Believing (Lily Dale #2)(42)

“I heard Blue’s going to ask you to homecoming.”

Calla’s jaw drops. “Who said that?”

“Linda Samuels, this girl who goes out with Ryan Kruger, told me. She said Blue’s thinking about it.”

“Really?” Then why is he sending e-mails to Willow York about the homecoming dance? Is he planning to ask her first, and I’m just the backup in case she says no?

“Don’t tell him I said that, though,” Evangeline says.

“Oh, please. As if.” Calla laughs and shakes her head.

No way is she going to get her hopes up that Blue will ask her.

Still, as she and Evangeline head toward home, despite everything she’s been through, Calla finds her heart a little lighter for the first time all day. Thinking about a school dance—even if part of it is worrying about who may or may not ask her—feels welcome and normal compared to dwelling on ghosts and death, as she has been.





THIRTEEN

Tuesday, September 11

7:39 a.m.

The next morning, Calla steps out onto the porch with her backpack to find Lily Dale draped in heavy gray fog. The air feels like a warm, wet blanket and a dank smell is coming from the lakefront. Oh, ick. What a change from yesterday’s crisp, sunny weather. All that’s missing is the gloomy sound of a foghorn and a clanking bell.

“Gross out, isn’t it?” Evangeline calls as she heads down the steps next door with her own backpack. They’ve already got their morning timing perfectly in sync.

“I never know what to expect around here,” Calla says as they fall into step together, heading toward the gate though they can’t see more than a few feet in front of them. “I thought it was supposed to be nice out today.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“The weatherman on the news last night.”

“Oh, please.” Evangeline dismisses that with a wave of her hand. “Around here, it’s impossible to predict. Did you ever hear what Mark Twain said about the weather in western New York? He used to live around here, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. What did he say?”

“If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”

Calla smiles. “Yeah, no kid—” She breaks off abruptly, startled to glimpse a familiar figure just ahead in the mist.

Kaitlyn.

“What’s wrong?” Evangeline asks.

Kaitlyn is shaking her head ominously, just as before.

“Stop him!”

Her words shriek through Calla’s brain and then she disappears, enveloped in fog.

“It was Kaitlyn,” she tells Evangeline shakily. “She wants me to stop him.”

“Still?” Evangeline grabs her hand and squeezes it. “Breathe. You look like you’re going to faint.”

“How am I supposed to stop him if I don’t know who or where he is?”

“I think it’s time,” Evangeline says slowly, “that you sat in on one of my beginning mediumship classes. You need to learn how to develop your abilities. I know you’re going to say you can’t, and come up with a million excuses, but—”

“Okay.”

There’s a pause. “Okay?” Evangeline looks confused. “Okay, what?”

“Okay. I’ll come to one of your classes. This is crazy. If I’m going to do this sort of thing—and it really seems like I don’t have a choice—then I’m going to do it right.”





“Hey . . . what are you doing all by your lonesome?”

Munching on an apple, Calla looks up from her book to see Blue standing over her. “Oh, hi. I’m trying to read Shakespeare. Hamlet.”

“For pleasure?”

“Are you kidding? For English.” And she’s read the same page at least three times just now, preoccupied with her decision to accompany Evangeline to a class. Evangeline thinks her Saturday-morning instructor will let Calla sit in.

“We’re reading King Lear in my section,” Blue comments. “I’d rather do Hamlet. We did it in my old school, so at least I know it.”

His old school, Calla knows, is a fancy boarding school he attended until he got kicked out. He didn’t tell her why, and she hasn’t felt comfortable asking, but she’s definitely curious.

Grabbing a chair from the next table and straddling it backward, he asks, “So, where are your friends today?”

“Oh, you mean Willow and Sarita?”

He nods.

“They had to go to the computer lab to work on a flyer for the homecoming dance.”

“Oh. That. Is that the only thing they ever think about?” he asks with a good-natured roll of his blue eyes.

She’s spared having to answer, because a wadded up ball of paper sails through the air and hits Blue on the head.

“Hey!” He looks around to see his friend Ryan, the obvious culprit, beckoning him from two tables away.

“Looks like you’re being summoned,” Calla observes.

“Yeah. I’ll let you get back to your Shakespeare. See you later.”

Watching him walk away, Calla can feel the curious attention from a group of girls sitting at the end of her table.

Sure enough, moments after she goes back to her reading— or pretends to—one of them comes walking over. She’s a petite blond, just short of pretty thanks to close-set eyes and a narrow, pointy nose.