Believing

by Wendy Corsi Staub

Calla figures that should make his visit a little easier. There’s no telling what Jeff might witness if he hangs around Odelia’s house 24/7. Rarely does much time go by here without some kind of spooky activity or, at the very least, someone popping up at the front door looking for a reading.

  Then again, walk-ins aren’t likely in the next couple of days. When Calla got home from her mission with Evangeline earlier, she immediately noticed that the shingle above her grandmother’s door—the one that reads ODELIA LAUDER,REG-ISTERED MEDIUM—was conspicuously missing. Hanging from its bracket was a basket filled with yellow fall chrysanthemums.

  “I always take it down to be repainted at the end of the summer season,” was Odelia’s explanation when Calla asked her about it.

  But something in her eyes told Calla that wasn’t the whole truth.

  She doesn’t want Dad to know, Calla realized. She knows that if he figures out what she does for a living, he won’t let me stay, and I guess she wants me to.

  Calla and her grandmother seem to have silently agreed that there will be no discussion of her grandmother’s—or Lily Dale’s—unique spiritualist connection while Dad is here.

  Sure, he’s bound to figure it out when he drives through the gate, with its sign announcing that Lily Dale is the world’s largest spiritualism center.

  Then again, Dad can be kind of absentminded. And it’s dark out. And Calla herself didn’t see the gate sign when she first arrived.

  Besides, the official season is over, which means there’s no one manning the gatehouse and anyone can come and go. Now that the busy daily schedule is over, many cottages are boarded up, and the summer throngs have vanished, Lily Dale looks almost like any other resort community past its prime. A resort that just happens to be the birthplace of modern spiritualism.

  Maybe that’s how Dad will see it. Period.

  All she can do is hope.

  “Do you think he decided to stop off at the hotel in Fredonia first and check in?” Odelia asks.

  “No. He said he was coming straight here.” Calla answered the phone when he called from the Buffalo airport an hour ago, saying he had landed and was on his way to Lily Dale.

  Unable to sit and wait patiently on the couch for his arrival, she gets up again and paces across the room, wondering whether they’ve found Erin—or her body—yet.

  “You know, time always drags when you want it to race along,” Odelia comments, flipping through a magazine. “And it rushes to the finish line when you want it to drag.”

  “Who said that?”

  Odelia looks up sharply. “I did. Why? Have you been hearing other . . . voices?”

  Calla can’t help but grin. “No, I meant who said it as a quote. Like, from someone famous.”

  Odelia laughs—and looks a bit relieved, Calla notices as she goes back to her pacing and keeping a restless eye on the window, trying not to think about Erin.

  “This Friday-night waiting game is getting to be a habit for you, isn’t it?” her grandmother asks.

  “Hmm?”

  “Last week at this time, you were in the same boat, waiting for your friends to show up from Florida. Remember?”

  Her friends. Lisa—and Kevin.

  Again, Calla’s thoughts flit to the e-mail he sent. It’s been in the back of her mind all day, even with everything else she’s had to think about.

  She impulsively tried calling Lisa a little while ago, but got only her voice mail and decided not to leave a message.

  How can she even begin to explain about Erin?

  And even when it comes to Kevin—well, maybe she shouldn’t mention the e-mail to Lisa at all. Maybe it means only that Kevin’s still sympathetic about her loss and just wanted to check in. Maybe he thinks enough time has passed since their breakup that they can just be casual friends.

  Yeah, right.

  Sun-streaked; tanned; wearing flip-flops, puka shells, and board shorts, he was a welcome, familiar sight. But seeing him even just for a few minutes reminded Calla that she’s not quite over him yet.

  Come on . . . Not quite?

  Okay, not by a long shot.

  Not even after spending more time with Jacy, and all the attention from Blue Slayton, and the fact that he might be asking her to the homecoming— That thought is interrupted by the distant sound of a car approaching.

  “That’s my dad!” she announces to Odelia, who nods, courtesy of her own “intuition.”

