Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(67)

Calla smiles, relieved. “I love you, Gammy.”

“I love you, too.”

“So Willow can stay here, with us?”

“Absolutely. If she wants to. And if you don’t mind. It’s going to be close quarters in your room.”

“I know . I don’t mind. It’ll be . . . like having a sister.”

“All right.”Odelia opens the refrigerator. “We’ll talk to her when the dust settles a bit, so to speak. What do you want to—”

The doorbell rings loudly, cutting her off.

“Do you have an appointment coming, Gammy?”

“No. Must be Willow’s father or a walk-in reading.”She closes the fridge. “I’ll go see.”

Calla sits at the table and worries about Willow. She’s got a rough road ahead, even with support from Calla and her grandmother.

The front door closes and she hears a male voice mingling with her grandmother’s in the front hall. Willow’s father must be here. Calla hadn’t expected him so soon. That’s a good sign. Maybe he really is—

“Calla? There’s someone here to see you.”

She looks up, startled.

How could she have forgotten?

“Calla, I’ve been channeling your mother for days now,”David Slayton announces. “She wants to come through to you.”





THIRTY-SIX

Lily Dale

Monday, October 15

8:02 p.m.

“Give me your hands, please.”

Calla hesitates, then reaches across the space between her chair and David Slayton’s, facing each other in her grandmother’s dimly lit back room.

As he takes both her hands in his, she feels a little jolt . . . like an electric shock, transmitted from his fingertips to her own.

Her heart, which has been doing double-time since he showed up in the kitchen a short while ago, beats even faster.

If anyone can bring her mother through to her, it’s David Slayton.

Then again . . .

As she watches him bow his head and close his eyes, she reminds herself that his son Blue doesn’t seem to have the abilities he claims to have.

But his father’s the real deal, Calla decides. He must be, because she can literally feel the room, his body, his hands, teeming with energy.

Perhaps a full minute of charged silence passes. Calla doesn’t dare move, speak, even breathe.

Then David Slayton announces, “She’s here.”

“My mother?”

“Yes.”

Calla exhales a shaky breath, waiting, knowing better than to interrupt his concentration with comments or questions.

“She wants you to know that she’s proud of you. She says you’re stronger and braver than she ever knew. Stronger and braver than you ever knew, too.”

David Slayton opens his eyes and his smile catches her off guard. He nods intently, listening to someone whose voice only he can hear.

“She’s telling you that the danger has passed. You’re safe now. She’s saying you don’t have to worry about her anymore. Do you understand what she means by this?”

“Yes.”

He’s talking about Sharon Logan.

Rather, Mom is.

Calla can actually feel her mother’s presence emanating from the medium, senses the softening in his demeanor as he channels her.

“She asks your forgiveness. Do you understand?”

Again, Calla nods.

“She did what she had to do. She never meant to hurt anyone else. You, above all. For you, there is only love.”

“Oh, Mom . . . Mom, I miss you so much. Every day. I feel so alone without you.”

“No. You’re never alone. You’re surrounded by her love. She wants you to remember that.”

“I will,”she whispers.

“She’s saying she wants you to stay close to your family. That you’ve made the right decision. She says your family will be there for you. Your father, your grandmother, your sister . . .”

Calla’s eyes widen. “My sister?”

“She’s showing me you and your sister, holding hands. Very much together. Do you understand this?”

“I . . . I’m not sure.”

Is he talking about Laura Logan?

Or about Willow, whom Calla just told Odelia might become like a sister if she moves in?

He goes silent, apparently listening. He nods again.

“She wishes she hadn’t told you to ignore your abilities when you were a little girl. She’s sorry. She was frightened.”

“By . . . my abilities?”

Again, he listens. “When she was a child, things went very wrong for her because of her communication with Spirit.”

Yes. Her father left.

“She was afraid something similar would happen to you. She asked you to deny who you were. She’s sorry,”he repeats.

“It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay. I know why you did it. You only wanted what was best.”

David Slayton pauses, eyes closed.

“She says she never was true to herself. To who she really was.”

“What do you mean, Mom?”Calla whispers into the empty room.

The answer comes in a moment. “She suppressed her own abilities. Didn’t want anyone to know . She shouldn’t have done that. She should have listened to her guides. If she had, she would have known everything. Do you understand?”