Connecting (20 page)

Whatever.

The house really is empty, aside from Miriam, who flits somberly and silently from room to room with them.

“Ready to go back up to bed?” Odelia asks around a monstrous yawn, after checking all the locks.

“I guess so.”

Maybe Odelia is right, and Darrin was never here at all.

Calla
was
starting to drift off . . . maybe she did fall asleep, without even realizing it. And of course Darrin Yates was already on her mind.

But what if Odelia is wrong?

What if he really was here?

What did he want with her?

And what if he comes back?

FIFTEEN

Sunday, September 30
7:30 a.m.

Ordinarily at this hour on a Sunday morning, a ringing telephone would wake Calla from a sound sleep.

Not today.

She hasn’t slept all night. She just lay there, tense, keeping an eye out for Darrin Yates to prowl into her room again, maybe try to kill her like he killed her mother.

Finally, at about six o’clock, she got up and came down to the living room.

She’s still there, brooding on the couch, fingering the emerald bracelet she can’t take off her wrist, when the phone shatters the silence.

She reaches for it immediately, thinking it must be Jacy. He said he’d call her this morning before leaving for his cross-country meet, and she has to tell him what happened last night in her room. Maybe he’ll agree with Odelia that it was just a nightmare.

The more Calla thinks about it, the more inclined she is to believe it.

Or maybe she just wants to talk herself into it.

“Hello?” she whispers into the phone, not wanting to wake Odelia, asleep upstairs. Not that that’s likely. Her grandmother is such a sound sleeper, as she proved when Calla screamed for her in the night, that a tornado could lift the entire house around her and she’d probably still be there, snoring peacefully.

“Calla? Are you okay?”

“Evangeline?” Her heart sinks.

“Yeah. I hated to call this early, but . . . where
were
you last night?”

Uh-oh. Calla should have been ready for this. With all the tossing and turning she’s done, there was ample opportunity to have come up with a suitable story about why they weren’t at the dance.

Her grandmother seemed to buy her account of the evening. Probably because she was so groggy at the time.

Evangeline, however, sounds wide awake. And suspicious.

“Why weren’t you and Jacy at the dance?”

“We . . . decided not to go.”

“But I saw his car parked in front of your house before you left, and he was all dressed up.”

Calla cringes at the idea of Evangeline spying on Jacy out her window, even though it’s nothing new.

“We were planning on going, but . . . I just couldn’t do it.”

“Because of Blue?”

“Not really. Because . . .”

Okay, what can she possibly say that would make any sense at all?

“Because of me?” Evangeline asks.

Uh-oh. Definitely not that.

But Evangeline gives her no time to deny it.

“I knew it!” she exclaims. “I
knew
you felt bad about this! I told my aunt all along that I didn’t think you could do that to me. I mean, you’ve known from the start that I’m in love with Jacy.”

“Come on, Evangeline . . . you’re not ‘in love’ with him.” Calla tries to keep the edge out of her voice, but she’s still upset about last night, and she just doesn’t have the patience for this. “It’s just . . . a crush.”

“Ex
-cuse
me?” Her friend sounds indignant.

Which, Calla realizes, is pretty unfair.

“Love,” after all, is a strong word.

Maybe if Calla weren’t so exhausted—physically, emotionally—she’d be able to go along with it. But the lack of sleep and all the stress are catching up with her, and she finds herself pointing out, “It’s not like you and Jacy are—or even
were
—you know, going out.”

For a moment, Evangeline is silent.

She
must
realize how ridiculous it is for her to expect Calla to stay away from Jacy because of her own crush—unrequited, at that.

“Well, it’s not like
you
and Jacy are, either . . . is it?” Evangeline asks, not exactly sounding as if she’s seen the light.

“I told you . . . we’re friends.”

“I know what you
told
me, but I’m not sure I believe you. In fact, maybe I don’t. Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you and Jacy really just friends, and that’s it?”

Guilt twists Calla’s stomach into a leaden knot. “Evangeline . . .”

“I’m right, then?” she asks shrilly. “There’s something going on between you two?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“I don’t even
know
what I think. What is it? Tell me.”

Calla wearily examines her options, which are pretty straightforward.

You can lie again . . .

Or you can tell the truth.

Not the whole truth, though.

She can’t risk telling anyone about Geneseo. If it ever got back to her grandmother, well, Calla hates to think of how Odelia would react to that.

All Calla can share is the truth about herself and Jacy: that they have feelings for each other.

But if she does that, her friendship with Evangeline might crash and burn.

Might
?

Evangeline’s made it pretty clear where she stands on this—fairly or not.

“It’s not like you think,” Calla tells her. “I mean, it’s not like Jacy and I are going out or anything like that. We’re just . . .”

“You
said
you were just friends.”

Calla says nothing.

“You’re more than that, aren’t you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Frustrated, Calla starts to rake a hand through her bangs, then encounters the hardened mass of goo that remains from last night’s hairdo.

“Did you kiss him?”

She can’t answer that. It will be too painful for Evangeline to hear it.

But she doesn’t have to.

She can hear the tremor in her friend’s voice as she says, “Whatever. I have to go.”

“Evangeline—”

There’s a click in her ear, followed by a dial tone.

Hearing the groan of old pipes upstairs, Calla knows that Odelia is running water for a morning bath.

Good.

Time to escape the house and check out Leolyn Woods, even if she has to go alone.

