Awakening

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Look at her, with those flowing clothes, that wild red hair, and all that jangling jewelry. She looks like some kind of gypsy. Is it so surprising that she’d act the part as well?

  Okay, you are so not being fair, Calla tells herself guiltily. You can’t decide a person is a freak—or a con artist—just because of how they look.

  All right, then . . . to give Odelia the benefit of the doubt, Calla wonders if she might actually be able to talk to the dead. Is that really so far-fetched?

  After all, weren’t you just thinking you had seen a ghost right here in this house?

  A chill slips down Calla’s spine, even as she reminds herself that her mother wouldn’t buy into this ridiculousness—any of it—for a second. Mom had too much common sense. If she were here right now, she’d be telling Calla to use her head and weigh the evidence.

  Since there isn’t any evidence that can’t be explained away as a figment of one’s imagination . . .

  That’s probably all any of this is. Then again . . .

  Wait a minute.

  Calla stops pacing, struck by the coincidence. Can there possibly be a connection between the ghost Calla saw—no, the ghost you thought you saw—upstairs and her grandmother’s claim to be a medium?

  Oh, God.What if she really is a medium?

  In the grand scheme of things, isn’t it pretty unlikely that Calla, who has never seen—or thought she’s seen—a ghost in her life, would suddenly bump into one here, now, today?

  It’s not as if she can blame it on the power of suggestion. Until a few minutes ago, she had no idea her grandmother even claimed to be a medium.

  Whoa. She paces more quickly, fists clenching and unclenching at her sides.

  Okay, so then . . . maybe Odelia is a medium. And maybe this place is crawling with ghosts.

  Yeah. Good going. Nothing like completely creeping yourself out.

  What if there are dead people hanging around her grandmother’s house, waiting for their chance to try to make contact with her?

  Why would I be able to see them, though? I’m not a medium. Unless . . .

  A thought barges into Calla’s consciousness and refuses to budge. A thought so preposterous that it steals away her breath:

  What if that sort of thing—talking to ghosts—runs in families? Like height or eye color? What if Odelia really is a medium . . . and so am I?

  FIVE

  “There you are!”

  Calla hastily wipes the tears from her eyes, then looks up to see her grandmother, wearing a pink towel turban and a fuzzy orange robe, peeking through the bedroom door. She left it slightly ajar—not because she welcomes Odelia’s company, but because she still can’t shake the memory of the figure she glimpsed here earlier.

  “I was waiting for you downstairs—I found the front door open, so I figured you must have gone out for a walk.”

  Oh, that’s right. She forgot to close it after that startling discovery about Odelia, and came up here to fight off that troubling suspicion about herself.

  But it’s stubbornly managed to stick for the past half hour or so as she lay on her mother’s bed and stared at the ceiling.

  “So . . . did you go out?” Odelia asks.

  “No.”

  “You just opened the door?”

  “Right.”

  Odelia pauses, then asks, “Mind if I ask why?”

  “You mean, why did I open the door?”

  Odelia nods.

  “Because some lady rang the doorbell.” Calla forces herself to look her grandmother in the eye. “She said she wanted you to do a reading.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  She can’t read her grandmother’s expression.

  “I told her that you were busy.”

  Odelia nods. “That’s fine. I was.”

  Calla returns her gaze to the ceiling. She can feel her grandmother’s eyes on her.

  After a moment, Odelia says, “You’re wondering what a psychic reading is, aren’t you.”

  It isn’t a question.

  And the straightforward, dead-on comment catches Calla off guard.

  “Yes,” she admits. “I mean, I think I know. But I don’t know why the woman thought you could do one for her . . . unless . . .”

  “I’m a psychic, Calla.”

  “I thought you were a medium. That’s what your sign says.”

  “All mediums are psychic, although not all psychics are mediums.”

  Calla shrugs, not sure what her grandmother expects her to do with this information.

  “So you saw my sign, then. Is that how you figured it out?”

