Young Adult Books
DANI SERIES BOOK FOUR
WHAT ABOUT LOVE? -OR- MEDICINE OF THE MOUNTAIN
Excerpt
Chapter One
The old highway between Languishire and Harmony Mountain is often called the Silverdale Road. On a map, it is Route 30, but the Silverdale Road street sign is on the corner of North Elm Street in Languishire, where Route 30 splits off heading northwest. To Dani Sentini, that’s a happy street sign opening the way to a happy place. The road goes straight for a long way after that, the elevation steadily increasing over a gently undulating landscape. On a clear day, you can see the tops of the mountains of the Northwest Range, the foremost of which is Harmony Mountain, which is usually green and gray in summer and gray and white in winter. In old times, this was called the Place of Spirits. There are many who still believe the old stories about the mountain, stories of spirits that waft about like warm swirling visitants that may be encountered with sudden and sometimes catastrophic effect if someone should come into direct contact with one of them.
What are these effects, you ask? Well, if you collide with a spirit on Harmony Mountain, as people who have done so say, you’ll feel light and dizzy, and soon you’ll be soaring with the eagles and, looking down, you’ll see your body on the ground where it fell. You’ll see all the people gathered around your body when they should be looking up, and this will amuse you. But though you may wish to fly away, you won’t be able to. According to those who have experienced it, something holds you down, and you’ll always wonder if you really would have flown away if you could have. You eventually come back into your body, and your eyes open, and you’ll never be quite the same again. That’s because when you were flying you saw the eagles and they saw you; back in your body again, the eagles will remember you and you’ll remember them, from when you were briefly a spirit, soaring among them.
This is the story Dani thinks about today, sitting in the front seat of her boyfriend’s truck, sitting in the middle between him and his sister, and looking out ahead toward the great mountain that’s still far away, and feeling inside herself the rising anticipation that she’s always felt on her way to Silverdale. But this time it somehow seems extra special and so very happy, and she wonders if over the past few weeks, if she’d had a chance to fly away, she might very well and very happily have done so. But today things are better. Anyway, what would the world be like if everybody picked up and flew away every time the world caved in on them?
At first, it seems like the highway goes straight to the top of Harmony Mountain, but that is an optical illusion. There is a plateau where the road levels off for a ways while it bends through Richardsville, Gladings Corners, and Clifford Springs. After Clifford Springs, there is another straight run of about twenty miles as you head straight toward Silverdale, but by that time the mountain fills up the whole windshield and you can see how the farms lie around it. Dani Sentini can pick out her grandfolks’ farm on the slope just below and to the left of Craggy Ledge. She wonders what it will be like to swim in Prism Lake once again and if any of the old people will recognize her new and lighter-by-seventy-pounds self.
While she once feared sinking like a stone, now she wonders if she’ll float like a cork. She wonders if she’ll have the courage to dive like she used to, looking for crystals that lie at the bottom of the lake.
“Tonight at sunset, we’ll go for a swim in Prism Lake,” she says to them. Her boyfriend, Flavio Cantonia, who sits to her left and is driving the truck, while his little sister, Terry, sits on her right by the window. “And I’ll show you how the sunset can be seen at the bottom of the lake.”
Flavio scoffs, “Yeah, right. Like I’m really gonna see the sun at the bottom of your lake.”
“All those who believe they can see it, see it,” says Dani. “It’s the sort of thing you can’t see if you don’t believe you can see it. It’s a lot like your dreams and even success itself.”
It’s a strange thing for a sixteen-year-old girl to say. But she’s been reading the books she’s borrowed from him that cover many topics, and how to be successful is one of them.
“Why do we have to swim at sunset?” he asks.
“Cause the sun lights up the top of the mountain and the light flows through the mountain and goes to the bottom of the lake. Kinda like when you think of something nice and it makes you happy all the way to your feet.”
She’s pretty sure she herself has seen it many times. But that was a long time ago when it was easier to believe in things.
Is it possible to believe in anything anymore?
It is Monday, July 9th, 2018. Flavio has been driving for most of an hour and hasn’t stopped at any of the towns. Except for when he has to shift or when she’s rested her hand on his thigh, Dani’s been holding his hand. Terry has brought a little bottle of “grape juice,” and she and Dani have been sipping from it. Dani wants to hold Terry’s hand too but is embarrassed to reach out and take it; Terry’s left it resting on her own thigh, where she also holds the juice bottle. Dani’s pretty sure it would be just fine to take the bottle and stick it between her thighs and then take Terry’s left hand into her own lap like she used to do with her old friend, Cindy Rand. Holding Terry’s hand would give her right hand something to do, and she’d sure like to do it.
