He listens intently to all of it. Which sets him apart from Michael right away, because Michael was never interested in her work. But then, this man is in the field of parapsychology, too.
He’s too good to be true, Miranda finds herself thinking.
His emerald gaze fixed on her, Andrew asks, “Does anyone call you Mandy?”
“No.”
“That’s hard to believe.” He leans closer to her, unmistakably flirting.
Her heart skips a beat. “Why . . . why is that?” she asks him. It’s been a long time since a man has talked to her in this way.
“Because you happen to look like a Mandy,” he says, reaching into his pocket and putting on his sunglasses. Now she can’t see his eyes. “And it happens to rhyme with Andy . . . which is what you can call me.”
“Then I guess you can feel free to call me Mandy.”
“In that case . . . how about joining me for a bite to eat, Mandy?”
Miranda shoves aside an irritating echo of Kent’s voice saying, “The trouble with you, Miranda, is that you can’t spot trouble when it’s looking you in the face.”
She looks at Andy Doyle and smiles. “I’d love to join you for a bite to eat.”
AS THE LADY’S presence fades from the room, Dulcie reaches for Julia, finding and clasping her arm.
“What is it, Dulcie?” Julia asks, her voice shaking. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s . . . her. You know she was here too, don’t you? You got all quiet when she came, and you stopped brushing my hair. That’s why, isn’t it?”
For a moment Julia doesn’t say anything. When she does, Dulcie notices that her voice sounds strange. But not surprised.
“You can feel her, Dulcie?”
“Yes. And I can see her. Can you?”
“You can see her?”
“You can’t?”
“No.” Julia puts both her hands on Dulcie’s shoulders and turns her around so that they’re facing each other. Dulcie can feel Julia looking at her. “What did you see, Dulcie? Describe her.”
“But . . . Julia . . . if you can’t see her, how do you know she’s here?”
“I feel her. And . . . I hear her.”
“Her voice?”
“I hear her voice. And music.”
“I heard it too! Music. And a scream.”
Dulcie hears Julia letting out a long breath.
Then she asks, “She’s been here before, Dulcie?”
Dulcie nods. “A few times. Up here in my room, and down by the bottom of the stairs, too.”
“That’s where I’ve felt her, too. But I can’t see her.”
“She talks to me. She took my book.”
“Where the Wild Things Are?”
“Yes. She laughed about it, like it was a joke. But it wasn’t funny. Why do you think she did that?”
“Because she wanted to get your attention. Our attention. They do that sometimes—move things around. Flicker lights. Change television stations—but, Dulcie, what does she look like?” Julia presses again, in a non-Julia-like voice.
“She isn’t very clear, but I can tell she has blond hair. And her eyes are blue.”
“How do you know? Are you sure?”
“I remember colors, Julia. I remember faces.”
“Do you remember your mommy’s face?”
Dulcie feels as if she’s going to cry, thinking about that. “No. I try. I should remember what she looked like, shouldn’t I, Julia? But I can’t.”
“You were so small when you last saw her . . .”
“I want to remember her, Julia. But I can never see her when I think about her. Unless . . .” Dulcie takes a deep breath. “Do you think the lady who keeps coming is my mom?”
Julia holds Dulcie close, stroking her hair. She’s quiet for a long time before she says, “Yes, Dulcie. I think it might be her.”
Chapter Nine
EARLY ON MONDAY morning, Pilar drives through a warm rain down to Fredonia to buy sunscreen and several other items she’ll need for her upcoming cruise. She stops at the Upper Crust bakery on the college town’s bustling Main Street before heading back to Lily Dale. There, she buys more chocolate volcanos and a half dozen cinnamon rolls.
The chocolate volcanos—all but the one Pilar plans to eat after lunch—are for Iris’s little granddaughter. She hasn’t seen the little girl since the day she and her dad arrived, but she’s heard them coming and going through the open screens. It’s time she paid another neighborly visit.
As for the enormous, decadent sticky swirls laced with cinnamon and icing—those are for Rupert and Nan.
She drives straight to their place upon returning to Lily Dale, dismissing the notion that she should have called first. Rupert might still be smarting from the other night and tell her not to come over. If she simply shows up on the doorstep with a bakery box, he can hardly turn her away, can he?
Well, yes.
If anyone can, it’s straight-talking Rupert.
But he doesn’t. When he opens the door to find Pilar standing there in the drizzle, he almost looks happy to see her.
“Hi, Rupert. I brought you a little treat from town.” Pilar thrusts the white string-tied bakery box into his hands. “They’re cinnamon rolls from the Upper Crust. How is Nan?”
He purses his lips, as though he’d rather not say.
She waits, sympathetic, beneath her dripping umbrella. A car splashes by in the street behind her.
“She’s asleep,” Rupert tells Pilar. “Been sleeping all morning.”
“Has she eaten anything?”
“I brought her yogurt for breakfast. She said she didn’t want it. I put it back in the refrigerator. Maybe she’ll have it later.”
“Maybe she will.”
But she won’t.
