Ghost Town (8 page)

Being picked was pure luck, Ashley cheerfully reminded herself. And luck was something she never stopped looking for. Rabbits' feet, shamrocks, horse-shoes—Ashley had tried all of them, and she was convinced they worked. Now she had found a stone that seemed to bring good luck. Hadn't her dress immediately felt better as soon as she'd wished it would? She took the stone from the pocket of the costume. Looking at it again, she realized how strange it was.

It was small, oval, and as smooth as glass. What made it truly unusual though, were its deep red, yellow, and white markings, which resembled a wide-open eye.

The night before, as Ashley and her mother had climbed into their twin beds in the motel near St. George, Ashley had placed the stone on the table between their beds.

“Where did you get that thing?” her mother had asked. “It looks like it's staring at me. It's creepy.”

Ashley had giggled. “It was in the cemetery.”

“What?”

“Really, Mom. I found it between rehearsals yesterday, when I was looking around the old ghost town. The stone must have been lying right next to a tombstone. It rolled against my shoe like a gift. As if someone wanted me to have it.”

Mrs. Banks had shivered. “If I were you, I'd give it back.”

“No. I'm going to keep it,” Ashley had answered. “It's so weird it must be lucky.” She had reached to turn off the light.

“That's just wishful thinking. People make their own luck, not charms.” her mother had grumbled. She'd rolled onto her side, pulling the thin blanket and sheet up to her ears.

Ashley didn't give another thought to her mother's opinion. She had touched the stone, made a wish, and her dress suddenly fit. Didn't that prove she had found a lucky stone? It was more than lucky. It had to be magic.

Now, as she placed the stone in the pocket of her jeans, she once more felt a strange excitement. Something interesting was bound to happen to the owner of a stone like this one.

A few steps down and across the hall from the wardrobe department, a door stood open. Ashley paused to glance inside the room, which was cluttered with odds and ends that were surely movie props. Who else would want a moth-eaten bear rug, two Indian war bonnets, a bunch of spears, and a pile of worn saddles?

She lifted her gaze to the wall at her right and gasped aloud. There, in a cheap, tarnished frame, was a photograph of the best-looking boy she had ever seen.

Even though the black-and-white print was grainy, it couldn't disguise high cheekbones, a strong, square chin, and dark eyes that seemed to stare right into her own. A broad-brimmed felt hat was pushed back on the boy's head, and long gleaming black hair skimmed the collar of his denim shirt. Under his collar hung the rawhide strip of a bolo tie. It was fastened
with a scrolled silver clasp set with polished blue chips that looked like turquoise.

Entranced, Ashley gripped the stone in her pocket as she stared at the photo. The boy must be somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, and he certainly looked like a star.
I wonder if he's in this film, too
, she thought. In her mind she spoke to the face in the photograph.
I wish I could meet you.

She smiled as she suddenly imagined the two of them, alone under the stars. He'd put an arm around her shoulders, and his lips would lightly touch hers … “I wish,” she whispered.

“What are you smiling about?”

Ashley whirled around. There sat the boy in the photograph. He was perched on a stack of large cardboard boxes, grinning at her.

“N-Nothing really,” Ashley stammered. “That is …I mean…I was looking at your photograph, and I wondered—” She felt herself blush. “I wondered if you were cast in the movie, too.”

She almost groaned aloud. Why couldn't she talk straight or make sense? And why hadn't she said “film” instead of “movie”? She'd sounded so dumb.

But the boy said, “Hi. I'm Luke Danvers. And you're Ashley Banks.” His broad smile nearly took Ashley's breath away.

“How did you know my name?”

“Easy. The studio people take roll call every time they go out on location.”

“Oh. Of course.” Desperately searching for something to talk about, Ashley blurted out, “Do you know what the film is about? I haven't seen a script. The casting director said extras wouldn't need one. We'd be told what to do.”

She stopped, embarrassed again, but Luke seemed interested in her question.

“They're making what they call a classic Western,” he said. “You know—settlers against the spring floods and the uprisings of the Native Americans.”

His eyes seemed to grow darker and deeper. “The Hollywood people who make films don't think about the deeper issues. They probably don't know or care that this land once belonged to many tribes—like the Shoshones and the Paiutes.”

