Awakening Page 12

  The person is too distant for Calla to make out more than her silhouette—she’s wearing some kind of long dress or robe— but there’s something about her that seems to beckon.

  Mom! Is that you?

  Calla’s sneaker hits a rough patch of pavement and she lurches forward. She looks down, sees that it’s a pothole—the streets here are full of them—and manages to regain her balance.

  When she looks up again, her gaze darts ahead, toward the woman.

  But she’s gone. It’s as though she’s simply evaporated into thin air.

  “No!” Calla cries out. “Wait!”

  She picks up speed, hurtling toward the lake, thinking she might spot the figure off to the side or slipping behind a tree. But when she gets to the grassy, parklike spot beside the lake, there’s no one around.

  It probably wasn’t Mom anyway.

  Calla sinks onto a bench overlooking the water. Of course it wasn’t Mom. It didn’t feel like her, and anyway . . .

  Her mother is gone. Forever. Calla is alone.

  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.

  “Then where are you now, Mom?” Calla whispers . . . just as a shadow falls across the grass in front of her.

  “Excuse me?” a voice says, and she looks up to see Jacy Bly standing there. His glossy hair is spiked on top today, and she has a feeling he didn’t gel it to make it spike that way. There’s a no-fuss, laid-back aura about him. He’s wearing a faded maroon T-shirt and dark jeans that bag around his bare feet, and he’s carrying a fishing pole and tackle box.

  “Oh . . . hi. I was just talking to . . .” My dead mother. Here in Lily Dale, that wouldn’t necessarily raise an eyebrow. But Calla finishes the sentence with “. . . myself.”

  He says nothing, watching her through eyes so dark they’re black. They slant a bit at the corners, almost seeming to squint a bit beneath straight slashes of brow. He’s got high, pronounced cheekbones and the fullest lips she’s ever seen on a boy. On anyone, really.

  She drags her gaze away from his lips—and her brain from the crazy thought of kissing them. Where did that come from?

  “Listen, did you see anyone around here a few minutes ago?” she asks him. “A woman?”

  “Around here?”

  She nods, gesturing at the spot. “She was standing right over there when I got here, but . . . she left.”

  “I didn’t see anyone.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Calla mutters. Jacy just looks at her.

  “So, you’re, uh . . . going fishing?” she asks stupidly. After all, he’s holding fishing gear and heading toward a body of water.

  He nods.

  “Do you fish a lot?”

  Another nod. “How about you?”

  He’s so soft-spoken, she can’t help but feel like a blithering idiot.

  A loud one, at that. “Me?” she practically shouts at him.

  She tones it down with effort, asking in a near whisper, “You mean, do I fish?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I live in Florida,” she says, to prove that she specializes in moronic comments.

  Jeesh, why can’t she get it together conversationally? You’d think she’d never spoken to a good-looking guy before.

  “Florida . . . so there aren’t any fish down south, huh?” Jacy asks quietly, then those full lips of his part into a beautiful, white-toothed smile.

  Calla breaks into a grin. “Nope,” she says lightly, “no fish at all.”

  He gestures with his pole. “You want to try?”

  “Fishing?” No, fencing. Idiot.

  “How about it?” he asks.

  She hesitates.

  Don’t say anything stupid, she warns herself. For God’s sake, just say yes.

  And, to her relief—and his, as far as she can tell—she does.

  “There you are!” Odelia sticks her head in from the kitchen the moment Calla walks in the door. “Where have you been?”

  “I went for a walk,” she says, not wanting to get into meeting Jacy. Which definitely took her mind off everything that’s been going on lately.

  He’s the first guy she’s hung out with since Kevin. And as much as she tried not to notice how cute he is—well, she couldn’t help it. Sitting side by side on the pier, legs dangling over the water, they sat and fished for over an hour. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn’t—and for some reason, it didn’t matter when they didn’t.

  Calla finds that unusual, because back in the beginning with Kevin, she always got nervous when she ran out of things to say. Not that she’s thinking this is any kind of “beginning” with Jacy.