  By the time her grandmother gets to her feet, Calla has reached the front door and is about to open it. She looks back at the last minute, worried. “Gammy,” she says, “you’re not going to say anything to my dad about . . . anything. Are you?”

  “Are you kidding?” Odelia settles her shawl around her shoulders demurely and pulls her glasses down from her forehead to rest on the tip of her nose. She looks almost like a regular grandmother. Kind of. If you ignore her red hair and pink clogs.

  Calla smiles faintly. “I didn’t think you’d tell him,” she says, “but I wanted to make sure. I mean, I don’t want you to lie. Just . . .”

  “Omit.”

  “Right.”

  “Got it.”

  Calla opens the door, and her breath promptly catches in her throat. There he is, climbing out of a compact rental car parked at the curb.

  “Dad!” She races outside, bounds down the steps, and hurtles herself into his arms like a little girl.

  Her father holds her in a fierce bear hug and it feels so good, so incredibly good, that she almost cries.

  Okay, maybe she is crying a little. Embarrassed, she ducks her head when he releases her and wipes her eyes before looking up at him.

  “How was your trip?” she asks, noticing that there are a few light strands in his black hair just above his ears and for a split second she thinks they must be blond, bleached from the California sun. Then she realizes they’re gray. Gray hair. Dad’s face looks different, too. He’s not wearing his glasses—maybe that’s why. He wore them a lot after Mom died. All those tears kept interfering with his contact lenses. But he’s got them on again today, so maybe that’s a sign that he’s not crying as much.

  His familiar black eyes might not be bloodshot and red rimmed anymore, but they’re not twinkling at Calla the way they used to, either.

  “My trip was a breeze,” Dad says, and she can tell he’s trying to sound upbeat. “Everything went right on time, no problem making the connection in New York . . . it makes me feel like you’re just a hop, skip, and a jump away from me, instead of a whole continent.”

  She sees him turn his head, looking at something over her shoulder, and follows his gaze to see her grandmother standing on the porch. It’s not like her to hold back, but she seems to be keeping her distance, giving them some space.

  She gives a little wave.

  Jeff waves back.

  Then Odelia comes slowly down the steps, and they share a slightly awkward-looking hug.

  “It’s good to see you, Jeff,” Odelia says with affection. “How have you been?”

  “Hanging in there,” he replies as a door slams next door.

  Calla spots Ramona stepping out onto the Taggarts’ porch, bathed in a yellow glow from the overhead light fixture.

  “Hi, everyone,” she calls cheerfully, breezing down the front steps with her car keys in hand.

  “Ramona, hi . . . come meet Calla’s dad,” Odelia invites.

  Uh-oh. Not such a good idea. But Calla does a quick scan and is glad to see that the shingle above Ramona’s door is cast in shadows from low-hanging boughs. Dad can’t possibly read it from way over here.

  “That’s my friend Evangeline’s aunt,” Calla tells her father as Ramona comes toward them, jangling not just from the keys she’s carrying but from the jewelry she’s wearing. Calla decides she looks like a pretty gypsy, with her hoop earrings, stacked bracelets, long gauzy skirt, and brown ringlets that fall past her shoulders.

  “Hi—Jeff, right?” Ramona says easily, arriving in front of them and h
olding out her hand. “I’m Ramona Taggart.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  As Calla watches her father shake Ramona’s hand, a crazy vision flashes through her brain. So crazy she decides she must be losing it. Seriously.

  There is absolutely no way on earth her father and Ramona Taggart could ever possibly have any kind of . . .

  Connection.

  Romantic, or anything else.

  Ramona is a total free spirit, as much a gypsy on the inside as she appears to be on the outside. She’s the exact opposite of Mom, a level-headed, conservative, ultraorganized businesswoman.

  Anyway, Dad was crazy about Mom. Now that she’s gone, Calla can’t imagine him with anyone else.

  Especially Ramona, of all people.

  So much for my “intuition.”

  “I hope Odelia told you that you’re welcome to stay at our place,” Ramona is saying.

  “Thanks, I mean, she did mention it—and that’s really nice of you—but I couldn’t do that.” Dad looks flustered.

