Awakening

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “It’s not like I had anything better to do,” Evangeline replies with a smile. “I’ll have one scoop of chocolate, even though I shouldn’t. I’m on a diet. But I guess if this is all I eat for lunch, it isn’t so bad.”

  “You’re always on a diet, Evangeline.” The girl behind the counter hands Calla her cone.

  “Yeah, only I never lose weight. Gee, I wonder why? Think it’s because I’m a regular here?” Evangeline shakes her head ruefully. “Oh, hey, Calla, this is Lena. She’s a year behind me in school. Lena, Calla.”

  “Odelia’s granddaughter, right? From down south?”

  “Word’s out already about the new girl in town, huh?” Evangeline asks as Lena begins scooping ice cream from the cardboard tub of chocolate.

  “Yeah, Willow said something about it when she was down here this morning.”

  Willow? Calla can’t help but wonder who that is, and why she’s talking about her.

  “Yeah, I’ll just bet she did.” Evangeline smirks.

  “Who’s—” Calla begins, but her question is cut short by Lena.

  “Look who’s here,” the girl mutters.

  Calla turns to see Blue Slayton sauntering up to the window, hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts.

  Thank goodness she took the time to change out of the sloppy sweats she’d worn all morning. The cutoffs, T-shirt, and sandals she has on now aren’t exactly her best outfit, but they’re more flattering than baggy cotton fleece. She’s not wearing makeup, but at least her long hair is down, and recently brushed, if a little damp from the rain.

  “Hey, are you following me around, or what?” Blue asks Calla good-naturedly.

  “I got here first, so it’s more like the other way around, don’t you think?” She takes a demure lick of her ice cream cone, wondering how she’s managing to come across as so laid-back when her heart is beating wildly at the sight of him.

  “You caught me,” Blue returns easily. He barely flicks a glance in the direction of the other two girls as he says, “Hey, Evangeline. Hi, Lena.”

  “What’s up, Blue?” Evangeline asks as Calla pays for their two cones. “Is your dad around? My aunt needed to talk to him about something.”

  “Nah, he’s in L. A. till next week. I’ll take a large coffee,” he tells Lena, without missing a beat. “Black. Two sugars.”

  Then, to Calla, “What have you been doing with yourself since you got here?”

  Trying to figure out how to get out of here, mostly, she thinks heavily. To Blue, she says only, “Just hanging out. You know.”

  “Yeah. Not much else to do around here.” He shrugs. “You still want to hook up sometime?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good.” He nods.

  When? Calla wants to ask, but doesn’t.

  And he doesn’t say anything else, other than to tell her he’ll see her around.

  As he strolls away with his coffee, Calla and Evangeline slip into seats at a table with their ice cream.

  The moment Blue is out of earshot, Evangeline says, “I knew it. I told you he liked you.”

  “It’s not like he asked me out.”

  “He said he’s going to.”

  Calla shrugs and licks her cone, trying to act as though she doesn’t care either way. “He’d better hurry up,” she says, “because it’s not like I’m here forever.”

  “Want me to nudge him?”

  “No!”

  Evangeline laughs. “Okay, okay, I won’t say anything. I’m sure he’ll get around to it on his own. I just wish Jacy would look at me the way Blue just looked at you,” she adds wistfully.

  “Maybe you should make the first move,” Calla suggests. “You said he’s shy, right?”

  “Yeah. Really shy. You’ll see. I really can’t believe you haven’t met him yet. This is as small as small towns get.”

  “Yeah. I’m starting to figure that out,” Calla murmurs, again feeling guilty for not having told Evangeline she and Jacy have already been introduced.

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  I don’t think I’ll have time, Calla thinks, but she doesn’t say that to Evangeline. She hasn’t given up the idea of leaving Lily Dale as soon as possible. She just hasn’t come up with a plan yet.

  In the middle of the afternoon, her father calls.

  “What are you doing?” he asks, and Calla wonders fleetingly if she should tell him the truth: that she was just lying on Odelia’s couch, reading a book about the origins of spiritualism.

