Lily Dale: Awakening (21 page)

She finds herself wondering about his dad as they walk toward the store, but she doesn’t want to ask. He hasn’t mentioned him except in passing, and he hasn’t brought up his mother at all. Probably because she isn’t a part of his life. Was she ever?

Calla finds herself feeling empathetic—or maybe it’s more sympathetic—for him. He comes across as self-assured on the surface, but she suspects there’s a vulnerable little boy somewhere beneath.

The Chadwick Bay Café is a stone’s throw from the long, wide pier jutting into the lake. Fishing boats and tugs are moored alongside it, and there’s a flock of ducks on the sloped launch at the base of the pier. A family is there—father,mother, little girl—doling out a loaf of bread to the ducks and laughing as they fend off swooping, angry gulls.

Seeing them, Calla feels an ache in her throat and quickly turns away.

“If they’re not careful, they’re going to end up covered in seagull crap.” Blue seems utterly uncharmed by the scene. But Calla sees a fleeting glint in his eyes, and she realizes that he, too, might long to be part of a family like that again. If he ever was.

Death, even divorce, is one thing, but . . .

How could his mother willingly leave him? Calla tries to imagine how she’d feel if her mother had abandoned her by choice. It’s all she can do not to reach for Blue’s hand and give it a squeeze as he opens the door to the café for her.

The place is cozy, just a counter and a couple of small round tables with matching wrought-iron chairs. A glass case holds baked goods that seem picked over at this hour, and there are several stainless steel pump carafes behind the counter, along with an espresso machine.

The teenage girl wiping down the counter looks up. “Hey, Blue, hey, Wil—oh.”

Not
Willow
, exactly, but that’s what she was about to say.

Blue must be a regular here with his ex-girlfriend. Nice.

“This is Calla,” Blue announces, as Calla looks everywhere but at the counter girl, and him. “Calla, this is Sue.”

They both say hi. Calla makes an effort to smile and show the girl that she can fit in here every bit as well as Willow . . . who, come to think of it, didn’t strike her as friendly at all.

“What do you want?” Blue asks her.

“Just . . . coffee.” She never drinks the stuff, but maybe it’s time she started. A little jolt of caffeine might be just what she needs.
That, or a solid night’s sleep,
she thinks grimly.

“Flavored, or non?” Sue asks. “We have hazelnut,Viennese Cinnamon, Irish Cream, Black Forest.”

Calla, who was hoping for chocolate, says, “I’ll just take nonflavored, thanks.”

Blue asks for a complicated beverage in what sounds like a foreign language. The girl pours Calla a steaming cup from the carafe marked Regular before foaming the milk for Blue’s drink. Calla adds a liberal amount of half-and-half and two packets of sugar to her cup, takes a sip, and makes a face.

“What’s wrong? Too hot?”

She looks up to see Blue watching her. “No, it’s just . . . it seems kind of . . . flavored.”

“Let’s see.” He takes the cup and tastes it. “Yeah. Hey, Sue, you gave her Irish Cream.”

“I did?” The girl looks up, surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Here.”

Sue takes the cup from him, sniffs it, then looks at the carafes. “I could swear I took it from the Regular.”

“You did,” Calla tells her. “I saw you.”

Frowning, Sue takes a tiny paper cup, fills it from the spout of the Regular, and sniffs it.

“This isn’t flavored,” she says, and hands it across the counter. “See?”

Calla sniffs it warily. She’s right. It doesn’t smell like Irish Cream at all.

“I guess I took the other cup from the wrong carafe by accident,” Sue says with an apologetic shrug. “It’s been a long day. Sorry.”

As she gets Calla another cup—this time, regular—Calla uneasily studies the row of carafes. The flavors are clearly marked on laminated signs. The Irish Cream one is toward the end, a few carafes away from the Regular one. It’s not as if they’re right next to each other and Calla simply
thought
Sue was filling her cup from the Regular carafe when in fact it was the Irish Cream one.

No, she knows what she saw.

Yet she also knows what she tasted. That was definitely Irish Cream. Even Blue agreed.

“Here you go. Sorry about that, again.” Sue hands her the fresh cup and turns back to preparing the espresso drink.

Calla fixes the new cup with half-and-half and a couple of sugars. Then she takes a cautious sip.

This time, it’s regular. But a chill slips down her spine.

She realizes there suddenly seems to be a chill in the café as well.

