“And so am I,” Virginia says. “But that will be our little secret, okay, cuz?”
He agrees, and their conversation shifts to the weekend’s schedule of events.
Realizing, belatedly, that she has no business eavesdropping, Bella pulls the sheet of paper from her back pocket and rereads the message.
Please do everything in your power to stop this wedding.
Does it have something to do with what she just overheard?
Her first instinct is to tell someone—Odelia—immediately. But Odelia has a way of jumping to conclusions. She’ll undoubtedly assume that her vision really does foreshadow a wedding-day disaster. She’ll want to warn Johneen.
Maybe Bella misinterpreted the conversation.
She runs through the details again in her mind, trying to remember the precise wording. To her ear, it sounded like the bridal couple, specifically Johneen, might be in some kind of danger.
Hearing the front door open and close again, Bella hastily shoves the paper back into her pocket.
“I was about to run upstairs to make sure the room is all set for you,” she tells Virginia. “It’s made up, but I wasn’t expecting anyone in it, so—”
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be just fine, thanks.”
Chatting companionably, Parker and Virginia go upstairs. She leaves him to enter his suite on the second floor and continues on up to the third.
Long after the two doors have opened and closed, Bella remains standing there, trying to figure out what to do. She needs to run this by someone trustworthy. But if not Odelia, then whom?
Not her other medium friends or anyone living here in the Dale, where gossip is as plentiful as colorful foliage at this relatively idle time of year.
She considers telling Drew but quickly dismisses that idea, too. They’re friends, but not the kind who share personal dilemmas or call each other for advice.
The one person in whom she might safely confide—the one person who’d know what to do in this situation—is Luther Rand. Living ten miles away in Dunkirk, he’s well-removed from the Dale’s daily grind but is no stranger to what goes on around here. He met Odelia years ago when she volunteered her psychic services to help him solve a case, and they’ve since joined forces on others.
Odelia had mentioned that he’s up in Canada tonight, and his phone is probably turned off to avoid international roaming charges. He instructed Bella to do the same when they crossed the border last month.
She dials his number anyway, hoping he’ll pick up.
He doesn’t.
She hesitates, then opts not to leave a message. There’s no immediate danger, and most likely, no danger at all.
But who, she wonders, could have followed the bride and groom here?
Is it the same person who mailed the note? And what—other than Bella getting to stay in Lily Dale—might happen if the wedding goes on as planned?
Chapter Six
Friday evening, Bella stands in a cluster of round tables beneath the gingko trees’ daffodil-colored foliage, trying to put her mind at ease.
The weather is unseasonably balmy, perfect for an outdoor dinner. The temperature has risen over the past few hours, and the breeze off the lake is more temperate than on a typical August evening around here.
The shore is tranquil without the summer crowds. There are no bugs. The overhead branches have dropped enough leaves to allow a view of the dusky sky. Stars are beginning to glitter even as “Stardust” floats over the speakers she propped in a back window.
According to Odelia, Spirit has been known to manipulate electronics.
“Did you ever hear a song come on the radio at just the right moment?” she asked once. “That’s Spirit.”
How often, since Sam died, has Bella been driving along thinking of him when suddenly, she hears a song that reminds her of him?
Then again, every song reminds her of him, and she thinks of him all the time, so . . .
“I find it hard to believe that Spirit manipulates the radio to send messages from the Other Side,” she told Odelia.
Electromagnetic energy is one thing, but paranormal deejays defy logic.
“You find many things hard to believe. But the next time you hear a song that suits the moment, it might not be so random after all. Remember that.”
Bella remembers that. She remembers pretty much everything Odelia has told her about the how things work in the Spirit world and here in the Dale.
But there’s nothing mystical about the fact that “Stardust” is playing just as the purple dusk of twilight falls over the Dale. The music is coming from her own iPod, courtesy of the wedding playlist of romantic Great American Songbook standards provided by Johneen and dutifully compiled by Bella herself.
