Discovering

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Sweetie, I’ll tell him you called, but when he gets back he’s got to work on his project, and I have a feeling he’s not going to be done until midnight. So if it’s not an emergency . . . ?”

  “No,”Calla admits, “it’s not. I just wanted”— more like desperately needed—“to talk to him. But it can wait till school tomorrow.”

  She hangs up, considers calling Evangeline, and decides against it. Ramona mentioned that she, too, is working on her project. And anyway, Calla does have that English essay to write.

  But it takes her several hours to get anything down, and she’s pretty sure, when she turns off the light and climbs into bed, that it doesn’t make much sense.

  Nothing makes sense.

  What her mother and Darrin did wasn’t just immoral. It was illegal.

  Was that why Mom and Odelia argued over it?

  And . . .

  Was there really any doubt whether Darrin actually dumped the baby into the lake?

  She keeps remembering the spot Aiyana led her to a few weeks ago, in Leolyn Woods. Lilies of the valley were inexplicably blooming there. In October.

  And there was a rock, standing upright.

  Like an unmarked tombstone.

  “She isn’t there,”Aiyana said cryptically when Calla found it.

  At the time, she had no idea what her spirit guide meant.

  Now, though, she wonders.

  She wonders about a lot of things.

  Lying in bed, the lace curtains billowing lightly at the open window, she hears the screen door creak below.

  Ramona and her father call good night to Odelia.

  “Thanks for the banana bread. See you two tomorrow.”

  You two.

  As if they’re a couple.

  Maybe they aren’t yet.

  But they will be, Calla acknowledges as the sound of their laughter floats up through the window.

  TEN

  Lily Dale

  Wednesday, October 10

  12:53 p.m.

  As always, Calla keeps an eye out for Jacy as she goes through the cafeteria line.

  She needs to tell him what she learned yesterday. About Mom and Darrin . . . and their dead baby.

  The baby they hid in the murky bottom of Cassadaga Lake.

  No wonder her grandmother didn’t want Calla to set foot in that water. The warning had nothing to do with any premonition about Sharon Logan trying to drown her.

  No wonder she and Mom were talking about dredging the lake.

  They were talking about finding the baby’s remains there.

  Why, though?

  Was there any doubt about the child’s final resting place?

  Calla can’t stop thinking about the little grave Aiyana showed her in the woods just last week, in a spot where lilies of the valley was somehow blooming at the wrong time of year.

  Jacy . . . where are you?

  Calla dumps chickpeas on her salad and scans the big, crowded room.

  No sign of him.

  They share the same lunch period, but Jacy often skips it in favor of slipping out of school for a while. Of course, that’s against the rules, but he doesn’t seem to care.

  “Sometimes, I just need to get outdoors and breathe,”he told Calla when she asked him why he’s willing to risk getting caught and being assigned to in- school detention . . . not that he ever has been.

  Yesterday, she skipped with him after finding a note stuck in the vents at the top of her locker door:

  Meet me for lunch.

  She didn’t have to ask where.

  He’d brought them a couple of peanut butter sandwiches. They ate them sitting on a fallen log in the overgrown thicket behind the school. Jacy fed most of his to a chipmunk that came over and actually ate out of his hand.

  “You’re like Snow White or something,”Calla had told him with a grin.

  “Snow White?”He’d raised a dark eyebrow at her. “Snow White?”

  “You know, she was always surrounded by forest creatures.”

  “So was Tarzan. And he was a lot more manly than Snow White,”Jacy had said, and they laughed.

  Jacy has always seemed most comfortable in the great outdoors, moving through the woods as easily as most people walk through their own living room.

  But when he’s sitting across the aisle from Calla in math class, he always seems restless in his seat, and sometimes she catches him staring longingly out the window.

  Now, as she pays the cashier and carries her tray toward her usual table, she concludes that he’s not in the cafeteria today. Why would he be?

  Indian summer has definitely settled over Lily Dale.

  Again this morning, Calla awoke to find the sun shining; again, she left her coat behind.

  And again, her father was lounging on the Taggarts’ front porch with a cup of coffee— and Ramona— when she headed off to school.

  It was nice to see him there . . . sort of.

  But Calla is starting to wonder if she’d rather he stayed at Odelia’s, despite the close quarters. It’s kind of strange to have him around . . . but not around.

  This morning when she and Evangeline were walking to school together, Calla almost asked her friend again what she thought about all of this.

  But Evangeline had a lot to say.

  Most of it about Russell Lancione.

  They’d talked on the phone for over an hour last night while she was supposed to be working on her project— which she wound up throwing together at the last minute, before her aunt got home. He’d asked her to study together again tonight, and Evangeline was starting to like him– like him.

  Which was great for her, and great for Russell, and great for Calla, too— not just because she wants her friend to be happy, but because it takes some of the pressure off her dating Jacy.

  Still, Evangeline in love—or, okay, just in like-like—is even more talkative than the usual Evangeline. Who could be pretty talkative.

  Calla has barely gotten a word in edgewise since they made up.

  That’s probably a good thing, because what if Calla were to mention her mother’s secret past to Evangeline and Evangeline slipped and told her aunt and her aunt went and told Dad, or he even just happened to overhear?

