Lily Dale: Awakening (11 page)

“No, thanks. I was going to roll a three. That wouldn’t have helped me.”

“She’s hard to beat at Trivial Pursuit,” Evangeline comments, peering over the board. “But, wow, look at you! Four pieces of pie. You gave her a run for her money, didn’t you?”

“I know a lot of trivia,” Calla explains lamely.

She doesn’t miss the questioning glance Evangeline shoots at her grandmother, nor Odelia’s shrug in response.

Calla finds herself jealous of their bond, and disturbed by the unspoken communication between them. Evangeline was clearly wondering whether Calla, too, is psychic.

Odelia obviously isn’t sure. But why not? What would make her think Calla
might
be?

She doesn’t know about the apparition Calla saw in her mother’s room that first night, or about the premonitions she’s had in the past.

Maybe I should tell her
, Calla thinks, not for the first time.
Or maybe I should just forget about all of it, or I’ll start acting as crazy as Odelia
.

She opts for the latter. At least for now.

“Evangeline, how about if you show Calla around this afternoon?” Odelia suggests briskly. “The rain is letting up, finally.”

“Sure. Do you want to look around, Calla?”

There’s nothing to do but smile at Evangeline and say politely, “Sure.”

Well, it’s either that or announce that she has no interest in sightseeing in this spooky little town, which isn’t exactly the case, anyway. She’s curious about Lily Dale, she’ll admit that. Because her mom grew up here, and because . . . well, she can’t help but be intrigued by the idea of a town filled with psychic mediums.

For some reason, though, she hasn’t wanted to ask her grandmother much about it. Maybe because she’s afraid of what she’ll say. Or ask in return.

“So, what do you think about Lily Dale?” Evangeline asks as she and Calla stroll away from Odelia’s beneath a gloomy sky.

“I haven’t even seen it. We’ve been inside the house since I got here the other day.”

“Well, this is Melrose Park.” They’re crossing a grassy, tree-shaded green, heading away from the murky waters of the lake. There are people strolling here and there. Most of them seem to be women of all ages, usually in pairs or groups. Some are clutching pamphlets and stopping to consult them, as if they’re looking for something.

“I’ll show you where the Assembly office is first,” Evange-line decides.

“What’s the Assembly?”

“The Lily Dale Assembly. For spiritualism. Hang on a second, I’ve got to tie my shoe.” Evangeline stops and stoops over her purple sneaker.

Calla seizes the opportunity to look around at the quaint, close-set nineteenth-century gingerbread cottages. They’re architecturally similar to Odelia’s, some well kept, others rundown. Most have equally chaotic flower beds, and never in her life has she seen so many outdoor ornaments. Wind chimes, birdbaths and birdhouses, flags and banners, garden gnomes . . .

She’s about to comment about that to Evangeline when something else catches her eye.

Signs. They’re old-fashioned shingles, really, just like the one that hangs from Odelia’s porch. And they’re nearly as abundant as the wind chimes, which, in a sudden gust off the lake, are tinkling to life.

P
ATSY
M
ETCALF
, R
EGISTERED
M
EDIUM
& S
PIRITUAL
C
ONSULTANT

R
EV
. D
ORIS
H
ENDERSON
, C
LAIRVOYANT

A
NDY
B
RIGHTON
, P
SYCHIC
M
EDIUM

One house even has a pair of shingles, hanging one above the other:

W
ALTER
D
ARWIN
, R
EGISTERED
M
EDIUM

P
ETER
C
LIFFORD
, H
EALER

Wow. The whole place really is crawling with . . . freaks.

Evangeline, standing again, follows Calla’s gaze. “That’s where Jacy lives.” She gestures at the neat little house with double signs.

“Jacy?” Calla realizes he’s the guy she met just after she arrived.

“Yeah, he’s this guy . . . he’s pretty new here, too. He came from Jamestown, but before that he lived on a reservation down on the southern tier.”

“Reservation? You mean like—”

“He’s Native American,” Evangeline explains.

Oh. Not Cuban after all,
Calla thinks.
Native American.
She knew he had to have exotic blood, with those unusual good looks.

Evangeline goes on, “I’m sure you’ll meet him soon.”