  “Reading,” she says briefly, and waits for him to ask what she was reading. That will open the door to a conversation about Lily Dale, and put the wheels in motion to get her out of here.

  That’s what she wants, right?

  Right. Definitely. It’s what I want.

  But her father doesn’t ask what she is reading, and for some reason, Calla finds herself changing the subject.

  “Guess what? I went out for ice cream today with a girl who lives here. She’s my age.”

  “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that. I’ve been thinking you must be lonely with just your grandmother for company. I was even wondering if you’d be able to stick it out there for the whole three weeks, so . . . I’m glad you found a friend. What’s her name?”

  “Evangeline Taggart,” Calla murmurs, wishing he hadn’t just said all that. He’s obviously relieved, thinking he doesn’t have to worry about her for the time being.

  How can she ask him to get her out of here on the heels of this conversation?

  You can’t. You’ll just have to stick it out, like he said.

  “Evangeline, huh? That’s an odd name.”

  Speaking of odd, Dad, she’s a medium. And so is Odelia. And everyone else in town.

  “She lives right there in Lily Dale?” he’s asking.

  “Right next door.” With her aunt. Also a medium.

  “Well, that’s convenient.”

  “Yeah.” She clears her throat. “What have you been doing, Dad?”

  “Apartment hunting. Familiarizing myself with the campus. Getting organized for the semester. Going to meetings.” There’s a pause. “Missing you. And . . . Mom.”

  The last word is spoken so softly Calla has to strain to hear it.

  “I miss her, too, Dad. So much. And I miss you.” Her voice breaks, and she swipes at tears in her eyes.

  “Well, it won’t be long before you’re here in California with me,” he says hoarsely.

  “Yeah. That’ll be good.”

  No, it won’t. That’s not what she wants—to be with him in a strange place, without Mom or Odelia—

  Odelia? Huh?

  That’s really strange. Why was she feeling, for a moment there, as though she needed to be with her grandmother? She’s gone over a decade without Odelia in her life. Sure, Odelia’s popped back into it now, but that doesn’t mean she’s there to stay.

  Funny, though . . . when she thinks about leaving her grandmother and Lily Dale behind come September, she feels a sad little pang.

  Yes, she’ll definitely stick it out until then.

  She might even miss it when she’s gone, she dares to think—and then pushes the thought away.

  TEN

  “You must be Calla.” The woman smiling from the other side of the screen door is attractive, in a bohemian way. Long, curly brown hair, dangling earrings, a jean jacket, and a flowing skirt that brushes her ankles.

  “I’m Evangeline’s aunt Ramona,” she adds unnecessarily.

  Right. Calla glances at the sign. She’s RAMONA TAGGART, REGISTERED MEDIUM, to be more specific.

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “You, too.”

  “Is Evangeline here? I guess I’m a little early. . . . We’re supposed to hang out this afternoon.” And I want to use your computer.

  “She mentioned you’d be popping over. She should be back soon. Come on in and wait.”

  “Thanks.” Calla steps over the threshold and hands Ramona a foil-wrapped loa
f. “This is from my grandmother. She made it yesterday.”

  “Banana bread?”

  “How’d you know?”

  How do you think she knows? Calla asks herself, instantly irritated by her own question. She’s a medium, isn’t she? All mediums are psychic.

  Ramona merely says, however, in response to Calla’s inquiry, “That’s Odelia’s specialty. Whenever anyone in the Dale has overripe bananas, they send them her way and she sends back a loaf of banana bread. I never send bananas over—my nephew the bottomless pit eats them all before they get too ripe—but she sends us bread, anyway. She’s some cook, huh?”

  She nods politely. Her grandmother is pretty good in the kitchen. But Calla honestly hasn’t paid much attention to their meals lately, with everything else that’s been going on. She’s been preoccupied by the creepy events around here, not to mention exhausted. She didn’t sleep very well last night, to say the least.

  She’d had that dream again, about her mother and grandmother fighting. It woke her up . . . at exactly 3:17. Again.

