Believing (Lily Dale #2)(6)
Of course, he doesn’t know about Lily Dale’s spiritual connection. If he did, no way would he have agreed to let Calla stay—or, for that matter, to have come here in the first place.
He can’t find out, no matter what. I have to stay—at least until I figure out what’s going on.
Her knees a little wobbly, she sinks into a chair at the table. Sipping her orange juice, Calla makes a face at its wateriness. Back in Florida, it was always freshly squeezed and thick with tangy-sweet pulp.
Florida.
Not home.
When did she stop thinking of Florida as home?
Is this creaky little cottage in this spooky little town her home now?
No. Not really. But it was Mom’s home for eighteen years, and Calla feels closer to her here than she would anywhere else at this point.
Sure, she’s had occasional flashes of homesickness for Tampa. But she couldn’t stand living in the house where Mom died, and she isn’t anxious to go back . . . maybe not ever.
How can she face going up and down those stairs every day? The bloodstains at their foot were scrubbed away with bleach . . . but the memory of those horrible red splotches on white tile can never be wiped from Calla’s mind.
Calla closes her eyes, remembering her mother’s crumpled body, wearing an elegant charcoal gray suit with round, shiny black buttons. She remembers the unnatural angle of Mom’s neck, the frozen look of horror in her gaping eyes . . .
The official ruling was accidental death. Mom, in a pair of high-heeled black Gucci pumps she often wore, had tripped and fallen down the stairs.
Mom, who had never made a careless mistake in her life . . .
Until she burned the Irish soda bread on Saint Patrick’s Day after the stranger calling himself Tom—who wasn’t a stranger at all—showed up at the door.
The telephone rings abruptly and Calla is lifted, gratefully, from those grim thoughts.
“Can you pick it up?” her grandmother asks, busy at the stove. “It might be your dad, calling to wish you luck on your first day.”
Calla doubts that. It’s barely four a.m. in California.
“Hello?”
“Calla? It’s me!”
“Lisa?” Her friend’s familiar drawl is a welcome sound. “What’s up?”
“You are. And so am I, unfortunately.” Lisa yawns loudly in her ear as Calla steps into the next room with the phone, away from her grandmother’s perked-up ears. Odelia can be pretty nosy. Even nosier than Mom.
“What are you doing calling me this early?”
“Being a good friend. Today’s your first day, right? I thought you might be stressing and I figured I should call and tell you it’s going to go great.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m psychic.”
Calla can just see Lisa’s sly grin. “Well, that makes one of us, because I have no idea what to expect. I wish . . .”
She trails off wistfully.
“I know,” Lisa says somberly. “I wish the same thing. But hang in there. You’ll be okay.”
“You really think so?”
“Yup. It’ll be fun to meet new people. Here I am, stuck with the same old faces we’ve seen since kindergarten.”
Calla wants to tell her she’d trade places in a second, but a wave of homesickness clogs her throat.
They chat for a few more minutes, and she tells Lisa to say hello to all her old friends and teachers.
“I’ll tell them you’ll be back to visit soon,” Lisa promises.
“How am I going to do that?”
“I have a comp airline voucher you can use. They handed them out when my flight was delayed because of the storm the other night.”
“Don’t you want to use it yourself?”
“Nah. If I want to fly up north again, my parents can pay,” Lisa says with a laugh.
Calla smiles, knowing the Wilsons would be more than willing. Kevin always did say they spoil his sister.
Her smile fades when she remembers that Tampa is no longer home, and nothing there is the same. Not without Mom and Dad.
“Thanks for the offer,” Calla tells her, and swallows hard. “For now, I’ve just got to focus on getting through this day.”
“I know. Good luck. Love you.”
“You too.”
She hangs up and returns to the kitchen.
“Good timing. Here you go.” Odelia bustles over to set a heaping plate on the table, along with maple syrup and butter. “Dig in.”
Calla swallows hard. “I . . . I’m not really that hungry.”
“Eat anyway. It’ll calm down those first-day-of-school butterflies in your stomach. Trust me.”
If only the first day of school were the only thing I had to worry about.
With a sigh, Calla reaches for a fork.
The redbrick school building is outside the actual town, beyond the wrought-iron gate with its sign that welcomes people to LILY DALE ASSEMBLY . . . WORLD’S LARGEST CENTER FOR THE RELIGION OF SPIRITUALISM.
Evangeline Taggart joins Calla for the ten-minute walk down the winding country road along the lake’s grassy shore. Her younger brother, Mason, lags behind them with a couple of his friends. Calla can see a couple of other kids with backpacks up ahead, also headed toward the school.
As they walk along, Evangeline chatters away as usual. Her hazel eyes dance as she tells Calla about shopping for school clothes yesterday at the Galleria in Buffalo with her aunt, who thought she should start dressing up more for school now that she’s getting older.