“How about that coffee now, Jeff?” Gammy asks, pushing her chair back from the table.

“Sure. Thanks.”

“And you need something sweet to go with it.”

“You know me, Odelia.”

She does know him. Somehow Calla is surprised to hear her grandmother acknowledge Dad’s little quirk: that he always likes to have a cookie or sweet roll with his coffee.

But then, Dad was Odelia’s son-in-law long before he was Calla’s father. She probably knew him well, way back when.

She used to visit them a lot in the old days, before the rift.

“You know, Jeff,” Gammy bustles over to the counter, “you look light years younger without that gray beard. I’m glad you finally shaved it off.”

“It wasn’t all gray.”

“Mostly gray.”

“Well . . . yeah.”

“What made you decide to get rid of it? You’ve had it forever.” “Not forever. Only since the third grade.” Dad winks at Calla across the table as Odelia chuckles.

He does look light years younger, Calla notices. His black hair is still slightly shaggy, but it actually has some shape to it now, thanks to some fancy LA barber.

He’s also exchanged his wire- rimmed glasses for contact lenses, bringing out his dark brown eyes. His T-shirts haven’t been as ratty as usual, either.

It’s so ironic. Mom would have been pleased to see him spruced up. She was always nagging him about the way he looked.

Now that she’s gone, he’s grooming himself and dressing the way she wished he would have.

Calla can’t help but wonder whether it’s just a sad coincidence . . . or whether the way he looks now has something to do with Mom being gone.

Maybe he’s dating again already.

Or maybe he just wants to.

She can’t help but think again of Ramona.

“You know, I never really spent much time worrying about stuff like that,” he says, mostly to her grandmother. “You know . . . the gray beard. It was just there. Like everything else. But lately, I’ve had a lot of time to think about things, the way they’ve been, and decided to try to change whatever needs changing.”

“Like shaving.” Gammy shoots a glance in Calla’s direction.

So does Dad. “Like a lot of things.”

“Well, I’m really going to like having you around for a while, Jeff. We haven’t spent much time together since . . . Florida.”

Florida. Gammy means the funeral. She flew down, of course, and stayed with them. Before that, Calla hadn’t seen her in years.

That’s the other thing . . .

The argument that’s been haunting Calla since she arrived here, in a recurring dream. The scene is always the same: her mother and grandmother are emotional, angry, screaming at each other.

Calla has no doubt that the argument actually took place years ago, though she’s not sure whether she witnessed it herself, or is psychically channeling it.

“. . . because I promised I’d never tell . . .” Mom sobs.

“. . . for your own good . . .” Odelia says, and then,“. . . how you can live with yourself . . .”

Then one of them—Calla isn’t sure which— declares, with chilling certainty: “The only way we’ll learn the truth is to dredge the lake.”

Now that she knows what she knows about Mom and Darrin’s past . . .

Calla thoughtfully watches Odelia pour coffee, chatting easily with Dad.

Does she know about the baby?

And what does dredging the lake have to do with anything?

Calla no longer smells lilies of the valley, but maybe Aiyana will come to her with some kind of message, like she has in the past.

Abruptly, she pushes back her chair.

Gammy asks, “Where are you going?”

To find Aiyana.

“Can I call Jacy?”

Seeing the dubious expression on both their faces, Calla realizes she probably should have said she was calling Evangeline instead.

But she and Evangeline aren’t exactly on friendly terms these days— all the more reason Dad’s stay next door will be awkward.

Well, if not Evangeline, then Calla should have said she was calling someone else. Someone who wasn’t an accomplice in her mission to Geneseo and her lie to her grandmother.

Now, whenever she’s with Jacy, the two of them, Gammy and Dad, are going to think she’s sneaking around behind their backs. Great.

It’s her father who speaks up first. “Go ahead. Go call Jacy.”

“Thanks.”

As she leaves the kitchen, she realizes she was really asking her grandmother’s permission— not his. She’s been answering to Gammy ever since she moved here. Dad, living thousands of miles away, hasn’t had much say over what she does on a daily basis.

That, of course, is no longer the case.

Now she’ll have to report to both Dad and Gammy— and they’ll be total watchdogs after all she’s been through. She’ll be lucky if they let her go away to college next fall.

Which reminds her . . .

She’s supposed to be narrowing down her choices and meeting with her guidance counselor about it in a few days.

Not to mention, she’s got a pile of weekend homework to get to before tomorrow morning.

