Discovering

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Looks like Odelia’s not home yet,”Dad observes, looking up at the darkened house and empty driveway beside it.

  “No, she had an appointment. She probably won’t be home until later.”

  Much later. Her grandmother is conducting a home message circle in Westfield tonight, and those can go till all hours.

  “She sure has a lot of appointments, doesn’t she?”Dad looks thoughtful.

  “Yeah, well . . . she’s busy.”

  “Counseling people.”

  “Right.”

  It’s not a lie. That is what Odelia does for a living. She just never specified to Dad what kind of counseling it is that she does.

  “You know . . .”He turns off the engine and rubs the spot where his beard used to be. “Ramona is a counselor, too.”

  “I know, Dad.”Calla furtively puts her hand on the door handle, not wanting to make it obvious that she’s trying to escape the conversation.

  “That’s pretty coincidental, don’t you think? Two counselors, living next door to each other?”

  “I don’t know . . . not really.”She starts to open the door.

  “Calla.”

  Uh- oh.

  “Yeah?”

  “Your grandmother and Ramona . . . they’re not just regular counselors, are they.”It isn’t a question.

  “Ramona told you that?”

  “No. I figured it out all by myself.”He gives her a tight smile. “And I guess I’m right. They’re . . . what do they call themselves?”

  “Not ‘New- Age freaks.’ ”She can’t help but be relieved— not just that he’s smiling at all, but that it’s out in the open at last.

  “So what are they? Psychic counselors?”

  “That pretty much sums it up. How did you figure it out?”

  “For one thing, a lot of people around here seem to have signs on their houses advertising themselves as psychic counselors, and the like. I saw the empty bracket at Ramona’s, and the bracket with that potted plant here—”He gestures at Odelia’s porch, where a tired, straggly looking chrysanthemum hangs in place of the shingle that reads ODELIA LAUDER, REGISTERED MEDIUM.

  “I don’t have to be a so-called psychic myself to have figured out that something is conspicuously missing,”Dad tells her.

  So-called psychic.

  Calla tries not to let the note of skepticism bother her. After all, she reacted the same way when she first arrived in the Dale.

  “For another thing,”Dad goes on, “Ramona likes to talk. A lot,”he adds, but not without affection. “She’s the type who doesn’t hold anything back, you know?”

  “I know .”

  “But when it comes to talking about her work . . . well, I haven’t been able to get her to open up about what, exactly, she does. She always manages to change the subject.”

  “She doesn’t want you to know, Dad. Gammy doesn’t, either.”

  “Why not?”

  “I guess they were worried you wouldn’t like it.”

  “So they were protecting themselves—and you. Is that it?”

  “I guess so,”she says reluctantly, marveling at the fact that they’re still sitting here talking about this, instead of packing their bags and making plane reservations.

  Dad nods, still rubbing his phantom beard.

  He still doesn’t know about me.

  Should she tell him?

  He seems to be taking this pretty well.

  Then again—it’s one thing for him to know that Odelia and Ramona are practicing mediums.

  It’s another for him to find out that his own daughter is dabbling in spiritualism.

  “Does it bother you?”he asks, turning to look at Calla at last. “That they do what they do?”

  “Why would it?”She shrugs. “I respect it, just like I’d respect any other career.”

  “I just don’t like the idea of anyone taking money from naive strangers who believe in all this stuff.”

  There are so many things wrong with that statement that Calla doesn’t know where to begin.

  “Dad, people come to them willingly. Some of them come back over and over again, so they’re not strangers. And they’re not naive. And it’s not like Gammy and Ramona are con artists preying on innocent people. I mean . . . geez, Dad, look around you.”She indicates Odelia’s modest cottage, and Ramona’s next door. “Does it look like they’re rolling in dough? Wouldn’t they be, if it was all a con game?”

  “Good point.”

  “They help people. That’s why they do it. Not for money.”

  “Okay. I guess it just bothers me that they have you believing in it, too.”

  “In what?”

  “You know . . . hocus- pocus.”

  “It’s not hocus-pocus, Dad. It’s nothing like that!”

  “Then what do you call it when someone is dabbling in ghosts, and predicting the future, and . . . what ever. Tarot cards? Evil curses?”

  “No! Not evil curses. Geez . . . evil curses? It’s not like that at all.”

  “You went to see a psychic. And it got you into trouble. Not just trouble . . . danger. You almost died, Calla.”

  “But not because I went to see a psychic.”

  Or because I am one.

  “If you hadn’t gone, you wouldn’t have come into contact with that horrible woman.”

  “If I hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t have known she killed Mom and—”

  Oops.

  Darrin, she had been about to say.

  Thank goodness she caught herself.

  “If you hadn’t gone,”Dad responds, “Sharon Logan wouldn’t have tried to kill you.”

  “But she’d still be on the streets, where she could hurt someone else.”

  He’s silent.

  “Dad, you can’t blame what happened on what goes on around Lily Dale. The spiritualists here— they help people. Not hurt them. They warned me about the water.”

  “Who did?”

  She hesitates. “A few people here. They said they had visions of me struggling in water. They said to be careful.”

