Connecting

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Gammy . . . I have to tell you something.”

  Odelia peers at her, sitting there on the couch. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

  Calla nods miserably. “I’m so sorry. I was only trying to help. . .”

  Her grandmother puts the bag of cookies on the table and sits next to her, putting her hands on Calla’s shoulders. “What is it? Tell me.”

  She does. The whole story.

  And she braces herself for her grandmother’s fury.

  But shockingly, it doesn’t come.

  Odelia shakes her head a lot, and sighs heavily, but she doesn’t yell or criticize or condemn or say I told you so or do any of the things Calla figures she has every right to do.

  “You meant well, Calla. And you’ll learn,” she says heavily.

  “Just like I did. You’ll learn when to get involved, and when to keep things to yourself.”

  “But now this poor old woman has lost all that money because of me. I thought he loved her and he was trying to reach her, and when I kept seeing her face, I thought she was a spirit . . . how could I be so stupid?”

  “You’re not stupid! You’re just new at this.” Odelia hugs her. “And you have a big heart. I know you want to help people. And you can. You can do a lot of good in this world using your gift.”

  “I can do a lot of bad, too. Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to do anything at all with it. Maybe I should just forget I even have it.”

  As if that’s even possible, she thinks, glancing at the sad-eyed little ghost girl in the corner of the room.

  “You can learn to ignore it,” Odelia tells her. “Some people do. But is that really what you want?”

  “I don’t know what I want. It’s so depressing. I just feel awful right now, about that woman . . .”

  About a lot of things.

  None of which would ever have happened if she hadn’t been thrust into this strange new world in Lily Dale.

  Odelia ruffles Calla’s hair. “You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “That you should get a good night’s sleep. Things will look brighter in the morning. They always do.”

  SIXTEEN

  Monday, October 1

  12:39 p.m.

  Odelia is right about a lot of things, but she was wrong about this, big-time.

  Things don’t always look brighter in the morning.

  On this particular morning, things couldn’t have looked worse, and the afternoon isn’t looking much better.

  The day started with Evangeline going out of her way to avoid Calla. So she walked to school alone, trailing a good twenty yards behind Evangeline, also walking alone.

  It seemed silly not to catch up to her and try to make amends, but it was really up to Evangeline to make the first move. Calla senses that her friend’s pain is still too raw. And anyway, it’s not as if Calla is willing to promise Evangeline she’ll stay away from Jacy from now on. Not when they’ve finally gotten together.

  When she got to school, Blue was there, on crutches. People were practically lining up to carry his books as he hobbled from class to class. He made a point of singling out Calla after first period to ask her how the homecoming dance was.

  “It was okay,” she said with a shrug, hoping he hadn’t heard that she and Jacy didn’t actually make it to the dance.

  Luckily, he didn’t press her for details, just asked if she wants to go to a movie next weekend.

  “Thanks, but I can’t . . . I’m going to Florida on Friday.”

  “Oh. Well, then, how about sooner. Tonight?”

  “I have to babysit until late.” Paula and Martin are going out to dinner. That means extra cash for her, and God knows she can use it.

  “Okay . . . I have something going on tomorrow night, but how about Wednesday?”

  “It’s a school night.” And her heart wasn’t in it anymore. Now that she had been kissed by Jacy at last . . .

  Why couldn’t Blue, with his reportedly extraordinary perception, sense that she was no longer interested in him?

  He definitely didn’t, because he flashed those big Blue eyes and tilted his head at her and said, “We won’t stay out late. Come on, Calla. I’ve been going stir crazy around the house. I could use some fun.”

  Frankly, so could she.

  She found herself accepting the date, though mostly out of guilt.

  She feels even more guilty now, though, seeing Jacy walk into the cafeteria just as she sits down at her table without bothering to go through the lunch line.

  “Where’s your food?” Sarita asks, and Calla sighs inwardly, turning her attention to her friends.

  “Oh . . . I’m not hungry today.” Yeah, there’s something about being stalked by your mother’s murderer that really kills the appetite.

  “I thought we might see you at homecoming Saturday,” Willow says, uncapping her water bottle.

  “Yeah, where were you, Calla?”

  “You guys went?”

  “Yeah, with a couple of other girls from the committee,” Willow tells her. “It was fun. We danced a lot.”

  “Who needs guys?” Sarita flashes a metal grin and starts cutting into her apple. “Not that it wouldn’t have been nice to go with a date. Weren’t you supposed to go, Calla?”

  “I was supposed to go with Blue, but then he got hurt, and—”

  “I know,” Sarita interrupts, “but I thought you were going with Jacy Bly.”

  “How’d you hear about that?”

  “A couple of people mentioned it,” Willow says, looking over Calla’s shoulder. “And speak of the devil . . .”

  “Hey, Calla,” a male voice says, and she glances up to see Jacy standing there. He looks like his old self again in tattered jeans, sneakers, a gray hooded sweatshirt, and a baseball cap.

  “Where were you guys Saturday night?” Sarita asks pointedly.

  Ignoring her, Jacy tells Calla, “I need to talk to you.”

