Spotting the sign, Bella exhales for perhaps the first time since Chicago.
Max, asleep in the back seat, doesn’t stir as she turns off Route 60 onto Dale Drive.
Slowing her speed, Bella removes one hand from the steering wheel to press the tight knot of exhaustion between her shoulder blades. The long day is almost behind her.
They’re in the country now, passing small homes and open fields as the road traces Cassadaga Lake’s grassy shoreline. The water shimmers in the setting sun. A cool breeze wafts through the open window, scented with wildflowers and summery suppers on backyard grills.
Bella’s stomach rumbles. She’d skipped breakfast in the flurry to get to the airport and should have been home in time for lunch. But five minutes before the flight was scheduled to board, the gate attendant announced an hour-long delay. That turned into two, and then four hours. When they finally boarded, the plane was held at the gate for a round of thunderstorms, courtesy of the fierce midwestern heatwave.
Then came the endless taxiing crawl along the runway, followed by a short, turbulent flight over the Great Lakes. In Buffalo, they were greeted by a refreshing temperature drop and a Thruway traffic jam for tonight’s headline concert at the massive Erie County Fair.
Bella rounds the last bend in the road, and the entrance to Lily Dale comes into view. It consists of a pair of brick pillars, a small windowed hut where an attendant collects the daily gate fee, and a painted blue sign that reads: The World’s Largest Center for the Religion of Spiritualism.
If Bella had noticed the sign on that first night, a year ago last June, she’d have kept right on driving. Recently widowed, having lost her job and suburban New York City apartment, she’d been headed for Chicago with Max, longing to make a fresh start somewhere, anywhere else, when Lily Dale had popped up in her path.
More specifically, a stray cat had, quite literally, popped up on the highway in front of the car and refused to budge.
Cats, Bella has since learned from her Lily Dale friends, reputedly show up where and when we need them to, whether we know it or not.
‘They’re mystical creatures,’ Odelia Lauder likes to say.
Mysterious, maybe. But mystical? Certainly not magical – even though the pregnant tabby on the highway in Western New York was identical to the one that had perched on Bella’s doorstep four hundred miles away the night before.
That night, Bella had assured Max it wasn’t the same cat because that would have been impossible. And because she hadn’t yet been to – or even heard of – Lily Dale.
Nor had she ever heard of Summer Pines Campground but, according to a roadside billboard, it was nearby, and would be a convenient place to stop for the night after they got the cat to a vet.
At Lakeview Animal Hospital, Drew Bailey identified the pet owner as Valley View’s then-innkeeper, Leona Gatto. He was tending to a sick patient and informed Bella that she’d have to return the cat to Lily Dale. He also informed her that there was no such thing as Summer Pines in the area – which, she later discovered, was absolutely true.
Had she imagined the billboard? She never did figure that out. All she knows is that when she and Max reached the Dale, they had nowhere else to go, so spending the stormy night in a cozy, vacant guesthouse was pretty appealing.
She had no idea, of course, that Leona had died in an accident that had been no accident, or that the quaint Victorian cottage community was populated by spiritualists.
She’d agreed to stay on to help out at Valley View for a few days that had become weeks, months, a year.
‘Welcome home!’ Roxy, the teenaged attendant, greets Bella as she pulls up to the small gatehouse. ‘How was the wedding? Was it totally romantic? Did Millicent wear a white gown with a veil?’
‘It was beautiful. She wore a cream-colored suit.’
‘A suit? A bride in a suit?’ Roxy makes a face. ‘When I get married, I’m going to have a silk gown with real diamonds sewn on the neckline, and a train that reaches all the way down the aisle, and my bouquet is going to be all lilies. And I know what my first dance with my husband is going to be. What was Millicent’s song for her first dance with her husband?’
It had been a small wedding – just family, in the private room at a restaurant. No dance floor, but one of George’s teenaged grandsons had brought a speaker, and they had danced, Millicent and George.
‘It was “Almost Paradise”. It’s from an old movie – Footloose.’
How sweet they’d been together – Millicent and George, newly husband and wife, wrapped in each other’s arms, her head on his shoulder.