  “Why weren’t you?”

  “I was. But . . .”She shrugs. “It’s complicated. I guess some things are just meant to happen.”

  Dad seems to weigh that before saying, “I never believed that anyone can know about them before they happen.”

  Believed.

  As in . . . past tense.

  “So you do now?”Calla asks him.

  “I don’t know what I believe. If it’s true that a psychic’s vision led you to Geneseo and Sharon Logan—”

  “It’s true.”

  “Then how can I argue with reality?”

  Calla’s hand relaxes on the car door handle at last. “Right,”she says softly. “That’s how I saw it when I first got here.”

  “Look, I’m a scientist. I’m always open to new theories. I just wish you had told me from the start what was going on.”

  “I was afraid you’d make me leave.”She hesitates. “You’re not going to do that, are you?”

  There’s a long silence.

  Uh- oh.

  “I don’t know what to do about all of this, Calla. But I don’t think uprooting you again is a good idea. We shouldn’t go back to Tampa—at least not for a long time. Too many bad memories there. And there’s no reason to go to California, either, now that I’ve taken a leave of absence. I suppose there are other places we could visit . . . settle. Uncle Scott and Aunt Susie have offered—”

  “No!”Calla says sharply. “Please, Dad.”

  Her father’s only brother asked her to come stay with them in Chicago after Mom died. Calla probably should have been grateful for the offer, and they probably meant well, but she suspects they saw her as a built-in babysitter for her four young cousins.

  “They’re family,”he reminds her.

  She knows they are. But they don’t feel as much like family as Odelia does. Or even the Taggarts, and the Yorks, and—

  “Don’t worry,”Dad says. �
�We aren’t going to Chicago. Not anytime soon, anyway. You’re in school here. You have friends, and . . . I kind of like Lily Dale.”

  “Really?”

  He shrugs. “It’s a beautiful place. And I like the change of seasons. And the people are . . . interesting. Friendly. I enjoy them.”

  “Like Ramona?”

  “Sure. Like Ramona.”He pauses. “Calla, she and I are . . . well, I’m kind of rusty at this kind of thing, so I’m not sure what you call it these days. Hooking up?”

  Calla wrinkles her nose. “Dating?”she suggests.

  “They still call it that?”

  Calla shrugs. “Nobody really wants to hear their dad going around talking about hooking up.”

  “Point taken. So anyway, if it bothers you that Ramona and I are . . . dating . . . then . . .”

  “Then you’ll break up with her?”

  He looks vaguely alarmed.

  She can’t help but laugh. “Relax, Dad. It doesn’t bother me, as long as you don’t get your heart broken— and as long as she doesn’t, either, because I really like Ramona.”

  “I wish I could make that guarantee, sweetie, but it doesn’t work that way. Relationships are tricky.”

  Calla thinks of Jacy, and of Kevin, and nods.

  She sees her father glance up at Ramona’s house. The lights are on and there are silhouettes in the living room window.

  “Why don’t you go over there, Dad? She’s probably seen that we’re back from dinner.”

  “She probably has. But I’ll stay here with you until Odelia gets back from . . . where is she, again?”

  “She’s doing a message circle.”No longer any reason to mince words.

  “A message circle,”he repeats. “What is that?”

  “It’s . . . it’s, like, a gathering where a medium brings spirit messages to people.”

  “Spirit messages. From the dead.”

  “Right.”

  “So—let’s just say I were to buy into this stuff,”he says cautiously, “and I went to a message circle. Then . . . what?”

  “Then you might get a message from the Other Side.”

  “From whom?”

  “From the medium.”

  “No, I mean—the medium delivers the message from. . . ?”

  “From anyone. Your great aunt Tillie, or, I don’t know, Abraham Lincoln, or . . .”

  “Or Mom.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Dad. It’s not like a telephone line to the Other Side, where you can just place a call to someone you want to speak to.”

  How many people said pretty much the same thing to Calla since she arrived here, desperate to connect with her mother?

  Far too many.

  But that hasn’t stopped the longing.

  Yes, there have been a few incidences—like the other night, in her room, when Calla glimpsed a younger version of her mother. . . .

  And last week, when she felt a fleeting embrace and knew, somehow, without a doubt, that it was Mom’s spirit there with her.

  But that wasn’t enough.

  She needs . . .

  I need to see her one last time, speak to her one last time.

  I need to understand her.

  I need to know how she could have done what she did.

  How she could have let Darrin do what he did.

  “Dad,”she says abruptly, “you should go over to Ramona’s. I’ll be fine here on my own.”

  “I’m not going to leave you alone here when there’s no reason for it.”

  “Sure there is. I stay here alone all the time. And I have homework to do.”

  “I thought you said you did it before dinner.”

  Oops. She did say that . . . but it wasn’t true.

  “I should study my math.”

  “Math. That’s right—I’ll help you,”he says firmly, opening the car door and swinging out his legs. “You’ve got to get those grades up. We’re going to work until you have a firm grasp on calculus.”

  “That’s going to take all night.”

  “Not a problem. I happen to have all night.”

  It’s no use protesting, Calla realizes, following her father into the house.

