Connecting (2 page)

But it isn’t.

TWO

The apparition has popped up a few times here in Lily Dale since Calla first spotted her at Mom’s funeral in Tampa last summer.

As always, she’s dressed in flowing white, with black hair pulled back from her exotic face and dark eyes that aren’t unkind. Just . . . intense. Wafting in the air is the distinct floral scent that usually accompanies her—lilies of the valley.

Jacy Bly, who lives across Melrose Park from Odelia’s house and knows all about these things, said she’s probably Calla’s spirit guide. He, like the locals, believes that everyone has guides, which as far as Calla can tell, are spiritualism’s version of guardian angels.

“Calla?” Lisa is asking in her ear. “Hello-o?”

Aiyana
.

The unfamiliar Native American word, which Jacy later told her means “forever flowering,” popped into Calla’s head out of nowhere one day. It’s the spirit guide’s name. Calla’s not sure how she knows that; she just does. She’s as positive about it as she is that Aiyana has been trying to tell her something.

Something about Mom’s death.

That, Calla figured out—with Jacy’s help—is why Aiyana’s presence brings the scent of lilies of the valley, Stephanie’s favorite flower.

If only she’d bring Mom with her.

A sorrowful tide of longing sweeps through Calla as she imagines what it would be like to come face-to-face with her mother again right here, right now . . .

Or anywhere, ever again.

She hears another distant boom of thunder and from the corner of her eye, sees a flicker of movement across the room.

Calla turns her head just in time to see a book fly off the stack on the coffee table and land on the floor, pages fluttering open as it lands.

Taken aback, she looks at Aiyana. “Did you do that?”

Aiyana just gazes at her, beginning to look a lot less solid than she did a few moments ago.

Calla read somewhere that it takes a lot of energy for a spirit to move an object around a room. Why would Aiyana even bother with a stupid parlor trick now?

Calla is long past needing proof of otherworldly powers.

She gets it. Aiyana’s from the Other Side. She doesn’t need to throw books on the floor to prove herself.

“Wait . . . before you go . . . I just need to know what happened to her,” she tells Aiyana fervently, realizing she’s fading fast. “You have to help me. Please.”

“Oh, Calla . . .” That’s Lisa, on the other end of the phone line, suddenly sounding somber and emotional. “I will—I’ll help you. Whatever you need. I’m here for you, I promise.”

Calla wasn’t talking to Lisa.

But all at once, Aiyana is gone, and Lisa is offering to help, and God knows she needs it.

“Remember how I told you I’d come to Florida to visit?”

“Yeah . . . please don’t tell me your father changed his mind about letting you come.” Calla’s father, Jeff, is a physics professor on sabbatical at Shellborne College in California, and Lisa knows how overprotective he can be. Especially lately.

“No, it’s just . . . if you really will help me do this . . . I need you.”

“To do what?”

“When I get there, we can go over to my house and see if we can find any evidence that someone was out to get my mother.”

“Evidence?” Lisa laughs nervously. “Who are we, CSI?”

“This isn’t a joke, Lis’!”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. I know it isn’t. And I want you to come down so I can help you. Just . . . um, well, what about school?”

She’s freaked out, Calla realizes. She doesn’t want to get involved.

And I can’t blame her, really.

“Listen,” Calla says, “you don’t have to do this with me. I know it’s—”

“No, I want to help you,” Lisa cuts in firmly. “Whatever you need. So, when are you coming?”

Calla smiles. Good old Lisa won’t let her down. “I don’t know . . . it’ll have to be on a weekend. Maybe Friday?”

“This coming Friday? That would be—oh, wait, my parents said we might go up to Tallahassee to visit the campus again.”

Florida State, Calla knows, is Lisa’s self-proclaimed “safety” school—though her brother, Kevin, once privately told Calla that with Lisa’s grades, even Florida State might be a “reach” school.

“But—ooh, I know! You can come with us and maybe we can both check out the sororities and—”

“No, I really just need to be in Tampa, to see what I can find out,” Calla says impatiently. Lisa apparently doesn’t grasp that this is a return to the scene of a crime and not a carefree vacation.

“What are you going to do there, exactly?”

“Well, my father said I can get my mother’s laptop to use here, remember? I’m thinking there might be something in her files if I can get into them. She used her laptop for everything—work, paying bills, shopping, making travel arrangements. I feel like I might find out more about what was going on with her toward the end. My father told me she wasn’t herself the last few months—she was really detached from him, but he wasn’t sure why.”

“Yeah, and the other thing is, once you have the laptop, we’ll be able to stay in touch better, and you can get back onto MySpace,” Lisa says excitedly, and Calla fights back a sigh.

Lisa truly doesn’t realize that there’s something far more significant at stake here than the Internet access that was so hard to live without when Calla first came to Lily Dale.

More evidence that Calla really is part of a world far different than Lisa’s—and the one she herself left behind not so very long ago. But it seems like a lifetime has passed since Calla was living in the big, upscale Tampa home with both her parents, going to private school, dating Kevin Wilson . . .

“Well, how about if you come down next weekend?” Lisa suggests.

“Yeah, I guess I—” She breaks off, remembering.

“What?”

“That’s the homecoming dance, and someone asked me to go.” Funny how something that seemed so important just days ago now seems trivial.

Not to Lisa, though. She squeals in Calla’s ear. “Who was it? Blue or Jacy?”

Lisa, of course, knows all about the two local guys who are, sort of, involved in Calla’s love life at the moment. What she doesn’t know is that Calla still hasn’t quite gotten over Lisa’s brother, Kevin, now a sophomore at Cornell. He dumped her back in April, after he found a new girlfriend in college. Last week, though, he popped up in Calla’s e-mail, sounding like he wants to be friends. Or maybe more.