The last thing she feels like doing right now is worrying about any of that.

Jacy . . . I really do need to talk to Jacy, she realizes.

She swings through the living room to grab the cordless phone receiver, then heads up the stairs with it, her duffel, and her mother’s laptop. She’ll hide that away until she feels like dealing with whatever additional information might be buried in its files.

Gert is waiting at the top of the stairs.

“Hi, kitty. Did you miss me? Hmm?”

The cat rubs against Calla’s legs, purring.

“I know. . . . I missed you, too.” Calla reaches down to stroke her soft fur. “Do you want to sleep on my bed tonight?”

Abruptly, Gert arches her back and thrusts her paws forward on the floor.

Calla laughs. “Is that a yes?”

Then she realizes Gert has fastened her feline gaze on something over Calla’s shoulder. She turns just in time to see a filmy apparition drift into the wall.

They really are everywhere.

This morning the airport—and the plane, too—were loaded with spirits along for the ride, drawn by the passengers’ nervous energy, no doubt.

If there’s anything Calla has learned lately about the dearly departed, it’s that in order to manifest, their spirits feed off human—and sometimes electrical, or technological—energy.

And that animals are particularly aware of their presence.

Gert is still keeping a wary eye on the wall where the apparition disappeared. There was originally a doorway there, Gammy told Calla.

“It’s okay, Gert.” She leans over to pet the kitten. “It’s just, you know, a . . . visitor.You’ll get used to them, like me. Well, I mean, I’m trying to.”

Gert looks at the wall, and then at Calla for another long moment, before turning and strolling down the stairs.

Feeling depleted, Calla steps over the threshold into Mom’s girlhood bedroom, with its old-fashioned white beadboard and striped wallpaper and sage and rose color scheme.

As she sets her belongings on the floor and inhales the familiar smell of old wood and clean linens, an unexpected wave of relief washes over her.

There’s Mom’s white iron twin bed covered in a patchwork quilt pieced together from Mom’s little- girl dresses. There’s Mom’s carved wooden music box filled with her jewelry. There are Mom’s childhood books on the shelves, progressing from The Baby-sitters Club and the Little House series to Fear Street and Sweet Valley High.

And there, Calla realizes with a jolt, is Mom herself.

Mom, not as Calla knew her, but as she appeared at Calla’s age, when she lived here. When she looked so much like Calla does now—same slim, long- waisted build; same wide- set hazel eyes; same thick, milk- chocolate-colored hair streaked with lighter shades of brown–that if they were facing each other now, it would be like gazing into a mirror.

She’s lying on her stomach on the bed reading a book— one of the Little House books, Calla realizes. Her legs are bent at the knees, feet waving lazily in the air, as though she hasn’t a care in the world.

Then, as abruptly as the apparition appeared, she’s gone.

“Mom! Mom, wait!” Calla rushes toward the bed, arms outstretched.

But the room is empty. The bed is empty. She’s all alone.

Trembling, she sinks onto the mattress and touches the spot where she saw her mother.

Jacy once mentioned a theory that events can leave psychic imprints on the places where they occurred.

That’s what must have happened; it’s as if a door opened just long enough for Calla to glimpse the past before it was slammed shut again.

Calla didn’t feel Mom’s presence, though.

Not the way she’s felt other spirits. Kaitlyn Riggs, for instance—the girl who was kidnapped and murdered. Or her schoolmate Donald Reamer’s dead father. Or Aiyana . . .

Those were all visitations.

She’s been waiting for one from her mother.

But this was more like . . . looking at an old snapshot.

An odd snapshot, really, because the book in Mom’s hands was meant for a much younger reader. Not that it matters.

“Mom, can you hear me? I need to see you. Really see you.

The way I knew you. I need to feel you here. I need you to come to me, please. I need to know what happened.”

I need . . . I need . . . I need . . .

Calla sinks onto the bed and buries her face in her hands, frustrated.

She needs answers.

Why is it that finding out who killed her mother only opened the door to more questions?

Like . . . what happened to her mother’s other child?

There are only three options, really. Either Mom and Darrin gave the baby up for adoption, or Darrin raised it himself, or . . .

It died.

She glances at the laptop.

There’s a chance she could log in right now and find out that she has a brother or sister living in Boston or something.

Are you ready for that, though?

Calla hesitates.

Not yet.

Not right this minute, anyway.

First things first.

With a trembling hand, she dials Jacy’s phone number.