  Gert is there, waiting by the front door. Miriam is there, too, sitting quietly in the living room, stitching on an embroidery hoop.

  She looks up briefly when Calla and her father enter, then goes back to her needlework.

  She’s seen a lot, over the years. Family dramas playing themselves out within the walls of her beloved home; various residents coming and going: Aunt Katie and Jack Lauder and . . .

  Mom.

  Miriam must have known about the baby.

  But she probably isn’t going to reveal any of the details to Calla.

  I have to ask Gammy about it.

  And she will. Next chance she gets.

  “I was thinking,”Dad interrupts her thoughts, “that it would be nice for the two of us to go look at a couple of colleges this weekend.”

  “Really?”

  He nods. “What do you say?”

  “Which schools?”

  “Penn State. Cornell. Maybe Colgate.”

  Cornell.

  Kevin is there.

  When they were in Florida, she overheard him telling Dad that he’d show them around campus if they came to visit.

  “I don’t know,”she says. “Maybe we shouldn’t do that this weekend.”

  That would mean she’d have to miss her Beginning Medi-umship class two weeks in a row. She really can’t afford to do that. She needs all the tune-in/tune-out help she can get.

  “Calla, you have some decisions to make about where you’re going next year. By now, your mother would have had you filling out applications for early decision. I really dropped the ball. We’ve got to go look at some campuses and figure out where you want to go.”

  “But—”

  “We can’t put it off any longer. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. We’re taking a road trip this weekend. I’ll pick you up at school on Friday and we’ll get right on the road. Got it?”

  She sighs. “Got it.”

  She was right about having him here. Her life is no longer her own.

  THIRTEEN

  Lily Dale

  Thursday, October 11

  2:10 a.m.

  Calla is on an airplane, soaring high above an urban skyline.

  “Those of you folks who are seated on the left-hand side of the plane will recognize Lady Liberty there in the harbor,”the pilot announces, and Calla leans her head against the window to see.

  Lady Liberty.

  New York City.

  Through the window, she recognizes the familiar patina of the statue, perched on an island the size of a dime.

  “And there’s the spire of the Empire State Building,”the pilot continues, “and the building with the slanted top is Citicorp. . . .”

  Calla spots both.

  “That over there is Thirty Rocke feller Plaza, where you’ll be able to see the Christmas tree and go skating in just a few months.”

  The plane swoops lower.

  High atop 30 Rock, a tiny figure is waving.

  “Who is that, Captain?”Calla calls, but there’s no reply.

  They circle the building, spiraling lower and lower.

  Now Calla can see that the figure is female.

  She looks young— maybe Calla’s age, maybe a little older.

  She’s wearing an old-fashioned calico dress with an apron and a matching sunbonnet identical to the one Odelia had on in the garden. It shades her face so that Calla can’t make out her features, but there’s something familiar about her.

  “Who is that?”she asks again, but nobody replies.

  The plane drops lower still.

  I know her. There’s something so familiar about her. If only I could see her face. . . .

  “Who is she? Can someone please tell me?”

  “She’s your sister,”says the passenger in the next seat.


  A passenger whose voice is hauntingly familiar.

  Shocked, Calla turns to see her mother sitting there.

  “Mom!”

  Even as she cries out, her mother vanishes.

  She jerks her head toward the window again, but the waving girl has disappeared as well, along with the buildings, and the sky, and . . .

  With a gasp, Calla sits up in bed.

  It was just a dream.

  Of course it was.

  She doesn’t have a sister.

  The baby died.

  She sinks back against the pillows, staring into the blackness, her heart still pounding.

  It’s a long time before she drifts back to sleep.

  FOURTEEN

  Lily Dale

  Thursday, October 11

  7:54 a.m.

  “So . . . he knows,”Calla tells Evangeline as soon as they round the bend in Dale Drive on the way to school beneath a steely gray sky.

  There’s a pause as Evangeline— who, before Calla interrupted, was wondering aloud what to wear when she and Russell go to the movies together on Friday night—digests this information.

  “He does?”she asks, wide- eyed.

  The cool thing about Evangeline is that she can shift gears pretty easily.

  Another cool thing is that she’s tuned in to Calla well enough to know exactly what she’s talking about without having to have it spelled out for her.

  “You told him?”

  “No. He figured it out.”

  “Wow. I’ve been so careful not to say anything, and my aunt has, too.”

  Calla doesn’t bother to tell her Ramona’s uncharacteristic silence on the topic of her work might be what tipped off her father.

  No need for anyone to feel guilty about the cat being let out of the bag. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

  And Calla has realized, in the last twelve hours or so, that sooner is better than later.

  Last night, while she and Dad were going over her math problems, she was a lot more comfortable than she has been in a long time. It’s easier to spend time with him when there’s nothing left to hide.

  Well, there are a couple of things. . . .

  Like the fact that Calla herself has supernatural abilities.

  And the fact that Mom had another child.

  But even Evangeline doesn’t know about that.

  And Calla doesn’t want to think about it now. Not with last night’s strange dream still lingering, still oddly clear, almost as if . . .