  Still . . . back when she and Kevin first started hanging out alone together, without Lisa as a buffer, Calla used to chatter about anything and everything just to avoid awkward silence.

  With Jacy, even though he’s pretty much a stranger, somehow the silence wasn’t awkward. Maybe because that’s such an obvious part of his introspective nature.

  “Evangeline came over looking for you,” Odelia says. “I thought you were over at the Taggarts’ all this time, but she said you’d been there and left.”

  “I just felt funny hanging around with her aunt, waiting for her.” And now I feel guilty that I was down by the lake with her crush.

  “Ramona is great. I’m surprised you felt uncomfortable with her.”

  “It wasn’t her, really . . . it was . . . I just felt like taking a walk.”

  “So how was it?” Odelia asks directly, and something in her expression—and her tone—tells Calla that she doesn’t buy her story.

  Yeah, it’s pretty hard to pull one over on a psychic. Poor Mom. What must it have been like for her, growing up?

  “It was a good walk,” Calla tells her, relieved when Odelia doesn’t call her on it.

  “Well, you had company while you were gone.”

  “Evangeline. I know. You said.” And in this town Evangeline will probably hear about my fishing with Jacy—or, who knows, have a vision about it—any second now.

  “No, not just Evangeline. Someone came and brought you these.” Odelia lifts a vase filled with wildflowers from a small table near the stairs.

  Calla’s eyes widen. “Someone brought me flowers? Who was it?”

  “Blue Slayton.” A smile quirks the edges of Odelia’s hot-pink mouth.

  Flustered, Calla just stares at the vase. Why would Blue Slayton bring her flowers?

  “He said to call him when you got back.”

  “I . . . uh, I don’t have his number.”

  “Triple five four-seven-eight-two,” Odelia recites.

  “You have it memorized?”

  “Honey, this is a tiny town, and everyone here knows everyone else. Plus, Blue’s dad and I used to be good friends.”

  “Used to be?”

  Odelia snorts a little. “Back before old Dave went Hollywood.”

  “Blue’s father lives in Hollywood?”

  “Not officially. But he spends most of his time in L. A. these days. Psychic to the stars, and all that.”

  Something tells Calla her grandmother doesn’t approve.

  “What about Blue? Isn’t he in school?”

  “Oh, he stays here when his dad’s away.”

  “With his mother?”

  “No, the housekeeper. His mother took off a long time ago and she never looked back. Not even for her son.”

  Odelia sounds bitter. Oh. She’s probably thinking of her ex-husband, Calla realizes. He did the same thing to her—and my mom—that Blue’s mother did.

  Which also means Blue Slayton can join the sad little motherless club, with her and Evangeline. And Jacy, who told her, in his quiet way while they were fishing, that his parents are both alcoholics. Abusive ones. It wasn’t so bad when they lived on the reservation, he said, because he had neighbors who would look out for him. Then his parents moved to an apartment down in Jamestown. It wasn’t l
ong before Social Services started showing up, and they finally removed him from his home, which, Jacy added, his parents didn’t protest.

  He didn’t say specifically what his parents did to lose custody of him, and Calla didn’t push him to explain. She could tell it was a painful subject for him. She felt privileged that he had shared as much as he did.

  “Here you go,” Odelia says, and holds out the phone. “You can call Blue.”

  Still reeling from her breakup with Kevin—oh, all right, mostly from her afternoon with Jacy—she doesn’t really feel like talking to another guy.

  Then again, she should at least thank Blue for the flowers. It would be rude not to.

  She accepts the phone from Odelia. “What did you say his number was?”

  Moments later, her grandmother is back in the kitchen, clattering pots and pans, and Blue Slayton is making small talk, then interrupting himself to ask, “You went fishing with Jacy today, huh?”

  “How did you know?”

  “You can’t get away with anything in the Dale,” he says casually.

  Wow. Did he have a psychic vision of her and Jacy, or what?

  “Listen, you want to go out sometime?” Blue asks. “For coffee, or something?”

