Believing (Lily Dale #2)(20)

“Do you know her?”

“This is a small town. You get to know everyone, really fast.”

“Oh. Well . . . thanks for walking with me, and for . . . listening.”

He nods.

“Jacy,” she says, as he turns to head toward home.

“Yeah?”

“What do you think? About all the stuff I told you.” He was so quiet while she spoke, but she got the impression he was listening intently, and processing all of it.

“I’m not sure,” he says slowly, tilting his head.

“But do you think there might be something to it?” Calla presses him. “Do you think Darrin had something to do with my mom’s death?”

“I’m not sure. But we’ll have to talk about it some other time. I’ve got to go get ready for track practice, and you’re babysitting right now anyway.”

What is there to say to that except, “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.”

Resisting the urge to watch him walk on down the road, Calla turns back toward Paula’s house.

“Hey, Calla?” she hears him call, and spins around. She finds him walking backward, gesturing at the sky, which is solidly blue again. “Told you the storm was going to pass.”

She smiles. “Yeah, you’re right, it did . . . this time.”

But she has a feeling, as she turns back to Paula’s house, that there will be plenty of other storms to come around here.

The front yard is overflowing with a riot of blooming flowers, and there are statues of garden gnomes, a little wishing well, a bird bath, a weather vane, and a wrought-iron stand holding a nylon banner dotted with brightly colored falling leaves and the words Welcome Autumn.

Back in Calla’s Florida neighborhood, sprawling, modern homes were fronted by plain old grass, ornamental shrub borders, and maybe a tastefully placed palm tree or two. There was a definite less-is-more attitude where landscaping is concerned.

Here, it’s obvious that more is more.

Paula’s busy yard mirrors many others in the Dale, and Calla finds the overall effect strangely conflicting. Almost as if all that over-the-top outdoor cheerfulness is supposed to offset the genuinely haunted houses beyond—which, with their Victorian architecture and sometimes ramshackle state, actually tend to look like haunted houses.

This one is painted gray, with trim in various faded shades of green. Like many houses in the Dale, its roof slopes upward, then flattens off at the top—a mansard roof, Odelia calls it. It has old-fashioned scalloped shingles and a gingerbread porch with several spindles missing. There’s a little red tricycle parked beside the door, and a shingle above it that reads MARTIN DRUMM,CLAIRVOYANT.

Calla climbs the steps and rings the bell.

Almost immediately, the door is thrown open by a little boy with white-blond hair and solemn eyes. “I’m Dylan,” he announces. “You’re Calla.”

She smiles. “Right. Nice to meet you, Dylan.”

He glances over his shoulder and murmurs something.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

He looks back at Calla. “Oh, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to Kelly.”

“Kelly?”

“That’s his imaginary friend,” a woman informs Calla as she hobbles into the hall on crutches behind the boy. “You know how kids are, right? Anyway . . . hi, I’m Paula.”

She’s heavyset but attractive, with short blond hair and a friendly smile.

Calla wonders about Dylan’s imaginary friend. She does know how kids are. And anywhere else in the world, she’d assume an imaginary friend was just that.

Here in Lily Dale, however, she’s not so sure.

“Can you believe I did this to myself?” Paula asks, gesturing at her bandaged right ankle. “I tripped over my younger son’s toy fire truck and went flying. What a klutz. Come on in.”

Stepping into the house, Calla can immediately see how that could have happened. There’s stuff everywhere—toys underfoot and on every surface, along with the usual household clutter. A red-cheeked toddler with a headful of blond curls rolls into the living room on a scooter, calling, “Hi! Hi! Hi!”

“That’s Ethan,” Paula says. “He loves people.”

She’s not kidding. Ethan rolls right over to Calla’s feet and throws his arms around her legs. “Hi!”

She laughs. “Hi, Ethan.”

“So,” Paula says, “what I basically need you to do is keep the kids busy so that I can try and start dinner and my husband can concentrate on his work upstairs. He’s writing a book.”

“Really? That’s great.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Dylan whisper something to an invisible companion.

“Yeah. It will be if he ever gets his research done. That’s not easy with two little guys in the house, but he’s plugging away. I figured you can take them out back to the picnic table since it’s so nice out. Maybe play a game or something.”

“Do you like to play games?” Dylan asks Calla, tugging on her arm.

“I love to play games.”

“Did you ever play Candyland? It has my name in it on the box. D-Y-L-A-N. That’s why I love it so much.”

She grins. “Sure. I love Candyland, too, even though it doesn’t have my name in it.”