In the Blink of an Eye

In the Blink of an Eye

Wendy Corsi Staub

Dedication

For Suzanne Muldowney Schmidt,

who became my friend on our first day of kindergarten,

and who will be my friend forever

—With love and fond memories from “Wendell”

And, as always, for my three guys:

Mark, Morgan, and Brody

Acknowledgments

F
IRST,
I
MUST
acknowledge two people whose
friendship I treasure: my incredible editor, John Scognamiglio, and my terrific
agent, Laura Blake Peterson. Without you guys, this book wouldn't be in print. I
would also like to thank the following people who graciously—and some,
unwittingly—aided in the research and inspiration for this book: Frances Bennett
of New York Ghost Chapter; Bonita Cable, Rick Genett, Sesla Skowronski, Patty
Lillis, who brought through my dearly departed in vivid detail; and others at
Lily Dale who preferred not to be mentioned by name. Thanks to dynamic Doug
Mendini and his marketing staff for the advance vote of confidence; to my
cherished friend and fellow author Beverly Beaver for being a one-woman writer's
support system; to the amazing Joan Scott for keeping my little ones out of my
office; to Kim Powell, Suzanne Schmidt, and Stacey Staub for cheerfully
accompanying me on various ghostly missions. I also must voice my deepest
gratitude to my husband for playing editorial consultant and providing valuable
feedback on the manuscript-in-progress; and my family, who patiently endured a
rainy April afternoon on the shores of Cassadaga Lake in search of those last
few details to make it real—real thanks, Mom Grandma T, Scooter, Lisa, Hannah
Rae, Leo, and, of course, seasoned researchers Morgan and Brody. Finally, I have
to thank my Aunt Mickey for ultimately validating what I already knew was
real.

Contents

Prologue

Halloween night, fifteen years ago

Lily Dale, New York

“
O
KAY, ONE MORE
house and then we're done.” Julia Garrity teeters across the small patch of wet lawn, her heels sinking into the damp earth.

“Three more,” Kristin Shuttleworth amends, walking several steps ahead. “I didn't even get any Milk Duds yet and they're my favorite.”

“
One
,” Julia insists. “I mean it, Kristin. That's it for me. You can keep going on your own if you want.”

“That would be stupid. My costume doesn't make sense without you, Jul. I need you. Please.”

Kristin is very good at pleading. Most of the time, she can talk Julia into just about anything. But tonight, Julia shakes her head. She's had it with this whole scene.

For one thing, at fourteen, they're getting too old to be trick-or-treating, free Milk Duds or not. For another, Julia's feet are killing her in her mother's pointy old satin pumps. She can't wait to change into sneakers and jeans and wash this gunk off her face.

Why the heck did she ever let Kristin convince her to dress up as the female half of a bridal couple?

Kristin, as the groom, gets to wear her father's old tuxedo and a pair of flat, comfortable black shoes. Her long blond hair is tucked beneath a black top hat, and only a fake mustache mars her pretty face.

Meanwhile, Julia is decked out in a long white gown with a train that she keeps tripping over, her vision obscured by multiple layers of illusion. The veil is attached to a tiara, which is pinned to the teased brunette wig that conceals Julia's mop of boyish brown hair. The wig—and full makeup—was Kristin's idea, to make Julia look more feminine.

“If I'm so masculine, why can't I be the groom?” Julia had asked grumpily when they were getting dressed.

“Because my mother doesn't have a wedding dress I can wear. She had on some crazy short, psychedelic hippie dress when she married my dad in that freaky flower child ceremony,” Kristin pointed out impatiently.

True. Not that Julia's mother has a wedding dress, either, having never married Julia's father, whoever—and-wherever—he is.

Kristin continues, “And your grandmother is freaked enough as it is about us borrowing her gown for a costume. She definitely wouldn't want me to be the one wearing it.”

True, again. Julia's grandmother isn't crazy about Kristin. And Julia's mother, who is usually laid-back when it comes to parenting, can't stand her. She thinks Kristin's a bad influence.

Julia can understand why. Strong-willed Kristin, who smokes and curses and never studies, isn't the kind of girl parents like. But she's a loyal friend, and she's loads of fun. She's adventurous where Julia is cautious, outgoing where Julia is reserved. A teacher once said the biggest difference between them is that Julia tries to avoid making waves, while Kristin thrives on rocking the boat.

That might be the biggest difference, but it's far from the only one.

Often mistaken as being much younger than her fourteen years, Julia is an athletic but petite freckle-faced, jean-clad tomboy—not unattractive, but she certainly doesn't turn heads the way leggy, slim Kristin does.

