Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(43)

“Dangerous? How so?”

“Robbers aren’t the only ones who might get in.”

“Right. There are mice, too.”

“And murderers,” Calla says darkly.

“Not around here.”

“Murder can happen anywhere.”

“Well, I’m not going to worry about that.”

“Why not? Because there’s no such thing as dying, right? Not really. So what’s the worst that can happen if you run into a psycho killer?”

Odelia gives her a long, hard look. “Sure you want to come to this message circle?”

No. But she’s going anyway. What better way to top off another difficult day—for her, anyway. Odelia was contentedly busy giving readings and making a complicated French casserole for dinner, which might have been appealing, if Calla had any appetite.

She didn’t, especially after spending the bleak, rainy day alone in her room reading more about Lily Dale. Hours of wading through tedious historic detail and endless spiritualist rhetoric yielded some useful—and, all right, scary—information.

That she’s even able to pick up on a spirit’s presence at all indicates that Calla, like her grandmother, has a so-called heightened sense of awareness. In other words . . .

Calla seems to be a psychic medium.

A transmitter of sorts, able to bridge the invisible chasm between the living and the dead.

What if all this has something to do with her mother? The first apparition appeared at Mom’s grave. The next time was in Mom’s girlhood bedroom. And again at the lake.

What if it is her mother?

It doesn’t look like her—not in the least bit. But what if Mom has taken on some other physical form in the afterlife? That seems as possible as any other far-out theory Calla has come to accept since arriving in Lily Dale.

Then again, the spiritual energy doesn’t feel like her mother.

No? And what do you know about spiritual energy?

Zilch. Except she would think that if her mother were around, she would feel comforted, not apprehensive.

Operating under the assumption that the spirit in question isn’t her mother’s but has some connection to her, Calla has to learn to be receptive to whatever it’s trying to tell her. Which is why she’s going to watch the mediums in action tonight.

“Here we are,” her grandmother says, and Calla looks up to see that they’ve reached the auditorium.

Built in the 1880s, the wooden structure appears as untouched by modern upgrades as any other structure in Lily Dale, inside and out. The large rectangular panels around the perimeter walls have been opened to let in the evening’s damp chill. Calla’s toes are icy in her sandals, and she wishes she’d put on a sweatshirt under her light jacket. Her thin Florida blood isn’t used to these fluctuating temperatures, and she wonders if it ever feels like summer here.

She and Odelia settle into a pair of hard wooden seats in the front of the tiered room, which is slowly beginning to fill. Calla looks around, taking in the polished hardwood floor, the metal poles that stretch to the exposed rafters, the old-fashioned glass-globed light fixtures that hang low among them. Down front is a stage that holds little other than a row of unoccupied chairs to one side and a podium.

Odelia is busily carrying on a gossipy conversation with the middle-aged woman seated on her other side, leaving Calla free to watch people move into their tiered seats. They could be about to see a Broadway show or a concert for all their casual, chatty conversation. You’d never guess from the crowd’s overall demeanor that they’re here to be put in touch with their dead loved ones—assuming that’s why they’ve all ventured out to this drafty auditorium on a gloomy weeknight that feels more like November than August.

Pretty much everyone is casually dressed, including the mediums who are now taking the stage, settling themselves into the row of chairs there as an expectant hush falls over the room.

Calla can’t help but note that all but one of them is female and as plus-sized as her grandmother is, if not more so. The lone exception is a lanky African-American man sitting on the far end of the row.

“Hey, you’re here!” a voice whispers somewhere behind Calla, and she feels a tap on her shoulder. Startled, she turns to see Evangeline slipping into a seat behind her.

Calla smiles briefly, first at Evangeline, who returns it, then at the pretty girl sitting with her, who doesn’t. Her mouth doesn’t even quirk when Evangeline introduces her, still in a whisper. “This is Willow York. She lives here. Willow, this is Odelia’s granddaughter, Calla.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Calla murmurs in response, though it doesn’t sound like the girl meant it.

Calla doesn’t want to feel intimidated by her striking dark hair and eyes, porcelain skin, and delicate bone structure, but it’s hard not to. She wishes she had taken the time to at least remove the elastic from her own hair and brush it out, or put on a little makeup to hide her dark under-eye circles. Oh, well. This isn’t a beauty pageant, even if Willow York looks as though she should be onstage somewhere other than here, wearing a Miss Something banner.

Wondering if she’s always this aloof, or just doesn’t like straggly-haired newcomers, Calla turns to face forward again as the session begins with a brief, meditative prayer.

Then the first medium, Debra, comes to the front of the stage and surveys the audience intently for a moment before seeming to zero in on someone behind Calla to the left.