Calla opens her mouth to tell Evangeline that she already did, but Evangeline is the chatty type and rarely pauses for a breath. “I saw him heading toward Leolyn Woods before, when I was coming across the yard to your grandmother’s. Walt and Peter are his foster dads. You have to meet Jacy. He’s really cute.”

Now that it seems to be her turn to speak, Calla tries to think of something else to say. Something other than,
I’m not interested in meeting cute guys
.

Her thoughts shift automatically to Kevin. Kevin and his new girlfriend. Annie.

All right, so maybe Calla should be interested in meeting cute guys after all.

Then—as if called up by her consciousness—one happens to materialize right in her path at that very moment. Not Jacy. Another cute guy. Maybe the cutest guy she’s ever seen.

Evangeline stops short. “Oh, Blue! You scared me!”

“Sorry.” He’s not looking at Evangeline, though. His eyes—the same deep indigo shade the lake was yesterday, in the sunshine—are fastened on Calla.

“I’m Blue Slayton,” he says, and sticks out his hand.

She takes it and finds his grasp strong and sure, though his hand is a little cold and dry for a warm, sticky day like this.

“Hi. Nice to meet you.” Calla tries not to stammer, unnerved by her own sweaty palm and his good looks. His light brown hair is wavy, and she has the strange urge to run her fingers through it. She releases his hand and shoves hers into her pocket, not just to wipe off the moisture, but in case it’s tempted to stray his way again.

“She’s Calla, Odelia’s granddaughter from Florida,” Evan-geline tells Blue, and Calla realizes she forgot to introduce herself. “It’s Delaney, right?” she adds, and Calla nods.

“Hey, I’m really sorry about your mother.” Blue Slayton’s words catch her off guard.

“So am I,” Evangeline chimes in awkwardly, “but I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up.”

“It’s okay,” Calla murmurs, wondering just how many people in Lily Dale are aware of her circumstances. Probably just about everyone, she realizes, if Odelia has been talking about her. After all, it’s a small town. People in small towns like to gossip, don’t they? She wouldn’t know, never having lived in one. But judging by the way both Blue Slayton and Evangeline Taggart are looking at her, they both know a lot more about her life than she knows about theirs.

“Your grandmother’s glad you’re here,” Evangeline offers. “At first, she didn’t think you were really going to be able to come, because of your dad. But I guess it’s good that he’s going to California and you can’t go with him right away. He had no choice where to send you, huh?”

Sheesh,
Calla thinks.
Does she know my shoe size and grade point average, too?

She says nothing to Evangeline, just does her best not to sneak another peek at Blue. She can feel him watching her with those amazing eyes. She wonders if his parents named him Blue, or if it’s just a fitting nickname.

“So, how long are you sticking around town?” he asks, and she looks up.

Wow, he really is gorgeous. Even better-looking than Kevin. More sophisticated, too, despite Kevin’s new grown-up haircut and attitude.

Why is he staring at her? He seems to be waiting for something.

Oh! He asked her a question. What was it?

She backtracks to
How long are you sticking around town?

“Until, um . . .” How long
is
she sticking around? Distracted by his stare, she searches her sluggish brain for the information.

“You’re here until the beginning of September, right?”

“Oh! Right,” Calla says, grateful to Evangeline for bailing her out.

“That’s good,” Blue tells her, barely glancing Evangeline’s way. “Maybe we can hook up at some point while you’re here.”

Hook up?
Does
hook up
mean the same thing here in Lily Dale that it does back home?

She dares to sneak another glance at his face, sure someone like him can’t possibly be interested in her. But his expression sure makes it look that way.

Hmm. Maybe
hook up
means the same thing everywhere.

Her heart pounds a little faster as she says, “That would be good.”

“Good. See you around, then.” He gives a little wave and takes off.

“OhmyGodheissototallyintoyou!”

Calla shifts her focus from the departing Blue Slayton to Evangeline.

“Just so you know?” Evangeline goes on, bouncing a little on her purple sneakers, “Blue Slayton is the hottest guy in the Dale. Not that there are all that many guys here, but . . .”

But Blue Slayton would be hot anywhere, as far as Calla’s concerned.

“Plus,”
Evangeline tells her, “he just broke up with his girlfriend, so he’s available.”