  Well aware of her friends’ curiosity, Calla nods and pushes back her chair. “Sure. I’ll, um, see you guys later.”

  “Later,” Willow says with a knowing smile.

  Jacy leads her toward the door. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”

  She looks around to make sure Evangeline isn’t in the vicinity to see them together, even though she doesn’t share their lunch period. It might be too late to protect her, but that doesn’t mean Calla wants her to see the two of them together.

  Good. The coast is clear. And she really does need to talk to Jacy.

  “Okay,” she tells him. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Out,” he says simply, grabbing her hand and heading toward the back exit on the ground floor, near the wood-shop classroom.

  It’s against school rules to leave the grounds during lunch period, but that never bothers Jacy. Today it doesn’t bother Calla, either.

  The feeling of his hand, warm and protective around her own, reminds her of the one thing that’s finally right in her world: her relationship with Jacy.

  Out in the cold wind beneath a sodden gray sky, she shoves her hand—the one he’s not holding—into the pocket of her jeans for warmth, wishing she’d stopped at her locker for a jacket. As they head toward the seclusion of a wooded area at the back of the school property, she keeps a furtive eye on the shrubs and trees.

  This time, she’s on the lookout not for Evangeline, but for Darrin.

  Do you really think he’s going to jump out and attack you or something?

  No. But she really thinks he might be lurking around here.

  Sure, there’s a good chance she dreamed that he was in her room Saturday night and merely imagined that he was in the woods yesterday.

  But there’s also a chance that after seeing her and mistaking her for Mom, he really did come back to Lily Dale looking for Stephanie, or Stephanie’s ghost.

  There’s no sign of him today, though.

  In the woods, Jacy sits on a fallen log and makes room for her. “So, how ar
e you doing?”

  “I’m . . . not so hot,” she admits, sitting beside him, staring into the trees, looking for faces.

  “You don’t look so hot,” he says without the slightest bit of irony.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Jacy’s dark eyebrows furrow. “I just mean that you have circles under your eyes, and you look . . . you know, exhausted.”

  She is. But despite everything, she did try to cover up the circles this morning, taking some extra time to pull herself together for school—mostly for Jacy’s benefit.

  “I couldn’t sleep at all Saturday night,” she admits, “and I didn’t sleep much last night, either.”

  “I didn’t sleep much Saturday, either. That was pretty intense, with Darrin.”

  “Tom. Not Darrin. Tom Leolyn. Did you catch that?”

  “Yeah, I caught it.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “That he’s using a fake name?”

  “That he’s been using that fake name.”

  “I think it means he couldn’t let go of Lily Dale. Or your mother, for that matter.”

  “I know. I wanted to get on the computer yesterday and check the name to see what I could find out about him, but . . .”

  “But?”

  But the only computer I have access to is over at Evangeline’s, and she’s not speaking to me because she’s in love with you.

  She’s definitely not going to bring that up now. Or ever, most likely.

  Anyway, there are other, more pressing things to discuss with him, that’s for sure.

  “The thing is, Jacy . . .” She trails off.

  What if he doesn’t believe her?

  “The thing is . . . what?”

  “I think he was in my room Saturday night, and he was watching me in the woods yesterday.”

  “What?” He gapes at her. “Who? Darrin?”

  “Darrin. Tom. Whoever.”

  “He was in your room?”

  “After you brought me home, I was lying there in my bed, and he was standing over it, watching me.”

  “Could it have been a dream?”

  She sighs and toys with the emerald bracelet, still on her wrist. Maybe she’ll never take it off again.

  “That’s what my grandmother said,” she tells Jacy. “I woke her up, but by the time I got her back to my room, he’d taken off. If he was really there.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “In the dream? Or whatever it was?” She shakes her head. “He just called me Stephanie again. He really thought I was her.”

  “He thought you were her ghost. He knows she’s dead. You said he was at her funeral.”

  “Yeah. And that stuff he said Saturday night . . . about a secret, and that he should have left things alone after all those years . . . and how sorry he was . . . what did you get out of all that?”

  “Something obviously happened between the two of them years ago. It sounds like he took off without telling her something he should have told her, and then—”

  “And then he e-mailed her last Valentine’s Day,” Calla cuts in, “out of the blue, and told her about whatever it was. Right?”

  “Sounded that way.”

  She nods, hugging herself against the chill—both outside and in. “I’m flying to Florida on Friday, Jacy. I’m going to get her laptop and find that e-mail.”

  “How are you going to do that? Do you know her password?”

  “I’m sure I can figure it out.”

  He doesn’t look convinced, and frankly, she isn’t, either. But she has to try at least. She’s been making a list for a few days now, writing down every possible password that occurs to her.

  “What if she deleted the e-mail?” Jacy asks.

  “What if she didn’t?” she returns. “My mom was the most organized person you’d ever meet. She was really anal about keeping files, and copies of things. . . . I doubt she’d have deleted it if it were that earth shattering.”

  “She would have if she didn’t want your dad to see it.”

  “He would never snoop in someone’s private files. Ever. No way.”