As he spoke, Luke's voice grew angrier. “The land the Mormon settlers named Zion has been a hallowed place for centuries, rich with spirits. For many years young warriors and wise elders came into the mountains to meditate and talk to the gods. Then white settlers arrived and claimed the land, which was not theirs to take.”

Luke stopped speaking for a moment. Then he
went on, his anger seemingly under control. “You've seen the rugged peak of Mount Kinesava, which towers over the town of Grafton?”

Ashley nodded. “It's part of Zion.”

“It's part of a temple. That land was mystical. It still is, even though the settlers interfered.”

“But the settlers left.”

“Those who were still alive.” Luke's voice dropped so low that Ashley could scarcely hear it. “Many of them are still there. The tombstones in the cemetery at Grafton mark countless graves of settlers who died in the tribal raids and who tried to flee the Blackhawk War.”

Ashley pictured the cemetery and the jagged red-and-gold peaks that rose above it, the town and mountain separated only by the Virgin River, which twisted between them. “The mystical land, the spirits, are they still there, too?” she asked.

“Yes.” Luke nodded. “Let me try to explain. There are certain places in this world that are attuned to both the inner and outer forces of the earth. The Zion peaks are among them. They're a channel through which great magic can take place.”

“What kind of magic?”

An impatient voice shouted down the hallway, “Ashley Banks! Where are you? Report at once to Makeup!”

“Don't go,” Luke said. “Come with me. I'll show you.”

Reluctantly Ashley answered, “I wish I could, but I have to report to Makeup.”

She ran into the hallway, almost colliding with an older woman, who pressed against the wall to get out of Ashley's way.

“Ooops! I'm sorry,” Ashley said. She put out a hand to steady the woman.

Stepping away from the wall, the woman shook her head. She was short and small-boned, with deeply tanned skin, and her long gray hair was fastened at the nape of her neck with a rubber band. “Young people are so impatient,” she said. “Where were you rushing off to so fast?”

“To Makeup,” Ashley answered. “I'm in this movie—uh, film—they're making. Oh, I'm sorry. I suppose you are, too.”

“Me? Oh, no,” the woman said. “I'm Maria Blanton. I own this motel, but my son, Anthony, runs it. Why I rented it out to a movie company, I don't know. Well, I do know. A full house means money in the bank.”

“Yes, Mrs. Blanton,” Ashley said. She tried to edge past the woman, but Mrs. Blanton didn't seem to be finished with what she had to say.

“Those Hollywood people film around Grafton every so often. Sometimes people in the movie companies stay here. Robert Redford and Paul Newman once made a movie here. Big stars. It's different now. I don't know the Hollywood people in this movie. I never go to the movies anymore.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Ashley said. She managed to squeeze around Mrs. Blanton and hurry into the room with the Makeup sign tacked to the door.

Half an hour later Ashley gave her name to a woman with a clipboard and climbed on the bus that would take the extras to the set. She checked the seats carefully and realized, to her disappointment, that Luke Danvers wasn't aboard.

But when the bus reached the set, lumbering to a stop behind a line of buses already parked, Ashley saw Luke from the window. He was standing near the river, with Mount Kinesava rising up like a hovering giant behind him.
Let him be waiting for me
, Ashley hoped.
I wish I could get to know him better.

With a start, Ashley saw that Luke's eyes were fixed on hers. He smiled and raised a hand, beckoning.

Ashley scrambled out of her seat and hurried to get off the bus.

Luke approached her, holding out a hand. “Come with me,” he said.

Ashley glanced around the parking lot. The other extras were making their way toward the set. “Come where?” she asked.

Luke grinned. “To the magical mountains,” he said.

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Ashley!” a voice called.

Ashley glanced over her shoulder and saw the studio teacher, Ms. Dunn, motioning to her.

“This way, please. They've set up a trailer for our classroom. The others are already there.”

“Later,” Ashley quickly told Luke. She ran to catch up with Ms. Dunn.

Ms. Dunn smiled pleasantly, but she said, “Each morning you're supposed to report to me. Where were you off to?”

“To the magic—to the mountains,” Ashley answered.

Ms. Dunn looked concerned. “Haven't you been given the warnings?” she asked.

“What warnings?” A shiver trembled along Ashley's spine. Putting her hands in her pockets, she reached for the comfort of her magic stone, but it felt so cold and hard that she quickly pulled her fingers away.

