Free Lily Dale: Awakening by Wendy Corsi Staub

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,