  I don’t even know you. That, Calla realizes, is what he’s thinking. He doesn’t yet understand that the people here in western New York are pretty much the friendliest, most welcoming people Calla has ever met anywhere, including down South.

  “Are you sure?” Ramona asks. “I’ve got plenty of room.”

  “I’ve already got a hotel room booked. But . . . thanks again.”

  “Well, if you change your mind . . . I’ll be home late, but the front door’s open. Literally.”

  “Hot date?” Odelia calls after her, and Ramona just laughs and heads toward her car.

  Again, Calla wonders if there might be a glimmer of something between Dad and—

  No. No way. Impossible.

  “Brrr . . . it’s chilly out here,” Odelia comments. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

  “Okay,” Dad agrees, “but I just want to grab my contact lens solution and my glasses out of my bag in the trunk. My eyes are burning from all that dry air on the plane.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll get dinner on the table. I made fried chicken.”

  “That’s my favorite,” Dad says. “I haven’t had it in years.”

  Calla meets her grandmother’s gaze and knows that she, too, is thinking of her mother.

  Suddenly, she longs to tell her father that fried chicken was once Mom’s favorite, too. That, and all the other things she’s learned about her mother since arriving in Lily Dale. But she can’t just start blurting information. She has to wait until the time is right.

  Odelia disappears into the house, leaving the two of them alone together on the shadowy street. Calla tries to think of something to say. Something casual and conversational.

  Funny, she still isn’t used to having a one-on-one relationship with her father. They were always a family of three. Dad was there, but Calla talked more to her mother—even if she’s more like her father in temperament and attitude.

  Standing beside her father as he rummages through his small duffel, she thinks of her mother’s frequent business trips and the fancy rolling luggage she always packed full of her sophisticated clothing. Mom and Dad really were different in so many ways.

  Ramona toots the horn as she drives past on her way toward the gate.

  “She seems nice.” Dad tucks a small leather pouch under his arm and closes the trunk.

  “Yeah. She’s great. She knew Mom,” Calla tells him, and seeing the troubled look on her father’s face, is instantly sorry.

  “Back in high school, they were friends, sort of. Mom was older and Ramona used to look up to her, and she’s been telling me what Mom was like back then,” Calla says in a rush, trying to smooth things over and realizing she’s only making it worse, judging by Dad’s expression.

  “Your mother never liked to talk about her past. She didn’t look back. She wasn’t that kind of person.”

  “I know. That’s why I like being here. It makes me feel closer to her—well, to a her I never knew until now.”

  And maybe I don’t even know the Mom we both lived with for all these years.

  Again, she thinks of the Saint Patrick’s Day visit from Darrin.

  Mom had secrets. Does Dad realize that? Would it hurt him now to know about the visit from her old boyfriend?

  Does it even matter if it hurts him, if her death was no accident and Darrin’s visit might be linked to it?

  Maybe Dad does know about that, anyway, Calla reminds herself. Maybe Dad has secrets too, even. Maybe you’re the only one who’s been in the dark all these years.

  Mom was so sympathetic back in April when Kevin broke up with Calla, though. Wouldn’t she have mentioned her own high school romance, especially if she’d seen her ex-boyfriend just weeks earlier?

  She might have . . . if the recent visit were innocent. Two old friends catching up on old times.

  Come on, Calla! Darrin was using a fake name. How is that innocent in any possible way?

  As Ramona had told her, he supposedly vanished from Lily Dale without a trace twenty years ago. Why? What did that have to do with Mom? Or with Mom’s death?

  Calla wishes desperately that she’d had the chance to talk to Jacy about all of this. Now it’s going to have to wait until after Dad leaves. And while he’s here, she’d better not say anything more.

  “Ready to go inside?” she asks her father.

  “Sure.” He puts an arm around her shoulders as they walk together up the steps of Mom’s childhood home.

  What on earth would he do without the Internet?

  It’s made everything so much easier.