And in the air, mingling with the aroma of brewing coffee, is the unmistakable fragrance of flowers.

“Hello, is this Mrs. Riggs?”

“Yes . . . who is this?”

Standing in the shadows on the pier outside the café, Calla hesitates, clenching her cell phone hard against her ear. “I . . . I’m a friend. I might have some information about your daughter.”

There’s a gasp on the other end of the line. “Who is this? Are you calling from . . . Florida?”

Caller ID, Calla realizes with a sinking heart.

Well, of course. Mrs. Riggs can trace the call to Calla’s phone. And she’ll have the police do it, too. She might even think Calla had something to do with her daughter’s disappearance.

Oh, God.What am I doing?

She should have stopped to think this through, but she didn’t. She had come up with the plan earlier, somewhere between the Taggarts’ house and Odelia’s. Still, she wasn’t even sure she was going to go through with it.

She was sitting there trying to sip her coffee and listen while Blue talked, but she was still unnerved by what had just happened. It wasn’t anything overtly scary, but the mistaken coffee, the chill, the scent in the air—it was all just
off
. She needed to get out of there . . . and yes, she needed to do something about Kaitlyn. So she impulsively snuck a hand into her back pocket and pressed the ringer button on her cell phone to make Blue think she had a call. Then she pulled it out, answered it, and excused herself to take it outside. Blue didn’t seem to mind. He was chatting with Sue the counter girl again before Calla even made it to the door. Still, she has to make this fast, because he might come out here looking for her.

“I’m only trying to help you, Mrs. Riggs,” she says in a rush, keeping one eye on the café door. “Please . . . you have to believe me. I’m—I met you in Lily Dale.”

Silence.

“You came to see my grandmother, Odelia Lauder, for a reading. And—and you heard from your father in the auditorium here the other night. A man named Walter brought him through for you. And he was showing you a rock, and a house. Do you remember?”

“Ye-es.” The word is so soft Calla can barely hear it.

“Mrs. Riggs, I think I can help you find Kaitlyn.”

“How?”

“Because—” Calla’s breath catches in her throat.

“Because I’m a psychic,” she admits quietly.
Finally
. “Like my grandmother. Do you . . . have you ever heard of Hocking Hills State Park?”

Blue insists on walking her up to Odelia’s front door, even though Calla tells him it’s not necessary.

She just wants to be alone with her thoughts right now.

Elaine Riggs did know where Hocking Hills State Park is, and she flatly told Calla that it was miles from where Kaitlyn was last seen.

“Still, I think you should ask the police to search there,” Calla told her, and the woman hung up pretty quickly, without saying whether she would take that advice or not.

There’s nothing else Calla can do. It’s out of her hands. She tried.

“Watch your step.” Blue slips a hand beneath her elbow as they walk up to the porch. “It’s dark out here.”

It is. Odelia must have forgotten to turn on the porch light. She does that about as often as she forgets to lock the door. Or maybe it was just as deliberate tonight, to set the stage for romance with Blue?

“Hey, listen, Calla, I’m sorry about what happened back there.”

His comment takes her by surprise. What is he talking about? Can he possibly know about her call to Mrs. Riggs?

Maybe. He’s psychic, remember?

“What do you mean?” she asks cautiously.

“I mean at the café. When Sue called you Willow, when we first came in. She’s my ex-girlfriend.”

“Sue?”

He laughs. “God, no. Willow York. That’s who Sue was talking about. People are kind of used to us being together, so . . .”

“Now you’re not together?”

“Nope.”

“Because it’s no big deal if you—”

Blue presses his index finger against her lips and says in a whisper, “Shh. Stop talking.”

“Why?”

“Because if your lips are moving, I can’t do this.”

Gently grasping her upper arms with his warm hands, he leans in, eyes closed. His kiss is expert: long, but not wet or sloppy.
It’s like a movie kiss,
Calla finds herself thinking as he pulls back.

“So . . . I’ll call you,” Blue says cheerfully, and then he’s gone, leaving her alone in the dark, heart pounding and knees weak.

FIFTEEN

That dream . . .

Again.

The fragmented one about the lake, Mom, Odelia. It’s haunted Calla the last two nights again, jarring her out of sleep. She has no way of knowing what time she’s waking up, but it’s definitely been in the wee hours. Like, say, around 3:17 a.m.

The last two days have pretty much been an exhausting blur.

The recurring dream and Kaitlyn Riggs aren’t all that have been haunting Calla.

