Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(4)

Calla turns her head again, this time a little farther, still looking for him.

The piercing scrutiny boring into her from behind, somewhere to the right, might just as well be a hand on her shoulder, so strong is the presence. This, she knows on a gut level, is different from the stares of her classmates who came to the funeral home last night, some out of genuine sympathy, others, she knows, out of mere morbid curiosity.

It has to be Kevin. Who else can it be? Who else would be focused solely on Calla?

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. . . .” The minister is spewing cliches—okay, so maybe they’re prayers—seemingly oblivious as the thunder grows closer and lightning slashes the purple-black summer sky, low, beyond the cemetery.

The storm is coming right at them, off the distant Gulf. Calla fights the potent urge to flee—not just the storm, but all of it, the minister, the heat, the coffin, the grave—even as a stronger, more pressing urge takes hold.

She gives in to that one swiftly, swiveling her neck around completely to the right, not caring that it’s probably impolite to turn your head at a funeral.

Nope. No Kevin there.

But she immediately spots the person who’s been watching her.

To her surprise, it’s a total stranger.

The woman, clad in a flowing white dress, is standing apart from the black-clad crowd of mourners. Just a few feet, but enough of a gap to make Calla wonder why she isn’t standing with everybody else. She isn’t way over there under the cluster of palm trees for the shade, because there’s no sun; she isn’t there for shelter from the rain, because it has yet to start falling.

She stands in stark isolation, black hair pulled back into a bun, eyes so darkly intense that Calla feels goose bumps rising on her arms as she meets the woman’s gaze.

It isn’t that her expression is unkind . . .

More that it’s just . . . odd.

Oddly focused only on Calla, in the midst of Stephanie’s bereaved husband and mother, friends and colleagues.

Why is she staring at me?

Who is she?

And why is she wearing white at a funeral?

A sudden clap of thunder followed by a frighteningly close flash of lightning startles Calla into turning her head away from the strange woman.

The minister’s words grow rushed; the crowd stirs uneasily.

Still unsettled by the stranger’s stare, Calla turns to look for the woman again.

The spot beneath the stand of palm trees is empty, as is the grass around it.

A quick scan shows that the woman didn’t join the crowd of mourners, and she’s not hurrying toward a waiting car to escape the rain.

She’s simply gone.

But . . . how can that be? People don’t just disappear into thin air.

She had to be a figment of my imagination in the first place, Calla tells herself uneasily.

What other explanation is there?

The storm has blown in full force, drawing the service to a hasty close.

The coffin has been lowered into the waiting vault, now pooled with rainwater.

“Let’s go, honey,” Odelia says from beneath a black umbrella. Somebody must have handed it to her, because she isn’t the type to carry one—that would mean planning ahead— and even if she were, it certainly wouldn’t be black. Electric orange, maybe. Or neon green. Or polka dots.

For a moment, Calla forgets to be grief stricken.

Then she glances at her father and remembers.

She watches him being tearfully embraced by his only brother, her uncle Scott, who lives in Chicago.

“Calla.”

She looks up at the sound of a familiar voice. There he is. Kevin.

Gone are the sun-streaked surfer-boy locks he used to have. His blond hair is stubble short and he’s wearing a dark suit with a white shirt and black tie. She’s seen him dressed up on only two occasions, at the prom and at his graduation. But that was over a year ago. He’s changed. He looks older. Almost like a man now.

“Hey,” he says softly.

She opens her mouth but can’t find her voice.

“Are you okay?”

She just stares mutely at him. Is she okay? Is he freaking kidding her?

“I’m so sorry, about your mom, and . . . about . . . everything.” He reaches out and wraps his fingers around her upper arm.

She desperately wants to pull away from him, but she can’t.

She won’t, because his touch is warm, familiar—and right now, nothing else is.

“Is there anything I can do?”

She shakes her head.

“Are you . . . is it that you can’t talk, or that you won’t? I mean, to me?”

She clears her throat, manages to say, “It’s not you. I’m upset, okay? Obviously. And not about you. Okay?”

She expects him to release his hold on her arm, but he doesn’t.

“Calla . . . look, I still care about you. I said I wanted us to be friends and I meant it.”

“No you didn’t. Not then.”

You only mean it now because you’re feeling guilty.

At last, she finds the strength to pull her arm from his grasp. His hand lingers in the air, making him seem helpless. Less like a man, more like a little boy who doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

He hesitates. “Listen, if you need . . .” He pauses, and she expects him to say me.