  He can use it to keep track of the police proceedings that surround Kaitlyn Riggs’s murder and Erin Shannahan’s disappearance, making sure they’re not coming too close for comfort.

  He can scour newspapers online for photos of local high school girls—girls like Hayley Gorzynski, with long blond hair—whose pretty faces beam at the camera. They’re so proud to have landed on the varsity team or in the honor society or whatever it is that brought a photographer to their school. Does it ever occur to them that someone like him might be watching them? Don’t they realize how easy it is for him to find out where they live? To follow them as they go about their daily routines until the time is right to strike?

  The Internet is good, too, for atlas information.

  Now, sitting in front of his desktop computer in his attic apartment, he clicks the mouse to zero in on the map.

  Lily Dale, New York—that’s not far from Erie. Maybe another half hour’s drive northeast past the Pennsylvania border, an easy trip up the New York State Thruway. He already checked the mileage. The population, too.

  He might not have that girl psychic’s name, but Lily Dale is a small town. And small-town people can be surprisingly trusting. Sometimes they don’t even lock their doors.

  Never a good idea, he chides mockingly.

  Small-town folks are usually friendly, too.

  Even to strangers asking questions—say, about young female newcomers who live with their grandmothers.

  “This was fun, tonight.” Calla’s father sounds almost surprised as she walks him to the front door.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” She smiles, thinking the evening went much better than she could have hoped.

  She and her father and grandmother ate fried chicken and talked easily about food, Odelia’s cooking, Calla’s new school, her father’s new job. Calla kept bracing herself for sticky topics—about her mother and Lily Dale—to pop up, but they never did.

  Odelia went up to bed a half hour ago, leaving them to catch up until Dad caught Calla yawning and decided it was time to go.

  “Get some sleep,” he tells her now as she opens the door for him.

  “You, too.”

  “I’ll try. It’s barely eight o’clock in California. It figures— now that I’ve finally set my body clock to the West Coast time zone, here I am back in the East. I’ll probably be up until the middle of the night.”

  �
��Well, don’t oversleep. Gammy wants you here early for her special breakfast, remember?”

  “Who could forget homemade blueberry waffles with whipped cream?” Dad kisses her on the cheek. “Okay, see you in the morning, Cal. Sweet dreams.”

  Yeah—I can only hope.

  As she watches him drive away, Calla remembers all those nights she woke at 3:17 after the recurring nightmare about Mom, Odelia, and dredging the lake. That hasn’t happened lately—not since she figured out the Saint Patrick’s Day connection.

  And stalled right there.

  Again, she wonders what happened between her mother and Darrin, and what that has to do with Mom’s death.

  That thought process leads naturally to Erin. Calla was so busy all night, she didn’t have much time to dwell on it.

  Now, though, she goes straight for the television remote. Odelia’s cable brings in a local television station from Erie, and the eleven o’clock news should be starting in a few minutes.

  There’s going to be news about Erin, she tells herself as she settles on the couch. I just know it.

  She’s right. It’s the top story.

  “A happy ending tonight to a story we’ve been following all week,” the anchor announces over footage of a rural area swarming with people, police cars, rescue vehicles, and satellite trucks. “Seventeen-year-old Erin Shannahan, missing since Labor Day, was found alive just hours ago in the Allegheny Gorge.”

  Calla gasps, clasping her hands to her mouth.

  “Acting on an anonymous tip, police searched the rugged Chuck Keiper Trail, where the girl was ultimately spotted by a helicopter. She was transferred via ambulance to an unnamed local hospital, where she is listed in critical condition but is expected to survive.”

  Expected to survive.Thank God, thank God.

  “Relatively warm overnight temperatures this week are credited with helping to keep her alive. With a cold front headed in late tomorrow, the window of opportunity for rescue was rapidly drawing to a close. Police are releasing no further details about the girl’s disappearance, or about the tip that led them to her, and the case remains under active investigation. In other news . . .”

  Calla tosses the remote aside and hurries to the front door. She opens it and looks out at the Taggarts’ driveway, noting that the lights are on, and Ramona’s car is still gone. Good.