Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(36)

“Yeah. That’ll be good.”

No, it won’t. That’s not what she wants—to be with him in a strange place, without Mom or Odelia—

Odelia? Huh?

That’s really strange. Why was she feeling, for a moment there, as though she needed to be with her grandmother? She’s gone over a decade without Odelia in her life. Sure, Odelia’s popped back into it now, but that doesn’t mean she’s there to stay.

Funny, though . . . when she thinks about leaving her grandmother and Lily Dale behind come September, she feels a sad little pang.

Yes, she’ll definitely stick it out until then.

She might even miss it when she’s gone, she dares to think—and then pushes the thought away.





TEN

“You must be Calla.” The woman smiling from the other side of the screen door is attractive, in a bohemian way. Long, curly brown hair, dangling earrings, a jean jacket, and a flowing skirt that brushes her ankles.

“I’m Evangeline’s aunt Ramona,” she adds unnecessarily.

Right. Calla glances at the sign. She’s RAMONA TAGGART, REGISTERED MEDIUM, to be more specific.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“You, too.”

“Is Evangeline here? I guess I’m a little early. . . . We’re supposed to hang out this afternoon.” And I want to use your computer.

“She mentioned you’d be popping over. She should be back soon. Come on in and wait.”

“Thanks.” Calla steps over the threshold and hands Ramona a foil-wrapped loaf. “This is from my grandmother. She made it yesterday.”

“Banana bread?”

“How’d you know?”

How do you think she knows? Calla asks herself, instantly irritated by her own question. She’s a medium, isn’t she? All mediums are psychic.

Ramona merely says, however, in response to Calla’s inquiry, “That’s Odelia’s specialty. Whenever anyone in the Dale has overripe bananas, they send them her way and she sends back a loaf of banana bread. I never send bananas over—my nephew the bottomless pit eats them all before they get too ripe—but she sends us bread, anyway. She’s some cook, huh?”

She nods politely. Her grandmother is pretty good in the kitchen. But Calla honestly hasn’t paid much attention to their meals lately, with everything else that’s been going on. She’s been preoccupied by the creepy events around here, not to mention exhausted. She didn’t sleep very well last night, to say the least.

She’d had that dream again, about her mother and grandmother fighting. It woke her up . . . at exactly 3:17. Again.

There are no coincidences. She read that line in one of the Lily Dale books from the library last night, and it’s stuck with her. So has an unsettling chapter about spirits disrupting electronic devices.

Today, the clock is back to flashing 12:00. How can that be, if it was showing the right time in the middle of the night? When Calla asked Odelia, she said she hadn’t touched it. Even if she were lying about that a second time—why would she be?—Calla figures the clock would have held the time all along. It wouldn’t have shown 3:17 in the wee hours and gone back to flashing after sun-up.

“Want to come into the den,” Ramona asks, “and talk to me while I paint?”

“Okay.” Calla wishes she could get up the nerve to ask if she can check her e-mail.

“So, Evangeline told me she showed you around,” Ramona tells her, leading the way into the house. Calla wonders if she also mentioned to her aunt that Calla was hoping to use their computer. Ramona doesn’t mention it, saying only, “What do you think of the Dale?”

“It’s really nice,” Calla says lamely. “So . . . where did Evangeline go?”

“What’s today, Friday?”

“Thursday.”

“Thursday. That’s Crystal Healing, I think.”

“Crystal Healing?”

“Evangeline’s Thursday class,” Ramona explains, as though that answers any question Calla could possibly have.

Back home, sixteen-year-old girls take gymnastics lessons after school, Calla wants to say, but doesn’t. She follows Ramona through a living room very much like her grandmother’s next door, from the hardwood and antique moldings to the clutter everywhere. Housekeeping doesn’t appear to be Ramona Taggart’s strong suit any more than it is Odelia’s.

At least she’s painting, though, Calla tells herself as Ramona opens the door to a room off the equally cluttered dining room. Odelia’s shabby rooms could use a paint job as well. But she can’t quite envision her grandmother in coveralls with a roller in hand.

Come to think of it, Ramona isn’t wearing coveralls, either, and there isn’t a roller or paint tray in sight when they step into the den.

What’s there is a computer. But it’s not even turned on, and Calla doesn’t feel comfortable asking about it. There’s also an easel. It’s set up in one corner, in a rectangle of rare afternoon sunlight falling through the back window.

Oh. So she’s not painting the room. She’s painting . . . the garden?

Stepping closer to the easel, Calla sees a half-finished outdoor scene that mirrors the view beyond the window. Sort of. There’s a bedraggled patch of sunflowers out there, and they’re in the painting. Sort of. There are stick-straight, towering green stalks and yellow-brown blobs, anyway. That tall black thing is probably the tree by the back fence, and the little white splotch must be the birdhouse hanging from its branch.