Kristin's wide-set eyes, high cheekbones, and full mouth are striking even without makeup, though she hasn't been in public without it since sixth grade. Naturally, she's thrilled when strangers assume she's several years older. She even recently started dating college guys from the state university a few miles away in Fredonia. They all think she's eighteen or nineteen.

Of course her parents have no idea what Kristin is up to. Julia can't help worrying that she's going to get herself into trouble one of these days, but her self-assured friend never seems to waste a moment on apprehension as she slap-dashes her way through life.

Kristin is so utterly opposite in temperament and appearance that even Julia herself sometimes finds it hard to believe that they're still so close. But there aren't many girls their own age in a community the size of Lily Dale, with only a handful of year-round families. They've been basically thrown together since they were toddlers, and for all Kristin's faults, Julia loves her like the sister she never had—and will never have, judging by the way her mother goes through men. It doesn't look as if she's ever going to find one she likes and settle down.

“Come on, Jul, let's go,” Kristin says, striding up narrow Summer Street, her plastic orange pumpkin swinging from her hand. “Looks like the Biddles are home.”

Julia hesitates, glancing at the two-story Victorian cottage ahead. “I don't think we should go to their place, Kristin.”

“Why not?” Kristin doesn't even break her stride. “It's not like we have a lot to choose from, Jul.”

She has a point. Most of the homes in Lily Dale are deserted at this time of year, windows covered with plywood, owners settled far from the harsh winds and snows that batter western New York from October until April.

But Rupert and Nanette Biddle, like the Garritys and the Shuttleworths, have always stayed in town. Though they tend to keep to themselves, they seem friendly in a distant sort of way when Julia sees them at Assembly services.

“Their porch light isn't on,” Julia points out. “And we've never gone trick-or-treating here before.”

“There's a first time for everything,” is Kristin's glib reply. She's already halfway up the steps.

Julia sighs, following her friend as the wind gusts off nearby Cassadaga Lake. Dry leaves scuttle along the gravel walk and a chorus of wind chimes tinkles forlornly on the breeze. As she climbs the steps Julia gathers her train in one hand and grasps the wooden railing with the other, wobbling in her shoes, her dress whipping precariously around her ankles. Above her head, suspended from an ornately carved bracket that matches the scrolled trim lining the porch eaves, a wooden sign sways in the wind.

RUPERT BIDDLE, REGISTERED MEDIUM.

A floorboard creaks beneath Julia's weight as she crosses the porch to join Kristin, who is already reaching for the antique doorbell.

Like most of the other cottages in Lily Dale, this place is probably a hundred years old. But Rupert Biddle is one of the more successful mediums in the Spiritualist Assembly, and his home is one of the few that have been restored to its former pristine state. No peeling paint, missing spindles, or lopsided shutters here.

None at the Shuttleworths' home a few blocks away, either. Kristin's father, Anson, is a nationally renowned psychic medium whose fame has grown considerably ever since he helped the police up in Buffalo track down the bodies of several children who were murdered by a serial killer almost three years ago. He's just published a book about that experience.

Kristin doesn't like to talk about that, or about her father in general.

Nor does she waste much breath discussing her older half brother, Edward, who lives down in Jamestown with his mother, Anson's first wife. Julia remembers him coming around more often when they were younger, but he doesn't anymore. Kristin once mentioned in passing that he'd had a big blowout with her mother, Iris. Julia sometimes forgets he even exists, and it certainly seems as though Kristin is an only child, the way her parents dote on her.

Julia is an only child, too. But her mother is far too busy and self-involved to dote. Nor will she discuss the circumstances of Julia's birth. Even Grandma, who lives with them, won't reveal her father's identity—if Grandma even knows. Julia figures it's possible that she doesn't. And whenever she asks Grandma about it, Grandma says that she shouldn't concern herself with that. She tells Julia how lucky she is to have a mother and grandmother who love her.

Not that Julia doesn't feel lucky, but—

Footsteps sound on the other side of the Biddles' tall front door with its frosted oval beveled-glass window. As it opens, an overhead globe is switched on from inside, flooding the porch with light.

Nanette Biddle, an attractive middle-aged woman whose blond hair is perpetually tucked back into a neat bun, stands there looking surprised.

“Trick or treat,” Kristin announces cheerfully, thrusting her plastic pumpkin forward.

“It's Halloween!” Mrs. Biddle replies, as though she hadn't realized it until just now. “You both look adorable! I'm so sorry, girls, I don't have anything ready . . .”

Julia squirms, wanting to tell her to forget it. But Kristin stands her ground expectantly, so Julia follows her lead as usual.

