Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(6)

At least, nobody Calla can see.

In any other town, the casual onlooker might decide her grandmother is in obvious need of a psychiatrist.

Here in Lily Dale, no one bats an eye at conversations with invisible partners.

Watching her grandmother throw back her head and laugh heartily at whatever it is the spirit is telling her, Calla can’t help but grin.

Thank God for Odelia.

“Happy Monday,” she calls cheerfully from the hall a minute later, shutting the door behind her. “I beat the rain, but just barely. What’s new?”

“Someone came by for a reading. I told him you’d get back to him. He was a widower, and he’s really desperate to reach his wife.”

“Aren’t they all,” Odelia murmurs, shaking her head as she pockets Owen Henry’s contact information. “How was school?”

“Fine,” Calla says automatically.

Hmm, come to think of it, how was school?

Let’s see, she got an A on her social studies test, an A– on her art project, and a D on her math quiz.

Okay . . . not so fine.

Odelia appears in the doorway. Her coat is gone, and Calla isn’t surprised to see that she’s wearing a navy-and-white polka-dotted blouse with her jeans, which are cuffed at the knees—the better to show off the rubber boots, naturally.

“I just saw Patsy Metcalf at the meeting,” she tells Calla, “and she asked me if you’ll be at her beginning mediumship class again tomorrow morning.”

“What did you say?”

“What do you think? I said absolutely. I told her to enroll you for the rest of the course.”

“Gammy, I don’t know if I want—”

“Remember what we talked about the other night? I told you I’m going to help you learn how to use your psychic abilities responsibly, and you’re going to start with Patsy’s class,” Odelia says firmly, and steps around the book on the floor on her way to pet Gert.

Funny, Calla’s mother would have stooped to pick it up. Most people would, actually.

Not Odelia. She’s not the most meticulous housekeeper in the world, and her house is jam-packed with more stuff than any human being could ever use in one lifetime—not that Odelia believes in anyone having just one lifetime.

As her grandmother scoops the kitten into her arms, Calla leans over to pick up the book, then stops short.

It’s one she checked out of the local library a few days ago, a thick, musty-smelling volume on the history of Lily Dale.

“What the heck is this doing down here?” she wonders aloud.

Odelia glances at it. “What is that?”

“My library book. I had it upstairs, on my bookshelf. Did you borrow it?”

“No.”

“Then how did it get down here?”

“Miriam? Did you do that?” Odelia calls good-naturedly.

No reply.

“What did she say?” Calla asks.

“She didn’t say anything.”

“Well, actually, she was just here a few minutes ago.”

Odelia raises a dyed red eyebrow. “You saw her?”

“Sort of. I caught a glimpse of someone flitting by out of the corner of my eye, over there.” She gestures at the doorway.

Odelia nods approvingly. “That’s how it is, in the beginning. Sooner or later, you’ll begin to see them more clearly.”

Calla wants to remind her that she already has seen—and spoken to—apparitions.

But then she might be tempted to mention Aiyana, and she still isn’t ready to share that with her grandmother. Not until she knows more about what might have happened to her mother.

Part of her reasoning is that Odelia, who has already warned her not to get involved in criminal cases, would be livid if she thought Calla was disobeying her orders, especially after what happened the other night.

The other thing is . . .

Well, Mom and Odelia didn’t get along, and she isn’t sure why. Out of a sense of loyalty to her mother, Calla needs to keep some things private for now.

“I’m going to go see if we have anything I can whip up for dinner,” Odelia says, and heads for the kitchen with Gert in her arms.

As she picks up the book, Calla glances at the yellowed pages.

When it fell, it opened to a map of Lily Dale.

A mark jumps out at her—a circled X, made in old-fashioned sepia-toned ink.

She recognizes that it would be located in a wooded area near the pet cemetery and a woodland trail that leads through the Leolyn Woods to Inspiration Stump.

The first time Calla heard that an old tree stump, now encased in concrete, marks Lily Dale’s most hallowed ground, she rolled her eyes. Leave it to the New Age freaks to pay homage to a nondescript hunk of cement.

Was that blatant disdain really only a few weeks ago?

Now she’s been to the stump, buried deep in a grove of ancient trees, fronted by rows of benches as though it’s a solitary performer on some eerie primordial stage. During the season, it’s where the audience, hopeful of making contact with lost loved ones, gathers to be read by the mediums.

Maybe the constant collective wave of grief and longing contributes to the highly charged atmosphere there.

Or maybe it’s something more mystical, more otherworldly than that.

“Do you want me to find that spot?” Calla whispers to Aiyana, wherever she is. “The place marked on the map? Is that why you dropped the book?”