  Coffee? She doesn’t drink coffee. But she can hardly say, How about milk and cookies?

  You could just say no. But that might hurt his feelings. Anyway, Blue Slayton is really cute. As cute as Jacy, in a drastically different way. Plus, it’s not like Jacy said anything about seeing her again when they parted ways by the lake. He just waved and said, “See ya.”

  Yeah, and she was kind of disappointed by that. Despite Evangeline.

  “Coffee sometime would be great,” she hears herself tell Blue.

  He doesn’t sound surprised. Thrilled, either. He just says, as though this is all perfectly routine, “Okay, good. So . . . I’ll call you.”

  Oh. He’s not going to make a date right now? She almost wishes she’d said no.

  Calla hangs up and goes to find her grandmother in the kitchen. Odelia is stirring a bubbling pot on the stove as an old Enya song plays on the countertop radio. Loudly.

  Odelia, singing along in an unskilled falsetto, doesn’t notice Calla in the doorway.

  Calla clears her throat. Odelia doesn’t hear her. Calla has to get her attention, but what is she supposed to call her?

  Grandma? Odelia?

  So far, she’s still managed to avoid conversationally pegging her grandmother with a name. But that can’t go on indefinitely. Sooner or later, she’s going to have to address her directly. Now is probably a good time to start. What did I call her when I was a little girl? Calla wonders, and suddenly, a strange word flits into her head.

  “Gammy?” She blurts it without thinking, and Odelia immediately turns her head.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said . . .” What did she say? And why? “I said, uh, ‘Grandma’?”

  That sounds ridiculously formal for some reason, and Odelia is shaking her head. “No, you said ‘Gammy.’ I heard you.”

  “Then why’d you . . .” Calla notices, to her surprise, that her grandmother’s eyes are suddenly shiny. “. . . ask?” she finishes, fervently wishing she hadn’t said anything at all.

  “That’s what you used to call me,” Odelia says, going back to stirring her soup after swiping a hand at her eyes. “Gammy. When you were a little girl and I used to come see you. But then all those years went by and I thought you must have forgotten.”

  “I did forget. Until now.”

  She wants to ask her grandmother why all those years went by without a visit. What did she and Mom disagree about? I can’t ask her yet. Maybe sometime . . . but not now.

  “I’m glad you remembered,” her grandmother is saying. “You can still call me that.”

  “But . . . I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  Her grandmother waves away her protest. “Call me Gammy. You hear me?”

  “Loud and clear.” Calla smiles, then remembers why she came into the kitchen in the first place, and her smile fades. “Listen, what time did Blue come over with those flowers?”

  “Hmm? Oh, I don’t remember, exactly.”

  “Did he wake you from your nap?” she asks, trying a different tactic, needing to know. “Or before Evangeline came over? Or was it later than that?”

  “Oh, it was later. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes before you got home, I guess.”

  “That late?”

  Odelia nods. “Why?”

  Because now I know for sure why he brought the flowers over today. It was because he saw me fishing with Jacy Bly, and it bothered him.

  That’s what she suspected in the first place. Call it intuition, or call it common sense.

  It’s telling her something else, too: Blue Slayton is the kind of guy who wants what he can’t have. If she’s interested in him, all she has to do is pretend that she isn’t.

  But she’s never liked to play games, and anyway, she isn’t sure she’s interested in Blue. Not the way she’s interested in Jacy. . . .

  Who, she has a feeling, wouldn’t be into games, either. But anyway, Evangeline likes him.

  Calla sighs. After what happened with Kevin, who needs any of this?

  “Calla? It’s me!” a familiar voice says over the telephone the following evening.

  “Lisa! I’m so glad you called!” And just as glad that Odelia is out at some mediums’ league meeting, so she can have a private conversation. “I’ve been dying to talk to you.”

  “You too. Listen, I totally get that you don’t have access to e-mail—”

  Calla opens her mouth to tell her that’s about to change.

  “But you said you’d call me. Why haven’t you?”