After that, Millicent had whispered something to George’s grandson, then clinked a glass and made a toast to her groom.
‘For all the years I’ve been alone, I’ve thought the only happily ever after I’d experience would be in those romance novels I love to read,’ she’d said. ‘I never thought I’d end up like one of those heroines. I never imagined my hero would come along and sweep me off my feet. But that’s exactly what happened when you walked into my life, George. I’m dedicating this next song to you.’
It was also from the movie Footloose: ‘Holding Out for a Hero’. Everyone had laughed, and they’d all gotten up and danced. What a joyful time they’d had. Bella smiles, remembering.
‘I never heard of that movie or the song,’ Roxy tells her. ‘My first song with my groom at my wedding is going to be “Love Story”. It’s a Taylor Swift one.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got the whole thing planned out.’
‘Pretty much. Now all I need is someone to marry.’
‘At sixteen? Roxy—’
‘I’m seventeen! But don’t worry, I don’t want to get married now. I’m going to college next year, and then law school. Or medical school. Or I might be a movie director. But I want to meet a nice guy to hang out with, like you did. I mean, Drew Bailey is super cute. And those puppies!’
Max stirs to life in the back seat. ‘Puppies?’
‘What puppies?’ Bella asks.
‘The ones Drew has at Valley View! Pandora told me about them, and I went over last night to see them.’
‘There are puppies at Valley View?’ Max is wide awake now. ‘Are they a surprise for me, Mom?’
‘They’re certainly a surprise for me. We’d better get home. See you later, Roxy.’
‘Bye, Bella! Bye, Max!’
‘I can’t wait to see the puppies,’ Max says as they move on. ‘How many are there?’
‘That’s a good question.’
‘I have another good question, Mom. How many puppies can I keep?’
‘They’re just visiting with Dr Drew, Max.’
‘Well, he knows I want a puppy.’
Everyone knows Max wants a puppy.
Someday, Bella intends to make that happen. Not this day, on the heels of an emotional wedding, an exhausting trip and, oh, yes, that inexplicable airport encounter with her dead husband.
The Dale is luminous with streetlights and lamplit windows, yards aglow with solar lanterns, fairylight strings and fireflies flitting in the trees. Every parking spot is taken along the narrow, rutted streets, but there are no pedestrians or porch-sitters tonight. Residents and visitors alike must be gathered in the auditorium for a mainstage event featuring The Specter Inspectors, a pair of television reality show ghost hunters who checked into Valley View’s only suite this morning and are scheduled to stay until midweek.
Bella turns down Cottage Row, a leafy lakeside lane lined with nineteenth-century homes. At the far end, Valley View’s mansard roof looms in the night sky.
Most of the cottages they pass are well-kept, with colorful gardens. Some feature as many yard ornaments as flowers: statues, fountains, gnomes, birdbaths, bird feeders, birdhouses.
Nearly all have wooden shingles advertising the occupants’ metaphysical specialties.
Reverend Doris Henderson, Shamanic Healer
Misty Starr, Psychic Consultant
Odelia Lauder, Registered Medium.
At Valley View, all but one of the guest parking spots is occupied, and the signpost reads Vacancy – unheard of between late June and Labor Day. She’d asked Drew to change it from No Vacancy after this morning’s cancellation.
She’d also instructed him to refund the guests’ deposit, though it goes against official policy, and to extend their condolences along with a discount code for a future visit.
Can you afford to do that? he’d texted her. You’re already losing money.
They canceled because they had a death in the family, she responded. Maybe they’ll come back someday seeking comfort.
And contact, he returned.
Well yes, that goes without saying. People travel to Lily Dale from around the world, hoping the mediums can reconnect them with loved ones on the Other Side.
Drew’s pickup truck sits in one of the two spaces marked Reserved for Owner. Bella pulls into the other.
Twilight shadows mask the faded, peeling patches in Valley View’s lavender-gray paint pallet, and areas of disrepair amid the scallop-shingled gables and gingerbread trim. Bella knows where to look for them, but in this moment, she sees only a glorious, floodlit Queen Anne mansion, welcoming her home.
