Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(65)

Even though I know it was real.

“Did you study for the chemistry test this afternoon?”she asks Sarita.

“A little. I’m nowhere near ready. Nothing like cramming at the last minute.”

“I’ll leave you alone, then,”Calla says, glad for the excuse to make her way over to Jacy after all.

“Thanks. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck. Let me know if you hear anything more about Willow.”

Jacy looks up as she approaches him, smiles, and pulls out the empty chair beside him.

She puts down her tray but doesn’t sit. “Listen, Jacy . . . did you by any chance drive to school today?”

Sometimes, in bad weather, his foster dads let him take one of their cars.

“Yeah,”he says. “I did. Why?”

“I have to ask you a huge favor. And you can totally say no.”

He smiles faintly. “Can I totally say yes, too?”

“I hope you do, but . . . it could get you into trouble.”

“What is it?”

“I need a ride down to Brooks Memorial Hospital in Dunkirk.”

“I’ll wait here,”Jacy whispers, touching Calla’s arm as they step off the elevator in a hushed hospital corridor.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t think she’ll want to see me at a time like this.”

“I’m not sure she’ll want to see me, either,”Calla says uneasily, wondering if it was a mistake to come.

And not just because she’s cutting her afternoon classes to be here.

It’s not as though she and Willow are old friends, or even particularly close friends, in the grand scheme of things. After all, Calla’s barely known her for two months, and Willow is the kind of person who keeps others safely at arm’s length.

But back at school, pure instinct kicked in and this seemed like the right thing for Calla to do.

Now . . .

Not so much.

“She needs you,”Jacy says simply, and squeezes Calla’s hand.

“Me? But I’m—”

“Look, she needs someone. And you’re the only one who knows what she’s going through. Go ahead.”

Calla takes a deep breath and starts down the corridor toward Althea York’s room. Nurses, orderlies, and doctors stride past her in both directions. She half expects someone to stop her—half wishes someone would— but no one gives her a second look.

Medical personnel aren’t the only ones here.

There are spirits, too.

They’re everywhere, all ages, from all walks of life. Some are wearing hospital gowns, others wear street clothes from another era.

Glancing into one room as she passes, she sees a wizened elderly man lying motionless in a bed, yet also standing beside it, staring down at his body as a gray-haired woman weeps over it and a priest gives last rites.

He looks up, catching Calla’s eye, and flashes her a broad grin.

He’s happy, she realizes, startled. He’s dying . . . or has just died . . . yet he looks like he’s just won the lottery.

Unnerved by the strange sight, she moves on to Althea’s room, footsteps slowing as she nears the open doorway.

She stops just short of it, hearing the steady beeping of medical monitors and muffled sobbing.

I can’t do this.

Willow is about to lose her mother. Who is Calla to barge in there in some misguided effort to comfort her?

Her own pain is still so raw that she can feel hot tears springing to her eyes and emotion clogging her throat. Like Willow needs this.

“There you are.”

She looks up, startled to hear a voice directly beside her.

A woman is standing there, wearing a white nurse’s uniform and cap and the kindest smile Calla has ever seen.

Puzzled, Calla looks over one shoulder, then the other, assuming the nurse is talking to somebody else . . . but the spot behind her is empty.

“Are you . . . talking to me?”

The nurse nods. “We’ve been waiting for you to get here, Calla. She needs you.”

“Who does?”She must be mistaken, thinking she’s talking to somebody else.

But she said my name . . .

How does she know my name?

“Willow . . . Althea’s daughter. You’re her friend. Go ahead . . . go hold her hand. Be with her. We’ve been waiting,”she says again.

Calla swallows hard, wipes at her teary eyes with her sleeve, and forces herself to cover the last few steps to the threshold.

There, she hesitates and looks back to ask the nurse how she knew Calla was coming.

The spot where she stood is empty.

Doctors, orderlies, and nurses continue to bustle up and down the corridor. But the nurses are wearing green scrubs.

Not old-fashioned white uniforms with caps.

Slowly, she turns back toward the room.

Althea’s large form is lying in the bed covered with a white sheet drawn up to her chest. She’s connected to beeping machines through a series of tubes. Her breaths are coming harshly, with a long pause between each one.

Willow is at her bedside, clutching one of her mother’s hands in both of hers, crying softly. In the window, over her shoulder, white confetti is swirling.

It takes Calla a moment to realize what it is.

Snow.

My first snowfall.