  That would not be good.

  So far, the only ones who know there even was a baby are Jacy and Odelia. And Jacy’s definitely not talkative under any circumstances, so it’s safe with him.

  Right, so it’s better this way—Evangeline wrapped up in Russell, and not asking too many questions about what happened in Florida. All she knows so far is that a woman broke into the Delaneys’ house there and attacked Calla.

  That’s more than her friends Willow York and Sarita Abernathie know .

  But now, when she deposits her lunch tray on their usual table and starts to sit down, she can’t help but notice that they suddenly stop talking.

  Exactly the way people do when the person they’re talking about suddenly appears.

  Back when she first met beautiful, brainy Willow— who happens to be a recent ex-girlfriend of Blue Slayton— Calla mistook her reserved nature for standoffishness. Then Mr. Bombeck assigned her as Calla’s math study partner, and she found an unexpected friend in Willow— and her lovable, ailing mom, Althea.

  “Hi, Calla,”Sarita says as she sits down.

  Willow says nothing at all. Which is unusual.

  “What’s up?”Calla unwraps her fork, trying to sound casual, wondering if Willow has suddenly had a change of heart about Blue or something.

  That would be fine with Calla. Whatever was going on between her and Blue came to an end the night before homecoming, when Jacy kissed her for the first time.

  Or maybe it’s not about Blue.

  Maybe they, too, have heard about the Florida detectives who came to see Patsy Metcalf yesterday.

  “Nothing’s up, just . . .”Sarita flashes a mouthful of metal in a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You know . The usual stuff. Rig
ht, Willow?”

  She shoots a look at Willow, who, Calla notices, seems awfully interested in removing the label from her water bottle. “Right.”Her straight dark hair falls across her face like a curtain.

  “Like what stuff?”

  “You know . . . school stuff.”Sarita gives Calla such an exaggerated shrug that the long earrings dangling beneath her sleek short haircut come to rest horizontally on her shoulders.

  “What kind of school stuff?”

  “For one thing, the board of education is trying to take away our right to have bake- sale fundraisers. Did you hear?”

  “No.”And Calla’s pretty sure that that’s not what Sarita and Willow were just talking about.

  “Well, it’s true. I’m going to start a petition. But not today, because I have a major social studies test tomorrow afternoon and my parents will kill me if I don’t get at least an A.”

  “At least?”

  “You know my parents.”

  Yeah. Calla does know Sarita’s parents. They head a family of overachievers, albeit “mere mortals,”who live outside Lily Dale’s gates. Sarita’s brother is in medical school, her sister is a sophomore at Yale, and Sarita is hell-bent on going Ivy, too.

  “That reminds me,”Calla says. “Did either of you finish making your lists of reach schools, target schools, and safety schools for Mrs. Erskine? Because I have to meet with her tomorrow.”

  “I did that last week,”Sarita says, “but right now I feel like my safety schools are reach schools unless I get my act together.”

  “Yeah . . . same here,”Calla says.

  Willow looks up at last. She’s as model- gorgeous as ever, but Calla is startled to see that her dark eyes are rimmed with red, as if she’s been crying. “Calla, did your dad freak about your math grade?”

  “Not really. He pretty much just said I need to work harder on it.”

  “That’s it?”Willow asks. “You thought he was going to make a big deal about it.”

  “I know . Luckily he didn’t.”She wonders whether to mention Ramona popping over in the midst of the discussion, and decides not to. “He just said he’s going to help me study now that he’s around.”

  “Is that a good thing,”Sarita asks, “or a bad thing?”

  “Are you kidding? I can use all the help I can get. Between Willow and my dad, I might be able to not fail the next test.”

  “About that . . .”Willow trails off and looks at Sarita, who gives a slight nod.

  “I’m going to go to the library and start studying,”Sarita announces, pushing her chair back. “I’ll see you guys later.”

  Uh- oh. Something’s up.

  Willow gets right to the point. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you this week, really. My, um, my mom . . . she’s in the hospital.”

  Oh.

  Oh, no.

  I should have known.

  From the moment Calla met Althea York, she had sensed that the woman was ill.

  “What happened?”she asks, trying not to betray the tide of dread sweeping through her.

  Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Althea slipped and fell and broke her arm or something.

  “Cancer. She was getting chemo but the treatments stopped working last summer.”

  Calla feels as though someone just hit her in the stomach with a two- by-four.

  “But . . . I mean, there are so many new drugs, aren’t there? I thought—”

  “No, it’s too late for her.”Willow holds her head stoically high. “She doesn’t have much time left. The doctors say there’s nothing else they can do.”

  “Oh, Willow . . .”

  “You and Sarita are the only ones who know .”

  “Oh, Willow . . .”Without stopping to think, Calla throws her arms around her friend. “I’m so sorry.”

  Willow’s thin frame is shaking violently, and Calla feels her tears dampening her own shoulder.

  Somehow, all around them, the usual cafeteria chaos continues. Nobody is aware of Willow’s tragedy.

  But I know . I know what it’s like to lose your mother.

  Calla, too, is crying.