“Oh. Well, that’s . . .” Calla trails off, not sure
what
it is. Encouraging? Scary?

Both, she decides, but says only, “too bad. About the breakup, I mean. Breakups are hard.”

They start walking again, and Evangeline asks, “So, you don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

You mean Odelia didn’t cover that breaking news?
Calla thinks wryly, kicking a stone with the toe of her white Ked. Wait— would her grandmother even know about Kevin? Calla didn’t mention it when Odelia was in Florida, and she doubts her father brought it up, either. They certainly had other things, far more traumatic things, on their minds then.

“No,” she says in answer to Evangeline’s question. “No boyfriend. Not anymore.”

“Nasty breakup, huh? Like you said, they’re hard. Especially when you get dumped for somebody else.”

Calla looks up sharply. “How do you know?”

“Not from experience—I’ve never had a boyfriend myself—but that’s what just happened to my aunt Ramona. Her boyfriend was cheating on her with some Buffalo Jills cheerleader with blond hair and huge—”

“No, I meant how do you know what happened to me?”

“I was right, huh? Sometimes I’m off, but I’m getting better.”

“You mean you’re . . .”
One of them?

“Clairvoyant. Yup.” Evangeline looks pleased with herself. “It runs in my family. Same thing with Blue. His dad’s David Slayton, the guy who solved that jewelry theft after the Oscars in L. A. last year, with that actress . . . what was her name?”

Calla, stunned into silence, doesn’t answer. She knows exactly what Evangeline is referring to. Anyone who watches TV or reads
People
magazine knows about that. A movie star had borrowed a million-dollar diamond necklace to wear to the Academy Awards. It disappeared even though the jeweler’s security detail was on her all night. At first, there were rumors of a publicity stunt by the actress or the jeweler himself.

But the case was solved a few days later when the necklace was found. One of the security guards turned out to have been in on it. A psychic hired by the actress claimed to have helped the police solve the case. Calla remembers seeing him on TV and thinking he looked like a movie star himself.

Blue’s father. Wow. She asks Evangeline, “So Blue is . . . ?”

“A medium. Right. Like his dad.”

“And . . . so are you?”

“Yup. My whole family is. My brother, Mason—he’s thirteen—and my aunt Ramona, who we live with. My parents were, too, until they died.”

“Both of them? How?” Calla blurts, and is immediately sorry. She, more than anyone, should know enough not to force Evangeline to talk about something so painful.

But her new acquaintance merely nods and says, matter-of-factly, “It was a car crash out on Route 60, in a blizzard. Mason and I were with them, but he was a baby and I was only two, so I don’t remember any of it, thank God.”

“I’m so sorry.” Horrible as it is to have lost her own mother, at least Calla had her for all these years—and still has her father.

She shudders at the thought of being orphaned, and suddenly misses her father. A lot.

What if something had happened to him, too, and she had to stay with Odelia forever?

“It was a really long time ago,” Evangeline is saying. “But believe me, I sort of know what you’ve been through, with your mom and everything. I miss my mother all the time.”

“So you can’t just . . . connect with her?”

Evangeline raises an eyebrow. “You mean, as a medium?”

“Right.”

“Sometimes I feel her, and I hear her in my head.”

“You don’t see her?”

“I haven’t. My father, either. But I don’t need to see my parents to know that they’re with me. And actually, I don’t have to be a medium to talk to them.”

“But . . . they talk back, right?”

“Usually.”

“My grandmother said it doesn’t work that way. She said it’s not like a telephone where you can just place a call to the other side and get in touch with someone.”

“She’s right. It’s not. It’s more complicated than that. Sometimes, it’s the opposite of what you might think. Like, you know, you aren’t always in touch with spirits who are close to you.” She pauses. “It’s just . . . hard to explain, to someone who doesn’t have the gift.”

“Yeah? Try me.”

Evangeline’s hazel eyes darken. “You seem skeptical.”

“I am. I mean, my grandmother said the same thing—that she can’t just get in contact with my mom whenever she feels like it. But she claims that she can communicate with all these other random spirits, like the lady who used to live in her house.”

“Miriam. Right. She can. And I’ve seen her, too. She’s been around for years. She pops in next door, too. She was the first apparition I ever saw.”