“Blue asked me to homecoming,” she tells Lisa, firmly shoving Kevin from her thoughts.

“Blue—is he the hot one?”

“Actually, they both are.” She smiles wistfully, thinking about quiet, enigmatic Jacy, who almost kissed her once.

But Blue Slayton is the one who
did
kiss her, and who asked her to the dance. And that’s what counts, right?

Right. And it’s really not that trivial. Calla has to have a normal life, right? Despite living in this crazy town surrounded by ghosts and people who can talk to them. Despite needing to know what really happened to Mom.

“So is Blue, like, the star quarterback on the football team for the homecoming game?” Lisa wants to know.

“I hate to burst your bubble, but no. He doesn’t play football. He’s one of the best players on the soccer team, though.”

And Jacy runs cross-country.

She doesn’t say that part out loud. They’re not talking about Jacy; they’re talking about Blue.

Funny, she’s actually been considering going to one of Jacy’s meets, but she hasn’t had a chance—or, okay, much motivation—to get herself to one of Blue’s soccer games.

They’re playing away this weekend, but there’s a home match the night before homecoming. She definitely needs to go.

Lisa asks a few more questions about Blue and the dance and what Calla’s going to wear.

“Who knows? I’m clueless. It’s not like I have a closet full of stuff to choose from, or a mall around the corner, or any cash if there were one.”

“Well, maybe your grandmother will take you shopping for a dress. Just don’t let her pick it out.” Having visited Lily Dale, Lisa’s met Odelia, with her red hair, cat’s-eye glasses, and preference for loud, mismatched wardrobe colors.

“Ramona said she’d take me to the mall in Buffalo,” Calla muses aloud, watching Gert curl up into a purring ball once again. The cat keeps one green eye open and focused on the spot where Aiyana appeared—and disappeared.

“Ramona?”

“Taggart. My next-door neighbor. My friend Evangeline’s aunt, who’s raising her and her brother—I think I told you about them, right?”

“Mmm . . . maybe.” Sounds like Lisa is losing interest. Or maybe she’s jealous.

“Ramona’s great, and she said she’d take me shopping, and she’s going to treat me to a haircut, too, if I want. God knows I really need one.” Calla shoves her thick, overgrown bangs back from her forehead and glances in the antique mirror above the chintz sofa.

Her long brown hair typically doesn’t require much care, but she’s definitely getting split ends from three months of neglect, and her streaks of gold highlights are fading fast here in generally overcast western New York State.

It’s not just her hair that needs help after a month in Lily Dale. There are deep shadows beneath her wide-set hazel eyes, thanks to a string of restless nights. Her face is pale; the faint freckles that used to dust her nose are gone, thank goodness, but so is the healthy glow cast by the Florida sun.

If she’s going to go to the homecoming dance with one of the most popular guys in the senior class, she’d better do something about the way she looks.

“So this woman you barely know is taking you shopping and for a haircut? That’s really nice of her, especially now that you don’t have . . .” Lisa trails off.

Your mom,
she was going to say.

That hard lump is back in Calla’s throat, aching so that she can’t find the words to respond, even if just to tell Lisa that Ramona Taggart isn’t someone she “barely knows.”

For one thing, friendships form fast here in Lily Dale. For another, Ramona knew Calla’s mother well, having grown up right next door, just a few years younger than Stephanie. Calla has felt a connection to her from the moment they met—and to her orphaned niece, Evangeline.

Lisa changes the subject, sort of. “So, when can you come down here? Let’s make a plan so I’ll have something to look forward to.”

Again, Calla bristles, wanting to tell Lisa that this is no vacation.

Instead, she says only, “I guess maybe I can come the weekend after homecoming, even though that seems way too far away. I’ll check with my grandmother and my dad and let you know, okay?”

“Okay. But meanwhile, Calla . . . I feel like that place is really getting to you. Like you’re dwelling on too much of this dark stuff all of a sudden. Maybe you should just, you know . . . leave.”

Calla, who mere weeks ago wanted more than anything to get the heck out of Lily Dale, shoots back, “Leave? No way!”

Just the other night, she and her grandmother had that long conversation about why she needs to stay, and how Odelia is going to guide her, teach her how to handle this unwanted, obviously hereditary, so-called gift of hers.

She can’t tell Lisa about the terrifying events that led up to the conversation, though. She and her grandmother agreed never to discuss with anyone what happened last Saturday night. Especially Dad, who would yank her out of Lily Dale immediately if he knew. The police promised to keep it out of the newspapers, for safety’s sake.

So no one—other than Ramona, upon whose door Calla banged, hysterical, in the wee hours—had to know about the serial killer who decided to make Calla his next victim after she—with a little help from one of his victims on the Other Side—led the police to a teenage girl he’d left for dead.

Even now, over a week later, she shudders when she thinks about what could have happened to her at his hands.

But it didn’t happen. I’m all right.

“I don’t know how you can stand to live in a place like that,” Lisa drawls on, “but if you’re staying, I just hope you can manage to get past all this dark stuff.”

“I will.”

“Call me when you decide what day you’re coming, okay?”

“Okay,” Calla promises. “I’ll see you.”

“Yeah. And, hey, don’t forget I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Calla returns, as always, before they hang up.

Hugging herself as if that can possibly banish the hollow feeling inside, she goes back over to the window.

The sky is blackening quickly beyond the leafy branches and gabled rooftops of Cottage Row. Calla turns her head, hoping to spot her grandmother attempting to beat the rain, hurrying home through Melrose Park from her afternoon mediums’ league meeting.

No sign of Odelia, though; the street and park are deserted, as are quite a few of the shuttered, clearly abandoned pastel Victorian cottages across the green.

Just a few weeks ago, with the official summer season still under way, the town was teeming with activity.