  Mostly because Kevin might answer the phone, but she doesn’t want to admit that. “I feel funny putting long-distance charges on my grandmother’s bill. Listen, Lis’, I need to talk to you. Things have been kind of crazy here.”

  “Crazy how? Don’t tell me you’re seeing ghosts or something!”

  She hesitates. She was about to tell her exactly that, but Lisa’s tone stops her.

  “No, nothing like that,” she says slowly. “It’s . . . a guy.”

  Why did she go and say that?

  “Two guys, actually,” she hears herself say next. Huh?

  “You’re seeing two guys?”

  Not really, but it wouldn’t hurt to have Lisa mention that to Kevin, would it?

  “Yeah,” she tells Lisa, feeling only a little guilty. “They’re both cute, too . . . so I’m torn.”

  “Hey, there are worse problems you can have,” Lisa says with a laugh.

  Yeah, no kidding.

  “Listen, Calla, I’m kind of glad you’re seeing someone else—two someone elses.”

  Something in Lisa’s tone makes Calla’s heart sink. “You’re glad? Why?”

  “Just . . . It’s good you’re over Kevin, that’s all.”

  Oh. “You met Annie. And you like her. Right?”

  “How’d you know? I mean, I tried not to like her, but she was . . .”

  “Likable.”

  “Lovable. I’m sorry, Calla. I mean, I wish you and my brother would get back together, but since you’re not even here—and now you’ve got two new boyfriends, anyway— well, I hope it’s okay with you that I don’t hate Annie.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Calla paces restlessly across the living room. “I’m glad you like her. I wouldn’t want Kevin going out with some loser.” Sure you would. “Is she still down there?”

  “No, she went back.” Lisa changes the subject quickly. “Tell me about these two guys!”

  Calla does, doing her best to make it sound as though Blue and Jacy are both head over heels about her, and vice versa.

  “They sound great. Maybe I can help you make up your mind between them,” Lisa says. “I asked my parents if I can fly up and visit you before school starts and they didn’t say no.”

  �
��They said yes?”

  “Not exactly. But they’re thinking about it. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Calla wonders if it would be a pleasure or a problem to have Lisa visit. A little of both, she decides, after hanging up with a promise to start checking her e-mail at the Taggarts’.

  Odelia won’t be back for at least another half hour. The house feels eerily empty.

  But that’s better than eerily not empty, Calla reminds herself uneasily.

  She read earlier that spirits don’t hang around just to give people a good scare. They’re usually trying to communicate some kind of message.

  Well, whatever it is, I don’t want to know. Not when I’m here alone, anyway.

  Maybe she should go next door to use the computer right now, even though she just talked to Lisa and her e-mail can wait. Evangeline is probably home. Some company would be nice. And reassuring.

  Pausing in front of the window overlooking the street, she glances out to see if there are lights on next door. To her surprise, someone is out there, standing directly in front of Odelia’s house, facing it. Watching it.

  Feeling exposed, Calla immediately reaches toward the lamp, fumbling for the switch. She finds it and flicks it off, making herself less visible, which, of course, also makes the figure more visible. Calla can see now that it’s a female, with long hair. She’s standing just beyond the streetlight’s glow, shrouded in shadows.

  Calla’s skin prickles. Is that the girl from Ohio? The one who was here with her mother?

  What’s she doing out there now? Why is she staring at Odelia’s house?

  I should call the police. Calla hurriedly looks around for the telephone receiver she tossed aside earlier. Finding it, she stands poised with it, wondering if 911 works in Lily Dale.

  Then she glances out the window again.

  The street is empty. The girl is no longer there . . . if she ever was at all.

  TWELVE

  “Stop it, Mother,” Stephanie commanded Odelia. “Just don’t say another word about it.”

  “Stephanie—”

  “Stop!” Stephanie glanced down at Calla, who quickly pretended to be focused only on dressing her new doll. “Just drop the whole thing.”

  “How can I drop it? How can you? Don’t you want to know?”

  “No, I don’t.”