  She nods.

  “I didn’t think you knew before you got here, and I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. Your mother never mentioned it to you, did she.”

  Again, not really a question.

  “No, she never mentioned it.”

  But she did happen to mention that you were a classic whack job.

  “Well,” Odelia says with a wistful tilt of her red head, “I’m sure it wasn’t something she was very proud of.”

  Calla is sure she’s right about that. Her mother was a straight arrow, which is probably why she and Odelia wound up at odds.

  Then again . . . the lake.

  Something about the lake . . . that was why they’d had that last big argument.

  She glances out the window, where the water is visible through the trees. Earlier, it was a sparkling, inviting blue.

  Now, shrouded in twilight, it’s an ominous shade of purplish black.

  What was it about the lake?

  “What did your mother tell you about Lily Dale?” Odelia intrudes on her speculation.

  “Just that it was a small town. And cold. And it snowed a lot.”

  Odelia smiles. “That’s true. Winter settles in by late October and it doesn’t let go of us until April or May.”

  “May!”

  “It snowed on Memorial Day weekend a few years ago.”

  Calla finds herself shivering at the mere thought of that. She’s seen snow only once, when her parents took her skiing in Utah.

  Rather, they skied. Calla stayed in the chalet with an elderly babysitter who didn’t mind playing Candyland over and over again—though Calla minded. She remembers asking why they couldn’t go outside and build a snowman or make snow angels. The sitter said it was just too cold, and Calla’s disappointment was as pervasive and bitter as the January mountain wind.

  “Do you think it’ll snow while I’m here?” she asks her grandmother.

  “I doubt it. Then again, you never know.”

  “You’re supposed to be a psychic, aren’t you? You must know everything. Don’t tell me you can’t predict the weather.” It comes out laced with sarcasm. Calla can’t help it. This is all just way too much to grasp.

  “Oh, psychics don’t pretend to know everything.”

  “No? What is it that they do pretend?”

  Ignoring that, Odelia continues, “Every human being has psychic potential, you know. Some people are just born ultra-sensitive to earthly energy vibrations around them, and they choose to—or sometimes, inadvertently—learn how to interpret them.”

  “So, what’s a medium, then?”

  “A medium is tuned in to other kinds of energy as well— not just earthly. Spirit energy is paced differently—faster, higher—if that makes any sense at all.”

  It doesn’t. But Calla is fascinated anyway, hanging on her grandmother’s every word—and doing her best not to show it, out of some loyalty to Mom, who would hate this conversation.

  “Think of it like a sensitive radio that’s capable of tuning in to a frequency other radios might not be capable of receiving. A medium is basically just a highly responsive transmitter, receiving signals others can’t pick up and passing them on.”

  “Yeah, but radios don’t pick up signals from dead people.”

  “Around here, we prefer to say Spirit.”

  Around here? We? Her grandmother must hav
e a bunch of imaginary friends—or so-called spirits—living in her house. Or, more likely, in her head.

  Nonplussed, Calla mutters, “Dead is dead.”

  “There is no such thing as ‘dead,’ Calla. People who have departed their physical bodies on this earth are still with us. They never really leave us. If you can believe that, you’ll find a great deal of comfort.”

  Calla bows her head and blinks away hot tears, thinking of her mother.

  She wants to lash out at her grandmother: Mom’s not still with me, because if she were, I’d feel her.

  I can’t feel anything at all. She’s just . . . gone.

  Odelia comes over to the bed, sits on the edge of the mattress, and touches Calla’s shoulder. “Listen . . . I know this isn’t easy for you. Any of it. But I do think you’ll find some comfort in Lily Dale, and maybe even get to like it here, if you give it a chance.”

  “I’m already giving it a chance, aren’t I? I’m here.”

  “Right. You’re here. But you didn’t know about us before you came.”

  “Us?” Calla echoes blankly. “What do you mean, us?”