She looks around, wishing the weather would hold out through tomorrow night. It’s hard to imagine a violent storm roaring through the peaceful setting like a freight train, but anything can happen in twenty-four hours.
She can only hope the snow will be the right shade of white for Johneen’s taste.
Dozens of candles flicker in mason jars on the tables and hang in the trees. The tables are set with ivory linen cloths, crystal goblets, and Limoges china. The centerpieces are simple but festive: vases of yellow and white roses clustered on the most colorful golden leaves Max and Jiffy could find. As dusk descended, she promised them a nickel per leaf and now owes them enough money to buy “ice cream cones for, like, twenty years!” according to Max.
“Forty years, with waffle cones and sprinkles!” Jiffy amended. Then he asked, “How much do you pay for finding kittens? That should be worth way more than a leaf. Especially since he’s blue.”
“A blue kitten?” Bella asked doubtfully.
“Yep, bright blue. Like your eyes, by the way,” added Jiffy, ever the charmer.
“Can we keep him, Mom?”
“I think we have enough kittens for the time being,” she told Max.
“But we don’t have any blue ones.”
Because there’s no such thing as a blue kitten! Bella wanted to shout, but Max was so earnest, and this is Lily Dale. You just never know.
The boys insisted the kitten was hiding in Odelia’s garden, camouflaged by the blue morning glories. They attempted to lure him out with preternaturally shrill “Here, kitty-kitty-kitties.”
Bella wasn’t surprised that a bright blue kitten failed to emerge. Now Max and Jiffy are on the back steps eating hot dogs and potato chips—a quickie dinner she whipped up instead of sending them next door to dine at Odelia’s kitchen table as planned. She didn’t want to risk any chance encounters with Maleficent just yet.
Earlier, Odelia reported that Maleficent had been upstairs lying down ever since she arrived.
“Travel took a lot out of her,” she told Bella as they set up the rented folding chairs and round tables. “But she isn’t so horrible. She really seems to care about Max. She said she can’t wait to get her hands on him.”
It might be a typical thing for a grandmother to say, but the words struck a fearful chord in Bella. If the boys hadn’t been in earshot, she would have asked Odelia whether she senses anything malevolent about Maleficent’s unexpected visit.
It isn’t that she thinks her mother-in-law is planning to kidnap her son and take him back to Chicago. Surely if that were the case, Odelia would be receiving warnings from Spirit.
Unless she can only tune into one potential disaster at a time? She’s still preoccupied with the fact that Jacy didn’t stay for the wedding. She didn’t even bring up Spirit’s cryptic warnings about Johneen again. If she had, Bella might have felt compelled to mention the note and the overheard conversation.
Maybe she’s just paranoid. Maybe the note really was Odelia’s misguided attempt to sabotage the wedding. And maybe Bella read something into Parker’s conversation with Johneen that wasn’t there.
Yes, and she probably imagined Millicent’s deceitful expression too, because she’s so used to thinking of her as th
e enemy. And because if they were on better terms, she might be guiltily inclined to move to Chicago after all.
In this moment, listening to “Stardust,” Max and Jiffy’s cheerful conversation, and the gently lapping night water, she can’t think of a single reason to ever leave the Dale.
She checks her watch and calls, “Time to head home, Jiffy.”
“My mom said I can stay as long as I want.”
Bella doesn’t doubt that, and ordinarily she’d let him stick around for a while longer. But tonight, she needs Max upstairs and ready for bed before the bride and groom appear.
She sends her son inside, then walks Jiffy across Odelia’s yard to his own back door, ignoring his protests that he doesn’t need an escort.
“I don’t like you wandering around here after dark alone.”
“Because there are kidnappers.”
“No, it’s not that.” She wishes she could see his expression, wondering if he read her mind when she was thinking about Millicent and Max or if he’s had some sort of premonition. “There aren’t any kidnappers around here, Jiffy.”