She doesn’t have much choice, with Jacy at a track meet and Evangeline apparently no longer speaking to her. There’s no one else she can ask.

But if what happened last night in her room was just a nightmare—and she’s almost convinced now that it was— then there’s no reason, really, for her to be wary of going into the woods alone.

And even if it wasn’t a nightmare, even if Darrin really did follow her here to Lily Dale, she still has to go. She
has
to.

Maybe the circled X on the map has nothing to do with her, or her mother, or Darrin calling himself Tom Leolyn. Maybe it was pure coincidence that the book opened to that page when it fell. Maybe Aiyana wasn’t even responsible for the book falling off the table in the first place. Except . . .

There are no coincidences, remember?

Calla hurries up to her room and grabs a jacket and her iPod, along with the now overdue library book containing the marked map.

“I’m going out for a walk, Gammy,” she calls, knocking on the bathroom door.

“A walk? Right
now
?”

Hearing the water splashing into the tub, Calla is seized by a sudden, irrational flash of apprehension.

Huh? Where did that come from?

“It’s, uh, a beautiful day,” she calls back to her grandmother, disconcerted, “and I want to get out and enjoy it.”

Odelia’s cheerful reply is lost in the rushing water, and Calla wastes no time heading back downstairs.

The fear was fleeting, but so authentic that Calla wonders if she’s channeling some frightening event that happened in that spot where she was standing, or perhaps in the bathroom.

Probably.

Just another perk of my “gift,”
she thinks wryly as she heads out the front door, where milky sunlight and a stiff breeze greet her. The sky isn’t anywhere near blue, but at least it’s no longer sodden with bruise-colored clouds.

Still, “a beautiful day” was stretching it.

Calla pulls on her jacket with a shiver, then descends the porch steps with a glance at the Taggarts’ porch. No sign of Evangeline, but Calla wonders if she might be watching from somewhere inside.

On the street, there’s not a living soul in sight at this hour on a Sunday morning—though there are a few spirits drifting about. Things wouldn’t be much different here at high noon on a weekday, though. Not at this time of year.

Will she ever get used to the postseason ghost-town feel to the place?

Ramona said she likes Lily Dale better this way; she finds the isolation peaceful.

It
can be
peaceful, Calla supposes as she heads down the street, head bent against the chilly wind off the lake.

But on off-season days when the sun doesn’t shine, which is just about every day except today, there’s something dreary, almost mournful, about the Dale.

Dappled shadows fall pleasantly from overhead branches as they move in the breeze, and the relentless rhythm of Kanye West in her earphones almost makes Calla forget that this isn’t just an ordinary morning walk.

But it takes her only a few minutes to reach the entrance to Leolyn Woods, where the strange, ominous warning sign snaps Calla back to grim reality. She unplugs herself and tucks the iPod back into her pocket.

Wow. It’s so quiet here.

Eerily quiet.

Branches stir overhead, sending down a gentle shower of red and gold leaves, but she’s pretty sure the morning breeze doesn’t qualify as “high winds.”

Okay, you’re good to go.

So . . . go.

Consulting the map, she wonders how far into the woods she has to go to reach the designated spot. Hard to tell. Probably not too far.

Still, Calla hesitates on the path, gazing around at the legendary old-growth forest, home to Inspiration Stump, with its powerful energy vortex.

Why did she have to come alone? What if Darrin is lurking, watching her? What if something happens to her in there? Something freaky, supernatural, like . . . Well, who knows what?

This is silly. Just get it over with.

She begins to tread slowly beneath the colorful high canopy of ancient trees, her sneakers scrunching through the dried foliage.

She checks the map again, adjusts her direction, keeps walking. The ground grows marshy in some spots, and she has to step over the occasional fallen log covered with moss.

If it weren’t for the vague sense of foreboding, Calla would actually be enjoying the walk. Small woodland creatures, seen and unseen, dart playfully or furtively from her path. Her shuffling footsteps mingle pleasantly with the chirping of songbirds and the occasional whisper of wind through the leaves.

She inhales air heavy with the rich, earthy scent of autumn . . . and then it happens.

Her nostrils catch a hint of something else. Something familiar, unmistakable.

Lilies of the valley.

The scent can mean only one thing:Aiyana is here.

Calla waits for the telltale chill in the air, braced for a glimpse of the spirit who, she’s now convinced, led her to this spot.

But the only visible movement is a jet-black squirrel that hops onto a fallen limb, eating from its paws, seemingly oblivious to Calla’s presence . . . or any other.

She checks the map in the book, looks around, gets her bearings.

Yes, this is it.

She’s in the general area indicated by the X on the map.

Nothing here but more trees, more logs, more fallen leaves layered thickly underfoot.

No Aiyana.

The floral perfume hangs blatantly in the air, so potent Calla can smell nothing else . . . yet she still doesn’t sense the ghostly presence that usually accompanies it.

But as she looks around, puzzled, her gaze comes to rest on something so startling, so utterly out of place, that she’s certain she must be mistaken.

She takes a few steps closer, blinks several times, peers again.

She’s not mistaken.

A small dirt patch of forest floor, maybe a couple of feet square, is curiously void of leaves, almost as if someone diligently swept the area clean.

Which is impossible, because there’s not a soul in sight, and even if there had been, the breeze would have scattered and shifted more leaves.