“Why don't you come in?” Mrs. Biddle suggests. “Rupert isn't home, but I think he bought some candy bars when he went up to Tops the other day. I'll see if I can find them. You deserve a treat with those costumes. I wish I had a camera!”

She holds the door open for them.

Julia steps over the threshold and looks around as Mrs. Biddle closes it behind them, saying, “I don't want to let the draft in. It's chilly out there tonight, isn't it?”

Julia politely murmurs that it is. Kristin says nothing. She isn't the type to make small talk with adults.

“I'll be right back, girls,” Mrs. Biddle says, disappearing toward the back of the house.

Julia looks around, curious. She's always wondered whether this house is as pretty inside as it is out.

They're standing in a high-ceilinged stair hall. To the immediate right of the front door is a pair of closed French doors. Beside them, between two massive, carved newel posts, three wide, curved bottom steps lead up to a landing, and a long flight continues from there to the second floor, rising between a spindled railing on the open side and dark-paneled wainscoting along the wall.

Immediately to the left of the front door is an archway that opens to a shadowy dining room. Straight ahead, a short hallway leads past the stairs to what must be the kitchen. Julia can hear Mrs. Biddle opening and closing cabinets there.

The walls of the hall are covered in maroon and gold striped paper. Overhead, a frosted amber-colored glass bowl-shaped antique light fixture is suspended from three chains that meet at the center of a scrolled plaster oval on the ceiling. There is a crystal vase of white flowers on the small telephone table beside the stairs, and healthy potted plants are everywhere. The hardwood floors gleam. Every strand of fringe on the oriental area rug is aligned as perfectly as if somebody has combed it.

“Nice, huh?” Julia whispers to Kristin, struck by the contrast to the cluttered, rickety lakefront cottage she shares with her mother and Grandma.

Kristin doesn't reply.

Julia turns to see that her friend, wearing an odd expression, has retreated a few steps, her back pressed against the closed door.

“What's wrong, Kristin?”

It's as though she doesn't even hear, Julia realizes.

Kristin's big blue eyes are fixed on something over Julia's shoulder, on the stairs.

Julia quickly turns to see what it is.

The stairway is empty.

“Jul . . .” Her voice a strangled whisper, Kristin is touching her arm,
grabbing
her arm.

“What is it Kristin? What's wrong?”

“Do you see her, Julia?”

“Who?” Julia looks around, thinking she must be talking about Mrs. Biddle.

But Mrs. Biddle is still in the kitchen.

Kristin is still staring at the stairway.

And the stairway is still vacant.

“Do I see who?” Julia asks, fear slithering over her.

Kristin, wide-eyed, shakes her head slowly, letting go of Julia's arm.

“I couldn't find the candy bars, girls,” Mrs. Biddle says, reappearing, “but I do have some Oreos, and I put some into sandwich baggies for each of—”

She breaks off suddenly just as Julia hears a commotion behind her and feels a cold breeze on her neck.

She turns to see that Kristin has thrown the door open and is rushing out of the house as though she's running for her life.

“My goodness, what's wrong with your friend?” Mrs. Biddle asks.

Julia's heart is pounding. “I don't know,” she tells her, moving toward the door. “I'd better go find out.”

But she never does.

When she finally catches up with Kristin on the front steps of the Shuttleworths' house three blocks away, Kristin, strangely quiet, refuses to talk about what happened to her inside the Biddle house.

In the weeks that follow, Kristin grows increasingly withdrawn. She doesn't want to help Julia bake pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, as they usually do, and she turns down a rare invitation to go Christmas shopping at the Galleria Mall up in Buffalo with Julia and her grandmother. Every day after school, she only wants to go home—alone.

When her father's book becomes an overnight best-seller and he decides that their family will spend the rest of that winter in Florida, Kristin clearly isn't upset to be leaving Lily Dale behind.

In fact, she almost seems relieved when she gives Julia one last hug and disappears into the black stretch limo taking her family to the Buffalo airport.

With the money from Anson's book and subsequent television appearances, the Shuttleworths soon buy a big house on the beach near Boca Raton. After this, they will spend only summers in Lily Dale. Julia and Kristin will reestablish their friendship every June, and say good-bye every August.

They will never again discuss what Kristin saw—and Julia didn't—in the Biddle house that Halloween night.

In time, Julia's memory of that night will fade, only to be nudged back into her consciousness more than a decade later, when she hears that Rupert and Nanette Biddle have sold their house to Kristin's mother, the newly widowed Iris Shutleworth.

Kristin, long absent from Julia's life and by then living on the West Coast with her boyfriend and young daughter, will make a final appearance in Lily Dale to help her mother move into the new home.