Instead of reassuring her, he says, “I dreamed about it.”
“You dreamed about what?”
“About a kidnapper.”
Coming from any other kid, that would mean nothing. But from Jiffy—who last summer shared an eerily accurate, dreamlike vision of Leona Gatto’s murder—it’s unsettling.
Then Jiffy goes on, “But don’t worry. In the dream where I get kidnapped, it’s cold and snowy and it’s not October.”
“You get kidnapped?”
“Yep. But it’s not that scary, ’cause I’m brave. See you tomorrow, Bella.” Jiffy skips into his house.
Frowning, Bella returns to her own yard and idly flicks a fallen gingko leaf off one of the gold-rimmed Limoges plates.
Her ten settings would have been enough after Jacy backed out. But when Parker’s cousin Virginia made her last-minute appearance, Bella had to include the tag-sale lookalike, which isn’t as identical as Odelia had claimed. She confirms that it’s nowhere near the seat reserved for Johneen, who will undoubtedly zero in on it with a critical eye.
“Wow. Everything looks beautiful,” a voice says.
She jumps, then turns to see Calla behind her. Her face is made up, her hair is loose and wavy, and she’s changed into a flattering red dress with a scoop neckline.
“Do you need anything from the store?” she asks Bella. “I forgot my contact lens solution.”
“I’m sure there’s some in the lost and found in the second-floor hallway.”
Guests tend to leave behind everything from toiletries to phone chargers to underpants. The latter goes into the trash, but Bella collects the rest into a big basket marked “Forget something? Help yourself!”
“That’s okay,” Calla says. “I need a certain kind.”
“You sure? You’ll have to go all the way down the road to Cassadaga.”
“I don’t mind. Can I pick up anything for you?”
“No, thanks. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m all set for tonight and tomorrow.” Weather, cryptic threats, and Millicent aside.
“That’s good. And by the way, in case no one else mentions it, you did a nice job out here. It looks beautiful.”
Bella smiles and thanks her, quite certain no one else—namely, the bride and groom—will offer that compliment.
Jangling her car keys, Calla turns to go, then looks back. “Bella? I know Johnny’s been driving you crazy.”
“Did you just read my mind?”
She smiles. “Pretty much. But listen, I wouldn’t be friends with her if she were all bad, so . . .”
“I figured that. She’s probably had a rough life.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“So she’s not a poor little rich girl?”
“No! She’s a rich little rich girl. She comes from old money. Brattiness is the family legacy. Even her parents are spoiled rotten. And they don’t get along.”
“You mean her parents, with each other?”
“I mean all of them. Most families argue and then they kiss and make up. But the Maynards—they don’t kiss, they don’t make up, they don’t even talk. It doesn’t seem to bother them, though. That’s just the way it is.”
Is that what Virginia and Parker were talking about, then? Are they worried that some loose-cannon relative might show up and ruin the wedding?
Would that be ominous enough that Parker’s cousin found it necessary to be here to help him protect Johneen?
“I hope Johneen can break the pattern with this marriage, but she hasn’t made the best choices when it comes to relationships.” Calla looks over her shoulder, making sure no one has come up behind her before adding in a lower voice, “I really don’t know Parker, so maybe I’m wrong, but . . . I’m not sold.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I’m sure he’s a decent human being, but he’s probably too much like Johneen for Johneen’s own good. Opposites attract for a reason.”
Bella can’t help but think of Sam. “Yes, but sometimes similar souls can be soul mates.”
“I used to think that. Now . . . I’m not so sure.” Calla looks so wistful that Bella almost asks her about Jacy.
But then the keys make the restless clanking again. “I’d better run, Bella. Tell Gammy I’ll be back soon, in case I miss the beginning of the party.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time. The market is right down the road. Just go out through the gates, make a left, and follow Dale Drive all the way into town, make another left, and—”
“Oh, I know where it is.”
“Sorry, I keep forgetting you grew up here. You seem so . . .”