  “Even if he was suspicious that she might be up to something with another man?”

  Calla pushes aside the stubborn memory of her father telling her that her mother had grown detached from their marriage in the last few months of her life.

  “I just don’t know if you should be going to Florida and tapping into this on your own, Calla.” Jacy brushes strands of windblown hair away from her face, looking worriedly at her.

  Why did she agree to go out with Blue again on Wednesday night?

  Because she felt bad about his being on crutches, and his thinking she had gone to the dance with Jacy.

  Maybe she can cancel. Now that she and Jacy have connected at last, she doesn’t want to be with anyone else.

  Then again . . . maybe she’ll use the opportunity to tell Blue she just wants to be friends, and nothing more.

  Blue doesn’t seem like he’s in the market for a serious girlfriend, anyway. Considering the way the girls were hanging all over him and his crutches this morning, Calla doubts she’ll break his heart if she tells him she’s involved with Jacy now.

  “Listen, Jacy,” she says as his hand lingers on her cheek even now that he’s brushed her hair away. “I don’t have a choice about Florida.”

  “Sure you do. Don’t go.”

  “I have to go.”

  “I keep thinking about you, flailing underwater . . .”

  That does give her pause. “Can you tell if I am in Florida in your vision?”

  “I don’t know where you are. It could be anywhere. Here, even.”

  With a shudder, she thinks about the choppy black-gray waters of Cassadaga Lake, not so far from where they’re sitting now.

  “Well, I can’t live my life not knowing what happened to my mother,” she says resolutely, “and I can’t live my life being terrified that something might happen to me around the next bend.”

  “I get that,” Jacy says quietly, moving his hand away from her face at last. “I don’t blame you. But I can’t just let you go without warning you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I wish I could go with you.”

  Her heart flutters at the mere thought of it, but only for a few seconds. Then he adds, “I can’t, though. Even if Walt and Peter would let me—and could afford it, on top of the adoption expenses—I have a track meet on Saturday. I can’t miss it. The coach is down on me for missing practice yesterday as it is.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  She smiles. “I know. It would have been good to have you with me. We should get going, I guess.” She gets up, brushes off her jeans, and turns toward the school.

  Darrin is clearly visible among the trees, watching them.

  “Jacy!” She whirls toward him and clutches his arm. “He’s here!”

  “What? Who? Where?”

  She points . . . then realizes he’s gone.

  “He was here! He must have seen me see him, and he took off!”

  Without another word, Jacy starts running. He tears into the woods at high speed, expertly weaving around obstacles.

  There’s no way Darrin is going to be able to outrun him.

  What’s going to happen when Jacy reaches him?

  Calla starts to chase after him, panicked. “Be careful, Jacy!”

  She trips on a vine, nearly falls.

  The sound of Jacy’s running footsteps grows fainter. She’ll never catch up.

  Nothing to do but wait, her nerves on edge, for him to come back.

  Please don’t let anything happen to him. Please don’t let Darrin hurt him.

  At last, to her relief, Jacy appears in the distance . . . alone.

  “Did you see which way he went?” he calls.

  She throws up her hands helplessly, and he darts away.

  Calla sinks onto the fallen log aga
in and looks back at the spot where she saw him.

  Or did she?

  She wasn’t dreaming this time.

  Maybe you’re just losing it.

  Maybe everything—all the stress, and the emotion, and the lack of sleep—has taken a toll on her. Maybe something has just snapped inside her brain.

  When Jacy shows up again—alone, of course—she apologizes. “I really did see something.” Darrin.

  “I looked everywhere,” Jacy tells her, “and there was no sign of him.”

  “I saw him.”

  No response.

  What else can she say? “Maybe it was just a trick of the light.”

  “Yeah,” he agrees. “Must have been.”

  He doesn’t believe me. And I don’t blame him. I don’t believe me, either.

  “Come on,” he says, and hand in hand again, they make their way back to the school building.

  Inside, Jacy asks, “Want me to walk you to your next class?”

  Calla thinks of Evangeline and shakes her head, reluctantly pulling her fingers from his protective grasp.

  “No, thanks. See you later, in math.”

  “Okay. Hey, what about after school? No track practice today. Maybe we could do something?”

  “I can’t,” she says wistfully. “I’m babysitting. Maybe tomorrow?”

  “I have practice. And Wednesday, too.”

  Right. And Wednesday she has her date with Blue.

  I’m definitely going to tell him I’m seeing Jacy now, she decides.

  It’s the right thing to do.

  Even though the Lily Dale grapevine will wind the news right back to Evangeline.

  Calla was dreading having her hands full with the Drumm kids after a long, exhausting day at school, but being around them seems to have worked some kind of magic on her mood. Despite everything that’s going on, she actually finds herself smiling again.

  “Again, again, again!” Ethan claps his chubby toddler hands and bounces his little butt on the couch, legs outstretched and blond curls flopping.

  Calla reaches for his bare big toe. “This little piggy went to market . . . this little piggy stayed home . . .”

  Ethan squirms with delight as she finishes the rhyme and tickles him.

  “Again, again, again, again!”