“It's easy to get lost in those mountains,” Ms. Dunn said. “No one should hike into them alone. People have disappeared and never been found.”

But I'd be with Luke
, Ashley thought.
I'd be perfectly safe.

However, she did as she was told. The day was taken up with classroom work, rehearsal, and a lot of waiting. Lights were set up. Lights were taken down. Props were arranged and rearranged. Moviemaking was incredibly boring, Ashley decided.

During the afternoon, gray clouds gathered, and the mountain peaks darkened in their shadow. Now and then Sam, the director, squinted up at the sky. “The clouds look good,” he said to one of his assistants. “They're just what we want, as long as they don't turn into rainstorms, delay filming, and wreck the budget.”

“Don't worry so much,” the assistant answered. “The TV weatherman said it's not going to rain. You wanted clouds, and that's what you got.”

Ashley looked for Luke, but he was nowhere in sight.

It wasn't until she was back at the motel, walking down the hallway toward the room she shared with her mother, that she heard Luke's voice. He called to
her from the storeroom, where once again he was perched on the pile of boxes.

Ashley glanced through the open doorway at Luke's handsome face, and her heart jumped with happiness.

“You didn't come with me,” he said.

He wasn't scolding. His smile was soft and warm, so Ashley relaxed and smiled back. “You know I couldn't.”

“You could have if you'd wanted to. You made a wish. Wishes, once granted, must be carried out.”

Ashley was puzzled. She couldn't remember making any wishes out loud. And he couldn't know about the wishes she'd made in her mind.

Again her face grew warm as she thought of her wish to kiss Luke.

“The mountains are beautiful—shades of red and gold in the sunlight, blue black in the moonlight. Wasn't it moonlight you were wishing for?”

Ashley was positive she hadn't wished aloud. “How do you know what I wished for?” she asked.

“I told you.

The mountains have magical powers.” “The mountains, maybe. But not you.”

Luke leaned forward. His eyes were deep and compelling. “Come with me into the mountains, Ashley.”

Ashley closed her eyes and took a step closer to him.

Suddenly she heard her mother out in the hallway. “Have any of you seen Ashley?” Her voice was tight with anxiety. “She was supposed to have been on that last bus.”

Ashley ran toward the doorway. She stopped and gave a last look over her shoulder at Luke. “I'm sorry. I wish I could go with you, but…”

Luke grinned and gave Ashley a mock salute. “That wish is good enough for me,” he said.

That night Ashley went to sleep clutching her lucky stone. As she slept, she dreamed she was walking into the mountains with Luke, climbing the jagged rocks, clinging to rough, broken walls. But when she looked around, Luke wasn't there. She was alone with the mountains, tall and dark, looming overhead and slowly closing in on her. She woke up gasping with fear, her heart racing.

Ashley didn't see Luke before she left for the set, and he wasn't waiting for the bus when she arrived. Where was he? As the thickening clouds grew darker, Ashley's spirits did, too. Why hadn't he come to see her?

“Good sky,” the director said.

“Yeah,” his assistant answered. “Just right.”

But Ashley shivered when she looked up at the clouds. Dark streaks of shadow spread up and down the rocky outcrops of Mount Kinesava, reds and golds suddenly deepening to maroons and grays. The quickly changing light seemed to make faces appear and disappear in the rocks, all of them scowling down at the people who had invaded their valley.

Dusk came quickly, and with it Luke. He suddenly appeared at Ashley's side and took her hand.

“Board your buses,” someone called. Actors, extras, and crew began tiredly walking toward the buses.

“Come with me,” Luke said to Ashley.

She tried to say no, but the word wouldn't form. Instead she began to walk beside him toward the mountains. But glancing back at the buses, she hesitated. “I can't miss the bus,” Ashley said. “There's no other way to get back to St. George.”

“You wished to come with me. Remember? Now your wish is coming true,” Luke said.

Ashley wanted to tell him that she couldn't, that she really didn't want to. She wanted to ask how he knew about wishes she had never spoken aloud, but she said nothing. His voice was so commanding she followed without complaint.

Luke led her to a rise behind the scraggly-limbed
mulberry trees near the small cemetery she had visited before. He stopped under the dark shadows of one of the mulberries and rested one arm around Ashley's shoulders. “We'll stop here for a moment,” he said. “It's time for your first wish to come true.”