Calla grins. “You were going to say ‘normal,’ weren’t you?”
She was, but . . .
“I don’t suppose a polite lie would work on you?”
“Nope. But don’t worry, I’m used to it. Whenever people find out where I’m from, if they’ve heard of the Dale, they ask if I’m ‘one of them.’”
“A medium?”
“Right. And if I admit that I am, then they always say . . .”
Bella completes the sentence in unison with her: “But you seem so normal!”
Calla laughs. “Right. So if you’re worried about Max growing up here—”
“I’m not.” Anymore, she adds silently. But her mother-in-law certainly will be when she figures out exactly what goes on in the Dale.
“By the way, Bella, I really am thinking of adopting a kitten. Max said I can choose, other than the little black one—Wilbur, I think his name is?”
“No, that’s Spidey. But Max probably mentioned that he was a runt just like Wilbur, the pig in Charlotte’s Web.”
“Right, that’s exactly what he said. He also mentioned that it’s fine if I decide not to adopt a kitten after all, because he’d like to keep them all together.”
“Oh, he did, did he? Well, feel free to adopt one. Or two. Or half a dozen.”
“He also offered me a blue kitten, but I didn’t see that one. Max said he was outside hiding in my grandmother’s garden.”
“So I’ve heard. Does Jacy like cats?”
Her smile dims. “He does. But not just because he . . . likes cats. He was raised to believe that they’re mystical creatures. He said that they turn up in our lives when they seem to need us most, when they’re sick or young or vulnerable . . .”
“Or lost and pregnant,” Bella says, thinking of Chance.
“Exactly. But usually, it turns out to be the other way around. They show up and make us care for them in times when we need them. They possess powerful healing energy.”
It isn’t the first time Bella has heard that—and not just in this place where people converse with the dead, believe they’ve lived a dozen lifetimes, and navigate the world aided by ancient Spirit guides.
Last winter, Max’s very respectable and intellectual child
psychiatrist suggested that a pet might help him work through his grief. He cited scientific studies that suggested cuddling a cat would boost brain chemicals that help ward off depression.
That, of course, is medicine, not magic. Last year when Sam was dying, Bella didn’t believe in either of those things. But here in the Dale, the two seem to collide fairly often in a way that almost—almost—makes sense.
Watching Calla leave, Bella wonders whether Odelia’s granddaughter, too, might need emotional healing. Her longtime relationship with Jacy seems to have hit a rough patch, or perhaps run its course. Is she trying to hang on, or trying to let go?
I was doing both when I got to Lily Dale. I couldn’t imagine a new life anywhere, let alone here, without Sam.
Yet the days kept coming, and she always managed to move through them, past them.
“When Sunny Gets Blue” plays softly over the speakers, with its lyrics about the rain beginning to fall.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter . . .
Bella takes one last look at the tranquil lake and starlit sky, and in this calm before the storm, she heads toward the house to try reaching Luther again.
* * *
An hour later, Luther still isn’t answering, the bride is late for her celebratory dinner, and Calla has yet to return from the store.
The other guests are gathered on the lawn beneath moon- and candlelit trees.
Maid of honor Liz is, like the bride herself, a willowy, attractive blonde. She doesn’t say much, and Bella isn’t sure whether she’s shy or standoffish. Her square-jawed fiancé, Ryan, is neither. He’s already cornered Bella in two lengthy conversations and managed to drop his Ivy League degree into both with the subtlety of an air horn in a library.
Francesca and Tanya are Johneen and Calla’s former college suitemates. Tall, stocky, brunette Frankie, as she prefers to be called, coaches women’s hockey at a college in Buffalo. Tanya is a married dental hygienist who is already wistfully missing her husband and six-month-old daughter.
“I haven’t been away from Emily for more than a couple of hours since she was born, and Jack and I haven’t spent a night apart since we were married,” she confided in Bella, who did her best to muster an appropriate amount of sympathy.
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