Pilar pushes away an image of Raul those last days of his life. His organs shutting down, no longer requiring food. But Pilar’s instinct was to keep plying him with nourishment bringing spoonfuls of hot broth to his dry lips, frustrated when he resisted. Finally a hospice worker saw what was going on and gently convinced her to stop trying to feed her husband, explaining that Raul no longer had the stamina for digestion, that Pilar’s efforts were putting unnecessary strain on his failing body. That was one of the most difficult moments in a week that was filled with them.
“Is she breathing any easier now that you’ve got the oxygen for her?” Pilar asks Rupert, expertly ignoring her flood of memories.
“How did you know about that?”
“I guess I heard it from somebody,” she murmurs vaguely, wishing she hadn’t brought it up. The last thing she wants is to have him worry about the neighbors’ gossip. That sort of thing goes with the territory in a small town, but Rupert and Nan have always kept the locals at arm’s length—perhaps for that very reason.
“Rupert, I was down at Kmart earlier, and I picked up a few new paperback romances for Nan. Can I stay and read to her a bit when she wakes up?”
“I’d like that,” he says unexpectedly, glancing at his watch. “I do have an errand to run, and I didn’t want to leave her alone while she was sleeping. She might be frightened if she wakes up and finds that I’ve left, and she might need something . . .”
“I’ll stay with her,” Pilar quickly assures him, biting back the impulse to tell him that he should have called her. “You go ahead. Take your time. Get some fresh air. I don’t have any readings scheduled until after lunch today.”
“I don’t need fresh air,” he says sharply, holding the door wide open so that she can step inside the still, dim house. All the shades are drawn. He probably figures there’s no sense in opening them on a dreary morning.
How many days, dreary or not, did Pilar spend in Raul’s sickroom with the curtains closed? Later, the hospice workers would come and go, opening things up, letting in light and air. But somehow, Pilar found that unlit cocoon comforting; there, she could hold the world at bay—along, perhaps, with the inevitable.
Bu
t there were times, even then, when she couldn’t deny what was happening. Especially as Raul seemed less and less aware of her presence. Often, his gaze was focused on something over her shoulder, or in a far corner of the room. Occasionally, he seemed to be talking to an invisible person. As a medium, Pilar sensed that there was spirit energy in the room, but she wasn’t able to connect with it. Whoever it was, was there for Raul.
When she told one of the hospice workers about it, the man gave a knowing nod. He told Pilar that the dying often interact with unseen visitors, seeming to be in the presence of someone who has passed on. He asked whether Raul mentioned any names.
He didn’t.
Not until the last hours of his life. Pilar remembers how that day was the same and yet different, somehow, than the ones before. Something changed just before Raul died, something she couldn’t put her finger on. But when she called the hospice worker and mentioned that something seemed to be changing in some subtle way, she was told, again, that this was something he had seen many times before. He said the families of dying people often reported the sense that some subtle, barely perceptible transition was taking place.
He gently cautioned Pilar that it might mean Raul’s time might be drawing near.
She never left his side that morning, not even for a moment.
She simply stayed with him, watched him, memorizing everything about his face, so that she could keep him with her always. And she listened, too. Listened as his breathing grew shallow and erratic. As he muttered to that same presence that she could feel but couldn’t see or hear. At last, Raul referred to the person by name.
Bobby.
Bobby, Pilar knew, was an old friend of her husband’s. They were inseparable all their lives, but Pilar never had the chance to meet Bobby. He was killed in a terrible car accident just weeks before Pilar’s path crossed Raul’s for the first time. He always liked to say that Bobby sent her to him because he knew Raul would be terribly lonely without him.
Pilar found solace in the fact that Bobby was there to accompany Raul on his final journey, comforted that he didn’t have to make it alone.
“There’s something I have to go out and do,” Rupert is telling her, bending to trade his suede moccasin-style slippers for a pair of shoes that are neatly aligned on the mat beside the door. “I won’t be long.”
She nods, suppressing her own memories, her heart aching for the old man. She closes her dripping umbrella, opens the door again, and props it on the step just outside.
Rupert needs help. If she hadn’t happened to come along now, he’d have sat here waiting for his wife to awaken. He’d have to feel guilty, leaving her alone, worrying about her the whole time he’s out.
Pilar is glad for the opportunity to be here for him, and for Nan.
But she’s leaving town. Who will help while she’s gone? Will Nan even last until she gets back?
He has no idea, she thinks, watching Rupert stride across the small foyer to a rolltop desk nearby, where he was obviously working before she arrived. It’s so easy to fool yourself when you’re in his position.
So easy to convince yourself that the worst isn’t really about to happen. That time isn’t running out. That you still have weeks, even months with your loved one.
Rupert sets the bakery box on the leather swivel chair and quickly straightens the papers on the desk.
Idly watching him, Pilar sees a yellow legal pad scribbled with columns of numbers, and beside it, what looks like a bank statement. She realizes, as he lifts the pad from the desk and folds the paper, sticking it between the pages, that he seems to be trying to conceal it from her. He must think she’s as bad as the rest of the local snoops.
“I’ll take those cinnamon rolls into the kitchen for you,” she offers tactfully, wanting to leave him alone with what are obviously financial documents.
