Believing (Lily Dale #2)(53)
Wiping her wet eyes, she realizes that lately, her life is all about missing people. Lisa, her father, her mother, Kevin.
Yeah. But no way is Calla going to tell Kevin to come visit her in Lily Dale.
Why should she?
He has Annie, she reminds herself as she turns off the kitchen lights and heads into the living room. And you have enough friends.
No, she doesn’t need one more. Especially not one who shattered her heart and wasn’t there when she needed him most.
Calla’s thoughts drift back to Althea York and what happened in her kitchen. So, Mom’s spirit really is around her. Somehow, that’s almost more frustrating than it was thinking her mother had simply ceased to exist.
Mom’s still out there . . . or right here. I just have to get past this block and open myself to her.
Back in the living room, she gently touches her grandmother’s shoulder.
“What? What?” Odelia wakes with a start.
“I’m home, Gammy, and it’s getting late. Come up to bed.”
“Oh . . . I’ll be up in a minute. Did you lock up?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Are you sure?” Odelia sits up straighter in her chair and looks at Calla, once again triggering that sense of uneasiness.
Why is she asking about locking the door? She never has before.
“I’ll double-check,” she tells her grandmother, frowning, thinking about Dylan and his dream and wondering if Odelia is worried for any particular reason.
Calla goes into the front hall, where she finds that the door is, indeed, locked. She turns the switch by the door and the outdoor light goes off.
Almost immediately, she realizes that someone is standing beside a tree just across the way.
Shocked, Calla feels her breath lodge in her throat as she gapes at the silhouette of a human figure wearing a long dark coat or cloak.
Goose bumps sting the back of Calla’s neck as she watches whoever—whatever—it is slip away into the shadows, leaving her to wonder if her imagination is playing tricks on her . . . or if someone really is out there.
Is it Spirit?
Or is it human?
It’s no one, she tells herself firmly. You’re losing it. You really are.
Exhausted—physically and emotionally—she forces herself to turn away, to climb the stairs, to sit at her desk and tackle her homework.
After she finally gives up and climbs into bed, though, it takes a long time for her to drift off to sleep.
When she does, she dreams that she’s being chased by a menacing figure in black, and she can hear her mother somewhere in the distance, frantically screaming at her to run for her life.
————
Did she see him when she turned off the light and looked out the window of her grandmother’s house?
Or did she just feel his presence, the way people like her claim to do?
You think you know everything, he taunts her silently as he drives back down the thruway toward Ohio.
Well then, you must know I’m coming to get you.
And you must be afraid.
His lips curl into a smile. All the better.
Now that he’s seen her, it doesn’t even matter that she doesn’t have long blond hair. No, it doesn’t matter at all. Because killing her, and putting an end to her meddling, will be more satisfying than what he’s done to any of the others or what he’s going to do to Hayley Gorzynski when her turn comes. And again and again, after that.
But Calla Delaney will come first.
Sweet dreams, Calla. Until we meet again . . .
SIXTEEN
Thursday, September 13
7:27 p.m.
As dusk falls over Lily Dale the following night, Calla finds herself standing beneath another medium’s shingle at yet another unfamiliar Lily Dale cottage.
This one is neatly kept and fairly modern, located at the far eastern end of town, on Erie Boulevard—a narrow, rutted road that is like no other boulevard Calla has ever known.
“Are you positive we should be doing this?” Calla asks Jacy as she peers through the slatted screened window of the metal front door.
The glassed-in porch looks like an extension of the house, with teal carpet, several lamps, a television, a dining set, and lots of white indoor-outdoor furniture topped in bright blue-and-white striped vinyl cushions.
“No. I’m not positive.” Jacy’s finger is poised over the bell as he turns to look at her. “But what other option is there?”
Oh, geez. Why did he sound so much more convincing earlier, at school? When she told him she was ready to confront Darrin’s parents, he said he was glad she had decided to go ahead with it, that he would go with her, and that they shouldn’t waste any time because the Yateses usually head out to Arizona for the winter.
“You’re not very reassuring, Jacy,” Calla hisses now. “We should leave.”
All at once, a dog erupts in frantic barking from somewhere inside.
“I think it’s too late for that,” Jacy says, a moment before the door leading from the house to the closed-in porch is thrown open.
The man on the threshold is mostly bald, with a fringe of gray hair and wire-framed bifocals. He’s wearing a dark green cardigan sweater and corduroy slippers. There’s a folded newspaper in his hand. At a glance, he could be anyone’s grandfather.
I’m glad he’s not mine, though, Calla can’t help thinking. He would have been, if Mom had stayed with his son Darrin instead of moving on and meeting Dad.