  There are no coincidences. She read that line in one of the Lily Dale books from the library last night, and it’s stuck with her. So has an unsettling chapter about spirits disrupting electronic devices.

  Today, the clock is back to flashing 12:00. How can that be, if it was showing the right time in the middle of the night? When Calla asked Odelia, she said she hadn’t touched it. Even if she were lying about that a second time—why would she be?—Calla figures the clock would have held the time all along. It wouldn’t have shown 3:17 in the wee hours and gone back to flashing after sun-up.

  “Want to come into the den,” Ramona asks, “and talk to me while I paint?”

  “Okay.” Calla wishes she could get up the nerve to ask if she can check her e-mail.

  “So, Evangeline told me she showed you around,” Ramona tells her, leading the way into the house. Calla wonders if she also mentioned to her aunt that Calla was hoping to use their computer. Ramona doesn’t mention it, saying only, “What do you think of the Dale?”

  “It’s really nice,” Calla says lamely. “So . . . where did Evangeline go?”

  “What’s today, Friday?”

  “Thursday.”

  “Thursday. That’s Crystal Healing, I think.”

  “Crystal Healing?”

  “Evangeline’s Thursday class,” Ramona explains, as though that answers any question Calla could possibly have.

  Back home, sixteen-year-old girls take gymnastics lessons after school, Calla wants to say, but doesn’t. She follows Ramona through a living room very much like her grandmother’s next door, from the hardwood and antique moldings to the clutter everywhere. Housekeeping doesn’t appear to be Ramona Taggart’s strong suit any more than it is Odelia’s.

  At least she’s painting, though, Calla tells herself as Ramona opens the door to a room off the equally cluttered dining room. Odelia’s shabby rooms could use a paint job as well. But she can’t quite envision her grandmother in coveralls with a roller in hand.

  Come to think of it, Ramona isn’t wearing coveralls, either, and there isn’t a roller or paint tray in sight when they step into the den.

  What’s there is a computer. But it’s not even turned on, and Calla doesn’t feel comfortable asking about it. There’s also an easel. It’s set up in one corner, in a rectangle of rare afternoon sunlight falling through the back window.

  Oh. So she’s not painting the room. She’s painting . . . the garden?

  Stepping closer to the easel, Calla sees a half-finished outdoor scene that mirrors the view beyond the window. Sort of. There’s a bedraggled patch of sunflowers out there, and they’re in the painting. Sort of. There are stick-straight, towering green stalks and yellow-brown blobs, anyway. That tall black thing is probably the tree by the back fence, and the little white splotch must be the birdhouse hanging from its branch.

  “What do you think?” Ramona asks, coming up behind Calla to survey her own work, palette in hand. “I took some art lessons last winter.”

  So, paranormal studies aren’t the only kind offered around here. That’s encouraging, Calla thinks, as she tells Ramona, “I don’t know much about painting, but it’s pretty good.”

  “You’re right, you don’t know much about painting . . . it’s awful.” Ramona laughs.

  “I don’t think it’s awful.” Not that awful, anyway.

  “Sure it is. But I can’t help it. It’s so windy around here, everything keeps moving around all the time. And I can’t get the light right. It’s never consistent. Just when I think I’ve got it, the sun will go behind a cloud, or it will suddenly burst through on a cloudy day. The weather here is just so unpredictable, you know?”

  Calla nods vehemently. She can’t seem to get a handle on how to dress. She’ll put on a sweatshirt and jacket only to strip them off layer by layer when it starts to feel muggy. Or she’ll wake up in a warm room and put shorts on, and by afternoon a cold wind covers her bare limbs in goose bumps.

  If only the wind were the only thing around here that brings on goose bumps.

  “I never should have tried to show the flowers standing straight and tall that way,” Ramona is saying, studying her artwork. “I should have just stuck with them the way they are. Droopy. They don’t look real the way I painted them, do they?”

  “Not really,” Calla confesses, sensing that Ramona wants an honest opinion.

