. But there are such things as ‘personal’ or ‘private’ topics, too…and I’m usually pretty good at drawing that line."

He looked down now, and his expression was guarded. Why do you suppose that is?

I answered the question I thought he meant. "I don’t know. It’s so easy to talk with you. Effortless. I feel like I’m trying to catch up for lost time. I flushed a bit, feeling vulnerable. I’m sorry—I’m babbling. I think maybe I’ve been alone on the road too long."

There was a struggle going on behind his face; I suspected I’d made him uncomfortable and I felt a little embarrassed. He glanced down and again seemed to remember the reason we were meeting, clearing his throat and tapping the table in front of him. So back to this—tell me: if you could build ANY house…? he glanced up and raised his eyebrows.

I took a deep breath. His energy was easy and neutral—he’d let me off the embarrassment hook. I let my eyes wander for a second over the other people coming and going in the little diner, hearing yet another Country song start up on the jukebox, and decided to go for it.

Okay, blue-sky… If I could build ANY house I wanted it would be a miniature castle, made of beige stone, with turrets and crenellations and the whole works. I glanced over to see that his head was down and he was writing, but a smile was beginning to grow on his face. There’d be a secret passage in the library behind the bookshelves—I don’t know where it would go; maybe a tower room? And a massive fireplace—big enough for a four-foot log stack.

His eyes snapped up to mine. Man, those eyes! He had to have prominent Scorpio in his chart. Maybe more than one.

And?

That’s not enough? I laughed.

Moats? Drawbridges? Defensive features? British, German? Norman? Medieval? he tapped his pen on the page. Let’s get the details here.

His exaggerated attempt at a serious expression made me smile. Well, Caernarfon Castle comes to mind.

Wales, right? and he named the district it was in. At the mouth of the Seiont River?

Aw, c’mon—how would you know that?

He gave me a withering look and tapped his chest with his pen. Hello! Architect, remember? You wouldn’t believe what we had to study. Besides, where else would it be with a name like that?

I laughed, getting into the game of it. Good point. Well, I like the loftiness of some of the German castles, but they’re too tall and they’re all turret. A touch too Disney. I think I’d want more of a square or a pentagon-shaped castle with an inner courtyard garden. A moat seems like way too much work and it would breed mosquitoes, so maybe flowerbeds instead of a moat? Real fairy-tale stuff. I love Gothic arches but some of the Gothic features can be a little dark and overwhelming. Actually, I was just in a toy store and saw a folding medieval cardboard castle by a company called ‘Melissa and Doug’ that was pretty cute—but it only had the flat topped turrets, not the pointy Germanic kind.

He was dutifully writing all of this down.

Flags look better flying from the pointy turrets, I continued helpfully. "I actually have a little sandcastle in the van that I’ve been carrying around with me. Sort of my symbolic fantasy home. It has flat and pointy turrets!"

Pointy turrets for flying flags, he repeated, scribbling quickly.

And a Unicorn. I was enjoying this tremendously. Definitely. You can’t have a fairy castle without a Unicorn. I leaned over and saw that he had, in fact, written down, ’One Unicorn.’ You’re a nut! I told him gleefully.

He looked up and for just a second there was a sizzle of electricity between us. His slightly too-wide mouth gave his smile an almost voluptuous quality. He had perfect teeth. The back of my tongue suddenly ached, wanting to press my lips to that mouth, to run my tongue across those teeth.

Then he laughed and replied, "Hey, you’re the one who wants to live in a castle with mythical animals. I mean, do you have any idea what they’re charging for men-at-arms these days?"

I smiled. How cool was this? What a playful spirit he had! I shook myself. But that’s where I get hung up. I like log cabins, too—I love the warmth of the wood. But from everything I’ve heard, log cabins are a bear to maintain and there’s just me and I’m not getting any younger. I thought for a second. Sometimes I think I’d prefer a hobbit-hole, like Bag End. That’s one thing they got right in the movie—Bilbo’s place was sweet.

He nodded slightly to show he understood the reference.

But I’m not really sure I’d like having a roof someone could walk across. That’s always seemed a little weird—indefensible. And I like open, airy rooms with big windows. And a garage for the car—I hate cleaning off my car in the winter. And a greenhouse. I’m a plant freak.

Plant-freaking turreted greenhouse with a fireplace in the garage… he murmured, pretending to be writing. I gave in and giggled, relaxing into the game and letting myself have this transient sense of joy. He looked up, seeming pleased by my choice, and started asking more questions, touching on my likes and dislikes but skipping randomly from topic to topic without any pattern I could discern. I had no idea how any of it related to architecture, but he assured me that the more he knew about my personal tastes, the more closely he could know how to design a house for me.

He even reached forward at one point to touch Saul Hapberg’s Tiger Lily ring on my left hand. I was wearing six Saul rings, three on the left and three on the right, and I’d seen his gaze rest on them more than once. Those are very interesting designs, he commented. Very organic. They all look like the same artist. May I?

Pleased, I slipped the ring off and handed it to him, telling him about how I met Saul Hapberg at the Renn Faire in Wisconsin and started collecting his work.

That’s really fine detail. He slipped the ring around the tip of his little finger and rotated it so that the stone caught the sunlight. What’s the stone—ruby?

I was surprised. "Good call! Most people think they’re garnets, because good, red rubies like these are so damned