Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(32)

“I don’t know . . . not really.”She starts to open the door.

“Calla.”

Uh-oh.

“Yeah?”

“Your grandmother and Ramona . . . they’re not just regular counselors, are they.”It isn’t a question.

“Ramona told you that?”

“No. I figured it out all by myself.”He gives her a tight smile. “And I guess I’m right. They’re . . . what do they call themselves?”

“Not ‘New-Age freaks.’ ”She can’t help but be relieved— not just that he’s smiling at all, but that it’s out in the open at last.

“So what are they? Psychic counselors?”

“That pretty much sums it up. How did you figure it out?”

“For one thing, a lot of people around here seem to have signs on their houses advertising themselves as psychic counselors, and the like. I saw the empty bracket at Ramona’s, and the bracket with that potted plant here—”He gestures at Odelia’s porch, where a tired, straggly looking chrysanthemum hangs in place of the shingle that reads ODELIA LAUDER, REGISTERED MEDIUM.

“I don’t have to be a so-called psychic myself to have figured out that something is conspicuously missing,”Dad tells her.

So-called psychic.

Calla tries not to let the note of skepticism bother her. After all, she reacted the same way when she first arrived in the Dale.

“For another thing,”Dad goes on, “Ramona likes to talk. A lot,”he adds, but not without affection. “She’s the type who doesn’t hold anything back, you know?”

“I know .”

“But when it comes to talking about her work . . . well, I haven’t been able to get her to open up about what, exactly, she does. She always manages to change the subject.”

“She doesn’t want you to know, Dad. Gammy doesn’t, either.”

“Why not?”

“I guess they were worried you wouldn’t like it.”

“So they were protecting themselves—and you. Is that it?”

“I guess so,”she says reluctantly, marveling at the fact that they’re still sitting here talking about this, instead of packing their bags and making plane reservations.

Dad nods, still rubbing his phantom beard.

He still doesn’t know about me.

Should she tell him?

He seems to be taking this pretty well.

Then again—it’s one thing for him to know that Odelia and Ramona are practicing mediums.

It’s another for him to find out that his own daughter is dabbling in spiritualism.

“Does it bother you?”he asks, turning to look at Calla at last. “That they do what they do?”

“Why would it?”She shrugs. “I respect it, just like I’d respect any other career.”

“I just don’t like the idea of anyone taking money from naive strangers who believe in all this stuff.”

There are so many things wrong with that statement that Calla doesn’t know where to begin.

“Dad, people come to them willingly. Some of them come back over and over again, so they’re not strangers. And they’re not naive. And it’s not like Gammy and Ramona are con artists preying on innocent people. I mean . . . geez, Dad, look around you.”She indicates Odelia’s modest cottage, and Ramona’s next door. “Does it look like they’re rolling in dough? Wouldn’t they be, if it was all a con game?”

“Good point.”

“They help people. That’s why they do it. Not for money.”

“Okay. I guess it just bothers me that they have you believing in it, too.”

“In what?”

“You know . . . hocus-pocus.”

“It’s not hocus-pocus, Dad. It’s nothing like that!”

“Then what do you call it when someone is dabbling in ghosts, and predicting the future, and . . . what ever. Tarot cards? Evil curses?”

“No! Not evil curses. Geez . . . evil curses? It’s not like that at all.”

“You went to see a psychic. And it got you into trouble. Not just trouble . . . danger. You almost died, Calla.”

“But not because I went to see a psychic.”

Or because I am one.

“If you hadn’t gone, you wouldn’t have come into contact with that horrible woman.”

“If I hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t have known she killed Mom and—”

Oops.

Darrin, she had been about to say.

Thank goodness she caught herself.

“If you hadn’t gone,”Dad responds, “Sharon Logan wouldn’t have tried to kill you.”

“But she’d still be on the streets, where she could hurt someone else.”

He’s silent.

“Dad, you can’t blame what happened on what goes on around Lily Dale. The spiritualists here— they help people. Not hurt them. They warned me about the water.”

“Who did?”

She hesitates. “A few people here. They said they had visions of me struggling in water. They said to be careful.”

“Why weren’t you?”

“I was. But . . .”She shrugs. “It’s complicated. I guess some things are just meant to happen.”