Blue Slayton’s good-night kiss at Odelia’s front door was pretty . . . memorable. Oh, yeah. Definitely. He told her he’d call her, but he hasn’t yet. And she wants him to. Yes, he’s got a little more swagger than she’d like, but what girl wouldn’t be drawn to Blue Slayton? Especially after that kiss?

Now it’s Friday, noon, and since he hasn’t called yet, she doesn’t expect him to until at least Monday. He mentioned that he’s flying to Manhattan for the weekend with his father, who’s going to be doing some television appearances there.

Lisa will be here in just a few hours, though. Calla can’t decide whether she should tell her about everything that’s been going on here or keep it to herself. Not the Blue Slayton part—that, she’ll tell Lisa . . . and hope it gets back to Kevin. But the rest? The stuff about the ghosts, psychic mediums— and Calla being one of them?

Maybe not. Lisa is her best friend. But there’s a good chance she won’t understand.

A good chance? Ha.

She can’t possibly understand. A few weeks ago, Calla herself thought Lily Dale—and everyone in it—was absurd.

Now she’s a part of it. How insane is that? She’s part of it, and Lisa—and Kevin, and Dad—is not. Funny that she suddenly feels as though she has more in common with people like Odelia, Evangeline, even Blue, than with people she’s known—and loved—her whole life.

But Mom was part of Lily Dale, too, once.

No, Mom still is. Calla can feel her here.
And she’s trying to get through to me
—
I know she is. If I stay, she eventually will.
Sooner or later.

That’s why her hand is shaking so badly as she dials the phone at precisely twelve o’clock, with Odelia hovering over her shoulder. Dad called yesterday and said he was going to sleep on it for one more night and have a decision for her by nine his time, before he leaves to teach his first class.

“Is it ringing?” Odelia asks, and Calla nods, holding her breath.

Dad picks up after two rings. “Hi, honey.”

“Hi, Dad.” Her voice comes out kind of strangled-sounding.

“Did you sleep well?”

Geez, talk about a loaded question. Calla tells him that she did, and wishes he would get on with it, but he starts telling her about the weather there this morning. That it’s beautiful and warm and there’s not a hint of smog.

“What’s it doing there?” he asks.

“Raining.” As usual. Calla thought Florida was bad in summer, but there, it storms briefly almost every afternoon, then clears. In Lily Dale, it’s pretty gray much of the time.

“That’s too bad,” Dad says. “Your mom always said the weather wasn’t great up there.”

Is he trying to convince Calla that she doesn’t want to stay?

No. He isn’t. Because he takes a deep breath and says, “Listen, honey, if you want to stay until November . . . you can.”

Suddenly, there’s a lump in her throat and tears have sprung to her eyes.

Looking at her, Odelia shakes her head glumly and whispers, “He said no, huh?”

“No,” Calla whispers back, “he said yes.”

So why is she suddenly feeling so torn?

Because I miss my father. A lot more than I even realized until right now.

“Thanks, Dad.” She tries to sound more enthusiastic than she suddenly feels.

“And listen,” he says, “I’m going to fly there to visit just as soon as I can get things squared away here, and find a decent airfare. I can’t go that long without seeing you.”

“That sounds good.” Yes, she misses him. But she can’t help hoping that there won’t be a decent airfare for a while, because the second he finds out she’s living in a spiritualist colony, it’s all over for her here.

From her perch on Odelia’s porch, Calla can’t see whether the approaching red Toyota has Florida plates, nor can she see the driver and passenger. But she knows, without a doubt, that it’s Kevin and Lisa. She could feel them getting closer long before the car appeared, and her foot has been jiggling a loose floorboard in nervous anticipation for the past ten minutes.

The moment the car pulls up at the curb, the passenger’s side door opens and Lisa pops out. “Calla! Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m here!”

Calla can’t quite grasp it, either, even when Lisa is on the porch grabbing her, hugging her. It feels so good to see a familiar face from home that Calla forgets to look for Kevin. But only for a moment. Then her gaze shifts over Lisa’s shoulder, and she sees him, taking two big suitcases out of the trunk.

He looks good. So good. His hair is longer again, streaked blond from the sun, and he’s tan, of course. He’s wearing flip-flops, long surfer shorts, an untucked, half-buttoned madras shirt, and a familiar necklace made of hemp and puka shells. Familiar because Calla bought it for him, one day when they were out at Pass-a-Grille. She recognizes it even from here.