Max jumps out of the back seat and races toward the porch steps. ‘Hey, Dr Drew! We’re back! Where are the puppies?’
About to remind him to take his backpack and close the car door, Bella thinks better of it. He’s so excited to be home, and she needs a moment to breathe and digest the day before seeing Drew, and … puppies?
He hadn’t mentioned any furry tagalongs when he’d offered to stay at Valley View this weekend, but she isn’t surprised. Lakeshore Animal Hospital is also a rescue, taking in homeless strays along with ailing patients. Drew and his veterinary technician, Janet, do their best to find foster homes for them, but it isn’t easy on short notice.
She wonders where he’s keeping the puppies, with a houseful of guests. He’s been sleeping on the pullout sofa in the back parlor, though she’d offered him her own second-floor quarters. Every bedroom in the house has a themed décor and name to match, and hers is the Rose Room, with pink floral wallpaper and bedding.
‘Too feminine?’ she’d asked when he quickly turned it down.
‘No, just too …’
When he’d hesitated, she was certain he’d been about to say too intimate, sleeping in her bed even when she was halfway across the country.
‘Too inconvenient,’ he said instead. ‘For you. That’s your only private space in the house. You don’t need me … you know. Invading it.’
Invading? No way. And …
You don’t need me?
He’s wrong about that.
She grabs Max’s bag and her own, and steps out of the car.
The night is cool and still.
No, not cool. It’s bone-chilling.
Nor is it still.
Hearing a melodious tinkling, Bella turns toward the delicate blue glass angel wind chimes in the porch eaves. A long-ago gift from Sam, they’re swaying gently in the breeze, only …
There is no breeze.
Bella scans the graceful flowering shrubs along the property line, then the maple trees above the three-story house. Not an arching bow or fluttering leaf to be seen. But there’s movement in a lamplit second-floor window. A feline silhouette appears – Chance, looking out into the night.
Bella has often commented that she’s a ‘watchcat’, ever vigilant and protective of Valley View and her family – feline, and human. Maybe she, too, senses that something strange is going on out here.
Shifting her gaze to her left, Bella notes that many houses along the Row have wind chimes and pinwheel ornaments, but none are stirring.
To her right, the road curves around the wooded dead end toward Friendship Park. All is still back there beyond the trees. The fishing pier, bandstand and small beach will have been deserted at sundown.
Bella shivers, goosebumps prickling her bare limbs.
‘Sam?’ she whispers, scanning the landscape again, expecting to see him lurking behind a tree trunk or in the shadows beyond the lamppost’s beam.
Impossible. She’d been with her husband when the doctor gave him the death sentence on that gray September day; had held his hand in the hospital as he wasted away; had watched the coffin being lowered into the yawning grave as wet December snow fell into the mud.
Yet she holds her breath, waiting for him to appear; not wanting him to appear; willing him to appear.
She’ll count to three.
One … two …
No, she’ll count to ten. She closes her eyes. When she opens them, he’ll be here, and she’ll believe it, all of it, the whole Lily Dale ‘dead isn’t dead’ credo.
… seven … eight … nine …
‘Bella?’
She gasps.
But it isn’t Sam.
Drew Bailey has just stepped out onto the porch.
He’s tall, with brown hair like Sam, but that’s where the resemblance ends. He isn’t clean-shaven – ever. And clothes, to him, are a rugged afterthought – work boots with the laces undone, worn jeans, and a chambray shirt. The sleeves are shoved up to reveal strong forearms and a wind-up watch that had once belonged to his grandfather.
He quickly descends the steps. ‘You’re back.’
‘I’m back.’
He hugs her, and she breathes in soap and mint and … Drew. He’s warm, familiar, solid …
Real.
‘Everything OK?’ he asks.
She hesitates, glancing at the wind chimes, now still and silent. And at the cat in the upstairs window. Just a silhouette, but Bella can feel those green eyes fixed on her, as if she knows … something.
But that’s impossible. It’s all impossible.
She returns her attention to Drew with a firm, ‘Yes. Everything’s great now that we’re home.’