Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(12)

“The woods. Let’s go that way.”

“That’s a dead end. Why do you want to go in there?”

“It’s just so . . . peaceful.” Calla is getting sick of keeping up the act, but she still isn’t ready to tell Evangeline the whole story. For all she knows, the map in the book, which is stashed in her backpack, is utterly meaningless.

But if not . . .

“We can’t go in there right now,” Evangeline says simply, shaking her head.

“It’s okay, then, you go home, and I’ll see you lat—”

“No.” Evangeline grabs Calla’s coat sleeve. “I mean, we can’t go in there. Not that I don’t want to. Not that I do, though.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Didn’t you ever see the sign?”

“What sign?”

“Here . . . come on.” Evangeline leads the way to the edge of the grove and points at, sure enough, a sign.





DO NOT ENTER LEOLYN WOODSIN HIGH WINDS





“What? That’s crazy,” Calla declares, even as she gazes overhead at the ominously swaying, creaking trees, their gnarled branches bony fingers grasping at the purple-gray heavens.

“Maybe, but it’s just as crazy to ignore it, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“Anyway”—Evangeline flashes her a smile—“I guarantee you Blue Slayton’s not hanging in the woods on a day like today. In fact, I’m sure he knows you’re about to walk past Jeremy’s house, and I bet he comes outside looking for you.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because, duh. He’s one of the most powerful psychics around here. Like his father.”

Calla considers that. She hasn’t exactly seen evidence of Blue’s abilities since she’s met him . . . but that doesn’t mean Evangeline’s claim isn’t true.

“Come on, let’s go.” Evangeline hugs herself and stamps her feet a little. “I’m freezing.”

Calla considers ignoring the warning sign and Evangeline, anxious to see what—if anything—lies in the spot marked by the map.

Then that nagging sense of uneasiness gets the better of her.

Another time.

Maybe she’ll even get Jacy to go with her.

Though, now that she thinks about it, she’s barely had a chance to talk to him lately. Today when she tried in the cafeteria, he seemed almost cold. But that was probably because he was reading, and she was interrupting.

Then again . . .

The more she thinks about it, the more obvious it seems that he’s been avoiding her lately.

But why?




“Calla, you’ll never believe this . . . guess what?” Evangeline breathlessly greets her on the telephone later.

In the midst of clearing the dinner dishes with her grandmother, Calla grins. Evangeline often begins her calls with that phrase, and her news is rarely anything anyone else would consider earth shattering.

“I can’t even imagine,” she tells Evangeline dryly, “so you’ll have to tell me.”

“My aunt is going to take us shopping at the mall tomorrow after school!”

“Really?” Calla perks up. “Wow, that would be—oh, wait. I can’t. I forgot to tell you this afternoon . . . my dad’s flying into Buffalo tomorrow to visit me for the weekend.”

“That stinks. I mean, I know how much you miss him, but—hey, wait a minute. The mall is in Buffalo, too. What time is he coming in?”

“I think around eight.” She looks around for the scrap of paper where she wrote down her father’s flight information when he called earlier.

“We can all go to the mall, then pick up your dad at the airport! My aunt won’t mind. Let me go ask her. Aunt Ramona! ”

The phone drops with a clatter in Calla’s ear before she has a chance to protest—not that she necessarily was going to.

After what she’s been through lately, a trip to the mall would be a nice, welcome dose of normal.

She carries some dirty dishes over to the sink.

“What’s going on?” Odelia asks, rinsing a sudsy glass.

“Evangeline said her aunt could take us shopping at the mall on Friday, then pick up Dad at the airport.”

“That would be nice.”

“I know. I just don’t want Ramona to have to go out of her way.”

“Oh, I don’t think she’ll mind,” Odelia comments with a small, cryptic smile.

Seeing it, Calla remembers the strange sensation she had about Dad and Ramona when her father visited a few weeks ago and they met for the first time. The two of them couldn’t be more different, but it was almost as if there was some kind of fleeting connection between them. At the time, Calla didn’t know what to make of it, or even if it was just her imagination.

But now, looking at her grandmother, she gets the distinct impression that Odelia might somehow have the same crazy inkling.

Evangeline is back on the phone, sounding a little breathless. “Aunt Ramona said she’d love to pick up your dad at the airport Friday night!”

“She’d love it?” Calla echoes dubiously.

“That’s what she said. Just get the flight information and tell him we’ll be there! Aren’t you psyched? I love how everything just falls into place, don’t you?”