  “There you go . . . now you’re being straightforward. Just like your mom,” Ramona adds with a laugh, catching Calla completely off guard. “She always shot straight from the hip. That was one of the great things about her.”

  “My mom?” she echoes.

  Of course! Of course Ramona would have known Mom. Evangeline mentioned that her aunt grew up in this house. Why hadn’t Calla thought of her before?

  Because you hadn’t even met her, that’s why. Now that she has . . .

  “Were you and my mom friends?” she asks, trying not to come across as if she’s pouncing on Ramona. “When she lived here, I mean. Years ago.”

  “Oh, Stephanie was a few years older than I was. I have to say, she was always sweet to me,” Ramona adds with a fond, faraway smile, picking up the paintbrush again, “even though she thought I was a pain in the—well, you know how it is with pesky little kids hanging around.”

  Actually, Calla doesn’t know how it is. She’s an only child, and none of her geriatric neighbors back home in Florida have kids. Not kids who are younger than Calla, anyway. Or younger than thirty, for that matter.

  “No, I don’t know how it is, but I can imagine,” she murmurs, trying to picture Ramona Taggart as a pesky pain to a teenage Stephanie’s butt.

  “My brother Shawn—he was Evangeline’s dad—was a few years older than Steph, and I think he thought of her the same way she thought of me,” Ramona goes on with a sad smile. “I still haven’t gotten used to his being gone, you know . . . and now, there’s no way I can grasp that Stephanie is, too. The last time I saw her, she was about your age—and she looked just like you, by the way. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Lots of people have,” Calla admits as Ramona dabs at the canvas with the brush, “but no one who knew her when she was actually my age.”

  “Well, I did. And you could be her at . . . how old are you? Seventeen?”

  “Yes. Did she have . . . a boyfriend? Back then?” She tries to keep the question casual, though she holds her breath for the reply.

  “She had quite a few, from what I remember. She was beautiful, and fun, and—just the kind of person everyone wanted to be around. You know what I mean?”

  Calla nods, suddenly missing her mother. Desperately. She feels a fresh wave of grief coming over her. She turns toward the window, trying not to blink and let the tears spill over.

  “Calla . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I know what it’s like to lose a mother. I lost mine a few years ago.”

  At least you had her until you were g
rown up.

  “Evangeline knows, too,” Ramona adds softly.

  At least she was too little to know what was happening at the time, Calla finds herself thinking, no longer empathetic toward Evangeline for being orphaned so young. She said she doesn’t even remember the accident. At least she isn’t stuck with this horrible gory image that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

  Never in her life has Calla felt so utterly alone.

  You feel like nobody has ever been in your shoes before, don’t you? Nobody’s heart has ever been broken this badly before.

  That’s her mother’s voice, echoing in her head.

  Those are things her mother said when Kevin dumped Calla, just a few months ago. She could have been referring to how Calla’s feeling now, though.

  Listen, other people have gone through this, and worse, Calla. They’ve survived. And you’ll survive. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how alone you feel, you’ll get through it. I promise you. And I’ll always be here for you.

  Her voice choked with a sob, Calla manages to say, as she pushes past Ramona, “Can you . . . can you tell Evangeline I couldn’t stay?”

  “Sure, but . . . are you—?”

  “I just . . . I need . . . to go home. I’m sorry.”

  With that, she runs from the house. Outside, though, she falters at the foot of the steps. A cool breeze whispers in the boughs overhead. Calla looks up, blinded by the sun and her tears.

  I need to go home.

  But Odelia’s house isn’t home. Lily Dale isn’t home. Even Tampa isn’t home anymore.

  She squeezes her eyes shut, hot tears spilling down her cheeks.

  Mom . . . help me, Mommy.Where do I go? What do I do? I’m so lost.

  She spins around blindly, opens her eyes again . . . and finds herself looking at the lake.

  Standing on the grassy shore, in the distance, she can clearly see the outline of a woman in the glare of the sun.

  ELEVEN

  Calla takes off running toward the lake, her eyes fastened on the woman standing beside the shimmering water. She doesn’t dare look away.