“Won’t it be a bit cool to swim so late so high up where you say it gets chilly at night?” asks Flavio.
Dani takes the bottle and sips a little, then places it snugly between her thighs, then takes hold of Terry’s hand and says, “It can get really chilly up there at night, but Prism Lake is like bath water this time of year. It’s warmed by the sun and the warm rocks and by the mountain, which is warm deep within it. Once you’re in the water, you’ll wanna stay in it all night long.”
Terry Cantonia squeezes her hand and turns her head and says, “I can’t wait to get in it, then.”
The two girls giggle. Already, giggling has become a way to communicate their new affection for each other, saying only that there is common ground under their feet.
A thought comes to her mind, and Dani asks Terry, “Do you think mountains have chakras?”
“Maybe,” says Terry, who works in a spa in Languishire where they deal a lot with chakras. “But I know people do. And you’re inside mine.”
“If I’m in yours, you’re in mine,” says Dani back. Turning to Flavio, she adds, “And you’re in mine, too.”
“It’s nice to know, but let’s not get too mystical here,” says Flavio. “And you better put that wine away. You two are gunna drink yourselves stupid. And it’ll be my fault cause I’m letting sixteen- and eighteen-year-old children drink wine in my car. And I myself am only nineteen. They’ll take my license and put me in jail.”
“It’s grape juice,” says Terry. “See?” She shows him the bottle’s label and places it back between Dani’s thighs.
Flavio scoffs. “Children! This is why my insurance costs so much.”
“It really is grape juice,” says Terry. “You wanna sip?” She holds it up for him, taking off the cap. When he grabs for it to throw it out the window, she pulls it away and giggles.
“You’re a little beelzebub!” he says, looking sideways at her.
The girls laugh at the stupid word beelzebub that invokes images in Dani’s mind of a large black beetle with wide pinchers.
“That is true,” says Terry to Dani, cupping her hand. “I am a beelzebub.”
The girls giggle and laugh even more now.
“But the chakra thing is also true,” says Terry. “If you open a gate, you can share your energy field with someone else. Some believe it’s how you can fall in love at first sight. They say our energy fields can extend out from us by several feet. When we’re attracted to somebody, the fields sorta merge together and you get some of their energy picking you up. It can happen at a great distance.”
“Exactly how far?” asks Flavio very seriously.
“Who knows? Any distance, really. But the chakra itself, that’s in a circle around you. Six feet maybe. They say it varies.”
“I think it’s true,” he says. “Cause your energy field is screwing up my synopses and making me disoriented. Could you please slide further over? And please put that away!”
Terry whispers to Dani, “I think he’s jealous cause you and I are in love.”
Dani giggles and gives Terry’s hand a squeeze, whispering, “Hey, you don’t have to move over. I like being inside your chakra.” She holds Terry’s hand tight to keep her from moving, and they get to giggling while Flavio scoffs dramatically, rolling his eyes up.
Terry looks around Dani, leaning and speaking to her brother: “I haven’t let you into my field,” she says to him. “And I’m not entering yours. There’s a major conflict of wavelengths, and yours has nothing but static.” Terry turns more to Dani and now places both her hands around hers, saying, “But you’re in my field.”
Dani squeezes her hand again and feels pretty sure this is true and also sure that Terry’s been in her field since they met for the first time a couple of hours ago. Well, the girls had met briefly several days before at the church and then at Donatello’s Bistro, but that didn’t count.
“There’s something else,” says Terry to Dani. “Once you hook up with somebody’s energy field, if the connection is very strong, you can stay connected even if you’re on opposite sides of the galaxy.”
“Do you know,” says Dani, “I was just thinking that very same thought? We’re going to get along awfully swell. And you’re going to love my Grandma Anita. She’s all into vibes and energy waves. She’s gonna talk your head off about the mountain.”
But inside her head, Dani is thinking about this chakra thing and all the complicated ways it must work in order to keep her linked up with Flavio and also with Terry without causing a bit of static; and just how many chakras can be linked together at the same time from clear across the galaxy?
Copyright @ 2026 H.R. Novelton
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