  “What am I going to do?”Willow pulls back and wipes her face with a napkin Calla hands her. “How can I live without her?”

  “You can.”

  “No.”Willow sobs into the napkin. “I can’t.”

  “You can. You will.”

  “No . . .”

  Calla grips both of Willow’s bony shoulders. “Look at me. Please.”

  Willow looks at her, desolate. Her face is ravaged with a pain that’s all too familiar to Calla.

  “You’ll go on. You’ll live without her. You have to. I mean, think about it. What’s the alternative?”

  “I’m so afraid.”

  “I know . It’s awful. It’s so awful, and hard and unfair, but . . . you’ll survive. I promise. Listen, if I can, you can.”She grabs her friend’s hand and squeezes it. “I’ll help you get through it.”

  “I don’t want to be alone.”

  Her voice is so small. So frightened. So familiar.

  “You aren’t alone, Willow.”

  “I really am, without her. But I don’t turn eighteen until January. What am I supposed to do until then? Go live with my father and his new wife and ruin their perfect new family?”

  “He just lives down in Dunkirk, right? That’s only a few miles away. You could still—”

  “No. He doesn’t want me.”

  “Sure, he does.”

  “No. He’s not like your father. Do you know what he said when I called him last night and asked if he could meet me at the hospital because Mom had just been rushed there in an ambulance?”

  “What?”

  “He said that he’d see what he could do, because he and his wife had to go to open house at his daughter’s school. He’d see what he could do,”she repeats, shaking her head in disgust.

  “Did he show up?”

  “Yeah, for, like, two minutes. Then he asked me what time I thought I’d be done there, because if I was going to sleep at his house, they wouldn’t have to get a babysitter after all while they were at open house.”

  “So . . . did you stay there? And babysit?”

  “No. I stayed in the hospital.”

  Calla swallows a lump in her throat, picturing Willow curled up in a hospital bed in the middle of the night, beside her dying mother.

  “How did you get back here?”

  “I have my mom’s car. I’m going back there after school, too. I’m staying tonight, and every night until . . .”

  She can’t say it.

  “Willow . . .”Calla can’t say it, either. “Listen, you can’t move into the hospital. That’s . . .”

  What? Crazy? Unhealthy? Heartbreaking?

  “I can’t leave her. And I’m not going to stay at my father’s,”she adds defiantly, “or . . . home. Alone.”

  “You can come stay with me and my grandmother.”

  “Yesterday you said that your dad has to stay next door because you don’t have any room.”

  “I meant for him. You can stay in my room, with me. My grandmother borrowed a cot from Andy when my friend Lisa came to stay, and—”

  “That’s sweet, Calla.”Willow flashes a sad smile. “But I can’t leave my mother. I need to be with her.”

  Her voice breaks, and suddenly, she looks ten years younger. Tears stream down her face again.

  “I need my mother. I can’t lose her.”

  Calla has no more words of comfort.

  “I know,”is all she can say, over and over. “I know .”

  “Hey, what brings you out here?”Jacy makes room for Calla on the moss- covered fallen log.

  “You.”She sinks down beside him. “I need you and I figured this was where you’d be.”

  “I need you, too—but I never thought you’d come out here two days in a row. You don’t like to break the rules. Skipping lunch. Kissing guys in the woods when you’re supposed to be in school. .
. .”

  “I’m not—”

  “Oh, yeah, you are.”He pulls her close and his lips meet hers.

  It’s tempting— so tempting— for Calla to forget all about everything but Jacy, right here, right now. That would be the easiest, and probably the healthiest, thing to do. It’s what she would have done a few months ago, when she was just a normal girl surrounded by others who were just like her, kids with intact families and enough money, kids who didn’t know things they couldn’t, shouldn’t possibly know, about the past or the future or other people’s lives in this world or the next.

  But Calla is no longer that girl, and she needs to talk to Jacy. Now.

  She forces herself to break the kiss, to pull back, out of his embrace, to look away, at the trees, at the overcast sky, at the sparse hint of sun struggling to break through.

  She thinks about her friend Althea, dying in a hospital bed. And Willow, who left the cafeteria with tears in her eyes, saying she wanted to be alone for a while. And that poor little baby, lying stiff in a blanket, weighed down with rocks in a watery grave.

  “You found out more about your mother.”

  Startled, she looks up at Jacy. “How did you know?”

  He smiles faintly. “A little bird told me. Like Snow White. What’s up?”

  She tells him. As she talks, he stops eating.

  “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard,”he says when she finishes.

  “The worst thing?”

  “Okay, maybe not. It would have been worse if . . .”

  “If what?”she asks when he trails off, narrowing his eyes.

  “You know, if . . . the baby hadn’t died of natural causes.”

  Calla’s stomach turns over. “But it did. I mean, it died at birth.”

  “You know that because . . . ?”

  “Because that’s what she wrote. That’s what Darrin told her.”

  Jacy remains silent.

  “You don’t think they killed the baby, do you? Because I know my mother—”Even as the words spill from her lips, Calla wonders how true they are.

  She doesn’t know her mother. Not anymore.

  “I don’t think she killed the baby,”Jacy says, to her relief.

  “You think Darrin did?”