  Odelia hesitates. “The thing is . . . I’m not the only medium in town, Calla.”

  “You’re not?” she asks slowly.

  “No. There are lots of us. Dozens, in fact, now, during the season, so—”

  “Dozens?” Calla interrupts, stunned. “How can there be dozens of mediums in a tiny town like this? What kind of crazy coincidence is that?”

  “It isn’t a coincidence at all. Lily Dale was founded back in the eighteen hundreds as a center for spiritualism.”

  Thud. Calla feels as though she’s been flattened by an eighteen-wheeler.

  Finally, she recovers enough to ask, “So, the whole town is . . . haunted?”

  Odelia laughs. “I guess you could say that . . . but I wouldn’t.”

  “What would you say?”

  “That the town is filled with caring, sensitive folks using God-given gifts to help people.”

  “Help them how?”

  “There are any number of ways. Healing, counseling, communicating with Spirit. Some of us have different areas of expertise.”

  “You mean, like doctors have different specialties?”

  Odelia looks pleased. “Right. Like that.”

  “So, what’s your specialty?” Calla asks, deciding to at least act as though she’s buying into this stuff. Maybe there’s a part of her that does—or, at least, is willing to try.

  “Oh, I’m a jack of all trades, you could say.”

  “But you can see dead people? Spirits?” she amends. “Talk to them? And get messages?”

  Odelia nods. “That’s exactly it. And it’s taken me many years of training to figure out how to interpret those messages from what they show me. Even now, there are times when I don’t get things exactly right.”

  “So, you don’t actually hear them speaking?”

  “Sometimes I do.”

  “What do they sound like?”

  “Well, sometimes I just hear my own voice in my head, in their words. But I usually do hear my guides’ voices. And they sound much higher-pitched than a human voice . . . they’re on another wavelength, basically, to put it into layman’s terms.”

  “What are guides?”

  “Spirit guides. They’re entities that are a permanent part of us all, but they exist on a higher realm. Everyone has them, but not everyone can see them.”

  “You mean, they’re like guardian angels?”

  Odelia looks pleased by Calla’s question. “In a way, yes.”

  “What about my mom? Is she my spirit guide now?”

  Odelia hesitates. “She might be. Some who cross over continue to guide their loved ones from the other side. But spirit guides—the kind I’m referring to—aren’t on the earthly plane.”

  “How do we know they’re there, then?”

  “Oh, they’re there. You can learn to become aware of them through meditation—they’ll become known when you’re receptive to them. Or sometimes, if you need their help but aren’t even aware that you do—or that they exist—they’ll try to get your attention somehow.”

  “How? By popping up and saying ‘boo’?”

  Odelia ignores her sardonic tone. “They have different means of letting you know they’re there. They can show up physically or let you hear them, or smell—”

  Impatient, Calla cuts in. “What about my mom? Can she do that, too?”

  “Calla—”

  “Can you see her and talk to her?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Odelia shrugs, looking reluctant to answer. “Some people come to me after they pass, others don’t. Mediums can’t always see people closely connected to our personal lives. And when I do readings, I tell people there’s no telling who is going to come through to them. It might not be who they’re hoping to get, but it’s always who they’re meant to hear from.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Calla, increasingly irritated, doesn’t wait for a reply. “Are you saying that if you did a reading for me, you might put me through to, like, the old guy from down the street who died when I was a baby, and not to my mom?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “Calla—”

  “I mean, if you can’t put someone through to the person they want to talk to, then what good is any of it?”

  “It’s not like a telephone,” Odelia says evenly. “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t just place a call to the other side and ask to speak to someone specific.”

  “Then why even bother getting a reading at all?”

  “You probably shouldn’t.”

  “That’s fine, because I wasn’t planning on it. I don’t even believe in it, anyway,” she feels compelled to add, for good measure. Even though it might not be true.

  She waits for Odelia to defend her so-called profession. She merely shrugs. “That’s your prerogative. Your mother didn’t believe, either, for what it’s worth. And neither did her father.”