As she crosses to the chair and picks up the box, Rupert reaches up to bring down the top on the desk. In that moment, Pilar feels a rush of energy electrifying the air around her.
She hears Rupert curse and glimpses something falling off the desk, landing at her feet.
Then the energy is gone, and Rupert is quickly bending to retrieve the item.
But not before Pilar sees that it’s a worn black leather-bound book stamped Addresses in gold lettering.
“I CAN FEEL his energy pulling back now, Mrs. Mackowinski,” Julia says, opening her eyes and looking at the attractive, middle-aged brunette sitting across from her. “Is there anything you want to ask before we end this session?”
“Just . . . do you think Mikey’s okay where he is?” the woman asks tearfully, blotting at her mascara-stained eyes with a soggy tissue.
“I feel like he wants you to know that he’s just fine,” Julia says softly, offering her a fresh tissue from the box at her elbow. “He’s assured you that he’s with your husband’s parents, and that he was with your family in spirit when his sister got married. His bringing up the caterer’s mix-up with the cake was his way of validating his presence there for you.”
“I know.” The woman smiles through her tears. “I believed that he was there even before you told me that. I felt him that day. I thought he would be laughing about the cake being chocolate instead of the vanilla his sister had ordered. He always loved chocolate.”
Julia smiles back at her.
“Thank you so much.” Mrs. Mackowinski rises and smooths her rumpled rayon floral-print romper, picking up her oversize brown leather pocketbook from the floor beside the chair. “It’s been hell since we lost Mikey. This is the first time I’ve felt close to him since the accident.”
“I’m glad.”
“I want to come back here, and bring my husband and daughter. They didn’t want to come today . . . but when I tell them what you’ve said, they’ll believe he was here. They’ll want to come back with me and hear it for themselves.”
Julia nods, but cautions, “I can’t guarantee your son will come through again, Mrs. Mackowinski.”
“Oh, he will.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to do a group reading for the three of you as long as you keep in mind that I can’t promise you anything. Just be sure to schedule the session in advance, because I tend to get busier as the summer goes on.”
“I will.” The woman reaches out and stuffs several bills into the basket on a nearby table marked Donations. “I want you to know that I’ll always be grateful to you. This has been just amazing.”
As she leaves, Julia watches her, taking a moment to bask in the knowledge that she has helped to ease a mother’s grief. This is the main reason she remains committed to mediumship.
Still seated in her armchair, listening to the sound of Mrs. Mackowinski’s footsteps on the front steps outside her window, Julia finds herself thinking again about the incident in Dulcie’s bedroom yesterday. The apprehension she’s managed to hold at bay throughout the busy morning returns full force.
Was it Kristin’s troubled spirit she sensed in the house?
The garbled sound she heard when she asked for the spirit’s identity would seem to indicate that. She got the K and N sounds clearly.
But she didn’t feel her friend’s energy in the room. Not the way she should. There was something darker attached to the energy, and no sense of the familiarity she would expect if she were receiving the energy of someone who had been so dear to her.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t Kristin. Spirits are unpredictable.
Yet there are other possibilities. Perhaps the K-N sound didn’t represent a name, but some other word, a part of some message the spirit wanted to pass on.
There’s no way of knowing.
Dulcie mentioned seeing “the lady” several times in the stair hall, around the foot of the steps. That’s where Julia most strongly sensed her presence, too. And that’s where Kristin saw whatever it was that she saw that Halloween night—which could explain why her spirit, if it is indeed her spirit, is drawn to that spot.
Eager to share
all of this with another medium—somebody she trusts—Julia left a message for Lorraine this morning. So far, her friend hasn’t called back. Perhaps tonight, after the message service at the Medium’s League building, she’ll be able to speak privately with Lorraine or with another medium who might be able to shed light on the situation.
You can always call Andy, she reminds herself. She hasn’t spoken to him since he brought her home Saturday night, depositing her on her doorstep with a kiss. She didn’t bother to invite him inside.
If Andy sensed that she was more withdrawn than usual, he didn’t comment. In fact, he seemed a bit distanced himself. He was probably preoccupied with the workshop, which would be a full five-hour session instead of his usual three.
In any case, if it weren’t for the nagging doubt placed in her mind because of her grandmother’s intervention from the Other Side, Julia would probably confide in Andy about the presence in Iris’s house. But, having learned to trust her instincts and the feelings given to her by those who have crossed over, something tells Julia that won’t be a good idea.
Julia rises and lifts the lace curtain that covers the window in the small front parlor she uses to conduct business. Peering out into the street, she sees that the drizzle that fell all morning has stopped. But the sky remains cloudy. The house is usually fairly cool, but today warm, muggy air has filtered through the screens, leaving Julia’s hair damp around her forehead.
It’s time to drag the window fans down from the attic, she thinks, closing the parlor door behind her.
Deciding she needs a cold drink before getting ready to head over to Paine’s, she walks into the kitchen. There, in the portion of the room that juts out from the back of the house with its own section of roof, an array of strategically positioned buckets remind her of the imminent home-improvement project. The contractor she consulted over the weekend initially said he couldn’t begin work for a few weeks, but called back this morning to say that another job has been postponed. He can start tomorrow.
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