Chapter 13

Henry Gladstone sat in silence as Lex and Mysti discussed their wedding plans. It was fascinating to watch Lex’s persuasive abilities with their most stubborn red-headed daughter.

“Let me get this straight.” Mysti’s hand fluttered at her throat. “You want to marry me at the very spot, the only spot in this entire town, where I am the most terrified because it’ll be a healing experience for me ... an-and Sammy?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What makes you think I wanna get healed at our wedding? Aren’t weddings emotionally charged enough without adding this to it?”

Lex sat next to Mystery on the two bar stools situated in the living room side of the kitchen counter. They had gathered at Henry Gladstone’s home with her mother and his family, Alexander, Senior, Annie, his mother, and his sister Alyssa Cayden, to discuss the wedding plans. The wedding would be simple but elegant, and only three days away.

Lex’s parents had flown to Colorado from Texas and were being treated to the best room in the Gladstone Bed and Breakfast. Harry had insisted. Lex was their only son and they intended to give to his wedding equally as they would his sister’s.

Lex pulled Mysti’s hand from her throat and held it against his heart. “Yes. Mystery, think about it. Most of your life you have had but one event associated with the Phantom Horse Bridge: The night your sister was found. You always refer to it as the night Sammy was lost. But it’s also the night she was found.” Lex panned the room. Henry and Emily sat together on the couch, his father and mother sat together at a breakfast table just a few feet from the couch, Alyssa with them. Annie held a pen over a spiral notebook, jotting down notes. And Alyssa thumbed keys on her cell phone.

Lex’s eyes landed on Samantha who rocked feverishly in a rocking recliner. “This will be a healing experience for you, too, Sam.”

Sammy’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead. “I really don’t see how this’s gonna work.”

“Both of you. Please listen to me. I thought long and hard about this.” Lex’s compassionate eyes pleaded with the two women. “Sammy, you say when you realized you were lost, the phantom horse and rider chased you through the woods until you found the bridge where a rescue party had set up a centralized headquartered, right?”

Sammy nodded. Her face went pale as new-fallen snow.

“Well, what if,” Lex released Mystery’s hand and turned toward her sister. “Just maybe, assuming the phantom actually exists, what if he was not chasing you, but steering you toward the bridge so that you could be rescued? I find it hard to believe a terrified five-year-old could find her way through the forest, in the dark, and end up at the very spot where the rescuers were waiting.”

Lex turned back to Mystery. “Mystery, you’ve already made a first step toward distilling this pathological fear. When Lucas Hart and I nearly fell in the river, you ran right through that bridge like you weren’t afraid of anything. You were so brave then. Each time you face that bridge, the fear will grow smaller and smaller. So, what if we replace that one terrifying memory with the most happiest memories of all—Our wedding? It’ll blast that fearful memory into oblivion. You’ll be free of it forever.”

Mysti stared at the floor and shook her head.

“This will honestly work.” Lex pressed on. “It’s sound psychological therapy. I’ve researched PTSD treatments in seminary and this anthropomorphizing has been found to be very effective with memory reconsolidating.” He smiled at the Gladstones.

But Sammy and Mysti frowned.

“What?” Mysti nearly growled. “Don’t use your clinical words when you’re telling me I have to make my wedding day the blackest day of my life! I hate it when you use words I don’t understand. And right now I’m not loving the idea of marrying you, Lex Cayden.” Mysti glanced at the Cayden family.

Compassion radiated in their faces, except for Alyssa. She looked up with confusion in her eyes. Her incessant chomping on gum slowed as she seemed to realize there was a problem.

Tears filled Mysti’s eyes and her voice. “Excuse me...”

She stomped from the room and slammed a bedroom door. Henry and Emily both stiffened at the noise. It had been a long time since their walls had been rattled like that by their oldest daughter. The room had been hers and still gave her a sense of refuge. Emily never remodeled either girl’s rooms. Henry supposed she wished to preserve their childhood that way.

Sammy stared at her mother. “So, now what?”

Lex stood, but Henry stopped him from following Mysti. “Son, let me.”

Henry gingerly approached his daughter’s door. He tapped lightly.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now, Lex!” Mysti hollered.

“It’s your dad, Hon.”

Silence met him, but then the door knob turned, and she opened her door.

“May I come in?” Henry waited until his daughter pulled the door back farther, allowing him to enter her room.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re upset, but just listen to me for a moment.”

Mysti crossed her arms over her diaphragm and flopped down on her bed. Things really never change, he mused. He eased himself down on the end of her bed. The green gingham spread covered the mattress and stuffed animals still lined the footboard. He lifted a giraffe and cupped its head with his palm. She’d brought this home from the State Fair. Some boy had won it for her. Henry couldn’t remember who it had been. Might have been Harry. He was always her plus one at most events. Setting the animal aside, he looked into his daughter’s morose eyes.

“You remember when you were little? You and I built that treehouse in the backyard? You were, oh, about five, I reckon.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “Sammy was three and determined to get up in it with you. When we weren’t looking, she crawled up the ladder and fell.”

“Yeah, she broke her arm, too.” Mysti’s brow knitted.

Henry chuckled. “Yeah, she did. And ... she was horrified of that ladder. Wouldn’t go near it.”