  Odelia’s talking about Calla’s grandfather, Jack Lauder. Mom never talked about him. All Calla knows is that Mom’s parents split up when she was a little girl, and her father moved away and had little to do with Odelia or Mom after that.

  Maybe now I know why, Calla can’t help thinking. Because his ex-wife was a whack job who thought she could talk to dead people—only, just random dead people. Nobody who matters.

  “As for your father,” Odelia goes on, “I’d be willing to bet he still hasn’t got a clue what I do, or that this town is populated by registered mediums.”

  “I’ll bet you’re right. Because if he knew . . .”

  “You wouldn’t be here,” Odelia finishes for her when she trails off. “Right?”

  “Right.” Her father would have her on the next plane out of here, even if it meant giving up his sabbatical in California. No way would he let her stay in a crazy place like this. It was hard enough to persuade him to send her here in the first place.

  “Are you going to tell him?” Odelia asks her after a moment. “When he calls?”

  “Are you?”

  “Not unless he asks.”

  Calla finds herself smiling despite herself at the thought of her father happening to inquire, “Say, by any chance is this Lily Dale place filled with people who can talk to ghosts?”

  “So . . . are you going to tell him?” Odelia asks again.

  Calla hesitates. “No. Not unless he asks.”

  Odelia smiles at her. She isn’t in the mood to return it, though.

  “Want some milk and cookies? I always have that before bed. And mango sorbet.”

  Calla shrugs and swings her legs over the edge of the mattress. “Why not.”

  “Oh, hi, Jeff. Sure, she’s fine . . . no, everything went fine . . . yes . . . yes . . . hang on a second, she’s right here.” Odelia turns to Calla, sitting at the tabl
e spooning the last bit of melting sorbet from her plastic bowl, and holds out the telephone receiver. “It’s your dad.”

  Calla knew that, of course. She knew it when the phone rang.

  So, does that make me psychic? Ultrasensitive to earthly energy vibrations around me?

  No. It’s just common sense. He wouldn’t have been able to reach her on her cell, so of course he’d try Odelia’s number.

  “Dad?”

  “How’s it going, hon? I tried to get you on your cell phone but I kept getting voice mail. I left a few messages, but I didn’t want to wait to talk to you. I miss you too much already.”

  Calla is completely caught off guard by the tsunami of emotion that sweeps through her at the sound of his voice. For a second, she can’t even speak.

  She watches Odelia dunk another pecan sandy, which turned out to be a delicious shortbread-tasting cookie, into a glass of milk.

  Then she manages to croak, “My cell doesn’t get service here.”

  “Uh-oh. Will you survive?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “So, your grandmother did meet you at the airport on time . . . right?”

  Calla knew before she left that he doesn’t think Odelia is the most responsible human being in the world. Back in Tampa, he kept asking her if she had cash for a cab, just in case her grandmother was late—or didn’t show up at all.

  “Yup, she was there, right on time.” Calla watches her grandmother finish the cookie in two bites. “How was your flight, Dad?”

  “Late. Crowded. Bumpy.” He sounds beat. “I hope yours was better.”

  “It was.”

  “Good.”

  Oh, ick. Odelia is pouring Hershey’s syrup on another helping of sorbet. Chocolate and mango aren’t the ideal pairing as far as Calla is concerned, but Odelia gobbled up the last serving, so maybe she’s on to something.

  “So, everything’s okay there?” Dad is asking. “Other than the cell phone not working?”

  She hesitates for the slightest fraction of a second. “Definitely.”

  “What’s the town like?”

  “Small. Cute.” Haunted.

  “How about the house?”

  “The same.” In every way. She shivers a little.

  Seeing her, Odelia murmurs, “It’s getting cold in here, isn’t it? I’ll shut the window.”

  “So, you think you’re going to be okay there,” her father asks, “until September?”